Thursday, August 23, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Health Ministry Issues New Health Care Guidelines for Prison System

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 05:02 AM PDT

YANGON — The Health and Sports Ministry launched new standard operating procedures (SOPs) for prison health care in Naypyitaw on Wednesday, focusing on giving inmates better access to medical facilities and services in prisons nationwide.

The procedures are outlined in 22 chapters covering the ethics of healthcare professionals and prison workers; managing emergency and outbreak conditions; managing chronic illness, communicable diseases and mental health problems; caring for women and children; and improved handling of the health care system in prisons, according to the ministry.

Myanmar's inmates are highly vulnerable and marginalized, with limited access to disease prevention and treatment. The country has 44 prisons and at least 50 labor camps, most of which are overcrowded. Nearly half of all inmates are serving sentences for drug-related offenses.

The Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) said last month that overcrowding is the most important factor negatively impacting inmates' health.

Overcrowded living conditions make prisons and labor camps ideal transmission sites for communicable diseases, and infections such as tuberculosis, dysentery, hepatitis and cholera. They also heighten the risk of HIV, Multi Drug Resistant TB (MDRTB) and other infectious diseases.

Inmates do not receive adequate medical care, with many living in poor health and with chronic untreated conditions and mental health problems. Some prisons have no doctors, especially in remote areas, according to the MNHRC.

Union Minister of Health and Sports Dr. Myint Htwe said that under the new SOPs, all inmates will receive equal quality of health care. They also have the right to make their own health decisions and to keep their health records confidential in prison.

Dr. Myint Htwe said that all prison administrators will be required to follow the SOPs, while related ministries and departments will have to work out the details of the procedures.

"It is not just a handbook. All departments will discuss it to facilitate practical implementation," Dr. Myint Htwe said.

According to the ministry, the new SOPs will be distributed to prisons this month. Since last year, the Health and Sports Ministry has consulted prison departments for input into the new SOPs, with collaboration from the Home Affairs Ministry, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, World Health Organization and Three Millennium Development Goal Fund.

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Artist Paints Portraits of Lost Inspiration

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 04:49 AM PDT

YANGON — Born to an editor father and writer mother, Ohn Khaing Zin's childhood was greatly influenced by various artists.

In his youth, he was surrounded by artists who were either friends of his father Ohn Khaing, the editor of a renowned art and literature magazine, or his mother, writer Khin Mya Zin.

As he grew older, many artists he knew passed away one after another. To satisfy his deep longing for them, he has drawn their portraits in emotive colors.

His exhibition showcases the portraits of more than 20 celebrated but late writers, artists, composers and singers, along with his modernist paintings.

"I've mainly painted those who I knew in person. I love their artistry and admire their works. All of them have passed away, and I miss them and feel sad for them," said the 30-year-old artist.

It took a year for him to create the paintings on display at "The Mirror of Dark Mishear and Misled" exhibition at Yangon's Lokanat Galleries. The exhibition will be held through Aug. 28.

One of the paintings on display is a portrait of Inzali Maung Maung, who he depicted against a yellow background of musical notes and curved lines.

Another painting is of musician and peace activist Ko Ye Lwin, who died recently. He portrayed him in red.

"Red represents bravery. But it also represents that he had undergone dark eras. He worked hard for his country but could not finish his work," he said.

The illustrator-turned-artist has participated in more than 90 group art exhibitions and has so far held four solo art exhibitions.

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Chinese City Offers to Fund Ornate Gate in Yangon Chinatown

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 04:27 AM PDT

YANGON — The capital city of China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has offered to pay for a gate decorated with lion statues in Yangon's Chinatown, but locals want something more practical, according to a Yangon official.

After the Nanning City government presented its plan to the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) to help spruce up the neighborhood, the committee consulted with community elders and sent their requests back to Nanning, said YCDC Secretary Daw Hline Maw Oo.

"They said they wanted to know what they could do for the Chinatown here. They came and met the mayor and community elders of Chinatown. After they went back, they sent a letter through the Myanmar consul that they would donate funds to build a gate with two lion statues," she said.

"Our leaders thought that it would be better to get something useful for Chinatown rather than a gate. So we asked for the opinions of community elders in Chinatown and presented their requests to the Nanning government," she added.

The elders asked that apartments on Maha Bandula Road, the face of Chinatown, be renovated, that overhead power and phone lines be tidied up, that corridors, sidewalks and Chinese temples be renovated, that heritage buildings with Chinese architecture be restored, that lamp posts be embellished, and that municipal dustbins be kept in order.

Daw Hline Maw Oo said Nanning authorities have not replied to the requests.

"I don't know how exactly Chinatown will be upgraded, but it would be better if sanitation were improved and alleys were tidied up," said U Aung, a shopkeeper on Lanmadaw Street.

The YCDC hopes that Chinatown can become a tourist attraction in the commercial capital as it is in many foreign countries.

"It is good that China will provide assistance. Recently I was mugged near Chinatown at about 8 p.m. I got back my purse and mobile phone because people in the area chased the mugger. I want security to be improved in Chinatown," said Daw San Myint, who owns a gold shop in the neighborhood.

The Chinese New Year festival was celebrated on a grand scale for the first time in decades in 2017 under the aegis of the Yangon Region government.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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UWSA-led Bloc Donates 400M Kyats to Flood Victims

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 04:06 AM PDT

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The United Wa State Army-led Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) donated more than 400 million kyats to Myanmar flood victims through the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) on Thursday.

This move is considered the first time that ethnic armed organizations have collectively contributed to people affected by natural disaster.

U Nyi Rang, the UWSA spokesman, told The Irrawaddy after donating that "despite different political perspectives, we wanted to lend our support to the victims."

He said that all of the seven member organizations of the FPNCC contributed to the total amount of 436,681,222 kyats (US$288,000).

Peace Commission member and Lower House lawmaker U Aung Soe told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that the commission would manage the donations and begin distributing the funds soon.

"It is an act of one ethnic group helping another in this Union," said U Aung Soe, "They wanted to donate to flood victims so we accepted it and will manage the funds."

On Aug. 3, the FPNCC Secretariat issued a letter requesting contributions from its members. It urged them to participate in the flood-relief assistance and "to put aside all disputes and hatred with the federal government and the military [or Tatmadaw] . . . it's time to give play to compatriots love."

In a second statement released on Aug. 16, the FPNCC Standing Committee said the ethnic alliance shared its "condolences to victims" after seeing images of large-scale flooding and the tragic aftermath.

Myanmar faces flooding every year. This year, official figures released at the end of July cite at least 10 deaths and 100,000 affected people.

The FPNCC's statement reads that according to news reports, as of Aug. 3, the flooding in Bago, Tanintharyi, and Yangon regions and Mon, Karen and eastern Shan states had affected some 200,000 people, with more than 16 killed and some 90,000 acres of farmland destroyed.

"As compatriots, we are deeply grieved. We mourn for the dead, bless the survivors and pray for the safety of the people in flood-stricken areas," it reads.

In regards to the donations, the UWSA spokesman did not reveal how or where the donation money came from; only that contributions came from all member organizations of the FPNCC. The ethnic alliance was established in April 2017 and is comprised of the UWSA, Kachin Independence Army, Shan State Progressive Party, Mongla's National Democratic Alliance Army, Arakan Army, Ta'ang Nationalities Liberation Army and Kokang's Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.

Some of the FPNCC members have been infamous for extorting money from the local businesses –including current accusations against the TNLA. U Nyi Rang declined to comment on these accusations.

"This [donation] is a gesture to show the public we stand together with them," he said.

U Nyi Rang said it is legal for ethnic armed organizations to collect taxes from residents of areas under their control.

A certificate of honor signed by Dr. Tin Myo Win, the chairman of the Peace Commission, was given for "contributions from ethnic armed organizations led by the Wa special region 2." The certificate did not mention the FPNCC by name.

The government and the military have consistently denied the existence of the bloc. When talks have taken place in the past, negotiators tend to meet members of the alliance separately, despite the FPNCC demands to meet as one group.

In regards to peace talks, the government's Peace Commission and the UWSA-led FPNCC are negotiating the dates. They met with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and military leaders on the sidelines of the third session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference in July in Naypyitaw.

"Our [peace] talks are ongoing, but we are still negotiating the dates and we cannot say more about it at this time," added U Aung Soe.

The post UWSA-led Bloc Donates 400M Kyats to Flood Victims appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

Western Border on High Alert as ARSA Attack Anniversary Nears

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 02:54 AM PDT

SITTWE — More than 160 police outposts have been set up along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border to maintain security nearly one year after a series of attacks on Myanmar's western border.

Aug. 25 will mark the first anniversary of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)'s attacks on 30 police outposts in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships in Rakhine State.

More than a dozen security personnel and civil servants were killed in the attacks, according to state media, with the number of casualties, including civilians, rising to nearly 80 over the following month. The government denounced ARSA as a terrorist group.

Security has been beefed up along the border in response to reports that ARSA members are planning to sneak back across the border by impersonating refugees in order to launch more attacks, Colonel Aung Myat Moe of the Rakhine State Police told The Irrawaddy.

"We have set up over 160 police outposts along the Maungdaw border, and deployed nearly 1,000 policemen," he said.

Thousands of ethnic people including Arakanese, Mro, Thet and Daingnet fled the area following the attacks. The Myanmar military's subsequent counterinsurgency operations caused nearly 700,000 Rohingyas to flee into Bangladesh, according to the UN, though the Myanmar government denies those figures.

Stability has been restored in the area, but all communities in Maungdaw remain in a state of fear, and continue to be haunted by the attacks a year ago, as well as earlier attacks launched in October 2016.

"The reports [of possible renewed attacks] have left us constantly jumpy," Ni Mal, the supervisor of a Hindu refugee camp in Maungdaw, told The Irrawaddy.

According to Military Intelligence, ARSA terrorists have recruited personnel and stockpiled weapons, ammunition and food, and are providing training near the border, Police Col. Aung Myat Moe said.

"There are refugee camps in another country. And terrorists are staying there disguised as refugees. We have learned that a lot of improvised firearms and drugs have been seized there, and many people connected with terror organizations were arrested there," he said, referring to Bangladesh.

Police are patrolling around the clock in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, and keeping an eye on those with criminal records.

In July, over 30 improvised firearms were seized at Rohingya refugee camps in Rakhine State's capital, Sittwe, and other townships, Rakhine police said. The Asia Times reported that Bangladesh's elite Rapid Action Battalion raided a clandestine gun factory near the southeastern town of Cox's Bazar on July 21.

Security will remain in a heightened state in Sittwe and other townships in Rakhine till the end of August, state police said.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Govt Probes Farms Allegedly Owned By U Thein Sein, Ex-Ministers Illegally

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 02:44 AM PDT

NAYPYITAW — The government is inspecting more than 900 acres (364 hectares) of land allegedly acquired illegally by former President U Thein Sein and his cabinet members near the village of Za Laung in Ottarathiri Township in Naypyitaw.

A task force formed by the Naypyitaw Council began on Thursday to investigate whether the land was being used to grow mangos, as per its stated purpose.

Upper House lawmaker U Maung Maung Swe, who is leading the task force, told The Irrawaddy that the probe follows complaints from 169 local farmers and that a report would be submitted to the council chairman.

"Some people are very sensitive about the ownership of that land. We won't target individual owners. We will just check whether or not those people are really growing mango plantations," he said.

It is not clear whether any inactive land will be confiscated.

The land, located near milepost 211 on the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway, was previously owned by the Forest Department and had been used by local farmers for decades. In 2011 the department handed it over to the former ministers without any official documentation, said U Maung Maung Swe.

According to U Tin Min Naing, a representative of the farmers, the land was now owned by 16 people including former President U Thein Sein and cabinet members U Hla Tun, U Kyaw Kyaw Win, U Tin Naing Thein, U Thein Tun, U Kyaw Has, Major General Aung Than Htut, Attorney General U Aye Maung, Major General Ye Aung and current Labor Minister U Thein Swe.

"The [former] president took 204 acres, and the rest took 50 acres each. They took the land in July 2010 and started [plantations] in 2011," said U Tin Min Naing.

The land was permitted for growing mangos, agarwood and rubber, and a minimum 50 acres of land had to be bought at a price of 50,000 kyats ($33.25) per acre, said a source close to the accused ex-ministers.

"Now the mango plantations are yielding. So the owners don't want to give the land back. How can they? They bought it from the government; the government sold that lands to them. If [farmers] are not happy, they should complain to the current government, which succeeded the previous government. Or they should complain to the Forest Department," said the source, who did not want to be named.

He claimed that the farmers had been compensated twice — once by the Forest Department and again by the former ministers.

"Why did they name U Thein Sein? Their statement [on social media] is wrong. None of that land is owned under the name of U Thein Sein. I think it is a deliberate political attack," he said.

U Tin Min Naing said the former president compensated rice farmers 500,000 kyats per acre in 2012, but not those farming other crops. He said former Deputy Immigration Minister U Kyaw Kyaw Win also compensated the farmers, but at a lower rate.

"Army chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing compensated them 500,000 kyats per acre up to 50 acres,” he said, adding that they were also compensated by former Parliament Farmland Committee Chairman Major-General Tin Tun, former First Industry Minister U Aung Thaung, former Mandalay Region Chief Minister U Ye Myint and the Dagon International Company.

According to U Maung Maung Swe, people are legally required to apply to the government for the right to use vacant and virgin land. But he said the Land Records Department had no documentation that the former officials had done so.

"They gave that land directly, as if it were an inheritance, and they were not recorded in government records. So now we have to inspect them thoroughly," he said.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

The post Govt Probes Farms Allegedly Owned By U Thein Sein, Ex-Ministers Illegally appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

NSCN-K Leadership Change Could Signal ‘New Opportunities’ for Peace

Posted: 23 Aug 2018 01:13 AM PDT

The recent changes in the leadership of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) caught many by surprise, sending the news media, especially in India, into overdrive in speculating the possible reasons behind this rather unprecedented development. But beyond all this hullaballoo, the developments gave peacemakers in Nagaland reason to do some serious brain racking and possibly see them as "yet another opportunity" to involve the outfit in peace talks with India.

Taking the lead is the Naga Mothers Association (NMA), a leading civil society group that has been at the forefront of playing peacemaker (and peacebuilder) since the ceasefire process started between the government of India and the NSCN-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) in 1997. The organization is already planning to make fresh appeals to the NSCN-K to consider becoming a part of the peace initiative. During the past several years, members of the NMA have traveled to the NSCN-K headquarters in Taga in the Sagaing Region of Myanmar, crossing treacherous terrain on bikes and boats, negotiating the rough waters of the Chindwin River.

The last meeting was held in January this year when NMA adviser Rosemary Dzuvichu and NMA president Abeiu Meru traveled the same route to meet former NSCN-K chairperson Konyak and top "army leaders" of the outfit.

"We shall reach out again and why not, we must keep engaging, opined Dzuvichu during an online conversation with this writer. The NMA adviser has been part of the many courageous voyages along with other Naga mothers to meet the NSCN-K. According to her, "the new young NSCN-K leadership is educated and well aware of the dynamics of peace and global politics" and that certainly is something to look forward to.

Yung Aung, the deputy minister of the NSCN-K defense department, replaced retired Lt-Gen Khango Konyak as interim chairperson, in a decision taken by the administrative wing of the outfit following a three-day meeting from Aug. 15-17. Yung Aung, 45, is the nephew of the founding chairperson of the outfit – SS Khaplang – and is a Hemi Naga from Myanmar. He is said to be well educated, having graduated from Manipur University in Imphal, and also an ardent sportsman and expert of martial arts. Besides, he is said to be well conversant in the geopolitics of the region.

But for the Naga mothers, this is another "opportunity knocking at the door," to get the NSCN-K onboard the current peace process with the Indian government, although they are  "aware that the process is not going to be any easier than what has been the case in all their previous attempts." One of the reasons for this surely is the stand taken by the Indian government identifying the outfit as a "terrorist" group following an attack by the latter in August 2015 on an Indian army convoy in the Chandel district of Manipur that left 14 Indian soldiers dead. New Delhi imposed a ban on the outfit following a decision taken on Nov. 6, 2015.

Barely four months before it launched the surprise offensive on the Indian army convoy the NSCN-K abrogated a bilateral truce signed with India in 2001 and has since been involved in offensives against Indian security forces.

Presently the Indian government is in a peace process with seven Naga groups led by the NSCN-IM. Peace negotiations have had their share of ups and downs, with more than 80 rounds of talks (since July 25, 1997) paving the way for a "framework agreement" that was signed in August 2015. Besides the NSCN-IM the six other groups that are part of the peace dialogue have come under the banner of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs).

According to Dzuvichu, "Sustainable peace efforts must be made to create a congenial atmosphere for a peace dialogue," and "the ball is the Indian government's court." She certainly appears confident that the NSCN-K will be ready to rethink its position, even when it comes to being a part of the peace process in Myanmar. The NSCN-K has so far remained outside the Panglong peace process and has not signed the National Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).

The NMA leader said they are "deeply concerned about Nagas living across the borders," and she hoped that the Myanmar government would pay more attention to development and facilities in the Naga areas comprising Lahe, Nanyun and Lay Shi in Sagaing Region.

She dismissed reports of a "coup" by Burmese Nagas against the former chairperson who is an Indian origin Naga as merely speculative. "Wherever we are, we are one as Naga. These borders and boundaries were never part of our ancestral history and can never be," she asserted and said that terms like "Burmese Nagas" and "Indian Nagas" are being used to create divisions.  "It is an Indian media construct, and it is a misunderstanding of the Naga people," she added.

The change of guard in the NSCN-K is certainly not something routine and what perhaps assumes great significance are the developments that preceded it. The recent aggression by the Burmese military, which saw the outfit losing an outpost in Lahe Township, is a case in point.

The push made by the military deep into the NSCN-K territory is an indication that things have changed insofar as the Burmese policy on the Naga outfit is concerned. Throughout the military history of Myanmar and also through the escalation and de-escalation of conflicts between the military and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, there have been no real attacks on the Naga groups. The areas dominated by Nagas such as Nanyun and Lahe in the Sagaing Region bordering Manipur and the Nagaland States of India have been left virtually untouched by the Burmese military.

Therefore, in all likelihood, the recent aggression that has been described "as only a threat now," by a senior military official, could develop into more serious assaults. All of this would certainly affect how Myanmar sees its developing relationship with India and the opportunities.

Sources in the Indian establishment in New Delhi said that at "a very high level" there are definitive meetings being held to ensure that the outfit is made to relent to pressure to become a full participant in the peace process on either side of the border. New Delhi and Naypyitaw are mounting pressure on the outfit to come forward for talks.

The author is a former senior journalist who has worked for national and international news media in India and elsewhere. Currently, he is a contributing editor for The Irrawaddy.

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‘Lost Generation’ Looms for Rohingya Refugee Children Without Education

Posted: 22 Aug 2018 10:15 PM PDT

PHNOM PENH/NEW DELHI — Rohingya refugee children who lack proper education in camps in Bangladesh could become a “lost generation,” the United Nations said on Thursday, a year after Myanmar’s army began a crackdown that has forced more than 700,000 people to flee the country.

The lives and futures of more than 380,000 children in refugee camps in Bangladesh are in peril, while hundreds of thousands of Rohingya children still in Myanmar are cut off from aid, said a report by the UN children’s agency (UNICEF).

Bangladesh prohibits refugees from receiving formal education, because the government is concerned that the predominantly Muslim Rohingya population may become a “permanent fixture,” according to UNICEF spokesman Alastair Lawson-Tancred.

At the outset of the refugee crisis, aid agencies set up informal learning centers for children aged 3 to 14, but older teenagers feel alienated and hopeless, Lawson-Tancred said.

“Unquestionably, there is a danger that we might be facing a lost generation,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to have large groups of disaffected youth on your hands.”

Most of the refugees crossed the border within the first four months of military operations, which began after Rohingya insurgents launched deadly attacks on security forces in the frontier state of Rakhine on Aug. 25, 2017.

Myanmar officials have repeatedly denied that soldiers carried out atrocities against Rohingya civilians, which have been documented by activists and include rape, murder and arson.

One in two Rohingya children who fled to Bangladesh without their parents were orphaned by violence, while more than 6,000 children living in Cox’s Bazar are alone or have to fend for themselves, a study by charity Save the Children said this week.

Aid agencies have managed to provide basic services, but the crisis is far from over, with refugees in overcrowded camps at risk of floods, landslides and disease, according to UNICEF.

The British charity Oxfam warned that some basic facilities such as toilets and showers — which often have no locks, doors or roofs — pose safety and health risks to Rohingya women.

Many avoid trips to the makeshift facilities fearing sexual harassment — meaning they go hungry and thirsty, suffer severe stomach aches, and risk outbreaks of disease by using rags during their periods and defecating outside their tents.

Hundreds of sexual violence cases are reported each week Cox’s Bazar, Oxfam said in a statement this week.

“Women and girls are now paying the price in terms of their wellbeing and safety,” said Oxfam’s Dorothy Sang.

Sarah-Jane Saltmarsh, a spokesperson for Bangladesh-based aid agency BRAC, said more lighting in the camps, where there is no round-the-clock grid electricity, is key for female safety.

“The real problem is when they [women and girls] are accessing those facilities in the dark,” she said. “That is when there is more danger, especially during the monsoon season.”

The post ‘Lost Generation’ Looms for Rohingya Refugee Children Without Education appeared first on The Irrawaddy.

A Year on, Rohingya Still Fleeing Myanmar for Crowded Camps

Posted: 22 Aug 2018 09:18 PM PDT

BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh — Hamida Begum fled her home in Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh about two months ago with her husband, two-year-old son, and three-month-old baby. In the weeks before she left, her husband almost never slept at home out of fear of being arrested.

“He would climb on top of a tree and sit there the whole night, even if it was raining really hard,” said the 18-year-old, wearing a yellow headscarf over a purple dress and sitting on the floor of her barren bamboo hut.

Hamida now lives on the edge of the world’s largest refugee camp, one of the latest arrivals among some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who have escaped an army crackdown that the United Nations has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

Though Myanmar says it is ready to take back the Rohingya, the continued outflow of refugees such as Hamida and her family underlines the lack of progress in addressing the crisis, a year on from the start of the offensive on Aug. 25, 2017.

The Rohingya exodus has threatened Myanmar’s tense transition to democracy and shattered the image of its leader, Nobel peace prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, outside the country.

“The crisis has done enormous damage to Myanmar’s standing in the world,” said Richard Horsey, a former UN diplomat in the country and a political analyst.

Suu Kyi’s government has rejected most allegations of atrocities made against the security forces by refugees. It has built transit centers to receive Rohingya returnees to western Rakhine State.

But stories brought by Hamida and other recent arrivals in Bangladesh – at least 150 people in August and nearly 13,000 since the beginning of the year – suggest the resolution of a crisis that enters its second year on Saturday remains distant.

Around half a dozen new refugees who spoke to Reuters said that, after months of struggle amid charred huts and empty villages, they were forced to abandon their homes out of fear of harassment or arrest by the security forces. They said they had been confined to their homes and pushed to the brink of starvation, unable to visit farms for work, markets and fishing ponds for food, or mosques to pray.

Myanmar says it did not provoke the crisis and its military launched a legitimate counterinsurgency operation in response to a violent campaign from within the Rohingya minority, who are mostly denied citizenship in the Southeast Asian nation.

“It was a systematic activity by a group in order to get a citizenship for Bengali people,” said Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as “Bengali," which most in the Muslim minority regard as a derogatory term used to suggest they are interlopers from Bangladesh.

Afraid to Light Candles

The massive influx of refugees has transformed the hills in southeastern Bangladesh into an endless sea of white, orange and blue tents. Residents are settling in for the long haul.

Near Hamida’s hut, Rohingya men carry bricks, dig 4 meter-deep latrines, reinforce muddy slopes with sturdy soil, and mend fences for a new NGO-run school. Bits of wood, bamboo poles and tarpaulin sheets are spread across the area where many of the new arrivals are sent to build their shelters.

Hamida said around 5,000 Rohingya lived in her village in northern Rakhine until last August. When she fled about two months ago, she was among only 100 or so who had remained in the partly-burned hamlet.

Reuters was unable to independently verify Hamida’s account, though relatives and neighbors present at the interview supported her version of events and offered additional details.

Hamida stayed because she could not afford to pay her way into Bangladesh. Months after the initial offensive, she said, the security forces frequently patrolled her village and sometimes arrested Rohingya men or grabbed them to do unpaid work at an expanding military camp nearby.

“In Myanmar, if my children start crying at night, I can’t even light a candle because there is a complete blackout, and if the military see any light they come and arrest you,” she said.

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a report last week more than half of the new arrivals, “reported that relatives remaining in Myanmar also plan to leave due to continued fears."

“People tell us…they told me, that they feel like they’re prisoners. They can’t leave the house, the men can’t go fishing, the curfew is so extreme, that there are only certain hours when you can light a fire,” said Caroline Gluck, a UNHCR representative in the camps.

Suu Kyi’s spokesman did not respond to repeated calls seeking comment. In a speech in Singapore on Tuesday, Myanmar’s civilian leader said the country had made preparations for the repatriation of refugees, but that it was difficult to set a timeframe for when that might happen.

“The returnees have to be sent back by Bangladesh,” she said. “We can only welcome them at the border.”

NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt acknowledged that the ethnic and religious tensions that triggered the violence in Rakhine a year ago remained stark.

“The situation in the area hasn’t changed within one year,” he said. “It will take time to be improved, live in harmony.”

The post A Year on, Rohingya Still Fleeing Myanmar for Crowded Camps appeared first on The Irrawaddy.
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