2/10/2017
Rohingya Crisis -- Dark New Dimensions: Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat - Nikkei Asian Review
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Features > Rohingya Crisis Dark New Dimensions
February 9, 2017 4:00 pm JST
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Rohingya Crisis Dark New Dimensions
Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat Escalating violence, refugee flows threaten the country's global standing
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GWEN ROBINSON, Nikkei Asian Review chief editor
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Follow Nikkei Asian Review The military crackdown in Rakhine had sent some 70,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing to Bangladesh as of early February. © AP
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SITTWE, Myanmar Before dawn on Oct. 9, several hundred Muslim men
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gathered in northern Rakhine State to wage attacks on police posts near the border with Bangladesh. Armed with crude weapons and about 30 aging
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firearms, they raided three posts and made off with about 62 guns and
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considerable ammunition. Nine policemen and eight attackers were killed;
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two were captured.
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The long-planned operation was launched prematurely, when the group's
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leaders realized that authorities had been tipped off, according to a detailed
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investigation by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. It was the first known operation of the group, which called itself Harakah al-Yaqin, or
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"Faith Movement," in YouTube videos posted afterward. It was also the first concrete sign of organized armed resistance by a Rohingya group in decades. The group is thought to number 400 to 600 men. Led by Rohingya veterans from Saudi Arabia, the operation was expertly planned, showing a high degree of discipline and coordination. More important, it signaled a new http://asia.nikkei.com/Features/Rohingya-Crisis-Dark-New-Dimensions/Chilling-developments-in-Rohingya-crisis-put-Myanmar-in-hot-seat
Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Suu Kyi in hot seat The Rohingya crisis gives investors in Myanmar cold feet
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2/10/2017
Rohingya Crisis -- Dark New Dimensions: Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat - Nikkei Asian Review
phase in the troubled history of Rakhine State and official oppression of the
Rohingya Myanmar's stateless and nameless
Rohingya, who are regarded as interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh, even though many have resided in Myanmar for generations.
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Once king, Swiss bling hits harder times A Rohingya girl in downtown Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State (Photo by Carlos Sardina Galache)
The military's response has been ferocious. The armed forces, normally focused on fighting ethnic armed groups in northern Myanmar, moved hundreds of extra troops and police units into Rakhine. In ensuing weeks,
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they raided villages in the Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathidaung areas, rounding up at least 600 suspects. Most have been held in military camps and remain undocumented. They have not been visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross, despite official claims to the contrary. As of early February, about 1,500 houses in some 30 villages had been torched and nearly 70,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees had fled to Bangladesh, according to United Nations agencies. At least 23,000 people have been internally displaced, and more than 100 killed. Government officials claim that in some cases, Rohingya villagers burned their own homes, and blame internal conflicts for a recent series of murders. Independent researchers agree that the Rohingya are deeply divided about support for the militants.
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Rohingya Crisis -- Dark New Dimensions: Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat - Nikkei Asian Review
Some diplomats and aid workers say the numbers of displaced, injured and detained are far higher than official figures. The facts are difficult to verify, aid officials note, because access to affected areas remains restricted. Relief agencies fear a refugee crisis is brewing amid Bangladeshi plans to relocate tens of thousands of Rohingya to a barren outcrop in the Bay of Bengal. "It's a guarantee that you will see another wave of desperate people taking to the sea in rickety vessels," said an aid worker in Sittwe, the Rakhine capital. Even more dangerous are simmering tensions between Rakhine Buddhists, who account for about two-thirds of the state's 3.1 million people, and Muslims, who dominate the state's northern region but are a small minority in the south.
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Rohingya Crisis -- Dark New Dimensions: Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat - Nikkei Asian Review
A burned Rohingya village in western Myanmar in December 2016 Š Kyodo
While images of recent military brutality have caught the world's attention, vicious communal conflict between Buddhists and Rohingya drove earlier violence in 2012 and 2013. That conflagration, triggered by hard-line Buddhist groups in retaliation for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by Muslim men, drove tens of thousands of mainly Rohingya refugees to flee by sea and left more than 140,000 displaced people in makeshift camps dotted throughout Rakhine, where most still reside. Myanmar's government is now permitting U.N. agencies and other organizations to deliver food and supplies to most villages in northern Rakhine, but only through local staff, said Mark Cutts, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar. While welcoming the recommencement of aid flows, he said staff have been unable to resume detailed needs assessments and protection activities.
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Rohingya Crisis -- Dark New Dimensions: Chilling developments in Rohingya crisis put Myanmar in hot seat - Nikkei Asian Review
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