The Stateless Rohingya Blog

                                                           ALP home made cannon Maungdaw, Arakan State:  The Burmese army arrested 17 Rakhines with arms and ammunition at Burmese border security force (Nasaka) area number 1- a Rakhine village near the Bandullah camp – today , according to a reliable source from Nasaka headquarters. “The Rakhines who were ambushed to an Engineer Crop ( GE) personnel group where one corporal was dead on the spot and three were missing on November 7. The Army and Nasaka personnel were searching the missing soldiers , but today, found the Rakhines with arms in their village near the Bandollah camp.”

Putrajaya, Malaysia- Around 46 Rohingya Activists from four Malaysia-based Rohingya Organizations jointly demonstrated in front of the building of Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Putrajaya, Malaysia today. (The similar demonstrations were held in UK, Japan and in Thailand, too.)  The Rohingya activists in Malaysia demonstrated showing their Solidarity with other Rohingya organizations all over the world on the Day of Global Action against the state-sponsored genocides of Rohingyas and Kamans being carried in Arakan since June 2012.

Reuters/Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during his election night victory rally in Chicago, November 7, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed YANGON (Reuters) -  U.S.   President Barack Obama  plans to visit  Myanmar  on November 19 and meet both his counterpart,  Thein Sein , and  Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi , a senior government source in the  Southeast Asian country  said on Thursday. Obama's visit would be further strong endorsement by the international community of Myanmar's transformation under the quasi-civilian government of Thein Sein, who took office in March 2011 to end half a century of military rule.

Joint statement   Date: 8th November 2012    Urgent international Actions to Protect Rohingya People We the undersigned thank all organisations, NGOs, media and individuals for joining today’s “Global Day of Action” event in solidarity with the Rohingya people.  Despite international outcries the Burmese government is trying to use the world’s most oppressive “Burma Citizenship Law of 1982” on the homeless and traumatized Rohingya people whilst most of their documents were burned down in the violence. This is another design of the government to hoodwink the international community. 

This photo shows a plot of land in the capital of Rakhine State - Sittwe - which was home to a large Rohingya community. Now eerily silent, all of the houses were burned down, and the area then bulldozed, during the June violence. All the inhabitants who survived fled. Both sides suffered in the June violence, but the Muslim Rohingya suffered the greatest numbers of deaths, house-burnings and forced displacements.  

People displaced by violence in Pauktaw pass the time at their shelters at Owntaw refugee camp for Muslims outside Sittwe Nov. 1, 2012. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun LONDON (Alertnet) – Activists from one of the world’s most persecuted minorities have called for U.N. peacekeepers and international observers to be sent to western Myanmar where an explosion of violence has left scores of people dead and displaced more than 100,000. Simmering tensions between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in volatile Rakhine State first boiled over in June. The clashes were followed by further bloodshed in late October.

Rohingya Muslims living in Japan hold placards during a protest outside the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo on Nov 8, 2012. AFP This week’s dismissal of two Muslim members from the government’s commission to investigate sectarian clashes in Arakan state is reportedly linked to their outspoken criticism of the Arakanese government and alleged bias in favour of the Rohingyas.

Maungdaw, Arakan State:   High level officers – Army, police and home minister office- had visited Maungdaw today, according to an official from Maungdaw. “The top level army officers along with Lt Gen Thein Htay, the Minister of Border Affairs had been visiting Maungdaw – border trade point, exit and entry gate, market and government offices. They were guided by Col. Maung Maung Oo, the Director of Burma border security force around the Maungdaw.”

Today we met the boat people of  Burma . There are thousands of them now, perhaps as many as 10,000, living in fishing boats or sleeping under lean-to structures off the coast of Rakhine state. They were driven from their homes in the country’s north-west by mobs with petrol bombs and wooden clubs in the latest wave of violence to sweep the region – and it’s a conflict that an increasing number are now likening to ethnic cleansing campaign.

THE brief news item “NGO slams UN over Rohingya massacre” caught my attention. The initiative taken by the human rights group (MERHROM) condemning the recent violence against the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar is timely, justified and appropriate.

The Myanmar parliament will not tackle changes to the 1982 Burma (Myanmar) Citizenship Law after several MPs objected to the amendments. Tin Mya of the Union Solidarity and Development Party submitted amendments to the body but Speaker Khin Aung Myint said the proposal will be kept only as a record after some MPs raised their objection.