The Stateless Rohingya Blog

United States Ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell, Major General Anthony Crutchfield, and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski at the US Embassy in Rangoon on 28 June, 2014. (PHOTO: DVB) By Feliz Solomon Democratic Voice of Burma June 30, 2014 A delegation of senior officials from the United States has left Burma with the message that “it is time to engage” the country’s military. Speaking to reporters in Rangoon on Saturday, Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, said that the  US is preparing for “cautious” engagement, which could include non-combat training. “The purpose of this engagement, the sole purpose, was and is to speak to the military about the importance of human rights, the rule of law and civilian control,” Malinowski said. He added that “there is the potential for a deeper partnership, even a full partnership, in the future.” The assistant secretary led a week-long de...

A patient is carried to hospital in Arakan State, August 2013. (Photo: Reuters) By Feliz Solomon Democratic Voice of Burma April 8, 2014 The international community has again issued urgent pleas to the Burmese government to restore humanitarian access and ensure the protection of residents — foreign and local — in Arakan State, where critical health and supply services were largely terminated in late March. “Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Rakhine [Arakan], mainly from the Rohingya community, are not receiving vital medical and humanitarian aid,” read a joint statement issued by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for Internal Development. British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire on Monday summoned the Burmese Ambassador to the FCO to urge restoration of humanitarian access. The same day, UN Special Rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana called recent events in Arakan “the latest in a long history of discrimination and persecution...