[YANGON] Myanmar has called an emergency Asean meeting to discuss the Rohingya crisis, a diplomat said Monday, as regional tensions deepen over a bloody military crackdown on the country’s Muslim minority.
More than 20,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh over the past two months, fleeing a military campaign in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.
Their stories of mass rape and murder at the hands of security forces have galvanised protests in Muslim nations around the region, with Buddhist-majority Myanmar facing diplomatic pressure from its neighbours.
Last week Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak lashed out at Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi for allowing “genocide” on her watch, speaking before thousands of angry protesters in Kuala Lumpur.
Myanmar, which has vehemently denied the accusations, responded by angrily summoning Malaysia’s ambassador and banning its workers from going to the country.
A diplomatic source in the Philippines confirmed Myanmar had invited them for an emergency Asean meeting to discuss “the Rohingya issue”.
The source declined to give more details on the meeting, which the Nikkei reported would be held in Yangon on Dec 19. Myanmar officials could not be reached for comment.
The bloodshed presents the biggest challenge to Nobel Peace prize winner Ms Suu Kyi since her party won the country’s first democratic elections in a generation last year.
Last week the UN’s special adviser on Myanmar criticised her handling of the crisis, saying it had “caused frustration locally and disappointment internationally”.
Ms Suu Kyi also held talks over Rakhine with the foreign minister of Indonesia, after cancelling a visit to the country in November following protests and an attempted attack on the Myanmar embassy.
State media report almost 100 people have been killed – 17 soldiers and 76 suspects – in the army operation in Rakhine that followed deadly raids on police border posts on Oct 9.
That includes six suspects who died during interrogations, the Global New Light of Myanmar said on Saturday, out of some 575 people who have been detained.
Advocacy groups put the death toll in the hundreds, but foreign journalists and independent investigators have been barred from visiting the area to verify the figures.
With the crisis showing no sign of abating, the government over the weekend extended a 7.00pm to 6.00am curfew across the locked-down area for another two months.
Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, reflect on your own complicity in the genocide of my fellow Rohingya people, instead of dismissing well-documented allegations of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide as “exaggerations” and “fabrications”
Myanmar State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, both personally and from her Office, attack the growing allegations of her government’s policies of persecution of Rohingya people.
This is the latest and official attack on the video-clip which has been viewed over 96,000 times on YouTube.
I am a Rohingya activist and professional, fluent in Burmese, Rohingya and English languages, living in exile. I made the 2-minutes video-clip with English language subtitles and posted it on YouTube with the purpose of exposing Aung San Suu Kyi’s culpability and complicity in the crime of genocide against my peoples, including babies, children, women, men and elderly people.
Here is my subtitled video of you LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the genocide allegations.
The clip was a complete Burmese language exchange between a questioner and the State Counsellor from the live webcast of her public meeting with the Burmese in Singapore on 1 Dec 2016.
The literal translation of both the question, submitted in writing, which Aung San Suu Kyi herself read to the audience, and her own Burmese language response, was – and still is -100% impossible. For the whole Q and A exchange was coded.
Therefore, the inferences were made against the backdrop of Myanmar’s overwhelming public and official dismissal as “exaggerations” and “fabrications” the Rohingya identity, existence and genocidal policies – all to the best of my linguistic capabilities and in complete honesty.
This dismissal has dominated the Burmese public discourse, official statements by the governments (both the previous Government of Thein Sein and the current NLD Government or formerly opposition party) and in the social and real time mass media in Burmese language, over the past 4 years since the two bouts of large scale organized violence against Rohingyas broke out in June and October of 2012.
In her press meetings, Aung San Suu Kyi has used consistently the word “exaggerations” in reference to allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Rohingya people in the months leading up the election in November 2015. She has also reportedly used that expression “fabrications”, “biases” and “exaggerations” in her official meetings with foreign diplomats whom she chided them as relying on false or biased media reports.
The subtitles were the result of the deciphering of what those “fabrications” might be, when she laughed them out, apparently finding these “exaggerations” and “fabrications” to be nothing more than a laughing matter.
Even a YouTube which was posted by a Facebook user named “Thura Soe”. in Aung San Suu Kyi’s defence in the comment session in the State Counsellor Office’s Facebook page Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi needs to reflect on her own complicity in the genocide.
In that alternative deciphering or interpretation of the completely coded Q and A ‘fabrications’ were interpreted as “reference to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party” or USDP.
The fact is USDP is never referred to by either Aung San Suu Kyi or her government’s Information Committee led by former USDP Government spokesperson ex-Major Zaw Htay. Nor USDP, which NLD dealt a crushing electoral defeat, has presented Aung San Suu Kyi any major headache, unlike the growing and worldwide accusations and criticisms of her complicity and silence.
Furthermore, Aung San Suu Kyi herself has openly dismissed any credible allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing as “biased” or “fabrications” or “exaggerations”.
Additionally, the Myanmar Information Committee from her office has directly scathing if baseless accusations against Human Rights Watch, BBC, CNA, CNN, Reuters, etc. rejecting even the satellite images of charred Rohingya villages.
Both these pieces of contextual information and the reports of Ms Suu Kyi’s dismissal of our Rohingya people’s collective plight as ‘exaggerations’ as well as her reported and repeated characterisation of Rohingya – including our identity as a once officially recognised ethnic minority of the Union of Burma – as “non-factual” had compelled me to come up with the only plausible deciphering as reflected in my subtitle.
I had also checked with other native speakers of Burmese who are fluent bi-lingual English-Burmese speakers and scholars. They all agreed with my deciphered subtitles.
Of course, you can also deny because the Burmese speech pattern that you resorted to will allow you “the space of deniability.” Admittedly, I could never presume to know exactly what you had in your anti-Rohingya, anti-Muslim racist mind.
However, I would like to ask Ms Suu Kyi to tell me, the accused, what exactly was coded in that Q and A on 1 Dec.
Finally – and more importantly, as a Rohingya in exile, I would like to urge strongly Ms Suu Kyi to search her soul deep and see why she finds these well-researched findings of ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity “exaggerations”.
How could you, Ms Suu Kyi possibly know, let alone dismiss, these international allegations, since you have never documented any human rights abuses in your entire life, nor ever bothered to travel to the crime scenes of my birthplace – N. Arakan – and set foot on a Rohingya IDP camp or an impoverished and oppressed Rohingya village?
After all, the name of the crime of Rohingya persecution have been accepted as crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or genocide by some of the most world’s credible organizations, university research centres, UN special rapporteurs – including Ms Suu Kyi’s friend and teacher Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen, Desmond Tutu, Jodi Williams and Jose Ramos-Horta, Human Rights Watch, Yale University Human Rights Law Clinic, respected legal scholar and practitioners Sir Geoffrey Nice and Katherine Southwick (of Yugoslavia), renowned scholars of mass atrocities Professors Gregory Stanton and Penny Green, Human Rights Watch, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, just to name a few.
— Eye-opener on genocide against my People:
Amartya Sen, “The Term ‘slow genocide’ is appropriate because you deny [Rohingya] people health care, nutritional opportunities.” –
George Soros, “In Aung Mingalar, I heard the echoes of my childhood. You see, in 1944, as a Jew in Budapest, I too was a Rohingya. Much like the Jewish ghettos set up by Nazis around Eastern Europe during World War II, Aung Mingalar has become the involuntary home to thousands of families who once had access to health care, education and employment. Now, they are forced to remain segregated in a state of abject deprivation. The parallels to the Nazi genocide are alarming.”
Desmond Tutu, “The government of Myanmar has sought to absolve itself of responsibility for the conflict between the Rakhine and the Rohingya, projecting it as sectarian or communal violence. I would be more inclined to heed the warnings of eminent scholars and researchers including Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics, who say this is a deliberately false narrative to camouflage the slow genocide being committed against the Rohingya people.” (source: http://www.tutufoundationusa.org/2015/05/29/desmond-tutu-the-slow-genocide-against-the-rohingya)
KAJANG: Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has dismissed concerns over a viral fake letter of him asking Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to step down.
Zahid said he strongly believes the letter is defamatory.
“(The culprit) knows (about my and Najib’s) official and personal relationship, going back to when Najib was the Umno Youth chief and the Youth and Sports Minister.
“They see my good relationship with the Prime Minister, they are jealous of our unity, so they try to make us clash,” he said at a press conference after closing the Indian Progressive Front’s (IPF) 26th general assembly here today.
The hoax letter also includes a list of new Cabinet members under Zahid’s administration once he takes over the number one post.
Zahid said it is clear that the person who penned the fake letter committed three major offences, namely, forging his signature, using official government material, and spreading lies.
“The letterhead used is not original, and the posts mentioned were also not according to protocol or present guidelines,” he said.
Zahid, who is also Home Minister, said he has been informed that police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) are probing the case, with over 20 police reports received so far.
On his advice to grassroots members who may have been influenced by the letter, Zahid said they should show the detractors how close of a bond they have.
“There have been many political bullets fired at us. We need to deflect all these lies thrown at us.
“What is important for us is to show how close the relationship is among leaders and members from all component parties,” he added.
Buat julung-julung kalinya sejak Anugerah Reka Bentuk Presiden dilancarkan pada 2006, seorang jurutera, Dr Hossein Rezai, adalah antara tiga penerima anugerah berprestij, “Pereka Terbaik”.
Anugerah itu diberikan oleh Presiden Tony Tan Keng Yam semalam (9 Dis) di satu majlis yang diadakan di Istana, menurut Majlis DesignSingapore dan Penguasa Pembangunan Semula Bandar (URA) dalam satu kenyataan.
(Dari kiri) Dr Hossein Rezai, Raymond Woo dan Rene Tan.
Dr Rezai, pengarah bagi Web Structures dan juga seorang jurutera berkanun dalam kejuruteraan awam dan struktur, sudah melibatkan diri dengan projek-projek reka bentuk dan pembangunan seperti Masjid Assyafaah, yang menggunakan rangka lengkung konkrit untuk mewujudkan ruang solat yang bebas tiang di tingkat satu dan yang dapat menampung tiga tingkat bilik-bilik darjah dan ruang sampingan lain.
(Gambar: Web Structures)
REKA BENTUK MASJID ASSYAFAAH JIMAT KOS
Rangka lengkung itu membantu mewujudkan ruang yang lebih luas di tingkat bawah serta mengurangkan kos binaan sebanyak 6.5 peratus.
Kos keseluruhan pembinaan bangunan masjid itu adalah AS$43 juta (S$30 juta).
Dr Rezai memberitahu Mediacorp bahawa reka bentuk yang baik dan yang dapat menjimatkan kos bukan sesuatu yang mustahil.
“Dengan reka bentuk struktur kami, tiada sebab mengapa kami perlu menggunakan lebih banyak bahan daripada apa yang benar-benar diperlukan. Dari segi struktur, anda tidak akan meraih apa-apa dengan membelanjakan lebih banyak wang atau menggunakan lebih banyak bahan. Oleh itu, kami mengurangkan pengeluaran karbon dioksida dengan mengurangkan penggunaan bahan.”
TURUT TERLIBAT BINA KAMPUS BARU MEDIACORP
Projek-projek lain Dr Rezai di Singapura, termasuk kampus baru Mediacorp setinggi 12 tingkat, seluas 800,000 kaki persegi yang terletak di Stars Avenue serta Pusat Tokio Marine dan Ardmore Residence.
Few Indonesian people who believe that Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has committed blasphemy have a clear understanding of the context of his speech during which he quoted a Quranic verse, a survey has found.
The survey commissioned by Jakarta-based pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) revealed on Thursday that 45.2 percent of respondents regarded Ahok’s remarks during his conversation with local residents in Thousand Islands regency on Sept.27, in which he cited Surah al-Maidah, as blasphemous.
However, when they were asked about the governor’s remarks, only 11.5 percent of the respondents said they clearly understood what Ahok had said.
The study further found that only 12.9 percent of the public had seen the video of Ahok’s speech uploaded on the Internet.
“As the study found that only a very few people had actually watched the video [of Ahok’s statement], much of the blasphemy-related negative sentiment about Ahok is baseless,” SMRC founder Saiful Mujani told a discussion on Thursday.
SMRC surveyed 1,220 respondents aged 17 years and above in its study conducted from Nov. 22 through 28 in response to the massive anti-Ahok demonstration organized by Islamic organizations, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), on Nov. 4. The survey was conducted through direct interviews with respondents in various areas across the country.
