A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, July 17, 2017
Burma: Rohingya villagers tell media of abuses during army crackdown
A Rohingya woman speak to media in Maung Na Ma village, northern Rakhine, Myanmar July 13, 2017. Pic: Reuters
ROHINGYA Muslim women lined up to tell reporters of missing husbands,
mothers and sons on Saturday, as international media were escorted for
the first time to a village in Myanmar‘s northern Rakhine state affected by violence since October.
“My son is not a terrorist. He was arrested while doing farm work,” said
one young mother, Sarbeda. She had bustled her way — an infant in her
arms — through several other women telling reporters their husbands had
been arrested on false grounds.
In November, Burma‘s army swept through villages where stateless Rohingya Muslims live in the area of Maungdaw.
Some 75,000 people fled across the nearby border to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations.
UN investigators who interviewed refugees said allegations of gang rape,
torture, arson and killings by security forces in the operation were
likely crimes against humanity.
Burma’s government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied
most of the claims, and is blocking entry to a UN fact-finding mission
tasked with looking into the allegations.
The government has also kept independent journalists and human rights monitors out of the area for the past nine months.
This week, the Ministry of Information escorted more than a dozen
foreign and local journalists representing international media,
including Reuters, to the area under a guard of officers from the
paramilitary Border Guard Police
Brutal tactics
The reporters spent nearly two days in Buthidaung, a township in
Maungdaw district of Rakhine state, where they were taken to sites of
alleged militant activity.
They were taken to Kyar Gaung Taung, one of three settlements requested
by the journalists. Officials cited time constraints for the limited
access.
Reuters had previously gathered
accounts from residents by phone and from former residents who have
fled to Bangladesh, of brutal counterinsurgency tactics unleashed in
Kyar Gaung Taung and several nearby villages in mid-November.
When a group of journalists insisted on speaking to villagers away from
security forces, allegations of abuses by troops emerged almost
immediately.
Kyar Gaung Taung resident Sarbeda, 30, had been able to visit her son,
Nawsee Mullah, 14, at a police camp where he is being held separately
from adult detainees. She was not sure if he had a lawyer, she said.
Reuters reported in March that
13 boys under the age of 18 were detained during security operations.
They were included in a list of 423 people charged under the
colonial-era Unlawful Associations Act, which outlaws joining or aiding
rebel groups.
At least 32 people from Kyar Gaung Taung village had been arrested and
10 killed, said a village schoolteacher, who asked not to be named for
fear of reprisals. He estimated that half the village’s 6,000 residents
had fled during the clearance operation.
Burned to death
Another villager, Lalmuti, 23, pointed to a small pile of ashes where
she said she found her father’s remains. She described how he was bound
and thrown into a house and burned to death.
Her mother was later arrested when authorities deemed her complaint
about the killings to be fabricated. She is serving a six-month jail
sentence, Lalmuti and two other villagers said.
Reporters were not given a chance to put these allegations to authorities, and Reuters was unable to reach officials to confirm the details of the cases by phone.
In a press briefing on Friday, Brigadier General Thura San Lwin, commander of Burma‘s
Border Guard Police, said some villagers had made what he said were
erroneous claims and were subsequently charged and jailed for lying to
the authorities.
“The media said we torched houses and that there were rape cases — they give wrong information,” Thura San Lwin told reporters.
He also disputed the UN’s estimates for the number of people who fled,
claiming local records showed that only 22,000 people were missing in
the conflict.
Burmese officials
say a domestic investigation, led by Vice President Myint Swe – a
former lieutenant general in the army – and a commission headed for
former UN chief Kofi Annan – which is not mandated to investigate human
rights abuses – are the appropriate ways to address problems in Rakhine
State. – Reuters