After much anticipation and under threat of retaliation, the people of Iraqi Kurdistan turned out in high numbers to return what appears to be an overwhelming vote in favour of independence from Iraq. Advocates for independence covered a broad spectrum, from those using the vote as a way to negotiate a better future within Iraq to those demanding a new sovereign state. Although it was never quite clear what the September 25 referendum was intended to achieve, one thing’s for sure: while the Iraqi government, neighbouring states, regional powers and the international community were all against it from the off, the people of Iraqi Kurdistan have voted on self-determination and given a very clear mandate for independence. It only takes a short stay in Iraqi Kurdistan to conclude that a separation from the rest of Iraq seems inevitable, thanks to both the long-held Kurdish desire for a homeland and the different trajectories that Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq have followed now for more than a quarter of a century. Barring diplomatic, economic, or even military action by Iraq or other states, the next step envisioned by Kurdistan’s president, Masoud Barzani, is to enter into negotiations with the Iraqi federal government over Kurdistan’s future status. Since the federal government would have to relinquish its sovereign claim over Kurdistan in order for it to become a state, Kurdistan’s path to independence travels through, and is dependent upon, Baghdad. But just because separation is inevitable doesn’t mean achieving it will be easy. An independent Kurdistan will present problems for other states with secessionist movements and will immediately confront severe challenges of its own. Feeling the pinch The most pressing problem that an independent Kurdistan would face is how to fund itself. Much of Kurdistan’s domestic economy is dependent on Turkey, which has threatened to cut off the flow of goods and stop exporting oil because of the referendum. Iraqi Kurdistan should receive approximately 13-17% of the national Iraqi budget. This funding has been a source of continued dispute, and currently has not been paid since 2014. This sum is vital to Kurdistan maintaining its government and services, and its economy has struggled without it. Advocates for independence make much of the potential financial windfall from oil production, but with oil prices low and political turmoil running high, the Kurdistan market is less and less attractive for international investors. In fact, since 2014, Kurdistan has been struggling with a long-term financial crisis. The costs of war with the so-called Islamic State (IS), an influx of refugees and a decline in oil revenues have combined to undermine the government’s budget. Since 2015 government salaries have gone unpaid or been cut. These would be onerous problems indeed for a new independent state to confront. Raising the roof. EPA/Gailan Haji This year’s referendum was a vote for the people of Iraqi Kurdistan as well as four Kurdish controlled regions within Iraq: Kirkuk, Makhmour, Sinjar and Khanaqin. Although these regions are currently controlled from Erbil, they are also claimed by Baghdad. The perilous state of finances in Kurdistan mean Kirkuk in particular is vital. A multi-ethnic city, Kirkuk sits next to one of the largest oil fields in Iraq, and contestation over who it belongs to has long been a concern. Kurdistan has controlled it since 2014, but the decline of the IS threat in Iraq would allow Baghdad to commit military resources to reclaiming the city and its oil fields. One issue that any negotiation between Baghdad and Erbil would have to resolve is the status of these oil resources. A peaceful resolution to this land and resource dispute would do much to allow Kurdistan to split from Iraq in an amicable fashion. But looking at a map of north and central Iraq, Kirkuk is only one of many potential flashpoints in the disputed territories that ring the borders of Kurdistan from Mosul to Tuz Khurmatu. Marching up the hill Even among Iraqi Kurds, the referendum in Kurdistan was not universally supported. Some parties argued that the timing of the referendum was wrong; others raised concerns that President Barzani was using the referendum to safeguard his own political future. It was not clear until the day of the referendum whether the polls would open in Kirkuk or not. Further, Kurdistan is not just populated by Kurds – and many (including Iran and Turkey) are concerned for the status and future of Arabs, Turkmen, and other minority groups. Incorporating non-Kurds into a territory so closely associated with Kurdish identity and longstanding calls of Kurdish nationalism will be an obstacle that a Kurdistan outside of Iraq will have to address if it wishes to remain stable. Something’s in the air in Erbil. EPA/Gailan Haji Beyond that, though, the heightened sense of Kurdish nationalism amongst the Kurds themselves may have been necessary for mobilisation of society behind a yes vote, but it will also have to be carefully navigated by the Kurdistan government. In the run-up to the referendum, Barzani made clear and strong statements that Kurdistan would not stay within Iraq and that it would not be controlled by outside powers. But what happens if the promises of independent statehood cannot be realised? The negotiations between Erbil and Baghdad carry no guarantees. If they want to avoid crisis, Barzani and his fellow leaders will need to engage in long-term and very careful politics with both Baghdad and Kurdistan’s population – if they’re mobilised and marched to the top of the hill, it could be dangerous to try to march them back down. As things stand, all involved must confront two difficult facts. First, it is not easy or straightforward to become a new sovereign state and, second, any resolution to the question of Iraqi Kurdistan is still a long way off. The independence referendum has presented an optimistic future, but there are plenty of obstacles in the way. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Conversation US

PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL Session on State Crimes Allegedly Committed in Myanmar against the Rohingyas, Kachins and Other Groups University of Malaya, Faculty of Law 18-22 September 2017, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Panel of the Judges: Daniel Feierstein (Argentina), who chaired the panel Zulaiha Ismail (Malaysia) Helen Jarvis (Cambodia-Australia) Gill H. Boehringer (Australia) Nursyahbani Katjasungkana (Indonesia) Shadi Sadr (Iran) Nello Rossi (Italy) PRESS RELEASE General Secretariat: VIA DELLA DOGANA VECCHIA 5 - 00186 ROME - TEL:0039 0668801468 E-mail:ppt@permanentpeoplestribunal.org www.tribunalepermanentedeipopoli.fondazionebasso.it The Judgment presented today (22 September 2017) by the Panel of the Judges of this Session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) is the product of a long term research work, which included not only the close monitoring of the many published reports, but of formal public hearings in London, 6-7 March 2017, and in these days 18-22 in Kuala Lumpur. The deliberation of the seven Judges is very detailed in the analysis of the facts and in their qualification according to the best recognized instruments and criteria of international law: the State of Myanmar is fully responsible for genocide against the Rohingya people, and is further responsible not only for genocidal intent against the Kachin and the Muslim minority, but also and more specifically for crimes of war against the Kachins and crimes against humanity against the Kachins and the Muslim groups. The full responsibility of the State of Myanmar for the above crimes is made more hideous because of the state of total impunity which is guaranteed by the substantial absence of a judicial system, as it is totally dependent from the military Government which is de facto the only ruling power. The qualification of genocide corresponds to the highest level of criminal responsibility and its foundations are analysed and documented in all its aspects: in the systematic policies of discrimination and physical elimination, in the active denial of identity and culture, including even the prohibition from using the term Rohingya. The witnesses heard in London and in Kuala Lumpur testified both in public hearings and in camera sessions (to protect their identity and for security reasons). Together with the reports of international experts (from Bangladesh, UK, USA) and the contribution of a very competent team of Prosecutors, they have provided evidence of the systematic use of the whole spectrum of atrocious violations of the right to life and dignity of the affected populations: raping of women was possibly the most conspicuously present, beside the killing and burning of children and elderly, tortures, and the long list of acts included in the definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of war. The PPT is the expression of the need and duty to react of the civil society to give the victims their identity as subjects who must be recognized as such and defended by the international community. In this sense, the Panel of the Judges has not concluded its work simply with a Judgment, which will be forwarded to the Myanmar authorities and to the international agencies and actors, but has issued a well targeted list of recommendations which must be implemented, to stop the ongoing genocidal process against the Rohingyas and to avoid the intended genocide against the Kachins and the other Muslim groups. It is worth mentioning that the Government of Myanmar duly and timely informed of the PPT procedures and of its rights to defence never responded nor accepted to appear in the PPT court. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL

UN member states should act to pressure Myanmar to end crimes against humanity We, a global coalition of 87 civil society organizations, urgently call upon UN member states to take immediate steps to address the human rights abuses and humanitarian catastrophe engulfing Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya population. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein have described the Myanmar security forces’ ongoing campaign against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State as ethnic cleansing. As more evidence emerges, it is clear that the atrocities committed by Myanmar state security forces amount to crimes against humanity. The United Nations and its member states need to take urgent action. We urge UN delegations, especially those from the 114 countries committed to the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Code of Conduct, who made a pledge to support “timely and decisive action” to prevent or end the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, to immediately undertake efforts to adopt a resolution in the UN General Assembly addressing the situation, and call upon the UN Security Council to consider measures to be imposed on the Myanmar government. Over 400,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into Bangladesh since August 25, when Myanmar security forces launched operations in response to coordinated attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in Rakhine State. These operations, involving widespread killing, laying of landmines, looting, and arson targeting the Rohingya, have resulted in the mass destruction of more than 200 villages, according to satellite imagery and eyewitness testimony. Tens of thousands of people from other ethnic minorities have also been displaced as a result of the violence. Strong condemnations by the UN and world leaders have not brought an end to Myanmar’s atrocities. In his opening statement to the Human Rights Council on September 11, al Hussein noted that in 2016 he “warned that the pattern of gross violations of the human rights of the Rohingya suggested a widespread or systematic attack against the community, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity.” Civil society organizations have warned that the campaign of Myanmar’s security forces against the Rohingya since August 25 amounts to crimes against humanity. It is crucial for UN members to take concrete action and place direct pressure on Myanmar’s military and civilian leaders. The European Union, until recently, was the chief sponsor of an annual resolution on human rights in Myanmar at the General Assembly. Last year, the EU decided to stop the effort even in the midst of government violence against the Rohingya beginning in October 2016. Now, we urge members of the EU to work with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other concerned states to jointly revive this resolution as a means of pursuing decisive action by the General Assembly in response to the gravity of the ongoing situation in Rakhine State and the evolving human rights and humanitarian crisis. A General Assembly resolution should demand an immediate end to the abuses, that humanitarian aid agencies have immediate and unhindered access to populations in need, and for the UN Fact-Finding Mission authorized by the Human Rights Council in Geneva to be allowed unfettered access into and within Myanmar to investigate alleged human rights abuses across the country. It should also demand that the Myanmar authorities commit to ensuring that all Rohingya and other refugees and displaced people are able to return to their places of origin safely, voluntarily, and with dignity, and to dismantling the institutional discrimination and segregation of Rohingya and other Muslims in Rakhine State that forms the backdrop to the current crisis. The resolution should also urge member states and the Security Council to explore possible avenues to bring perpetrators of crimes under international law to justice. We also urge members of the Security Council to add to the pressure on Myanmar authorities by seriously considering options such as an arms embargo against the military and targeted financial sanctions against individuals responsible for crimes and serious abuses. All concerned UN member states should also consider bilateral, multilateral, and regional actions they can take to place added pressure on the Myanmar government. In particular, we call on all states to immediately suspend military assistance and cooperation with Myanmar. If governments, UN officials and diplomats simply hold meetings and make speeches as atrocities continue in Myanmar, they bear the risk of failing to use every diplomatic tool at their disposal to stop the ethnic cleansing campaign and further crimes against humanity. In the face of mass destruction, killings and hundreds of thousands displaced, inaction should not be an option. Signatories: AFL-CIO American Jewish World Service Amnesty International ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Asociación Pro Derechos Humano - Peru (APRODEH) Asylum Access Avaaz Burma Campaign UK Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) Burma Task Force Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect Center for Civilians in Conflict Center for Development of International Law Christian Solidarity Worldwide Coalition for Justice and Accountability (COJA) Coalition for the Rights of Refugees and Stateless Persons (CRSP) Council for Humanitarian Networking of Sheikul Islam Office CREDO Action Cross Cultural Foundation (CRCF) Development and Justice Initiative, India Equal Rights Trust Fortify Rights Foundation for Rural Development (FRD) Front Mahasiswa Genocide Watch Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) Global Progressive Hub Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) Human Rights Now Human Rights Watch Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) Institute for Asian Democracy Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion International Campaign for the Rohingya International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect International Detention Coalition International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) International Justice Project International Organization for Victim Assistance International State Crime Initiative Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Jewish Alliance of Concern Over Burma Jewish Council for Public Affairs Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights Justice Centre Hong Kong Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns Migrant 88 Migrant Working Group (MWG) Minority Rights Group International Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies National Council of Churches National Religious Campaign Against Torture Odhikar Pan African Lawyers Union's (PALU) Partners Relief & Development Pemuda Anti Kekerasan Acheh Persatuan Darul Fitrah Terengganu Persatuan Ulama Kedah Physicians for Human Rights Presbyterian Church (USA) Progressive Voice Myanmar PROHAM (Society for the Promotion of Human Rights Malaysia) Refugees International Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Restless Beings SANRIM SHARP-Pakistan Society for Rights of Indigenous People of Sarawak Society for Threatened Peoples-Germany STAND Canada STAND: The Student-Led Movement to End Mass Atrocities Suaka Indonesia Swedish Burma Committee The Arakan Project The Episcopal Church The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights The Stanley Foundation Ummatee Union for Reform Judaism Unitarian Universalist Service Committee United Nations Association – UK US Campaign for Burma Win Without War World Federalist Movement - Canada World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy Yateem TV ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Burmese Translation: လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္အေပၚက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳမ်ားအဆံုးသတ္ရန္ မန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို ကုလသမဂၢအဖြဲ ၀င္ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားက ဖိအားေပးသင့္။ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို ၏ xxxxx ကမၻာ့အရပ္ဖက္အဖြဲ အစည္းမ်ားက မန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာလူမ်ိဳးစုကို ၀ါးမ်ိဳဖ်က္ဆီးသည့္လူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖါက္မွဳ၊ လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္ဆိုင္ရာကပ္ေဘးဆိုက္မွဳမ်ားကို ကုလသမဂၢ အဖြဲ ၀င္ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားက အခုခ်က္ခ်င္းစတင္ေျဖရွင္းရန္ေတာင္းဆိုပါသည္။ ကုလသမဂၢအေထြေထြအတြင္း ရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္ Antonio Guterresႏွင့္ လူ အခြင့္အေရးဆိုင္ရာ မဟာမင္းၾကီး Zeid Ra’ad Al Husseinတို က ရခုိင္ျပည္နယ္ေျမာက္ပိုင္းတြင္ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားအေပၚ မန္မာ့လံုျခံဳေရးတပ္မ်ားက ဆက္လက္ လူမ်ိဳးတံုးသတ္ျဖတ္ေနေၾကာင္းကို ဖၚျပခဲ့သည္။ ထြက္ေပၚလာေသာ အေထာက္အထားမ်ားအရ မန္မာ့လံုျခံဳေရးတပ္မ်ားက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ ရက္စက္မွဳမ်ားက လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္ အေပၚက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳဆိုတာရွင္းပါသည္။ ကုလသမဂၢႏွင့္ ၄င္း၏အဖြဲ ၀င္ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားက အျမန္အေရးယူေပးဖို လိုပါသည္။ ကုလသမဂၢလံုျခံဳေရးေကာင္စီက မန္မာအစိုးရကို အေရးယူဖို စဥ္းစားရန္၊ ကုလသမဂၢ အေထြေထြ ညီလာခံတြင္ ခ်က္ခ်င္းဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ခ်ႏိုင္ရန္၊ လူမ်ိဳးတံုးသတ္ျဖတ္မွဳ၊ လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္အေပၚ က်ဴးလြန္သည့္ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳမ်ား အဆံုးသတ္ရန္ႏွင့္ တားဆီရန္၊ အစဥ္အျမဲ တာ၀န္ခံမွဳ၊ ညီညြတ္မွဳႏွင့္ ပြင့္လင္းျမင္သာမွဳစေသာက်င့္၀တ္မ်ားရွိသည့္ႏိုင္ငံ(၁၄၄)ႏိုင္ငံမွ ကုလသမဂၢကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားကို တိုက္တြန္းအပ္ပါသည္။ ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္တြင္ ရခိုင္ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာကယ္တင္ေရးတပ္(ARSA)၏ တိုက္ခိုက္မွဳမ်ားကို တုန္ ပန္ရန္၊ မန္မာ့လံုျခံဳေရးတပ္မ်ားက စစ္ဆင္ေရးလုပ္သျဖင့္၊ ၾသဂုတ္လ၊ (၂၅)ရက္ကတည္းက ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာ (၄)သိန္းေက်ာ္ နယ္စပ္ျဖတ္ျပီး ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ႏိုင္ငံထဲထြက္ေျပးခဲ့ရသည္။ ယင္းစစ္ဆင္ေရးတြင္ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားကို ပစ္မွတ္ထားသတ္ျဖတ္ျခင္း၊ မိုင္းေထာင္ျခင္း၊ လုယက္မီးရွိဳ ခင္းမ်ား ပါ၀င္ျပီး၊ ဂိဳလ္တုဓါတ္ပံုႏွင့္ မ်က္ျမင္အေထာက္အထားမ်ားအရ ရြာေပါင္း(၂၀၀)ေက်ာ္ပ်က္စီးခဲ့သည္။ အျခားလူမ်ိဳးစု ထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာကိုလည္ အၾကမ္းဖက္မွဳေၾကာင့္ ရႊ ပာင္းခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ကုလသမဂၢႏွင့္ ကမၻာ့ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၏ အျပင္းအထန္ရွဳတ္ခ်မွဳက မန္မာ၏ ရက္စက္မွဳကို အဆံုးမသတ္ႏိုင္ပါ။ စက္တင္ဘာလ(၁၁)ရက္ လူ အခြင့္အေရးေကာင္စီကိုတင္သည့္အဆိုထဲတြင္ ၂၀၁၆တြင္ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားအေပၚ လူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖက္မွဳက က်ယ္ျပန္ ပီး၊ စနစ္တက် တိုက္ခိုက္မွဳမ်ားက လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္စုအေပၚက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳေျမာက္ေၾကာင္း Zeidက သတိေပးခဲ့သည္။ ၾသဂုတ္လ(၂၅)ရက္ကတည္းက ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားအေပၚ မန္မာ့လံုျခံဳေရးတပ္မ်ား၏ ထိုးစစ္က လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္အေပၚက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳေျမာက္ေၾကာင္း အရပ္ဖက္အဖြဲ မ်ားက သတိေပးသည္။ ကုလသမဂၢအဖြဲ ၀င္မ်ားက အေရးယူရန္၊ မန္မာစစ္တပ္ႏွင့္ အရပ္ဖက္ ခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားကို တိုက္ရိုက္ဖိအားေပးရန္ အေရးၾကီသည္။ မၾကာေသးမွီအခ်ိန္အထိ ဥေရာပသမဂၢသည္ ကုလသမဂၢအေထြေထြညီလာခံတြင္ မန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ လူ အခြင့္အေရး အေျခအေနအေပၚ စ္ပါတ္လည္ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္တခုခုခ်မွတ္ရာမွာ အဓိက တာ၀န္ခံသူျဖစ္ခဲ့သည္။ လြန္ခဲ့သည္ႏွစ္က အီးယူက ၂၀၁၆ခုႏွစ္ အာ္ကတိုဘာလထဲမွစျပီး၊ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားအေပၚ အစိုးရ၏ အၾကမ္းဖက္မွဳမ်ားတြင္ ၾကိဳးပမ္းမွဳမ်ားကို ရပ္တန္ အာင္ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခဲ့သည္။ လူ အခြင္းအေရးႏွင့္ လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္အက်ပ္အစည္းမ်ားအပါအ၀င္ ရခုိင္ျပည္နယ္မွာ ဖစ္ပြားေနသည့္ အေျခအေနမ်ားကို တုန္ ပန္ရာတြင္ အေထြေထြညီလာခံ၏ အေရးယူမွဳတစ္ခု အေနႏွင့္ ဤဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္တည္ျမဲေစရန္ အျခားဆိုင္ရာႏိုင္ငံမ်ားကဲ့သို အေရွ တာင္အာရွ အာဆီယံအသင္း၊ အစၥလာမ္အဖြဲ မ်ားႏွင့္အတူ လူကိုင္ရန္ အီးယူအဖြဲ ၀င္မ်ားကို တိုက္တြန္းအပ္ ပါသည္။ အေထြေထြညီလာခံ၏ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္က လူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖါက္မွဳေတြကို အခုခ်က္ခ်င္းအဆံုး သတ္ရန္ တာင္းဆိုရမည္။ လူသားခ်င္းဆိုင္ရာအကူအညီေပးေရးအဖြဲ မ်ားကို လိုအပ္သည့္ လူေတြထံ အျမန္၀င္ေရာက္ခြင့္ရရန္၊ ဂ်နီဗာလူ အခြင့္အေရးေကာင္စီက ခန္ အပ္ထားေသာ ကုလသမဂၢအခ်က္အလက္ရွာေဖြေရးအဖြဲ ကိုလည္း လူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖါက္မွဳ မ်ားကိုစံုစမ္းရန္၊ မန္မာႏိုင္ငံအတြင္း ၀င္းေရာက္ခြင့္ရရန္ တာင္းဆိုသင့္သည္။ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာေတြ အျခားဒုကၡသည္မ်ား၊ ရႊေျပာင္းခံရသူမ်ားႏွင့္ မူလေနရာျပန္လာႏိုင္ေအာင္ မန္မာအာဏာပိုင္မ်ားက လုပ္ေဆာင္ေပးဖို တာင္းဆိုရမည္။ လတ္တေလာအၾကပ္အတည္းဆိုက္ေနသည့္ ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္တြင္ ပိဳကြဲျပန္ ၾကဲ နသည့္ ရိုဟင္ဂ်ာမြတ္ဆင္မ်ားထံ င္ငံတကာ တရားရံုးမွာ ခၚယူႏိုင္ေအာင္ နည္းလမ္းရွာဖို တိုက္တြန္းရမည္။ လူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖါက္ေသာ ရာဇ၀တ္မွဳမ်ားအတြက္ တာ၀န္ရွိသူမ်ားကို ပစ္မွတ္ထား ဘ႑ာေရး ပိတ္ဆို အေရးယူရန္ စဥ္းစားသင့္သည္။ လာေလာဆယ္ မန္မာႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ စစ္ေရးကူညီပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ ရြက္မွဳေတြကို ခ်က္ခ်င္းဆိုင္းငံ့ထားရန္ တာင္းဆိုပါသည္။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ရက္စက္ေသာလူ အခြင့္အေရးခ်ိဳးေဖါက္မွဳေတြဆက္ျဖစ္ေနလို အစိုးရမ်ား၊ ယူအန္ အရာရွိမ်ား၊ သံတမန္မ်ားက စည္းေ၀းပြဲမွာမိန္ ခြန္းေျပာရလွ်င္ လူမ်ိဳးတံုးသတ္ျဖတ္ေရး ထိုးစစ္ႏွင့္ လူသားမ်ားအေပၚက်ဴးလြန္သည့္ အျခားရာဇ၀တ္မွဳ မ်ားကို ရပ္တန္ အာင္ ၄င္းတို ၏ သံတမန္ နည္းလမ္းမ်ားကို သံုးဖို ပ်က္ကြက္ေနပါသည္။ ဘာမွမလုပ္ဘဲ အၾကီးအက်ယ္ဖ်က္စီးမွဳ၊ သတ္ျဖတ္မွဳ၊ ထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ပာင္းေရႊ မွဳမ်ားကို စိတ္ၾကိဳက္လုပ္ခြင့္ မေပးသင့္ပါ။ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Thai Translation: รัฐภาคีขององค์การสหประชาชาติ ควรดำเนินการกดดันเมียนมาให้ยุติอาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติ พวกเรา xx องค์กรพันธมิตรระดับโลกของหน่วยงานภาคประชาสังคม เราขอเรียกร้องอย่างเร่งด่วนให้รัฐภาคีขององค์การสหประชาชาติ ดำเนินมาตรการโดยทันที เพื่อแก้ไขปัญหาการปฏิบัติมิชอบด้านสิทธิมนุษยชน และหายนะภัยด้านมนุษยธรรม ที่ครอบคลุมประชากรชาวโรฮีนจาในเมียนมา แอนนิโอ กูเตียเรส (Antonio Guterres) เลขาธิการองค์การสหประชาชาติ และซาอิด ราอัด อัล ฮุสเซน (Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein) ข้าหลวงใหญ่เพื่อสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งสหประชาชาติ ต่างกล่าวถึงปฏิบัติการโจมตีของกองกำลังความมั่นคงของเมียนมาต่อชาวโรฮีนจาใน ตอนเหนือของรัฐยะไข่ โดยบอกว่าเป็นการสังหารล้างเผ่าพันธุ์ ดังที่มีพยานหลักฐานปรากฏมากขึ้น เป็นที่ชัดเจนว่าความทารุณโหดร้ายจากน้ำมือของกองกำลังความมั่นคงของเมียนมาอ าจถึงขั้นเป็นอาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติ องค์การสหประชาชาติและรัฐภาคีจำเป็นต้องดำเนินการอย่างเร่งด่วน เราขอกระตุ้นผู้แทนในองค์การสหประชาชาติ โดยเฉพาะผู้แทนจาก 114 ประเทศที่แสดงพันธกิจต่อจรรยาบรรณ ความรับผิด ความกลมเกลียว และความโปร่งใส (Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Code of Conduct) ซึ่งต่างสัญญาจะสนับสนุน “ปฏิบัติการในเวลาที่ทันท่วงทีและเด็ดขาด” เพื่อป้องกันหรือยุติการกระทำที่เป็นการทำลายล้างเผ่าพันธุ์มนุษย์ อาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติ และอาชญากรรมสงคราม ให้ดำเนินการโดยทันที เพื่อรับรองมติในที่ประชุมสมัชชาใหญ่ขององค์การสหประชาชาติที่จะแก้ไขสถานกา รณ์นี้ และเรียกร้องคณะมนตรีความมั่นคงแห่งสหประชาชาติให้กำหนดมาตรการที่จะนำมา ใช้กับรัฐบาลเมียนมา ชาวโรฮีนจากว่า 400,000 คนได้อพยพข้ามพรมแดนเข้าสู่บังคลาเทศตั้งแต่วันที่ 25 สิงหาคม ภายหลังกองกำลังความมั่นคงของเมียนมาเริ่มปฏิบัติการตอบโต้ ต่อการโจมตีที่มีการประสานงานของกองกำลังปลดแอกชาวโรฮีนจาแห่งรัฐอาระกัน (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army - ARSA) ในรัฐยะไข่ ปฏิบัติการทางทหารเหล่านี้ ซึ่งมีทั้งการสังหารประชาชนอย่างกว้างขวาง การวางกับระเบิด การปล้นสะดม และการวางเพลิงโดยมีชาวโรฮีนจาเป็นกลุ่มเป้าหมาย ส่งผลให้เกิดความเสียหายอย่างกว้างขวางในหมู่บ้านกว่า 200 แห่ง ทั้งนี้ตามภาพถ่ายดาวเทียมและปากคำของประจักษ์พยาน ประชาชนหลายหมื่นคนที่เป็นประชากรกลุ่มน้อยต้องกลายเป็นผู้พลัดถิ่นโดยเป็นผลม าจากความรุนแรงเหล่านี้ การประณามอย่างรุนแรงจากผู้นำองค์การสหประชาชาติและประเทศต่าง ๆ ไม่ได้ช่วยให้ความทารุณโหดร้ายในเมียนมายุติลง ในถ้อยแถลงเปิดการประชุมของคณะมนตรีสิทธิมนุษยชน เมื่อวันที่ 11 กันยายน นายซาอิดตั้งข้อสังเกตว่าในปี 2559 เขา “ได้เตือนให้เห็นถึงแบบแผนการละเมิดด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนอย่างร้ายแรงต่อชาวโรฮีนจ า ซึ่งมีลักษณะเป็นการโจมตีอย่างกว้างขวางหรือเป็นระบบต่อชุมชนดังกล่าว ถึงขั้นที่เรียกได้ว่าเป็นอาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติ” หน่วยงานภาคประชาสังคมยังได้เตือนว่า ปฏิบัติการทางทหารของกองทัพเมียนมาต่อชาวโรฮีนจานับตั้งแต่วันที่ 25 สิงหาคม รุนแรงถึงขั้นเป็นอาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติ บรรดารัฐภาคีขององค์การสหประชาชาติจึงต้องมีปฏิบัติการอย่างเป็นรูปธรรมและกด ดันโดยตรงต่อกองทัพและผู้นำรัฐบาลพลเรือนของเมียนมา จนกระทั่งเมื่อเร็ว ๆ นี้ สหภาพยุโรปเป็นผู้นำในการเสนอมติเกี่ยวกับสถานการณ์ในเมียนมาต่อที่ประชุมสมัช ชาใหญ่ทุกปี แต่เมื่อปีที่แล้วสหภาพยุโรปได้ยุติความพยายามดังกล่าว แม้ว่ารัฐบาลเมียนมาจะยังคงก่อความรุนแรงต่อชาวโรฮีนจานับตั้งแต่เดือนตุลาคม 2559 ในตอนนี้ เราขอกระตุ้นให้รัฐภาคีของสหภาพยุโรปร่วมมือกับองค์การความร่วมมืออิสลาม(Org anization of Islamic Cooperation) และสมาคมประชาชาติเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ (ASEAN) รวมทั้งรัฐอื่น ๆ ที่เกี่ยวข้อง ในการเสนอมติครั้งใหม่เพื่อเป็นแนวทางกดดันให้เกิดมาตรการที่เด็ดขาดผ่านที่ประชุ มสมัชชาใหญ่ เพื่อหาทางแก้ไขสถานการณ์ที่เลวร้ายอย่างต่อเนื่องในรัฐยะไข่ และวิกฤติด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนและมนุษยธรรมที่ยังคงรุนแรงยิ่งขึ้น มติที่ประชุมสมัชชาใหญ่นี้ ควรเรียกร้องให้มีการยุติการปฏิบัติมิชอบโดยทันที เปิดทางให้หน่วยงานบรรเทาทุกข์สามารถเข้าไปให้ความช่วยเหลือด้านมนุษยธรรมโ ดยไม่มีการปิดกั้นต่อกลุ่มประชากรที่มีความต้องการเหล่านี้ อนุญาตให้คณะทำงานเพื่อไต่สวนความจริงขององค์การสหประชาชาติ ตามที่ได้รับมอบหมายจากคณะมนตรีสิทธิมนุษยชนที่เจนีวา สามารถเข้าถึงพื้นที่ต่าง ๆ ของเมียนมาโดยไม่มีการปิดกั้น เพื่อสอบสวนตามข้อกล่าวหาว่ามีการปฏิบัติมิชอบด้านสิทธิมนุษยชนทั่วประเทศ ทั้งยังควรเรียกร้องให้ทางการเมียนมาประกันว่าชาวโรฮีนจาและผู้ลี้ภัยกลุ่มอื่น ๆ และผู้พลัดถิ่น สามารถเดินทางกลับถิ่นฐานที่อยู่เดิมของตนอย่างปลอดภัย เป็นไปโดยสมัครใจและมีศักดิ์ศรี และให้งดเว้นการเลือกปฏิบัติในเชิงโครงสร้างและการปฏิบัติที่แยกแยะใด ๆ ต่อกลุ่มประชากรชาวโรฮีนจาและชาวมุสลิมอื่น ๆ ในรัฐยะไข่ ซึ่งล้วนเป็นสาเหตุให้เกิดวิกฤติในปัจจุบัน มติดังกล่าวยังควรกระตุ้นให้รัฐภาคีและคณะมนตรีความมั่นคง ร่วมกันค้นหาแนวทางที่เป็นไปได้เพื่อนำตัวผู้กระทำผิดอาญามาลงโทษตามกฎหมาย ระหว่างประเทศ เรายังขอกระตุ้นสมาชิกคณะมนตรีความมั่นคงให้เพิ่มแรงกดดันต่อทางการเมียนมา โดยรวมถึงให้พิจารณาอย่างจริงจังที่จะกำหนดห้ามไม่ให้มีการซื้อขายอาวุธกับกองทั พเมียนมา และให้มีมาตรการแทรกแซงทางการเงินต่อบุคคลที่มีส่วนรับผิดชอบต่ออาชญากรรม และการปฏิบัติมิชอบที่ร้ายแรงนี้ รัฐภาคีขององค์การสหประชาชาติที่เกี่ยวข้องทุกประเทศควรพิจารณาใช้มาตรการระ ดับทวิภาคี พหุภาคีและระดับภูมิภาคที่กระทำได้ เพื่อเพิ่มแรงกดดันต่อรัฐบาลเมียนมา โดยเฉพาะเราเรียกร้องให้รัฐทุกแห่งชะลอการให้ความช่วยเหลือและความร่วมมือทา งทหารโดยทันทีกับเมียนมา หากรัฐบาลประเทศต่าง ๆ เจ้าหน้าที่องค์การสหประชาชาติและเจ้าหน้าที่การทูตต่างมัวแต่จะประชุมและแสดงถ้ อยแถลง โดยปล่อยให้ความทารุณโหดร้ายในเมียนมาดำเนินต่อไป ย่อมทำให้เกิดความเสี่ยงที่จะไม่สามารถใช้เครื่องมือทางการทูตที่มีทุกประการ เพื่อยุติปฏิบัติการสังหารล้างเผ่าพันธุ์และอาชญากรรมต่อมนุษยชาติที่ยังคงเกิดขึ้น ในขณะที่มีการทำลายล้างอย่างกว้างขวาง การสังหาร และการทำให้ประชาชนหลายแสนคนพลัดถิ่น ประเทศต่าง ๆ จึงไม่ควรเพิกเฉย ________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch

Darfur Women Action Group in partnership with African Student Association at the George Washington University and Jewish World Watch, co-sponsored by Genocide Watch, Women Thrive Alliance and Genocide Prevention Program at the George Mason University cordially invites you to attend our 6th Annual National Symposium on Women & Genocide in the 21st Century: The Case of Darfur Building Strategies for Sustainable Change in Sudan October 28th-29th, 2017 (October 30th, 2017 Lobby Day) For the past eight years, Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) has been working with its allies to bring awareness to the magnitude of the genocide in Darfur and, particularly, its impact on women. DWAG educates the public about these issues, empowering survivors to bring their voices to regional and international forums. From Saturday, October 28th to Monday, October 30th, we, along with hundreds of anti-genocide activists, women’s rights advocates, artists, celebrities, survivors from various crises, experts, and concerned leaders will come together to address genocide, analyze its impact on women, and build strategies for sustainable change in Darfur. WHO: Activists, students, survivors, and experts on genocide and women’s issues from around the world. Meet our invited guest speakers and participate in panels with breakout sessions for more intimate discussions. WHAT: By addressing genocide and its impact on women, we will define challenges and develop strategies for ending violence against women and the use of rape as a weapon of war. Our goal is to empower activists and affected communities, set strategies for meaningful inclusion and justice for victims, and influence effective policy reforms that will bring a sustainable end to genocide in the 21st century. WHEN: Saturday, October 28th 8AM – 4PM: Speakers & Panel Discussions for sustainable change in Sudan with Sudanese diaspora and activists Sunday, October 29th 10AM - 4PM: Strategy Session to build effective partnership for genocide prevention with experts and leaders from the anti-genocide movement Monday, October 30th 10AM – 4PM: Lobby day (Optional) WHERE: Saturday and Sunday 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 Linder Family Commons, Elliott School of International Affairs Room 602 Monday TBA WHY: We are building a global alliance to end genocide and work towards women’s empowerment in Darfur, Sudan at large, and worldwide. Together, we have the power to end genocide for the people of Sudan! SPEAKERS: A list of speakers can be found at http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/projects/symposium-2017/ A detailed program of the event will be available soon. REGISTRATION: Students: $20 Non-Students: $50 [A light lunch will be served on both days] *Scholarships and group discounts are available upon request. For more information, email us at info@darfurwomenaction.org. Link: http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/projects/symposium-2017/#signup_section Travel Tips Link: http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/projects/symposium-2017/#travel_section ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On behalf of Darfur Women Action Group, African Student Association at the George Washington University, the Sudanese diaspora, and the resilient women of Darfur, we hope you will join us in supporting our mission to mobilize, educate, engage and empower women and end genocide. For a full description of the symposium, including travel and lodging, please visit our event page: (http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/projects/symposium-2017/) Equip yourself with the tools to make a difference in your community as well as in the lives of your brothers and sisters in Darfur! Thank you for your consideration. With Gratitude, Niemat Ahmadi, Founder and President of Tomi Simisola Sodimu, President of the GWU Darfur Women Action Group African Student Association Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram! Visit us at darfurwomenaction.org Contact us at info@darfurwomenaction.org Darfur Women Action Group in Partnership with African Student Association at the George Washington University and Jewish World Watch. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Darfur Women Action Group

RSVP:http://www.darfurwomenaction.org/projects/symposium-2017/#signup_section ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 DWAG

Executive Summary As the Central African Republic (CAR) experiences a strong upsurge in violence and armed groups are taking root in the provinces, the national authorities and their international partners have been unable to halt the escalation and find durable solutions to the crisis. So far, the government and the UN have focused their efforts on the process of disarmament, demobilization, reinsertion and repatriation (DDRR) of the rebels, but little progress has been made. The incapacity of the peacekeepers to change the balance of power on the ground, the failure of the government to respond to the strong community tensions dividing the country and the competition between international mediation initiatives have further contributed to the current stalemate. In order to reverse this trend, the government and its partners must put pressure on the rebels – particularly by tackling their sources of income and exercising stronger military deterrence – but also rebuild trust among the populations of peripheral regions. The presidential and legislative elections held at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 were welcomed by Central Africans and generated high expectations. These political developments were followed by a few months of improved security, as armed groups adopted a wait-and-see attitude, gauging the intentions of the new authorities in Bangui. Unfortunately, President Touadéra’s electoral legitimacy did not translate into an effective leverage over the rebels. The relative respite was thus only short-lived. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), comprising over 12,000 peacekeepers, has failed to compensate for the departure of the French Sangaris force in October 2016 and to exercise a real military deterrence on the armed groups. Since the end of 2016, violence has flared almost everywhere in the provinces. This resurgence of armed groups has led to the death of a large number of civilians and to massive displacement. While in the north west the crisis revolves around armed groups, as well as perennial conflicts around movements of cattle, in the centre and the east rebels are waging a guerrilla warfare to control zones of influence and resources. This provincial violence has numerous damaging consequences: the links between rebel groups and local communities is reinforced, the number of local militias is rising and, above all, a resurgence of targeted attacks against Muslim minorities is driving ethnic and religious exclusion, reminiscent of the most tragic events of the country’s recent crisis. Several international and regional actors, as well as international organisations, have launched a series of parallel mediation efforts since the end of 2016. The African Union (AU) and CAR’s neighbours, including Angola and Chad, merged several individual initiatives, launched a joint mediation in early 2017. The catholic community Sant’Egidio joined the ranks of mediators. They organised meetings with armed groups in Rome which resulted in a “political peace agreement” for CAR, signed in June 2017. However, the agreement was soon taken over by renewed violence on the ground. Divergent agendas, institutional rivalries as well as differing approaches have led these various actors to propose remedies that are at times contradictory, especially concerning amnesty of rebel leaders, the integration of combatants into the army or the return of former presidents. But the strong upsurge in fighting since April seems to have provoked a new level of awareness and a change of position. Thus, President Touadéra and the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres – so far hesitant – have expressed their openness to a major role for the sub-region in the resolution of the crisis. Similarly, aware that the dispersion and the competition between different diplomatic interventions is problematic, the European Union (EU) organised on 21 June 2017 a round table in Brussels, aiming to relaunch a coherent and credible international mediation. Since then, the AU has again taken control of this delicate international mediation by producing, in Libreville in July 2017, a new Roadmap for Peace and Reconciliation in CAR. Although this initiative has been welcomed by CAR’s international partners, including at meetings in the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York in September, some core disagreements remain. The coming months will show whether the much needed improvement in international coordination is forthcoming. As CAR is anew engulfed in the crisis, the worst may be yet to come. A repetition of the events of 2013 and a return to civil war cannot be excluded. A normalisation of the security situation in CAR is highly unlikely in the near future, and a military defeat of the armed groups even less feasible. However, there are a certain number of measures that could be adopted to contain the violence and to achieve small progresses toward a resolution of the crisis. Supporting a negotiated solution with the armed groups involves combining strong coercive measures and positive incentives, which include: Reducing the attractiveness of the war economy for youth and undermining the finances of the armed groups by acting decisively against the illegal war economy. Precise instructions should be given to MINUSCA contingents in the course of the renewal of its mandate in November 2017, in order to fight illegal trade networks. Establishing a stronger power balance vis-à-vis armed groups by combining diplomatic efforts with strong pressure. This will not only require an increase in peacekeepers, but also the deployment of contingents that are capable of seriously deterring the rebels. In parallel – as the Special Criminal Court is expected to be operational soon – the arrest and trial of rebel leaders organising major attacks against civilians should be a primary objective. Encourage pragmatic leading elements of armed groups to play a more positive role. Beyond the integration of a limited number of combatants into the army, the possibility for certain leading figures to assume a more political role on the local level, could figure in the agenda for discussions. At the same time, ongoing mediations need to be boosted, with the aim of reaching credible and enforceable peace agreement and cooperation between Bangui and its neighbours needs improving. In this sense: In the spirit of the reunion in Brussels, all international mediators should agree on a coherent roadmap to resolve the crisis. Above all, they need to determine who will be the guarantor of these future agreements, what international framework must be established to ensure its enforcement and financing and how to promote its ownership by the Central Africans. In order to obtain long-term support from regional countries, Bangui and neighbouring capitals should cooperate on a common ground of shared interests. In particular, they could cooperate to better organise transnational livestock migrations in CAR. It is for example essential to revitalise the bilateral measures on transhumance, initiated in 2012 under the Chadian-Central African Joint Commission, but which were forgotten in the later crisis, and to more broadly integrate other neighbours of CAR. Finally, in order to reduce community tensions and to improve relations between the state and the populations of the eastern part of the country, the Central African government should break with policies of previous regimes, and speak courageously about past events, even if it means antagonising a part of its electoral base: The president could acknowledge crimes committed by his predecessors in remote areas of the country in order to draw a line under the past and open a new page. A training program for new administrative elite should also be envisaged, including inhabitants of peripheral regions of all religious backgrounds. The message of the authorities must be clear: Muslims are Central Africans and have their rightful place in the nation. In this sense, it is important for the government to take concrete actions to avoid discrimination in the reconstitution of national identity files and to facilitate the restitution of property abandoned during the crisis. The government could also take symbolic reconciliation measures, such as organising the national day on 1 December in the north east in order to send positive signals to a region which has long mistrusted Bangui, and affirm its place in the national space. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 International Crisis Group

In Bangladesh’s overflowing and squalid camps for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing the Burmese army’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, I met three remarkable women who told me their stories of horror and survival in the village of Tu Lar To Li. Rashida, 25, spoke so softly that she was often hard to hear because Burmese soldiers had cut her throat and left her for dead in a burning house. (I refer to Rashida and others mentioned in this article solely by their first names in order to ensure their security.) She said the soldiers trapped her and fellow villagers at the river’s edge, separated men from women and children, and made the women and children stand in waist-deep water as the soldiers gunned down their husbands, fathers and brothers. The river that runs alongside Rashida’s village — the villagers’ only hope for an escape route from gunfire pouring in on them from security forces — was too deep to cross. Then, as some soldiers collected and burned the men’s bodies, others began taking away the women and children in small groups. Four soldiers took Rashida and four other women to a house. Rashida said that at the house, a soldier grabbed her 28-day-old baby, Mohammed Eukhan, from her arms and smashed him on the floor, killing him instantly. Two other women’s young infants were killed in the same way. The soldiers then began slashing at the terrified women with knives and machetes, and cut their throats. Rashida woke up in a burning, locked house, and the first thing she saw was her dead baby next to her. She managed to crawl through a burning bamboo wall and escaped. She was the only survivor from the group of five women and their children. Satellite imagery analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows the entire village razed by fire. Human Rights Watch has since 2012 found that the Burmese government has committed crimes against humanity against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State. Since Aug. 25, when an armed group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked about 30 police outposts in northern Rakhine State, Burmese security forces have carried out mass arson, killing, rape and looting, destroying hundreds of villages and forcing more than 400,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Given the scale and overall context of these latest atrocities, together with evidence of intent on the part of the Burmese military, Human Rights Watch believes that these more recent crimes also constitute crimes against humanity. The fact that the powerful military is behind these acts means that there is almost no chance that the government will bring key perpetrators to justice. Two days before I spoke with Rashida, I had met Hassina, 20, and her sister-in-law Asma, 18, who had been with the same group during the massacre. They had also witnessed the killing of the men as they were forced to stand in the water and had suffered similar horrors. Rohingya Crisis Hassina said that while the soldiers were burning the bodies of the men they had killed, one of them noticed that she was trying to hide her year-old daughter, Sohaifa, under her robes. The soldier came over and ripped Sohaifa from Rashida’s arms, and tossed the infant alive on the fire burning the men’s bodies. Hours later, the soldiers took Hassina, Asma, Hassina’s mother-in-law, Fatima, 35, and three of Fatima’s young children to a nearby house. They tried to rape the women, knifing Fatima to death when she resisted, and then beating Hassina and Asma unconscious. The three children were beaten to death with spades, Hassina and Asma said. When Hassina and Asma regained consciousness, they found themselves in a burning, locked house. They managed to escape the flames, but with serious burns. Asma showed me the big gash on the back of her head from when she had been beaten unconscious. A doctor had stitched it up. Such graphic accounts of the horrors unfolding in Burma seem too terrible to be true, but these are what Human Rights Watch researchers are hearing day after day, and they are too consistent and credible to be dismissed as fabrications or exaggerations. Let there be no doubt: The Burmese army is engaged in horrific atrocities in its ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. When soldiers shoot men in their custody, hack women and children to death, and burn their homes, the world needs to pay attention and act together to stop these crimes. And although the surging river waters near Tu Lar To Li may wash away the blood and ashes of the people brutally killed and burned by the army, the nations of the world should not ignore these crimes. The U.N. Security Council and concerned governments need to take immediate action by imposing an arms embargo and targeted sanctions on military leaders and pursue all avenues to hold those responsible to account. More specifically, the council should refer the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. Victims such as Rashida, Hassina and Asma, who have lost almost everything, at least deserve justice. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Washington Post

M. Cherif Bassiouni, an international lawyer and investigator of human rights abuses, torture and war crimes, with then-President Barack Obama. | Provided photo M. Cherif Bassiouni was a champion of human rights who fought torture, war crimes and genocide around the globe. A longtime DePaul University law professor, Mr. Bassiouni died Monday at his Streeterville home. He was 79 and had multiple myeloma. Over the years, he held 22 United Nations appointments, and he assisted on the Camp David peace accords, according to Daniel Swift, a lawyer who worked with him. Benjamin Ferencz, who at 98 is the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg war crimes trials, said Monday that Mr. Bassiouni “was a real contributor to international criminal law and the rule of law to protect human rights.” Bianca Jagger, founder and president of the London-based Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, called Mr. Bassiouni “a champion of justice. “Cherif Bassiouni was one of the most courageous, knowledgeable and determined people I have ever met . . . someone who went after and investigated what happened in Bosnia and Srebrenica,” Jagger said. In Bosnia, Mr. Bassiouni worked on a “monumental effort that documented mass killings, human rights abuses. . . . and resulted in the prosecution of hundreds including” Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, said Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Chicago. M. Cherif Bassiouni in August 2013. | Sun-Times files In a 1999 Chicago Sun-Times interview, he said he thought his work contributed to a 1995 heart attack. For two years, he spent two weeks out of each month at a U.N. field office in Geneva and a week conducting field operations in the former Yugoslavia. His team identified 151 mass graves. “Emotionally, it was devastating,” he said, “especially as a result of the interviews that we conducted with the rape victims.” Born in Cairo, he was the son of Ibrahim Bassiouni, an Egyptian diplomat to India. His grandfather, Mahmoud Ibrahim Bassiouni, helped lead the 1919 revolt against British rule, according to Swift. Mr. Bassiouni served in the Egyptian army in the 1956 Suez War. He was educated at the University of Cairo, received a law degree from Indiana University, did further legal studies at John Marshall Law School and got a doctorate of law from George Washington University. He was a founding member of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul, where he started in 1964. A note slipped to M. Cherif Bassiouni in 2005 by a Pakistani prisoner in an Afghan prison shows the gravity of his work. | Facebook In 1972, he helped found the Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights in Italy. “His vision of international justice inspired students and teachers throughout the world,” Ferencz said. Though serious, Mr. Bassiouni showed a lighter side in Siracusa when he faced off against other professors and students in a badminton game. Mr. Bassiouni’s team kept winning, Ferencz said, because “he brought in some ringers from the Chicago Police Department.” He was a consultant to the State Department on the American hostages held captive by Iran in 1979 and 1980. He is survived by his wife Elaine Klemen-Bassiouni, stepdaughter Lisa Capitanini and two grandchildren. A public memorial is being planned, Swift said. Ferencz held Mr. Bassiouni in such high esteem that he bestowed on him a medal which once belonged to Vespasian Pella, Romanian ambassador to the League of Nations who in the 1930s called for an international court for criminal cases. “When Pella died, I was still in Europe working on the Nuremberg trials and compensation for the victims,” Ferencz said, “and I visited his widow, and she gave me a medal” belonging to Pella. “I accepted it, but when Cherif ended his tenure at the International Association of Penal Law, I flew down to Budapest and gave him the medal.” “I said, ‘Let the one who has done the most for international law have this medal.’ ” M. Cherif Bassiouni, left, with then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. | Facebook _____________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Chicago Sun-Times

President Donald Trump's address to the United Nations General Assembly last week was noted for its aggressiveness, bellicosity and emphasis on U.S. sovereignty over multilateralism. Whatever one thinks of that approach, that wasn't the most notable aspect. The speech appeared to make an open and outright threat to commit genocide: "The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea." Had Trump threatened to "totally destroy" that country's nuclear weapons capacity, its army, its government, or its physical infrastructure, the implications under international law would be different, but carrying out his threat "to totally destroy North Korea" would necessarily sow mass death among its population of over 25 million, in direct contravention of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Convention defines genocide as acts that are undertaken with the intent to destroy, "in whole or in part," a "national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." While simply threatening to commit genocide is not a clear violation of the Convention, conspiracy and public incitement to do so are. If Trump were to act on his threat, he will have signalled his intent in advance. Just as disturbingly, Kim Jong-un's regime in North Korea has made similar threats. Its Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which oversees North Korea's relations with the outside world, has asserted: "The four islands of the [Japanese] archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb," adding that "Japan is no longer needed to exist near us." That statement came in response to the UN Security Council's unanimous vote in support of Resolution 2375, which had condemned Pyongyang's missile test and imposed sanctions on North Korea. The committee also singled out the United States for its leadership in drafting the resolution: "Let's reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness. Let's vent our spite with mobilisation of all retaliation means which have been prepared." Both of these constitute clear threats of genocide. Washington and Pyongyang are bound by international law, which explicitly includes the provisions of the Genocide Convention. It is unprecedented for a leader of a state that has signed the Convention, as the United States did in 1988, to mount a UN platform and apparently flout this core component of international criminal law. (As the United Nations created the Genocide Convention, the Security Council is also responsible for enforcing it.) It is likewise an egregious attack on the Convention, which North Korea signed in 1989, to threaten sovereign nations and their people so seemingly casually. If, heaven forbid, armed conflict actually erupts, both leaders have already announced the standard against which they should be judged. If they carry out their threats, we do not have to work hard to compare them to the 20th century's greatest monsters. They declared the likeness themselves. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Independent

Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) called on the international community on Tuesday to take the government of neighboring Myanmar to the UN Court of Justice for committing crimes against humanity in Rakhine state. “We urged the OIC and the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] member states and UN organs to consider referring the matter [of persecution of Rohingya Muslims] to the International Court of Justice or the International Human Court,” commission head Kazi Reazul Hoque said at the International Ombudsman Conference in Istanbul. He also called on the UN Human Rights Commission and the international community “to mobilize political pressure on Myanmar’s government to find a durable solution” to the Rohingya crisis. “The durable solution must include the right to return to their homelands in a safe, secure and dignified way,” Hoque added. “All fundamental rights of the Rohingya should be respected in the process of resolving the current crisis.” Hoque, who led a four-member delegation on an emergency fact-finding mission on Sept. 9-11, interviewed several Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh, and reported horror stories of cruelty and shocking tales of brutality, including serious injuries from bullets, burning, and physical torture. “All these atrocities are carried out by the Myanmar military…This is an extreme violation of human rights, these are crimes against humanity,” he mentioned. “Crimes against humanity are only possible when racism, xenophobia, and hate speech are practiced in extremely high degrees.” Traumatized The fact-finding body also found that most refugees, particularly women and children, are traumatized, according to Hoque. “They have gone emotionless, they are concerned more about safety rather than food.” He underlined the pervasive discrimination in Rakhine state, saying, “It is clear that Rohingya are severely subjected to religious discrimination.” The commission has also sent out a call for action to many international, regional, and local entities, including UN agencies, ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and diplomatic missions in capital Dhaka which directly or indirectly have a stake in the issue. “It is the unequivocal responsibility of the government of Myanmar to ensure the protection of Rohingya living in Rakhine regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or citizenship status," he said, urging an immediate end to the violence and unhindered access to humanitarian aid. Hoque said Bangladesh is hosting “around one million Rohingya" refugees, including the arrivals since Aug. 25, and the country is trying to handle the situation despite being a “lower-middle income and densely populated country”. Despite these difficulties, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave them shelter and committed to extend all basic necessities for them, he added. He also urged emergency humanitarian assistance for Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Fleeing violence Since Aug. 25, more than 436,000 Rohingya have crossed from Myanmar's western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN's migration agency’s latest report on Monday. The refugees are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages. According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown. Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan highlighted the issue at this year's UN General Assembly. The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Anadolu Agency

The social process of genocide of the Rohingya has been taking place for decades, and has now escalated to the point where physical destruction and cultural loss have reached a crescendo. CREDIT: ALLISON JOYCE / GETTY IMAGES Myanmar's Rohingya crisis has hit the headlines in recent weeks due to an extraordinary number of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar into Bangladesh. It is estimated that in less than three weeks, up to 400,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar. They are fleeing mass human rights violations and atrocities, including: the burning of villages and crops, using petrol and rocket launchers; executions by shooting, stabbing, beating or burning; beatings; and sexual violence. But the Rohingya refugee crisis is not new. For decades, the Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar, with almost one million fleeing Myanmar since the 1970s. Previous waves of displacement and return have been marked by violence and growing suspicion towards Rohingya by the Rakhine Buddhists and the national (military and civilian) governments. The crimes being committed in the past weeks against the Rohingya are also not unusual. They have only escalated in intensity and number, with the perpetrators no doubt spurred by the impunity with which they have been able to commit such atrocities for so long. UN officials such as the Secretary General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights have called the current situation "ethnic cleansing." The UN has avoided the term "genocide" - however, it is genocide that is taking place. Myanmar's military government has systematically sought and acted to remove the Rohingya minority from Myanmar and overall, from existence. Rohingya are a minority group living in Rakhine state of Myanmar, located on the western coast and along the border with Bangladesh and close to India. Rohingya are referred to as "Bengali" - a derogatory term - and, despite evidence of their residence in Myanmar for centuries, are denied citizenship and the participatory rights that come with that privilege such as participating in the public service. Rohingya's freedom of movement is restricted (they are even herded into detention camps and ghettos), their employment rights and options severely limited, and they are denied access to food, healthcare and education. In addition, long-term mass violence has been carried out, including instances of organised massacres accompanied by sexual violence. The dimensions of genocide Under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the definition of genocide is the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Thus, when genocide is committed, it is done so for the purpose of eliminating (in whole or in part) a group of people based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion. Rohingya are targeted because of their ethnicity, categorised as not Burmese, and therefore undesirable. In international law, the focus of this destruction has been on physical destruction, but there is an increasing push to acknowledge a broader concept of "destruction," where a group is destroyed socially. Scholars have posited that killing a group is not about killing multiple individuals, but rather killing more than the sum of the individuals in the group. This is based on the fact that the genos in genocide must be a collective object - a dynamic relational network. Committing genocide completely restructures and destroys those social relations, creating a social death where a group loses its context and identity. In addition, the initial identification of a group being targeted is in itself a cultural, not physical, identification. Nationality, ethnicity, race and religion are all cultural concepts that can be altered, removed and destroyed. The very existence of a group as a group is social. In the Krstic case, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) specifically noted that the goal of genocidaires (those who commit genocide) is "to deprive humanity of the manifold richness its nationalities, races, ethnicities and religions provide." In other words, it is the group as a cultural concept, a social structure, that perpetrators seek to eliminate. International and domestic case law has specifically referred to the bonds of group members as a defining element of the group, "as well as such aspects of the group as its members' culture and beliefs," hence the ICTY has also held that the "intent to destroy ... cannot sensibly be regarded as reducible to an intent to destroy the group physically or biologically." Thus, genocidal destruction of a group is not only a physical but also a social process - a process of denying a group the right to exist as their particular, unique group bound by specific and distinct cultural and social ties. For the Rohingya, the destruction has certainly been both social and physical. The denial of education, as well as the ability to practice their cultural rites fully, including religious rites, has meant that the Rohingya culture is disappearing. Rohingya are denied the ability to educate in their own language. A more in-depth retention of the language and the culture that is transmitted through such education is thus impossible. This disappearance of language and culture is also caused by the dispersal of Rohingya to many countries in the world as refugees, fracturing the Rohingya as a group and thus disrupting and ending their ability to be a cultural group. Many Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, but with a lack of support networks there, they have also moved on to further regions, such as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. In most of these places, persecution and discrimination continue. While Rohingya are persecuted in Myanmar for their ethnicity, their Islamic religion is also a factor in discrimination, exclusion and desired destruction of their group. Religious practice in Myanmar has become restricted and difficult with the emphasis on the "national religion" (Buddhism), and reproductive rights have been curtailed on the basis of religion. Even monks promote anti-Rohingya sentiment and participate in violence, under the guise of "religious purity." This denial of religious freedom and culture has driven hundreds of thousands Rohingya into exile, and importantly, continues in other countries. For example, there are suggestions that India wants to expel its 40,000 Rohingya refugees because they are Muslim. Rohingya in Malaysia In Malaysia, meanwhile, Rohingya expect sanctuary because they see Malaysia as a Muslim (majority) country where they can freely practise their religion. However, Rohingya have not been able to establish themselves as a self-governing and self-sufficient refugee community in the eyes of either the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) or the Malaysian government. Attempts at integration have been short lived. Rohingya remain stateless and therefore illegal in the eyes of Malaysian immigration law, and thus subject to discrimination and harassment by state authorities. Malaysia, like Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention or its Protocol, which means that all refugees are deemed illegal immigrants by Malaysian authorities. Malaysia relegates all refugee status determination, registration and support to the UNHCR and civil society actors. However, UNHCR refugee registration can take years and their offices remain underfunded and unable to provide crucial support to refugees, such as education, health or shelter. As a result, Rohingya must find work themselves, pay for medical and education expenses and blend into society as best they can to go unnoticed. This is a survival strategy in Malaysia, where police corruption and violent gangs target vulnerable people like refugees. In the city, they face daily challenges as non-citizens, such as rent-seeking by authorities - police and immigration authorities target refugees as they know their illegal status precludes them from reporting such incidents. Police regularly demand bribes from refugees because they know where they live and when their paydays are. The police call it duit kopi - coffee money - and it is an integral ploy whereby to bolster their own meagre wages. Reports of extortion, bribes and threats of violence as well as beatings are daily occurrences in the refugee community. Thus the deep fear of authorities and other communities in Myanmar continues to haunt Rohingya in Malaysia. These fears are real, as refugees also face the threat of incarceration in detention centres and "'soft deportations' have been known to take place along the Thai-Malaysia border where refugees, asylum seekers and irregular migrants have been unofficially refouled, or deported from Malaysia, often into the hands of smugglers and traffickers." Large-scale raids are periodically conducted in urban centres to "weed out illegals", often for domestic political gain for the ruling coalition in government. On more than one occasion, refugees have died in the process of trying to evade authorities in such circumstances. Furthermore, in the last two years alone 118 people died in immigration detention centres - more than half of the dead were from Myanmar. At the end of 2015, 2,498 Rohingya were incarcerated in detention centres in Malaysia. "There we are nothing, here we are nothing" We argue that genocide as social practice against Rohingya continues in Malaysia, not just in the form of physical harm as evidenced by the harsh conditions in Malaysian detention centres, but also in more insidious ways. In order to avoid the detention centres, Rohingya have to quickly assimilate into Malay(sian) society. The first step in assimilation is to speak Malay as much as possible, especially in public. This results in a focus on Malay, with no ability for education in the Rohingya language. Consequently, the Rohingya language is dying out. The second is to find work to support oneself and family members. Thus most Rohingya refugees in Malaysia eek out a living as migrant workers out of necessity. In 2016, I (Gerhard) visited a group of Rohingya men living cramped together in shipping containers on a parking lot. Each one had a small mattress as their sleeping and living quarters. The container had a second floor fitted, which meant each man had only about a metre of headroom and little room to move. Their employer, a company that maintained the verges of motorways, provided this form of housing. All Rohingya refugees worked as road sweepers and were part of a maintenance crew entirely made up of Rohingya men. Among the men was one 10-year-old boy, who shared his father's bed. All refugees were working to support their extended families in Myanmar and Bangladesh, where many of their families resided in refugee camps or as urban refugees in destitute. They did not have the funds to send for their families, otherwise they would have. Some were scared of the traffickers that had brought them across the treacherous Andaman Sea and did not trust them to bring their wives and children on this dangerous trip. Instead they worked and sent remittances back to their families. While many Rohingya refugees can find work in the Malaysian shadow economy, they are used and sometimes abused for their cheap labour, but not allowed to make Malaysia a home. One Rohingya man captured the impasse of having no home and no prospect of acceptance either in Myanmar or Malaysia by simply exclaiming: "There we are nothing, here we are nothing." As Rohingya are made to assimilate, work and focus on their daily survival, they have little time or space to focus on the cultural, social or linguistic survival of their group identity. Few Rohingya know or study about their culture, shared identity, beyond that they are marginalised because of it. Focal points are religion and Rohingya become subsumed by Malaysian Sunni Islam without their own mosques, religious leaders or sermons in their language. Culture, which was already eroded by decades of persecution and loss of educational opportunities in Myanmar, is further eroded by having to fit into the dominant Malay culture. Indeed, in many rural areas, many Rohingya have integrated as best they can into Malay society by wearing Malay clothes, speaking Malay and becoming Malay - all without any legal protection or meaningful social inclusion. I have worked with one community organizer and writer who is interested in recovering the history of Rohingya people and disseminating information about Rohingya identity to the community. However, most of the talks he has given, thus far, were to the NGO sector, to service providers and concerned Malaysian citizens, not Rohingya. There are many reasons for this skewed information flow: chief among them is that it is simply not very important to most Rohingya at present. Rohingya are preoccupied with their and their families' daily survival. Beyond that most Rohingya I spoke to emphasized their Rohingya identity, but the main aspect of importance to them was Islam - because that is the main difference between them and the Buddhist Rakhine peoples. They placed little emphasis on culture or social aspects; in many cases, because they had grown up in refugee camps or in a state of displacedness, not in a stable home(land), where traditions had time to flourish before a calamity displaced them. This prolonged life in limbo, in a condition of not being part of a larger social fabric and community, has undoubtedly had a profound effect on many Rohingya and their sense of being Rohingya. One elderly Rohingya man, Ahmad, who I interviewed in a small Malaysian town in the countryside, had been living in Malaysia since the 1990s. He couldn't remember which year he had arrived in Malaysia, nor could he remember which year he was born. All he would mention is that he was an elder (which among Rohingya can mean anyone over 40). He left Myanmar: "because Burmese authorities supplied our cows, our land to Rakhine people and there is no justice for us and we are now recognized us foreigners, as Bengali and not recognized as citizens of Burma." He has made a life for himself in Malaysia and recounted that when he arrived he was a bit of a novelty: "No-one knew about Rohingya back then!" He married an Indonesian woman who was a migrant worker and who, like many, has stayed on in Malaysia illegally. They have both lived in Malaysia illegally, which means without documentation, for several decades. This means their children are not allowed to go to school and they could be deported or arrested at any moment. Living in a small town for such a long time they have managed to integrate somewhat into local Malay society. However, the price has been complete assimilation. When we meet, he is wearing a worn-out sarong, which only Malays wear in village settings. He could not speak the Rohingya language any longer, having become proficient in Malay years ago. He conversed with his wife, his children and his neighbours in heavily locally inflected Malay. Culturally, too, he had become more Malay, assimilating to local customs and even his worldview was informed by the local Malay centric customs and lifeworld. What did it mean to be Rohingyan to him? "It's where I was born - Arakan, and I am Rohingya, I am proud to be Rohingya!" But what does it mean to be Rohingya? There was silence, then a thoughtful sigh: "To be alive!" Further thought delivered more nuance: "Being Muslim, that too." Ahmed is thus the very embodiment of the genocide of the Rohingya: as an individual, he is no longer part of the sum of the group that existed as the Rohingya. Instead, he has become reduced to one key identity marker that he has been able to retain, being Muslim. Ahmed is one of thousands of Rohingya experiencing this physical dislocation and cultural destruction. It is not just long-time residents who have lost their Rohingya identity - most Rohingya face this loss, because they have been subjected to systematic exclusion from education in Myanmar, which is prolonged in the diaspora, whether in Bangladeshi refugee camps, where many Rohingya have spent some time, or in Malaysia. The destruction of a people Back in the container housing one of the Rohingya road sweepers I chatted to was the father of the 10-year-old-boy we already mentioned. The boy does not go to school, as he is not yet registered with the UNHCR. He therefore lacks the protection a UNHCR card may provide, and so leaving this workers' compound puts him in danger of being arrested and detained. But even if he was able to leave the compound, Rohingya refugees only have access to refugee community schools, run by Malaysian NGOs or Rohingya organisations. There they learn the basics of what is necessary to survive in Malaysia: Malay language, basic mathematics, sometimes some English and other basic skills. It prepares Rohingya for a life in low skilled jobs in Malaysia, not for a hopeful future. The main issue preventing Rohingya from organising and finding a stronger voice in Malaysia (and other countries where Rohingya refugees have fled) is weak and fractured leadership. However, leadership of a community is nearly impossible to create when that group is dispersed across multiple countries and struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis. This is coupled with the few resettlement places each year going to the small number of better-educated and English-speaking Rohingya, diminishing the community's capacity further. Capacity to organise, maintain culture, identity and hope thus becomes diminished. Crimes being committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar include acts that cause serious bodily or mental harm, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcible transfer of children. These are all crimes of genocide, conducted as part of the Burmese desire to destroy the Rohingya people. Such destruction is carried out within Myanmar, but the process continues when victims become refugees. As refugees, they are rendered stateless and without a cohesive social unit that is their group - namely, the Rohingya. This is no more evident than in the example of Malaysia, where we have seen that the Rohingya no longer exist as a cultural entity, separated as a group and individually subsumed within a different culture and social network. A loss of language, culture and education, as well as pressure to assimilate and to survive may occur in Malaysia and other destination countries, but this loss is only taking place because of the need for the Rohingya to flee Myanmar, escaping physical destruction. The social process of genocide of the Rohingya has been taking place for decades, and has now escalated to the point where physical destruction and cultural loss are reaching a crescendo. The distinct identity of the Rohingya as a group is disappearing, and to some extent, has already disappeared. Gerhard Hoffstaedter is a senior lecturer in anthropology in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on refugee and immigration policy, spiritual and existential security, as well as religion and the state. From 2014-2017 he was the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award to conduct research with urban refugees in Malaysia. Melanie O'Brien is a research fellow in international law in the T.C. Beirne School of Law and researcher in the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on human rights and international criminal law. Melanie is the Second Vice-President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (C) 2017 ABC Religion and Ethics

Demanding the ‘right of return’ for Rohingya eases the way for countries to forcibly repatriate them back to Myanmar. Again. Rohingya refugees wait in a line for food aid at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on 25 September 2017. KM Asad/NurPhoto/Sipa USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Even as Rohingya in Bangladesh watch their villages burn across the Naff river, even as trapped and internally displaced Rohingya desperately seek safe passage around the road blocks and landmines to Bangladesh, all talk it seems is focused on returning Rohingya to Myanmar. As Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheik Hasina opens the door to 400,000 newly-arrived Rohingya victims of “ethnic cleansing” with one hand, she shakes her fist with the other, calling on Myanmar to stop referring to Rohingya as Bengali and accept their return from Bangladesh. In the same breath as calling on the Myanmar authorities to suspend military action against Rohingya, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, speaks of “the right of return” for those who have left the country. Meanwhile, the government of India is securing the borders and fighting it out in the Supreme Court, seeking permission to deport Rohingya who have fled previous waves of persecution. Thailand is preparing to resume the Navy “push-backs” of Rohingya escaping by sea, and Australia continues to offer Rohingya payments to return to Myanmar – as though the horrors of the last three weeks in Myanmar are just another temporary blip. Rakhine was our homeland. We have only memories now. For their part, as Rohingya activists desperately await news of their family and friends’ safe arrival in Bangladesh, they also proclaim that their hearts will never leave their ancestral lands in Rakhine state and that they will never lose hope of return. Their bodies, however, are another matter. Approximately 50% of all Rohingya villages now stand empty. Half the population has been displaced in the space of three weeks and unknown thousands – who will remain uncounted – have been killed. For many Rohingya in diaspora, the latest exodus has displaced the very last of their family members from their homeland – now only dead bodies, ashes and memories are left. As a Rohingya friend living in London told me, “our home town was destroyed. We wept through each night waiting to receive news from our family. Yesterday we heard my brother and sister had finally reached Bangladesh. We are relieved, but they were the last of our relatives in Rakhine. Rakhine was our homeland. We have only memories now”. The right to (forced) repatriation There is a fine line to walk between securing the “right of return” for Rohingya and enabling refoulement or forced repatriation. Talk of the “right of return” correctly reasserts Rohingya’s rightful claim to belong to Myanmar. That citizenship is rightly theirs – even if they have no papers to prove it. 1 But there is a distinct danger that the focus on return – before fleeing Rohingya families have even found shelter from the rain – could open the door for forced repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar. Again. And, in waiting for return, the failure to secure durable solutions for Rohingya outside Myanmar could lead to high risk journeys and exploitation, as they seek refuge in a third or fourth countries. Again. Rohingyas know all about forced repatriation. It’s a staple of their collective memories and oral histories. Each time Rohingya have fled, Myanmar has been outmanoeuvred and has been forced to accept Rohingya back into the country. In 1978, 270,000 Rohingya were driven from Myanmar into Bangladesh during Operation Nagamin – which targeted all Rohingya under the guise of an immigration sweep. Within sixteen months the vast majority had been returned to Myanmar, under duress with no change in conditions in Myanmar. Food rations were withheld in Bangladesh to ensure return. An estimated 12,000 Rohingya perished. Shortly afterwards and partially in response to the repatriations, the 1982 Citizenship Law was brought in leaving the vast majority of Rohingya unrecognised as citizens. In 1991-2, 250,000 Rohingya fleeing human rights abuses in Myanmar arrived in Bangladesh. Again. Between 1992 and 1994, most of these refugees were returned to Myanmar. Again. Protests against repatriation broke out in the camps in Bangladesh. Excessive force was used to return them. UNHCR oversaw the repatriations and attempted to secure documentation for Rohingya. Promises did not materialise. There were no changes in the conditions on the ground in Rakhine State. Abuses in Myanmar continued unabated. Again. And this time around? The de-facto leader of the Myanmar government, Suu Kyi, in her attempts to placate the growing international condemnation, has claimed that Myanmar stands ready to take back those “verified as refugees from this country (Myanmar)”. An announcement of a bilateral agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar on repatriations is expected in the next few days. But they will not verify the vast majority of Rohingya as their own. Rohingyas in Bangladesh are defiantly waving their ration cards printed with: “Country: Myanmar, Nationality: Rohingya”, but Myanmar persistently denies their roots and their collective identity. The Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on 19 September 2017. Can Erok/Depo Photos/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Stateless by design Rohingya citizenship in its substantive sense was not singlehandedly revoked by the 1982 Citizenship Act, as is often claimed. 2 A 40-year process, beginning under military rule and continuing until today, has slowly and torturously severed Rohingyas’ relationship with their homeland and the state. This has laid the groundwork for the persecution of Rohingya through law and policy as well as collective violence. The Myanmar military are not about to welcome them back. Much less in safety and dignity. The production of Rohingya statelessness by the Myanmar military and government is best understood not as the result of historical disputes, but as a deliberate attempt to purify or cleanse the nation of racial and religious ‘others’ through bureaucratic means. 3 Citizenship law in Myanmar – with its 135 fixed, immutable and externally-ascribed categories of ‘national races’ or Tai Yin Tha 4 – serves an additional, less ‘bureaucratic’ purpose. It is the single most powerful and immovable discourse there is regarding race and exclusion in Myanmar. It cements revisionist historical narratives that exclude Rohingya and legitimises primordial notions of race that feed hatred. As Hinton explains in his 2002 book Genocide and Anthropology, genocidal regimes “manufacture difference by constructing essentialized categories of identity and belonging … linked to emotionally resonant notions of purity and contamination”. Killing is then motivated out of resultant “ideologies of hate” 5 a la the Nuremburg laws in Nazi Germany. Rohingya statelessness is not a documentation issue: it’s a tool of genocide that aims to destroy the Rohingya as a group. International efforts to address Rohingya statelessness over past decades have attempted to provide pathways to “paper citizenship” for Rohingya in the hope that human rights will somehow follow. It’s a vain hope echoed in the final report of the Myanmar government’s Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, headed by Kofi Annan. Yet Rohingya statelessness is not a documentation issue. It’s a tool of genocide that aims to destroy the Rohingya as a group, not only by removing their rights, but also by destroying their identity from the inside out. It is the statelessness that Hannah Arendt and Raphael Lemkin 6 wrote about in the 1940s – the kind that foreshadowed and preceded the holocaust, not the kind for which UNHCR usually offers technical assistance to states to resolve. Indeed, as Rohingyas know only too well, the government’s documentation processes cost them the right to self-identify as Rohingya. For this reason, most Rohingya do not seek documentation, or paper citizenship, at any cost. They know the state has been destroying their identity and their collective “belonging” to Myanmar over decades. Rohingya that cannot be removed from Myanmar by bureaucratic means or through the production of their statelessness, are removed through military operations and pogroms that have taken place over decades and have recently escalated. What we are witnessing now is the Myanmar military attempting to prevent a repeat of the past cycles of repatriation – an attempt to remove them from the territory and sever their links to home. Forever. Shooting Rohingyas in the back as they flee, placing landmines in their flight paths across the border, targeting babies and children, burning Rohingya village after Rohingya village. By law, land, once burnt, reverts to ownership of the state. These tactics are all designed to prevent return and complete the “unfinished business”. A bleak future Survival for Rohingya in their homeland, for the time being, has become untenable. This is devastating not only for the most recent Rohingya victims, but also for the many Rohingya living in diaspora. It is absolutely right that Myanmar is internationally condemned for its genocidal project. But to break the decades-long cycle of displacement, repatriation, and exploitation of Rohingya, it is to also necessary to ensure Rohingya are able to live in safety and dignity outside the country. Not contained in camps for decades, not dependent on aid or kept in limbo with irregular status, not denied access to integration and resettlement programmes. Instead, provided with opportunities for work and education, opportunities for movement and family reunification across borders, opportunities for meaningful contribution to the localities they’ve ended up in. Again. Each Rohingya exodus from Myanmar in recent years has been accompanied by a spike in the numbers of Rohingya leaving Bangladesh, seeking safety and security elsewhere. As we witnessed in 2012, as Rohingya become increasingly desperate the levels of extortion and exploitation they face on their journeys rise as well. Those unable to pay the full cost of their passage frequently become trapped by debt bondage into horrific labour conditions, such as in the factories and rubbish dumps in India. They are imprisoned in jungle camps, where they are beaten and tortured to extort money from their relatives in Malaysia and Thailand. Some die on route or are killed in the camps when they become a financial liability to the smugglers. As long as Rohingya have no options for safe migration and decent work to support their families, the prosecutions of traffickers, even the high-profile cases recently in Thailand, will not bring about the end of these forms of exploitation. There are around one and a half million Rohingya living outside Myanmar. Of these, many are in situations of protracted displacement in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, India and beyond. Some have been there for decades. Some have tried two or three countries and have been repeatedly displaced. Some have been stuck in indefinite detention for years. In these conditions they continue to struggle for their survival. Unable to regularise their status, they eke out a living in dangerous and insecure jobs in the informal economy, without security or protection from arrest, dependent on the good will of local populations, and sometimes the subject of politically-instigated hate-campaigns. Many Rohingya in the diaspora are traumatised by the atrocities they have already borne or witnessed, and their daily lives are little more than hand-to- mouth survival. Already they are at breaking point, and now they are anxiously wondering how to move relatives beyond the desperate and untenable humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. Their desperation and urgency has a direct effect on their bargaining power. With their resources so low, and with so many risks involved, they are knowingly and unknowingly entering into relationships of exploitation and extortion with the brokers. Again. Bangladesh cannot absorb 800,000 Rohingya into its ailing local economy on the borderlands near Myanmar, or support them indefinitely. The responsibility needs to be one that is shared internationally – with the acknowledgement that home might not be a safe option for a long time to come. A joined-up effort to secure durable solutions for Rohingya outside Myanmar (the new-comers and the old) – from both concerned Western and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries is vital. Efforts to provide Rohingya with safe passage to countries in which they can build their lives should accompany the pledges of aid. This will avert the secondary humanitarian crisis as Rohingya once again take to the seas and smuggling routes on which so many lives have already been lost. One of the conditions for returning Rohingya to Myanmar will likely be access to (future) nationality or citizenship. Sometimes documentation has been conflated with citizenship. The international community has fallen, time and time again, for Myanmar’s false promises relating to documenting Rohingya with a view towards citizenship. Long ago the documentation processes themselves became sites of persecution for Rohingya. When Rohingya statelessness is understood within the context of wider genocidal processes 7 , it is clear that Rohingya don’t just need documents to return to Myanmar, they need their group identity to be recognised there as well. And for toxic, primordial notions of race to be dismantled from the top down. History is on repeat and the cycle of persecution, displacement, forced repatriation and exploitation needs to be broken before the Myanmar military ends the cycle their way. 1. See Para’s 19 & 20 of UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), CCPR General Comment No. 27: Article 12 (Freedom of Movement), 2 November 1999, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9. ↩︎ 2. See Nyi Nyi Kyaw (2017) ‘Unpacking the presumed statelessness of Rohingyas’,Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 15(3), 269-286. ↩ 3. Robert M. Hayden describes how nationality laws in the former-Yugoslavia, that were based on primordial notions of race, were used as “bureaucratic ethnic cleansing” and were a precursor for mass expulsions and mass killings. See Hayden (2002), ‘Imagined communities and real victims: self-determination and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia’, American Ethnologist, 23(4), 783-801. ↩︎ 4. See Nick Cheesman (2017) ‘How in Myanmar “national races” came to surpass citizenship and exclude Rohingya’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 47(3), 461-483. ↩︎ 5. Alexander Laban Hinton, Alexander Laban(, 2002, ), ‘Genocide: An Anthropological Reader’, p10. ↩︎ 6. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “Genocide” and tirelessly campaigned for the inclusion of genocide in international criminal law, used the term “denationalisation” to describe the production of statelessness as part of the genocidal process. Lemkin understood genocide to involve “destruction of the national pattern” or social engineering by the oppressors to destroy a group both culturally and physically. ↩︎ 7. For a historic account of these processes, see Zarni and Cowley (2014), ‘The slow-burning genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya’, Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, 23(3). ↩︎ About the author Natalie Brinham is a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London researching statelessness. She has worked for many years in NGOs in the UK and Southeast Asia on forced migration, trafficking and statelessness in both frontline service provision roles and research and advocacy roles. She holds an MA from UCL Institute of Education and a BA from SOAS. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Open Democracy