The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Myanmar

  • Pope preaches peace, reconciliation in Myanmar

    Pope preaches peace, reconciliation in Myanmar

    Pope Francis called for peace and reconciliation as he delivered Mass to around 150,000 Catholics in Myanmar’s commercial hub Yangon on Wednesday, as part of his first papal trip to the country.

    “I know that many in Myanmar bear the wounds of violence, wounds both visible and invisible,” he told those gathered for the open-air mass.

    “Yet the way of revenge is not the way of Jesus.”

    Most of Myanmar’s nearly 700,000 Catholics are ethnic minorities from the country’s restive fringes, where a number of ethnic armed groups are still at war with government forces.

    Michael Salai Soe Aung, a 40-year-old from Myanmar’s western Chin State who attended the Mass, told dpa: “I’m so happy I can’t describe my feelings with words. I believe the pope brings peace wherever he goes.”

    The pope has faced pressure during his trip to confront alleged atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

    Su Hlaing from Yangon also attended the Mass on Wednesday and said she hoped the pope’s visit could bring peace to Rakhine.

    On Tuesday, the pope appeared alongside civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has faced international condemnation over a military operation that has sent 620,000 Rohingyas fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, in what the U.S. and UN have described as “ethnic cleansing.”

    In an address on Tuesday in the capital Naypyitaw, the pope urged a “commitment to justice and respect for human rights” in Myanmar but did not refer to the Rohingya by name.

    He also refrained from uttering the word on Wednesday.

    The Catholic Church in Myanmar had urged the pontiff to respect the views of the majority of Myanmar’s population, who do not consider Rohingya to be citizens and call them “Bengali,” inferring they are from Bangladesh.

    The pope is currently on a six-day trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh and will travel to Dhaka on Thursday where he will remain until Saturday.

    NAN

  • UN appeals for $434m in Rohingya aid conference

    UN appeals for $434m in Rohingya aid conference

    The UN gathered donor countries in Geneva on Monday to shore up 434 million dollars in aid for the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis that has been unfolding between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

    Bangladesh, one of Asia’s poorest countries, has taken in some 580,000 minority Rohingyas who have fled alleged atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August.

    The sum is calculated to fund UN operations until the end of February in Bangladesh, which has kept its borders open, despite being one of Asia’s poorest countries.

    UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi said: “It’s a pretty grim situation.

    “The needs are massive.”

    Refuges in and around the Bangladeshi fishing town of Cox’s Bazar have faced food and water shortages, lack of shelters and inadequate sanitation facilities, raising the risk of disease outbreaks.

    Nearly six out of 10 refugees are children, many of them arriving malnourished.

    The Rohingyas are a marginalised Muslim group in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

    They have been struggling with poverty and discrimination, including the denial of citizenship rights.

    In August, Myanmar security forces launched an operation against attacks by Rohingya militants in Rakhine.

    UN human rights investigators have concluded that the burning of villages, persecution of community leaders as well as killings and rapes amount to a systematic effort to drive the Rohingyas out.

    Beyond appealing for funds, UN leaders urged the international community to get involved to stop the violence and discrimination.

    “This is not an isolated crisis,” UN emergency aid chief Mark Lowcock said, pointing to decades of “persecution, violation and displacement.

    NAN

  • Myanmar killings, Rwandan genocide reminder – FG

    Myanmar killings, Rwandan genocide reminder – FG

    Nigeria on Tuesday condemned “the horrendous human suffering’’ of the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar.

    The federal government, in a statement in Abuja, also expressed regret at the desperate human rights situation in Rakhine state.

    It described the situation as a “very reminiscent of what happened in Rwanda in 1994 and in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1995.”

    The statement reads: “The Federal Government condemns the horrendous human suffering caused by what is now confirmed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in his statement, to be a ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’ of the Rohingya people.”

    It, therefore, called on the UN to invoke the principle of the “Responsibility to Protect” and intervene in Myanmar to stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing and create the conditions for the safe return and rehabilitation of the fleeing Rohingya people to their motherland.

    “​The government similarly calls on all members of the civilized world to condemn this heinous act and to demand for appropriate punishment to the perpetrators,’’ it added.

    Thousands of ethnic Rohingya people were forced to flee to Bangladesh in recent weeks following alleged killings, raping and destruction of their properties by government forces.

    The action had drawn international condemnation with about 400,000 people signing a petition calling for the withdrawal of Nobel Peace prize conferred on the country’s leader, Aung Suu Kyi.

  • 20 wedding guests dies as boat capsizes in Myanmar

    Twenty people reportedly died and about a dozen were missing on Friday after a boat carrying no fewer than 60 wedding guests sank in south-western Myanmar, local officials said.

    This was said to be the third big marine accident in the country in many years.

    The wooden boat was unlit and hit a cargo ship on the river in the city of Pathein at about 7.20 p.m. (1250 GMT), they said.

    Twenty bodies had been found and 27 people had been rescued, Kyaw Myint, a local government official, told Reuters from a hospital in Pathein.

    Rescuers were still looking for survivors, witnesses said.

    “The authorities at the port are looking into the cause of the crash; the regional government will help arrange funerals,’’ Kyaw Myint told Reuters by telephone.

    “It’s a huge tragedy because there were a lot of women and children on the boat,’’ Khin Lin, a parliamentarian for the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told Reuters by telephone from the scene.

    Marine accidents are common in Myanmar, where many people rely on crowded and dilapidated boats for transport.

    Seventy-three people died in a ferry accident in October, last year, and 64 in an accident in March, 2015.

  • U.S. eases economic sanctions on Myanmar

    The US has lifted more of its economic sanctions on Myanmar to signal its support for ongoing political reform after decades of military rule.

    The US removed 10 state-owned companies in the banking, timber and mining industries from the blacklist.

    However, most restrictions on trade and investment with Myanmar’s still-powerful army remained in place.

    This year Myanmar, also known as Burma, swore in its first democratically-elected government in over 50 years.

    Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent years under house arrest, won a landslide victory in what was considered a largely free and fair election in November. Although the constitution bars her from becoming president, she still wields considerable influence.

     There’s no doubt that this nuanced easing of sanctions has been done with the approval of Aung San Suu Kyi.

    Most of the restrictions that affect her new government directly have been lifted. So 10 state-owned companies and banks have been taken off the targeted sanctions list. It’s also been made easier for Americans to live and work inside Myanmar.

    But despite November’s election and the smooth transfer of power that followed there’s no reward here for the Burmese military. Army companies and dozens of individuals who’ve made millions from military contracts are still sanctioned. One of the so-called “cronies” has even had measures against him expanded.

    US President Barack Obama was quick to visit Myanmar but at the urging of Ms Suu Kyi has been more cautious on the lifting of trade and travel restrictions.

    The US said its latest move is aimed at improving trade with Myanmar and allowing more financial transactions to take place.

    But the Obama administration is also trying to maintain pressure on the government to continue its democratic transition.

    More than 100 individuals and companies are still on Washington’s sanctions list, meaning US firms are barred from doing deals with them. The country’s military retains significant stakes in many of Myanmar’s businesses.

    US officials also remain concerned about potential human rights abuses in the country, particularly against the minority Rohingya Muslims.