UN Warns Burma on Airstrikes in Kachin
January 02, 2013
The United States and the United Nations are urging the Burmese government to stop its campaign of air strikes against rebels in northern Kachin state, where an escalation in violence is threatening the country's reform process.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland says Washington is "extremely troubled" by the government's use of air power, and is calling for talks that would lead to an end to the fighting.
"We are continuing to urge the Government of Burma and the Kachin Independence Organization to cease this conflict, to get to a real dialogue to address grievances as the Government of Burma has been able to do in virtually all of the other conflict areas," Nuland said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called on Burma to refrain from any action that could endanger the lives of civilians or promote further conflict in Kachin state.
A U.N. statement said ongoing hostilities between government forces and rebel fighters from the Kachin Independence Organization have already caused a "large displacement of civilians who continue to be in need of humanitarian assistance."
In an interview earlier Wednesday with VOA's Burmese service, a government spokesperson acknowledged that "training jets" were used in attacks on rebel positions in fighting that began last week. Other officials had at first denied carrying out the strikes.
Myra Dahgaypaw, head of the human rights group U.S. Campaign for Burma, says that President Thein Sein's calls for an end to the fighting are no longer enough. She says the increased fighting brings up real questions about the president's control over the military.
"Burma is not like the U.S., where the commander-in-chief [of the military] and the president are the same person," she said. "Burma has a totally different commander-in-chief who is totally a military person...(and) they will try and protect their power no matter what."
Burma's government and the rebels blame each other for the escalation in violence, which has continued since 2011 after a 17-year-old cease-fire broke down. Tens of thousands have been displaced.
Ethnic groups in the northern part of the country have long accused the government of systematic repression, and have been fighting for greater autonomy in their traditional states.
The Kachin rebel organization is the only major ethnic rebel group that has not reached a cease-fire agreement with the government of President Thein Sein. The president, elected in 2011, has enacted a series of reforms since coming to power.
Western analysts, however, have warned the renewed fighting in Kachin state and ongoing sectarian violence in western Rakhine state threaten to undermine political reform initiatives elsewhere in the country.
UN Warns Burma on Airstrikes in Kachin
UN Urges Thailand Not to Deport Rohingya Migrants
A boat carrying 73 Rohingya refugees is intercepted by Thai authorities off the sea in Phuket, southern Thailand, January 1, 2013.
VOA News
January 03, 2013
The United Nations refugee agency is urging Thailand not to deport a group of Rohingya Muslim boat people, saying they could be in danger if they are sent back to Burma.
UNHCR spokesperson Vivian Tan says that the group, which is allegedly fleeing sectarian violence and persecution in Burma's western Rakhine state, may be subject to punishment upon their return.
"We're strongly advocating that they shouldn't be sent back," says Tan. "We're worried they may be punished, because there are rules where if they leave they need to apply for permits, and if they come back without these permits, we don't know what could happen - there might be some punitive measures."
Tan says U.N. officials are meeting with Thai authorities Thursday in an attempt to gain access to the group so it can "find out exactly who they are and what they need."
Thai officials said Wednesday the group of 73 migrants, including women and children, must be deported by land to Burma, but their current status is not known.
The migrants were detained by Thai authorities this week after they were found drifting in a small, overcrowded boat off the resort town of Phuket, well short of what authorities say was their final destination, Malaysia.
Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, says that Thailand should suspend any plan to deport the refugees until the U.N. determines whether they have legitimate claims for protection.
He says Thai authorities, who are reluctant to absorb migrant workers from neighboring countries, must come up with a better policy for dealing with boat people.
"For the first time, Thai authorities have intercepted a boat, filled up not with young Rohingya men seeking work in Malaysia, but families with young children and women," he says. "They are traveling together claiming they are escaping persecution, human rights violations, and violence in their homeland."
Thai authorities do not accept boat people, but instead give them supplies to continue their often dangerous journeys to their final destination.
The result is often deadly. In 2008 and 2009, hundreds of Muslim Rohingya refugees are believed to have died after being turned away by Thailand.
Sunai says the problem is not going away, and that Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations must come up with a new policy to provide protection in coordination with U.N. agencies.
"We want Thailand to come up with a clear policy that recognizes Thailand's international obligations to protect asylum seekers and refugees," he says. "And in this case it is very clear that political violence, communal conflicts and human rights violations in Burma's Arakan state are getting worse and worse, and we expect there will be more Rohingya families traveling by sea in order to seek refuge in Southeast Asia."
The latest group of asylum seekers say there were headed for Malaysia, which has become a common destination for Rohingya refugees. On Sunday, about 450 Rohingya landed in Malaysia after a boat journey that left one person dead.
Rohingya are fleeing Burma's western Rakhine, or Arakan, state, where an outbreak of violence in recent months has killed dozens and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Rights groups accuse Burma's government of systematic persecution against members of the ethnic group, who are considered to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
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human rights, including their right to a nationality.”
