Rohingya women who spoke out on rape, murder 'pursued by
Myanmar officials'
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| Rohingya refugee Jamalida Begum (Raped victim) and her seven-year-old son Mohammad Ayaz at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Photo: Saiful Islam |
Shaikh Azizur Rahman
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh: If you believe the Myanmar
government, the military "clearance
operation" in northern Rakhine state, which began after an attack on a police post in October, officially
came to a halt on Thursday.
But for the region's Rohingya inhabitants, the reign of
terror shows no signs of ending.
Rohingya woman 'pursued' after rape
allegations
25-year-old Rohingya woman Jamalida Begum
feared for her life after telling journalists how she and other women had been
raped by military personnel.
Following an international
outcry over allegations of widespread human rights abuses by Myanmar
security forces and Buddhist tribal groups in the state, the government allowed
selected Myanmar journalists to visit the area in December. http://www.smh.com.au/world/united-nations-reports-horrors-inflicted-on-rohingya-in-myanmars-rakhine-state-20170204-gu5po5.html
As the journalists toured Rohingya villages, where
killings, rapes and arson had been reported, most Rohingya avoided interaction
with them.
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Where is the outrage about Myanmar's
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However a few, including 25-year-old Rohingya woman
Jamalida Begum, took courage and shared their experiences.
"I told them how other Rohingya women there and I
had been brutally raped by the military," she told Fairfax Media.
Soon after the December visit, interviews with Begum and
two other villagers - a man called Sona Mia and a woman called Noorjahan - were
shown on Myanmar TV channels.
Sona Mia, a Rohingya from the village of Ngakura, was
found murdered a day after he spoke to the journalists. For Begum, it was a
clear message.
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| Jamalida Begum makes her rape allegations to representatives of the Myanmar government's Rakhine State Investigation Commission on December 11, 2016. Photo: Myanmar State Counsellor Office |
"I got extremely scared at the news of the beheading
of Sona Mia and immediately I decided to flee," she said.
Begum said that when she was speaking to the journalists,
some soldiers took her picture, later returning to launch a house-to-house
search for her in her hamlet of Pyoung Pyi in the Maungdaw area.
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| Sona Mia speaks to journalists in Ngakura village on December 21. This image was posted on the Facebook page of the Myanmar State Counsellor's Office. Photo: Myanmar State Counsellor Office |
"I sneaked out of my village and spent several days
in hiding in jungles and other places, before giving the border guards the slip
and crossing over to Bangladesh" with her father and seven-year-old son.
At a refugee camp in Bangladesh, Begum and 31-year-old
Noorjahan, who alleged on camera that five soldiers and Buddhist tribesmen had
raped her, have become friends.
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| A picture of Sona Mia taken on December 21, just hours before he was allegedly abducted and beheaded. Photo: Supplied |
"The soldiers murdered my husband in November,"
Noorjahan told Fairfax Media, "Weeks after, they raped me before my
daughter. My mental pain was unbearable. I wanted the world to know of it. So,
I took the risk to tell everything about the torture to the journalists.
"Many women around us had been raped by the Burmese
soldiers, police and Mog [a Buddhist tribe] men. But, most were afraid of
retaliation from the government and so they did not come forward," she
adds.
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| Rohingya refugee Jamalida Begum and her seven-year-old son Mohammad Ayaz at a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Photo: Saiful Islam |
When the soldiers launched a search for her, hours after
she spoke to the journalists, she slipped out of her village of Nirbil and hid
in another, she said.
"After spending one week in hiding, one night I
secretly took a boat, crossed the [Naf] river and reached Bangladesh, along
with my six-year-old daughter," Noorjahan said.
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| Noorjahan and her six-year-old daughter. Photo: Saiful Islam |
Soon after the TV interviews, the Myanmar government
issued a statement saying that several neighbours of the two women had reported
to the authorities that their rape allegations were "not true".
The government also said that since Begum and Noorjahan
had fled their villages, it could not investigate the rape charges.
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| Four Rohingya women at a refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. All four said that they fled their villages in Myanmar's Rakhine state after being raped. Photo: Saiful Islam |
But Begum and Noorjahan say they are still being pursued.
In January, a Myanmar official accompanied by foreigners
- by which the women mean people who were not Burmese or Bangladeshi - reached
the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar where Begum and Noorjahan have taken
shelter.
Begum said she recognised this official, who had visited
her village in December, when she said to him and other Myanmar officials how
she had been raped by three soldiers in November.
"I was shocked to see that official at the refugee
camp," she said. "[He] asked me why I had fled Burma. I replied that
the security agencies were hounding me ... when he asked if I wanted to go back
to [Myanmar], I replied in the negative," she told Fairfax Media.
"Are [Myanmar officials] still tracking Noorjahan
and me for some reason?"
As Begum and Noorjahan did not enter Bangladesh legally,
the UN refugee agency cannot support them and they are forced to live on
handouts provided by local charities.
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| Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, third from right, speaks to Rohingya villagers during a visit to Rakhine state in December. The man who took this photo, Noor Hossain, has now been missing for over two months. Photo: Noor Hossain |
Accusations of Rohingya villagers being hounded after
daring to speak out have surfaced elsewhere.
Kofi Annan - who heads a commission investigating the
conflict in Rakhine - visited Rohingya villages in the first week of December.
Soon after, Myanmar police launched a hunt for those Rohingya who told the
former UN secretary-general about abuses committed by the security forces. Two
people who spoke out were arrested.
Yanghee Lee, the UN's special rapporteur on Myanmar,
visited northern Rakhine in January to investigate allegations of rights violations
by security forces. Aung Aung, a Rakhine-based activist, said that military
officials had threatened villagers with punishment if they sought to meet Ms
Lee.
"It's clear that the military authority does not
want Rohingyas to tell the outside world how they are being killed and tortured
in Myanmar," Aung said.
Ms Lee will arrive in Bangladesh on Monday to resume her
investigation. In Cox's Bazar, she is scheduled to meet scores of Rohingya rape
survivors and others who have fled Myanmar in recent weeks.
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| Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur to Myanmar. Photo: AP |
At least two other Rohingya men who met Mr Annan have
fled to Bangladesh, Aung added.
Matthew Smith, chief executive officer of the group
Fortify Rights, said that Myanmar is a "dangerous place to be a truth
teller".
"There is a practical effect to reprisals - they
instil fear and terror among the population and discourage others from speaking
out," Smith said.
"We documented how state security forces hunted a
Rohingya man who met with foreign ambassadors who in November visited Maungdaw.
The authorities tracked him through multiple villages and at one point opened
fire on him. He managed to escape to Bangladesh … The commissions appointed by
the government have failed to account for this trend, as well as other grave violations,"
he added.
"The time for a UN-mandated independent
international investigation is now."
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