Kofi Annan-led
commission to submit recommendations in August to solve conflict between
Rakhine and Rohingya groups
By Kyaw Ye Lynn
YANGON, Myanmar
A commission tasked
with finding solutions to complicated issues in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state
is scheduled to submit its final recommendations to the government by
mid-August.
A member of the
advisory commission led by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
said on Saturday that they had been finalizing the report in Geneva for the
past several weeks.
“We are pretty sure
[we will be able to] present the final recommendations to the Myanmar
government by mid-August,” said the commission member, Aye Lwin, in an email to
Anadolu Agency.
He said the final
report includes recommendations for a durable solution to conflicts between
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims.
“But it will not
include the recent alleged human rights violations in Rakhine's north,” he
said, adding the commission’s mandate is to just find out the root cause of the
problems, not to investigate the rights violations by the security forces.
“A commission is
working separately on the allegation against the security forces,” said Aye
Lwin, referring to the government-appointed investigation commission led by
Vice President Myint Swe, who is a former army general.
Nobel laureate Kofi
Annan was appointed as chair of the Rakhine State Advisory Commission in August
last year to advise the government in resolving the Rakhine issues.
Slow
progress
The commission
published its interim report in mid-March which includes steps Myanmar's
government can take to immediately improve the situation in Rakhine including
urgent training for security forces for better respect of human rights, closure
of all camps for internally displaced persons and allowing Muslim
representation in local administrations.
A senior official at
the Rakhine regional government told Anadolu Agency that they, in collaboration
with the union government, are implementing a number of the commission’s
recommendations such as humanitarian and media access, training of security
forces, issuance of birth certificates and bilateral relations with Bangladesh.
However the progress
has been slowed due to the several challenges they are facing in
implementation, admitted the official who asked not to be named as he was not
authorized to speak to the media.
“In addition to the
challenges, these need more time to be implemented than we expected,” he said
without elaborating on the challenges.
Only parts of the
recommendations were completely implemented by authorities after more than four
months.
“However we
successfully closed three camps as the commission recommended,” said the
official.
At least 55 families
of ethnic Kaman Muslims from a camp in Ramree Township -- one of the three
camps closed by authorities -- were forcibly relocated to the country’s
commercial city, Yangon, instead of their original villages due to security
concerns.
Freedom
of movement critical for Rohingya survival
New York-based Human
Rights Watch on Saturday described the relocation of Kaman Muslims as a “shoddy
and shameful way” of the government led by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.
“The slow
implementation of these interim recommendations exposes the government is foot
dragging on recommendations they don't like,” said HRW’s deputy Asia director,
Phil Robertson.
“For all of Aung San
Suu Kyi's big promises, she is surprisingly poor at delivering results,” he
told Anadolu Agency in an e-mail.
He expressed his
worry that, if it comes to implementing recommendations versus not offending
Rakhine extremists and their allied nationalists, Suu Kyi and her government
will opt for the latter, regardless of the circumstances.
Phil Robertson said
it was absolutely critical for the commission to recommend in its final report
a way forward to end the restrictions on freedom of movement for Rohingya
Muslims who have been denied citizenship and basic rights.
“If Rohingya cannot
move without fear of being attacked, arrested or extorted, how can they survive
economically to obtain basic necessities that can mean the difference between
life and death?”
The situation of
around 1.2 million Rohingya has been worsening since communal violence broke
out in Rakhine state in mid-2012.
The issues reached a
boiling point after military launched a crackdown following a gang’s killing of
nine police officers in northern part of the Rakhine in October last year.
During the
operation, UN and rights groups documented evidences of atrocities by security
forces against the Rohingya civilians. However Myanmar government blocked the
entry of a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the alleged rights violations
which may amount to crimes against humanity.
Given that
situation, Robertson said the advisory commission had to break the cycle of
repression in the Rakhine state.
“Kofi Annan needs to
get directly involved now to get renewed commitments from Suu Kyi and her
government that all of the commission's recommendations will be supported and
implemented,” he said.
“And he must be very
clear that any effort to sideline or drop the final report's conclusions and
recommendations will be met with strong and continuous denunciation by the
commission and its supporters in the international community.”