By Robert Birsel
(Reuter)
YANGON (Reuters) -
Muslim Rohingya insurgents said on Saturday they are ready to respond to any
peace move by the Myanmar government but a one-month ceasefire they declared to
enable the delivery of aid in violence-wracked Rakhine State is about to end.
The Arakan Rohingya
Salvation Army (ARSA) did not say what action it would take after the ceasefire
ends at midnight on Monday but it was “determined to stop the tyranny and
oppression” waged against the Rohingya people.
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| Press Statement of ARSA: https://t.co/50lqFRHdYx |
“If at any stage,
the Burmese government is inclined to peace, then ARSA will welcome that
inclination and reciprocate,” the group said in a statement.
Government spokesmen
were not immediately available for comment.
When the ARSA
announced its one-month ceasefire from Sept. 10, a government spokesman said:
“We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”
The rebels launched
coordinated attacks on about 30 security posts and an army camp on Aug. 25 with
the help of hundreds of disaffected Rohingya villagers, many wielding sticks or
machetes, killing about a dozen people.
In response, the
military unleashed a sweeping offensive across the north of Rakhine State,
driving more than half a million Rohingya villagers into Bangladesh in what the
United Nations branded a textbook example of “ethnic cleansing”.
Myanmar rejects
that. It says more than 500 people have been killed in the fighting, most of
them “terrorists” who have been attacking civilians and torching villages.
The ability of the
ARSA, which only surfaced in October last year, to mount any sort of challenge
to the Myanmar army is not known but it does not appear to have been able to
put up resistance to the military offensive unleashed in August.
Inevitably, there
are doubts about how the insurgents can operate in areas where the military has
driven out the civilian population, cutting the insurgents off from recruits,
food, funds and information.
The ARSA accused the
government of using murder, arson and rape as “tools of depopulation”.
‘NATIVE’
The ARSA denies
links to foreign Islamists.
In an interview with
Reuters in March, ARSA leader Ata Ullah linked the creation of the group to
communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine in 2012, when nearly
200 people were killed and 140,000, mostly Rohingya, displaced.
The group says it is
fighting for the rights of the Rohingya, who have never been regarded as an
indigenous minority in Myanmar and so have been denied citizenship under a law
that links nationality to ethnicity.
The group repeated
their demand that Rohingya be recognized as a “native indigenous” ethnic group,
adding that all Rohingya people should be allowed “to return home safely with
dignity ... to freely determine their political status and pursue their
economic, social and cultural development”.
The Rohingya have
long faced discrimination and repression in Rakhine State where bad blood
between them and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, stemming from violence by both sides,
goes back generations.
The ARSA condemned
the government for blocking humanitarian assistance in Rakhine and said it was
willing to discuss ceasefires with international organizations so aid could be
delivered.
Some 515,000
Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh but thousands remain in Rakhine.
Myanmar leader Aung
San Suu Kyi has faced scathing criticism for not doing more to stop the
violence, although a military-drafted constitution gives her no power over the
security forces.
Suu Kyi has
condemned rights abuses and said Myanmar was ready to start a process agreed
with Bangladesh in 1993 by which anyone verified as a refugee would be accepted
back.
Many refugees fear
they will not have the paperwork they believe Myanmar will demand to allow them
back.
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