Date: October 21, 2016

After attacks on police posts, on 9 October, allegedly by unknown Rohingya fighters, Myanmar authorities have disproportionally militarized Northern Arakan/Rakhine state raising a false alarm and creating human tragedies aim at destroying the Rohingya population. 

Joint Statement
16 October 2016

We, the undersigned Rohingya organisations express our serious concern on the continued military and police crackdown on the civilian population in Northern Arakan.

Since 9 October, under the pretext of looking for attackers, the Myanmar military and police forces have been indiscriminately killing the Rohingya, torching and plundering their homes and villages. Two mass graves were found and about 100 Rohingya civilians were extra-judicially killed that included old men, women and children. At least 5 Rohingya villages were set ablaze destroying many houses or whole villages.

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)
Press release
11/10/2016

Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) expresses its serious concern on the ongoing police and military crackdowns on innocent Rohingya civilians in Maungdaw Township following attacks by unidentified assailants on three separate police outposts in northern Arakan on Sunday 9 October. 

 29/08/2016

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation cautiously welcomes the formation of a nine-member Advisory Commission chaired by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to find out lasting solutions to the issues in the Arakan/Rakhine State.

“The situation of Rohingya people in Myanmar represents a global challenge for the entire international community”. It is encouraging that the Government of Myanmar, for the first time, appreciates the importance of efforts by international dignitaries like Nobel Laureate Kofi Annan and two other diplomats in resolving the long standing Rohingya problem of ethnic, religious and political persecution.  

The problem in Arakan is not an immigration issue, but systematic, deliberate and often brute forced removal of ethnic Rohingya from their ancestral homeland by organized use of intimidation, terror, rape, murder, destruction and other inhuman acts, under intolerant state policies, with a view to transforming the region into a close-knit homogenous Buddhist Rakhine territory. Decades of Rohingyas’ victimization in Myanmar, including the organized deadly violence occurred and reoccurred against them in Arakan from 2012, have not yet been properly and truthfully investigated. We hope the Annan Commission will leave no stone unturned in looking for an objective assessment.

ARAKAN ROHINGYA NATIONAL ORGANISATION

ARAKAN

(25 August 2016)

1.The Panglong Agreement signed on February 12, 1947 between the independence hero late Gen. Aung San and leaders of the several ethnic groups in Panglong, Shan State, was an epoch-making event in the history of Burma to build the Union of Burma together. The history of Burma/Myanmar would have developed differently if there was no Panglong Treaty.

2.But the true spirit of the Panglong — ‘unity in diversity’– has never been realized since Burma’s independence on January 4, 1948. The agreed upon principles of federal democracy, equal rights, autonomy and self-determination of the ethnic nationalities have been largely ignored which developed resentment giving rise to long civil war continuing till today.

16 May 2016

We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations express our serious concern that the security, honour and dignity of the Rohingya population continue to be at stake due to growing anti-Rohingya sentiment at the behest of the powerful and influential groups in the Myanmar.

We are worrying that the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) government seems to have inclined to yield to the demand of the extremists calling for “Rohingya ethnocide”. Following a protest in late May in Yangon by about 300 ultra-nationalists, including Buddhist monks, publicly denouncing the United States of America for using the word Rohingya, the Myanmar Foreign Ministry, headed by State Counselor-com-Foreign Minister Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, had surprisingly advised foreign embassies in Myanmar avoid using “Rohingya”, although the Rohingya people have the right to self-identify.

Press release, March 18, 2016

Our attention has been drawn to the statement of the Commander-in-Chief of the Burma’s armed forces, Snr. Gen Min Aung Hlaing at the 13^th ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces Informal meeting held on Monday (14/3/2016) in Vientiane, Laos where he “called for closer cooperation between the member states of the ASEAN to address the problem of the Rohingya migration” and “stressed the need to work together to combat “terrorism” related to the “Bengali” [Rohingya] issue.” Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) strongly condemns these lies and rebuts as follows:

1. 1.The international community is well aware that the Burmese/Myanmar military dictatorship is persistently denying the Rohingya people a ‘peaceful living’ in their own homeland on grounds of their ethnicity, religion and South Asian appearance in contrast to Southeast Asian.