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.
   

(Press release, 30 October 2015)
 
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) reiterates its call on the United Nations to establish independent investigation into genocide against Rohingya people in Myanmar.

ARNO welcomes and endorses the just released documentary film titled “Al Jazeera Investigates -Genocide Agenda”, legal analysis prepared for Fortify Rights by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School titled  “Persecution of the Rohingya Muslims: Is Genocide Occurring in Myanmar’s Rakhine State?”, and   the report “Count Down to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar “of the International State Crime Initiative at the School of Law, Queen Mary University,   all of which clearly established the facts that Thein Sein government has committed ‘atrocity crimes’ with intent to destroy the ethnic Rohingya from their ancestral homeland of Arakan/Rakhine State.

ARNO has once again stressed with highest appreciation the previous report, “Slow-Burning Genocide of the Myanmar’s Rohingya” by Burmese academic Dr. Maung Zani and Alice Cowley, published in Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, June 2014, of the University of Washington.

European Rohingya organizations call on international community to pressure Myanmar government to stop excruciating and forcing the Rohingya community into accepting a new ID known as ‘green card’, valid for just two years, for national verification with Bengali identity. It is an ethnocide aims at making the Rohingya aliens and people of Bangladesh origin.

The Rohingya people have rejected the so-called ‘green card’ as the ID is not related to their historicity, ethnic identity and national status. On top of that, being indigenous to Arakan, they are natural born citizens of Burma/Myanmar.

Without a green card or ID now the Rohingya are barred from going to bazaars and village to village, visiting doctors and relatives, and attending congregational prayers even within the same localities and are subjected to increased criminal atrocities.

The second European Rohingya Conference was held between 1-2 August 2015 in Esbjerg, Denmark. It was participated by Rohingya leaders, representatives from Rohingya organisations and communities from all over Europe. The conference discussed issues relating to Rohingya people, their refugees and current deteriorating situation.

The conference:

• Condemned the ruling Burmese/Myanmar government for its policies of ‘Rohingya ethnocide and extermination’ and practice of genocide and other ‘atrocity crimes’ against the Rohingya minority’ with manifest intention to destroy the entire Rohingya people from their ancestral homeland of Arakan/Burma.
• Condemned the ongoing conspiracy to deprive the Rohingya people of their time honoured rights to vote and to hold public offices after they were excluded from the UN sponsored 2014 general census held in March 2014 for identifying themselves as “Rohingya”.
• Condemned the government and extremist non-state actors for obstructing humanitarian aids to Rohingya and Muslim victims of recent devastating cyclone and flood in Arakan and other parts of Burma.