Humanitarian Crisis In Burma

[Dr. Gonzo]

Deserves it's own thread - because genocide is still genocide, even if the victims are Muslim.

Quote

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding on the border between Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Bangladesh. Over the last three weeks, nearly 400,000 Burmese Rohingya have fled the country, driven out by the devastating violence unleashed upon them by the military. Their stories are horrific: parents slaughtered in front of their children, systematic rape and sexual torture, wholesale destruction of villages. Aid and advocacy groups describe the rate of population displacement as unprecedented and the human misery among the refugees as unparalleled.

The violence is shocking, but at the same time it is entirely unsurprising. For the past three years, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Early Warning Project has identified Burma as one of the top three countries most at risk for a mass atrocity. Other researchers argued as early as 2015 that a genocidal campaign was already underway. With such clear indications that a crisis was coming, why did the world fail to protect the Rohingya?

The question is all the more puzzling because in 2005, the member states of the United Nations endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework, which obligates the international community to protect civilians from mass atrocities when their governments are “unwilling or unable” to keep them safe. R2P was borne out of collective guilt over the mass slaughter of civilians in Rwanda and Bosnia and promised a new era of “timely and decisive” atrocity response. In pursuit of this goal, early warning efforts to identify the precursors of mass atrocities became a focus for both international and state actors.

But if the Rohingya crisis has revealed anything, it’s that early warnings were never going to be enough to prevent mass atrocities.

As the death toll mounts, many observers are asking whether Burma is committing genocide. But the question hinges on intent, not scale. The mass slaughter of civilian members of a minority group by state forces is a crime against humanity. It may also be genocide if committed with the goal of destroying that group “in whole or in part.” And, practically speaking, the distinction doesn’t matter — neither for the Rohingya, who are being subjected to a brutal and systematic attack whatever the motive, nor for the international community, whose options and obligations in the face of mass atrocity do not depend on the name of the crime.

Called “the world’s most persecuted minority,” the Muslim Rohingya have suffered decades of discrimination and abuse at the hands of their Buddhist neighbors and the Burmese security forces. Although the Rohingya have lived in Burma’s western Rakhine state since the era of British colonial rule, Burma does not recognize their citizenship and insists that they are illegal migrants from Bangladesh. As a result of this deprivation of nationality, they have been systematically discriminated against and denied access to state services.

The Rohingya’s precarious legal status has made them particularly vulnerable to violence from other groups. In 2012, when ethnic riots erupted between Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state, 100,000 Rohingya fled their homes. Human rights groups documented the collusion of state forces in the violence, suggesting that the Rohingya’s subsequent forced relocation to squalid displacement camps and urban ghettos in the name of security was part of a deliberate plan to restrict their freedom of movement. In 2015, another alarm bell rang: The situation in the camps had become so dire that thousands of Rohingya boarded unsafe vessels on the Andaman Sea. An international crisis ensued when, in the face of the unprecedented numbers seeking asylum, Burma’s neighboring countries began turning back the boats.

When Rohingya insurgents attacked several border posts in October 2016, the government responded with unrestrained fury. Openly invoking the hate speech propagated by militant Buddhist monks, government officials have characterized the Rohingya as “dirty,” terrorists, and liars. By November 2016, human rights groups were warning that the military was systematically employing extrajudicial killings, torture, and sexual violence against the civilian population in the name of counterinsurgency. And in February 2017, a U.N. report concluded that the so-called “clearance operations” likely amounted to crimes against humanity. The violence, already severe, escalated sharply following the deaths of 12 security officers on Aug. 25. In response, the military launched an all-out attack on the Rohingya. Credible estimates suggest that over a third of the Rohingya population has fled. Thousands more attempt to cross the border into Bangladesh every day.

And the Rohingya are not the only post-R2P victims of long-telegraphed mass atrocities. In 2009, Sri Lanka slaughtered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final phase of its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The bloodbath was neither sudden nor unpredictable. The security forces had committed systematic abuses throughout the conflict and had expelled aid workers and journalists from the field of combat in late 2008. More recently, South Sudan’s descent into violence and anarchy was preceded by the breakdown of a power-sharing agreement and rumors of ethnic militias forming. In both cases, the threat of atrocities was clear, yet the international community took no action to prevent them.

These examples underscore the fact that a lack of advance notice is not the critical obstacle to action on mass atrocities. It’s politics. Many powerful countries are reluctant to permit action that impinges on another state’s sovereignty, lest the precedent be used against them later. This is particularly true for countries (like China, India, and Russia) fighting insurgencies within their own territory. And for those who lack these disincentives, the costs of action may still present a barrier. International actors are aware that humanitarian interventions are rarely simple exercises and often presage long-term commitments. And in the aftermath of the Libyan intervention, where R2P was explicitly invoked, they are particularly wary of the potential for making a bad situation worse.

Early warning has not saved the Rohingya because it can’t offset the countervailing interests or cooperation challenges that make preventing or halting mass atrocities difficult. And unfortunately, these dynamics are particularly pronounced in the present crisis. The Burmese government, including its Nobel Peace laureate civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has made a concerted push to brand the Rohingya as Islamic militants. Tapping into international counter-terrorism narratives simultaneously bolsters the legitimacy of the military operation against the Rohingya and undermines their status as innocent civilian victims of state abuse.

Additionally, the international community is already struggling to respond to mass atrocities elsewhere, most prominently in Syria, but also in the often-overlooked wars in Yemen, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In tandem, these two factors mean that the Rohingya are in competition with other atrocity victims for attention and assistance — and the terrorism allegations, however far-fetched, may make them appear comparatively less deserving.

Finally, the fact that the attacks on the Rohingya are taking place against the backdrop of a singularly apathetic U.S. administration further reduces the likelihood of intervention on their behalf. Under President Trump, the U.S. has removed human rights conditions on arms sales, gutted the State Department’s human rights and democracy promotion mission, and threatened to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

However vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy the United States has been in the past, its rhetorical commitment to human rights and willingness to exert pressure has provided a constraint on repressive states that seek the support of the West. But a world in which the United States openly ignores human rights constitutes a permissive environment for the commission of atrocities. Burma knows this, and it has seized the opportunity to finally rid itself of the Rohingya with little risk of interference.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/19/the-world-knew-ahead-of-time-the-rohingya-were-facing-genocide/

Pretty fucked up to be doing this under the guise of counterterrorism. Sadly, I don't think anything will happen other than Burma's current regime continuing their systematic slaughter. Too many world powers are too unwilling to do anything than stand by.

[Danny]

The Myanmar government have literally been denying that it's even happened, from what I last saw the UN have given them one more chance to do something about it.

400,000 people have fled their homes and entered Bangladesh, that's crazy. The government are still blaming this on the Rohingya militia who attacked security forces initially.

[6666]

It is fucking horrific what's going on there but unfortunately it's not a new thing. The Myanmar government and ethnic majority have been targeting the Rohingya for some time but it does seem that they've ratcheted up the barbaric killing.

[Spike]

That conflicting feeling when you are personally against international-interventionism but also hate seeing government commit atrocities. 

[Harry]

8 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Deserves it's own thread - because genocide is still genocide, even if the victims are Muslim.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/19/the-world-knew-ahead-of-time-the-rohingya-were-facing-genocide/

Pretty fucked up to be doing this under the guise of counterterrorism. Sadly, I don't think anything will happen other than Burma's current regime continuing their systematic slaughter. Too many world powers are too unwilling to do anything than stand by.

There has been a lot of momentum building on this story in the last week. At this rate is think its oly a matter of time before action is taken.

[IgnisExcubitor]

This piece by Bertil Lintner provides the best explanation of the crises. 

And let's call it by what is 'Ethnic Cleansing'. 

On a side note,  I am not really surprised to find details of yet another terrorist organisation that is linked to Pakistan, which really has become the training school of terrorism around world. 

https://www.atimes.com/article/truth-behind-myanmars-rohingya-insurgency/

 

The truth behind Myanmar’s Rohingya insurgency

While the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claims to be fighting an ethno-nationalist struggle, its leaders and extremist group links point towards a wider regional agenda

While Myanmar’s emergent Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claims it’s like other ethnic armed groups fighting for self-determination across the country and should not be branded as a terrorist organization, the realities on the ground tell a different tale.

ARSA represents an entirely new type of insurgency, one which the Myanmar military has demonstrated it is wholly ill-equipped to combat. Other ethnic resistance armies in Myanmar, such as those from the Kachin, Shan, Karen or Mon, dress in military uniforms with the names of their respective groups prominently displayed and badges showing their ranks.

 

ARSA’s Muslim fighters, by contrast, mingle with villagers and wear civilian clothes. After their low-grade attacks on security force targets, ARSA insurgents are known to retreat across the border to neighboring Bangladesh, where people speak the same language and adhere to the same religious beliefs. In that sense, ARSA’s tactics more resemble the Muslim insurgents in southernmost Thailand, adjacent to Malaysia, than Myanmar’s other ethnic armies.

Without sharing the ideological doctrines of Nepal’s and India’s Maoists, ARSA appears to have aped their fighting techniques. Rather than facing Myanmar’s army in battles and ambushes, ARSA, like Nepalese Maoist insurgents did when they were active and the Indian Naxalites do today, prefers to mobilize hundreds of unarmed villagers to attack state positions in the middle of the night.

Defenders of the targeted state outpost, usually small and isolated, get the impression that they are being surrounded by a much bigger fighting force. The relatively small attacking party then moves in, kills the intimidated soldiers or police and escapes with their weapons. It’s a style of attack familiar in South Asia but altogether foreign until now in Myanmar

After the attacks in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State on August 25, the Myanmar military claimed to have killed 400 insurgents. Most likely, however, nearly all of them would have been conscripted villagers. If that many ARSA fighters had been killed, almost the entire organization would have been wiped out, according to security analysts monitoring the group.

The same analysts say the strength of the organization is much less than what the rebels as well as Myanmar military authorities claim. According to insiders, ARSA’s strength is in the hundreds rather than thousands, with the total number of active trained combatants likely not exceeding 500.

While ARSA’s military capacities are limited, its propaganda machine is wide-reaching, with statements issued on Twitter and other social media platforms in surprisingly fluent English and in a language that aims to make the insurgent group appear moderate and reasonable.

In one of its first announcements on September 9, ARSA declared a month-long unilateral ceasefire to enable aid groups to reach Rohingya refugees and avert a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Aid groups have estimated over 400,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since ARSA’s August 25 attacks and the military’s brutal counteractions.

It was a bold declaration for a lightly armed group that is by no means a proper organized army. Many of the group’s attacks have been launched with machetes. At the same time, ARSA has failed to explain how attacks by their few and poorly equipped cadres facing the might of the Myanmar army could be seen as acts taken to ”protect the Rohingya.”

If reports from the area received by Asia Times are accurate, local people are furious with ARSA for giving the Myanmar military an excuse to “ethnically cleanse” the area of Rohingya and other minority groups.

On September 14, ARSA said it wanted to “make it clear” that it had no “links to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Lashkar-e-Taiba or any transnational terrorist group.” ARSA also wanted “it to be known by all states that it is prepared to work with security agencies to intercept and prevent terrorists from entering [Rakhine] and making a bad situation worse.”

Security analysts and terrorism experts are not convinced considering the group’s clear links to foreign extremist groups, including in Pakistan. ARSA’s leader, Ataullah abu Ammar Junjuni, also known as Hafiz Tohar, was born in Karachi and received madrassa education in Saudi Arabia.

There are hundreds of thousands of first, second and third generation Rohingya living in Orangi, Korangi, Landhi and other impoverished suburbs of Karachi. Nearly all of them are stateless, although they have lived in Pakistan for years and most by now were born there. The areas where they live are long-time hotbeds of extremist activity, with some known to have been recruited to fight in the wars in Afghanistan.

ARSA was initially known as Harakah al-Yaqin, or “the faith movement.” The moniker had clear religious connotations and notably did not contain the words Rohingya or Arakan (Rakhine). It was only last year it started to use the more ethnically oriented name ARSA, perhaps in an attempt to distance itself from the radical milieu in which the movement was born.

According to intelligence analysts, its mentor is Abdus Qadoos Burmi, another Pakistani of Rohingya descent. Likewise based in Karachi, he has appeared in videos spread on social media calling for ‘jihad’ in Myanmar.

Abdus Qadoos has well-documented links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of the Righteous, one of South Asia’s largest Islamic terrorist organizations that operates mainly from Pakistan. The group was founded in 1987 in Afghanistan with funding from now deceased Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Abdus Qadoos has even appeared in meetings together with Lashkar-e-Taiba supremo Hafiz Mohammed Syed.

ARSA’s second-ranking leader is a shadowy man known only as “Sharif” who comes from Chittagong in southwestern Bangladesh and does not appear in any of the group’s propaganda videos. He reportedly speaks with an Urdu language accent, the official language of Pakistan.

ARSA itself may have been able to recruit angry and desperate young men among the Rohingya in Rakhine state and refugee camps in Bangladesh, but, according to security analysts, there also 150 odd foreigners among their rank.

Most of them are from Bangladesh, eight to ten come from Pakistan with smaller groups from Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand. Two are reportedly from Uzbekistan. Trainings held in the Myanmar-Bangladesh border areas have been carried out in part by older veterans of the Afghan wars, the security analysts say.

It is now clear that the simultaneous attacks on August 25 required meticulous planning. In the months before the attacks, as many as 50 people, Muslims as well as Buddhists suspected of serving as government informants, had their throats slit or were hacked to death in order to deprive the Myanmar military of intelligence in the area.

The timing of the attacks was hardly a coincidence. On August 24, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine state, chaired by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and commissioned by the Myanmar government, released its report suggesting peaceful means to end the conflict in the area.

Under the current chaotic and violent situation it will be difficult to revive its proposals, leaving the road open for more destabilizing militant activities.

Videos released by Islamist groups in Indonesia show groups of young men undergoing military training in Aceh, northern Sumatra, in preparation for a jihad in Rakhine state. Massive demonstrations in support of the Rohingya have been held throughout Bangladesh, where the influx of refugees has quickly become a domestic political issue pitting the ruling Awami League against a fundamentalist-backed opposition.

Given the Myanmar military’s ferocious reaction to ARSA’s first clash with security forces last October 9, an exchange and subsequent “clearance operation” which forced as many as 70,000 refugees into Bangladesh, analysts consider it inconceivable that the group did not anticipate an even stronger response to the more widespread attacks of August 25.

If the group’s goal was to “protect the Rohingyas”, as ARSA has claimed, its attacks backfired horribly. But the militants must have calculated the wider benefits that could be derived from the blowback. The international publicity surrounding the Rohingya’s plight has been unprecedented, promising new and potentially lucrative support from the Arab and Muslim worlds and more angry young men to recruit.

But the victims of this cynical game are the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya and others who have been forced from their destroyed homes and now languish in squalid camps in Bangladesh or the inhospitable no man’s land along the two countries’ increasingly hellish border.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Some are suggesting the August 25th attacks were done by their government to give an excuse to legitimise the slaughter.

No idea how true that is, but there's a BBC article right now examining statements their govt has made and has called bullshit on them.

But Pakistan has long been a breeding and training ground for terrorism because Waziristan is largely (if not entirely) ignored by the Pakistani government - which tbh seems like tacitly condoning terrorism to me.

[nudge+]

It's not that simple, and calling it genocide or ethnic cleansing is just as bad as denying the crisis altogether, especially in such an extremely ethnically diverse country with over 130 distinct ethnic groups as Myanmar. The Rakhine State issue has been an ongoing conflict ever since the end of WWII, and there's definitely two sides of the story, with innocent people getting caught in the middle of it, as usual. There has always been tensions between the Rohingya Muslim and local Buddhist populations in Rakhine, they fought each other on different sides in the war already, with Rohingya allied with the British who promised them a separate Muslim state and Rakhine Buddhists allied with the Japanese. Various Rohingya mujahideen and islamist movements have been fighting Burmese government forces since the 50s, with their main goal being full autonomy or secession in order to get annexed by Pakistan (or East Pakistan at that time, now Bangladesh). Most of the Burmese military crackdowns against the insurgents have been successful though, and the conflict was more or less kept at bay (although there always have been various ongoing incidents between the two sides (killings, arson, bombings, destruction of religious monuments, riots etc), perpetrated by either of the two sides and with the other side then retaliating), until it started properly escalating again with 2012 riots and the newly formed ARSA, a group originally known as Harakah al-Yaqin which has its fighters and commanders predominantly trained in Pakistan and fighting in Afghanistan and Chechnya, has links to Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and Bangladesh jihadi group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, and takes its religious guidance from an Islamic clergy based in Saudi Arabia. The islamist insurgency movements is also one of the reasons why Rohingya have been stripped off citizenship back in the 80s (along with the claims of many Rohingyas being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh), while Kaman Muslims (another muslim group in Rakhine) were formally recognised by the Burmese government as one of the indigenous ethnic groups and granted full citizenship rights. While we're at it, Kaman muslims are actually one of the biggest victims in the conflict, as they get targeted by both the Buddhist ultra-nationalists due to the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the region, and Rohingya due to being seen as "fake Muslims" as they share many cultural traits with Rakhine Buddhists and are Burmese citizens. The whole issue is completely fucked up. On one hand, Myanmar has every right to defend its own territory and fight islamist insurgents, on the other hand, brutal military crackdowns are going to alienate and radicalise even more of the Muslim population in the region, bringing a new cycle of violence. 

[Spike]

130 ethnic groups!? And people say homogeneity is a bad thing.

[nudge+]

3 minutes ago, Spike said:

130 ethnic groups!? And people say homogeneity is a bad thing.

135, to be precise - and that's only those that are officially recognised by the government, so many more actually exist. No wonder stability and peace have been so hard to maintain in Myanmar with all those centuries-old inter-ethnic conflicts; there's lack of identity, shifting alliances, and ongoing localised armed conflicts in pretty much every region.

[Fairy In Boots]

The ITN report in which they interviewed a guy where he said "all I did was place a few IED's and now since they've gone off the government want us out" made me chuckle. I thought ah this is as clear as mud

[Dr. Gonzo]

Quote

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday became the latest voice to brand the killing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as “genocide”.

“France will work with its partners at the UN Security Council to take the initiative to get the UN to condemn the continuing genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Macron said in an interview with French broadcaster TMC in New York.

In his first address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Macron used the words “ethnic cleansing” to describe the mass killing of Rohingya in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine.

“We must condemn the ethnic purification which is under way and act,” he added in his Wednesday interview.

Since Aug. 25, more than 421,000 Rohingya have crossed from Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN.

The refugees are fleeing a fresh security operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, who has also termed the killings “genocide”, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Last October, following attacks on border posts in Rakhine's Maungdaw district, security forces launched a five-month crackdown in which, according to Rohingya groups, around 400 people were killed.

The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

https://aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/france-calls-for-un-action-on-rohingya-genocide/915558

[IgnisExcubitor]

@nudge raises a valid point about conflict between communities which is always the starting point.  Here in India we are seeing something similar in Leh,  which is predominantly a Buddhist region. Lack of assimilation,  disrespect to other religions,  unwillingness to Coexist and forced conversions of women by the usual suspects is causing massive tensions.  

On a side note,  our media is reporting about Hindu victims at the hands of Rohingya Muslims.  A grave of 90+ Hindus uncovered and stories of forced conversions of Hindu women in refugee camps by Rohingyas.  The kind of violence which the rest of the world is unwilling to talk about.  

Also,  of the refugees accepted in India there have already been incidents of Rohingyas being arrested by our intelligence forces for either joining or conspiring with terrorists against India.

Not condoning the actions of Myanmar’s military but radicalisation is a point here amongst Rohingyas. 

[IgnisExcubitor]

Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh forcibly converting Hindu women. 

This is fucked up. Like you scream of atrocities and then on being saved commit atrocities on others.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

17 minutes ago, IgnisExcubitor said:

Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh forcibly converting Hindu women. 

This is fucked up. Like you scream of atrocities and then on being saved commit atrocities on others.

 

This is incredibly fucked up.

[Fairy In Boots]

The pictures of mass Hindu graves will rapidly erode sympathy for the Rohingya there's whole fucking villages

[Harry]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

This is incredibly fucked up.

Are we sure it's genuine not propaganda? 

[Dr. Gonzo]

33 minutes ago, Harry said:

Are we sure it's genuine not propaganda? 

If it's coming from the Burmese government... it's 50-50 as to whether it's true or not. These are the same people saying that villages aren't being destroyed as people are reporting that the villages are indeed being destroyed. If it's coming from elsewhere... it's probably more credible. Ultimately, it depends on the source as to whether it's credible. For this one, I'm not sure to be honest. I'm not sure if it's anti-Rohingya propaganda because of the Rohingya-Pakistan connection, to bash the friend of an enemy. Or on the other hand, it could be legitimate.

If it's true, it's fucked up. It also wouldn't be the first time that victims of oppression then decide to become oppressors though.

 

[Harry]

6 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

If it's coming from the Burmese government... it's 50-50 as to whether it's true or not. These are the same people saying that villages aren't being destroyed as people are reporting that the villages are indeed being destroyed. If it's coming from elsewhere... it's probably more credible. Ultimately, it depends on the source as to whether it's credible. For this one, I'm not sure to be honest. I'm not sure if it's anti-Rohingya propaganda because of the Rohingya-Pakistan connection, to bash the friend of an enemy. Or on the other hand, it could be legitimate.

If it's true, it's fucked up. It also wouldn't be the first time that victims of oppression then decide to become oppressors though.

 

I'm suspicious at the moment as I'm not seeing this reported in the major western media outlets.

If they felt it could be verified I'd presume they would print and we would be reading about it. 

[IgnisExcubitor]

7 hours ago, Fairy In Boots said:

The pictures of mass Hindu graves will rapidly erode sympathy for the Rohingya there's whole fucking villages

Yep,  have seen the graphic pictures of one such mass grave where close to 90+ Hindus were slaughtered and buried. Hearing there are plenty more -  in the region of thousands. 

7 hours ago, Harry said:

Are we sure it's genuine not propaganda? 

That video is genuine.  Apart from two channels here,  every other news channel here in India is Pro refugee and anti Myanmar military, including the one posted above. 

News of atrocities on Hindus and Buddhists are only filtering out now. I am reading multiple reports on Hindu villages being burnt,  men being killed and women raped and converted -  not by Myanmar military but Muslims.  Have also seen pictures of mass graves of Hindus. 

[Fairy In Boots]

23 minutes ago, Harry said:

I'm suspicious at the moment as I'm not seeing this reported in the major western media outlets.

If they felt it could be verified I'd presume they would print and we would be reading about it. 

Lol when will you learn don't trust western media, it serves special interests, journaliststic integrity died years ago.

you have the internet read 3-4 articles and build a picture yourself 

[nudge+]

40 minutes ago, Harry said:

I'm suspicious at the moment as I'm not seeing this reported in the major western media outlets.

If they felt it could be verified I'd presume they would print and we would be reading about it. 

As if major western media outlets are a beacon of truth and unbiased journalism... At any case, if you insist:

Quote

 

The military on Wednesday flew a group of reporters from the city of Yangon to see the bodies laid out on the grass, and to hear from those who found them after information about the massacre filtered back from Hindus who have sought refuge from the violence in Bangladesh.

“We followed the paths based on the information we got from the other side,” police officer Okkar Ko told reporters at the scene.

“We found where the soil wasn’t normal and then when we dug up the ground, the smell came out.”

The latest violence in Rakhine state erupted on Aug. 25, when Rohingya Muslim insurgents attacked 30 police posts and an army camp, killing about 12 people.

Hours later, insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) came to the Hindu village of Ye Baw Kya, gathered up about 100 people, marched them away through their fields and killed them with knives, the government says.

In late August, Reuters reporters in Bangladesh interviewed a group of Hindu women from the village who said their male loved ones were killed by Rakhine Buddhists.

However, three of the same women told Reuters this week that Muslims who brought them to Bangladesh had ordered them to say it was Buddhist vigilantes who had done the killing.

The three – who individually recounted closely matching stories – said that on Aug. 25, they and about 100 other Hindus were marched by masked men to the area of the mass graves.

They were later able to identify some of the masked men as Rohingya Muslims, although the women said the men spoke several languages they could not identify, besides the dialect spoken by both Muslims and Hindus in the area.

“We watched as they tied each person, hands behind their back and also legs ... They cut all their throats and pushed them into a hole,” said one of the women, Bina Bala, 22, adding that the women were spared after promising to convert to Islam.

They said the attackers had objected to official identity cards given to Hindus but not Muslims, saying Hindus should not have them.

The victims were blindfolded, with their hands tied and had their throats slit, said Kyaw Maung Maung Thien, hospital superintendent in the Myanmar town of Maungdaw, who examined the bodies.

 

Full article here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-hindus/slaughtered-hindus-a-testament-to-brutality-of-myanmars-conflict-idUSKCN1C21M6?il=0

Reuters is good enough for you, I suppose?... I'm surprised you haven't read it so far, all major news outlets in various Asian and European countries (both muslim and non-muslim) have covered this as well.

By the way, UN representatives and independent observers have been just granted access to Rakhine State and are expected to arrive today.

[bozziovai]

Wirathu.    curse that man.

one of my salesman comes from bangladesh and his accounts is really gut-wrenching.   the people from rohingya are very poor and yet here they are persecuted becoz of their religion and what's worst, the government of myanmar is just turning a blind eye.

[nudge+]

There has been an explosion at Myanmar's embassy in Egypt on Sunday.

Quote

 

Egyptian militant group Hasm claimed responsibility on Sunday for a small explosion at Myanmar's embassy in Cairo, saying it was in retaliation for that country's military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

Egypt's interior ministry has not commented on Saturday's blast, which residents and media initially reported as probably the result of a faulty gas pipeline. Two security sources told Reuters that traces of explosives had been found at the scene.

"This bombing serves as a warning to the embassy of murderers, killers of women and children in the Muslim Rakhine State, and in solidarity with the sons of this weakened Muslim population," Hasm said in its statement.

It was the first time that Hasm, a group blamed for several attacks targeting judges and policemen around Cairo since last year, has claimed an attack on a civilian target.

"(We have used) utmost caution to ensure that there were no civilian casualties or innocent people (hurt) during the operation, or else you would have seen a burning hell you could not have stopped," Hasm said in the statement.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/attack-myanmar-embassy-was-retaliation-rohingya-crackdown-says-egyptian-militants-1559952471

 

 

Meanwhile, Myanmar has taken three groups of foreign diplomats, journalists and UN representatives on a tour in the Rakhine state today, and also agreed to take verified Rohingya refugees back from Bangladesh.