A small blast near an event hosted by a radical Myanmar monk who stands accused of inflaming Buddhist-Muslim tensions has left five people injured in Mandalay, police said Monday. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Myanmar President Thein Sein denied on Friday accusations of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims, saying the claims were part of a “smear campaign” against his government.
On a visit to Paris, Sein told France 24 television that his government was not guilty of the charges.
“Outside elements are just exaggerating, fabricating news, there is no ethnic cleansing whatsoever,” he said.
“This is a smear campaign against the government. What happened in Rakhine was not ethnic cleansing.”
In April, Human Rights Watch accused Myanmar of “a campaign of ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya.
It cited evidence of mass graves and forced displacement affecting tens of thousands.
The New York-based HRW said Myanmar officials, community leaders and Buddhist monks organised and encouraged mobs, backed by state security forces, to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim villages in October in the western state of Rakhine.
Communal unrest last year in Rakhine left about 200 people dead and up to 140,000 displaced, mainly Rohingyas, who are denied citizenship by Myanmar.
Dozens more people died in Buddhist-Muslim clashes in central Myanmar in March.
Thein Sein, on a European tour that took him to Britain and France, said the unrest had been contained and insisted authorities were looking to prevent further violence.
“The government has been able to contain this communal violence and things have returned to normal,” he said.
“My government has set up an independent commission to investigate the root causes of this communal violence. We have also been implementing the recommendations issued by the commission.”
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday urged Myanmar President Thein Sein to defend human rights as the former junta general made his first official visit to London.
Cameron said he was particularly concerned by violence targeting members of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority in which hundreds of people have been killed.
Thein Sein is visiting London and Paris this week as Myanmar continues its return from international isolation in the wake of reforms brought in by the president since 2011.
Welcoming the Myanmar leader on the red carpet outside his 10 Downing Street office, Cameron said he was “very pleased” to see Thein Sein on his “historic visit”.
But Cameron, who last year became the first British prime minister to visit Myanmar, added: “As well as the continuation of your reform process, we are also very keen to see greater action in terms of promoting human rights and dealing with regional conflicts.
“We are particularly concerned about what has happened in Rakhine province and the Rohingya Muslims.”
Buddhist-Muslim clashes in the western state of Rakhine last year left about 200 people dead, mostly Rohingya Muslims who are denied citizenship by Myanmar.
Further clashes have erupted in recent months.
Around a dozen protesters gathered outside Downing Street during Thein Sein’s visit calling for action to protect the Rohingya.
But Cameron followed the international community’s line on the need for economic development in particular to support reform in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
“We believe there are many areas for Britain and your country to co-operate together, diplomatically, in terms of trade and investment, the aid and development relationship and also our growing links in terms of our militaries,” Cameron said.
The British premier did not specify what the military links were.
Since Thein Sein took the presidency two years ago, the ex-military man has freed hundreds of political prisoners and welcomed democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party into parliament.
The European Union has ditched most sanctions except an arms embargo and readmitted Myanmar to its trade preference scheme.
The United States has also lifted most embargoes and foreign companies are now eager to enter the resource-rich nation, with its perceived frontier market of some 60 million potential consumers.
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Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says the communal violence threatening her country’s fledgling reforms must be stopped by ensuring the “rule of law” so that clashing groups feel secure enough for dialogue.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on a visit to Japan, told reporters Wednesday that she objects to violence “committed by anybody against anybody” and that Buddhist-Muslim violence threatens Myanmar’s progress toward greater democracy and economic growth.
Myanmar’s government has been criticized for failing to prevent attacks mostly on minority Muslims by majority Buddhists. Sectarian violence in Rakhine state has killed hundreds and driven more than 100,000 Rohingya Muslims from their homes.
Suu Kyi described the stateless Rohingya’s plight as a “sad state of affairs,” adding that Myanmar must face up to the citizenship issue.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/9zbRP61Avtw/
The top UN envoy to Myanmar on Sunday toured a central city destroyed in the country’s worst explosion of Buddhist-Muslim violence this year, calling on the government to punish those responsible for a tragedy that left dozens of corpses piled in the streets, some of them charred beyond recognition.
Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on Myanmar, also visited some of the nearly 10,000 people driven from their homes after sectarian unrest shook the city of Meikhtila for several days this week. Most of the displaced are minority Muslims, who appeared to have suffered the brunt of the violence as armed Buddhist mobs roamed city.
Nambiar said he was encouraged to learn that some individuals in both communities had bravely helped each other and that religious leaders were now advocating peace. He said the people he spoke to believe the violence “was the work of outsiders,” but he gave no details.
“There is a certain degree of fear and anxiety among the people, but there is no hatred,” Nambiar said after visiting both groups on Sunday and promising the United Nations would provide as much help as it can to get the city back on its feet. “They feel a sense of community and that it is a very good thing because they have worked together and lived together.”
But he added: “It is important to catch the perpetrators. It is important that they be caught and punished.”
Nambiar’s visit came one day after the army took control of the city to enforce a tense calm after President Thein Sein ordered a state of emergency here.
Late Saturday, the government put the death toll in the violence at 32, according to state television, which reported that bodies had been found as authorities began cleaning up the area.
The bloodshed marked the first sectarian unrest to spread into Myanmar’s heartland since two similar episodes rocked western Rakhine state last year. It is the latest challenge to efforts to reform the Southeast Asian country after the long-ruling military ceded power two years ago to a civilian government led by retired army officers.
There are concerns the violence could spread, and the bloodshed has raised questions about the government‘s failure to rein in anti-Muslim sentiment in a predominantly Buddhist country where even monks have armed themselves and taken advantage of newfound freedoms to stage anti-Muslim rallies.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Burning fires from two days of Buddhist-Muslim violence that killed at least 20 people smoldered across a central Myanmar town Friday as residents cowered indoors amid growing fears the country’s latest bout of sectarian bloodshed could spread.
The government’s struggle to contain the unrest in Meikhtila is proving another major challenge President Thein Sein‘s reformist administration as it attempts to chart a path to democracy after nearly half a century of military rule that once crushed all dissent.
