krisis rohingya dalam, rizaldy febriyansyah, fikom umn, 2018kc.umn.ac.id/6188/1/skripsi.pdf · viii...

Team project ©2017 Dony Pratidana S. Hum | Bima Agus Setyawan S. IIP

Hak cipta dan penggunaan kembali:

Lisensi ini mengizinkan setiap orang untuk menggubah, memperbaiki, dan membuat ciptaan turunan bukan untuk kepentingan komersial, selama anda mencantumkan nama penulis dan melisensikan ciptaan turunan dengan syarat yang serupa dengan ciptaan asli.

Copyright and reuse:

This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon work non-commercially, as long as you credit the origin creator and license it on your new creations under the identical terms.

KRISIS ROHINGYA

DALAM PEMBERITAAN ONLINE

DI MYANMAR TIMES DAN THE NEW YORK TIMES:

ANALISIS KOMPARASI MEDIA

SKRIPSI

Diajukan guna Memenuhi Persyaratan Memperoleh

Gelar Sarjana Ilmu Komunikasi (S.I.Kom.)

Rizaldy Febriyansyah

13140110391

PROGRAM STUDI ILMU KOMUNIKASI

FAKULTAS ILMU KOMUNIKASI

UNIVERSITAS MULTIMEDIA NUSANTARA

TANGERANG

2018

Krisis Rohingya Dalam..., Rizaldy Febriyansyah, FIKOM UMN, 2018

HALAMAN PERSEMBAHAN

O إ ن مع العسر يسرا O ن مع العسر يسرا فإ

“Karena sesungguhnya sesudah kesulitan itu ada kemudahan, sesungguhnya

sesudah kesulitan itu ada kemudahan. (Q.S. Al-Insyirah ayat 5-6)”


v

KATA PENGANTAR

Puji dan syukur penulis haturkan kepada Allah SWT karena dengan izinnya

peneliti mampu menyelesaikan skripsi dengan judul “KRISIS ROHINGYA DALAM

PEMBERITAAN ONLINE DI MYANMAR TIMES DAN THE NEW YORK TIMES:

ANALISIS KOMPARASI MEDIA”. Skripsi ini diajukan kepada Program Strata 1,

Program Studi Ilmu Komunikasi, Fakultas Ilmu Komunikasi, dan Universitas

Multimedia Nusantara.

Selama proses penyelesaian skripsi ini, penulis mendapat dukungan dan

masukan dari beberapa pihak. Dengan berakhirnya proses penulisan skripsi ini, peneliti

ingin mengucapkan terima kasih kepada:

1. Ibu Lupita Wijaya, selaku dosen pembimbing skripsi yang telah

memberikan waktu untuk saran dan dukungan yang begitu luar biasa;

2. Bapak F.X. Lilik Mardjianto, selaku ketua sidang skripsi yang telah

memberikan sejumlah masukan dan perbaikan agar skripsi penulis bisa

lebih baik lagi;

3. Bapak Rony Agustino Siahaan, selaku penguji dalam sidang skripsi yang

telah memberi saran dan masukan untuk menyempurnakan skripsi penulis;

4. Orang tua penulis yang selama ini selalu mendukung dan memberi

semangat di setiap langkah penulis sejak kecil hingga saat ini;

5. Naddya Dea Kusnadi, perempuan yang menambah daya semangat penulis

untuk segera lulus dan menjadi orang sukses;

6. Teman-teman terbaik, terhebat, terkeren yang ada di grup Rumput

Bergoyang: Along, Marsella, dan Wece, yang selalu seru;

7. Personil grup One Heart, Naddya (lagi), Marsella (lagi), dan Vivi a.k.a.

personil RNVP yang kalo liburan tanpa wacana;


vi

8. Dulur region kelapa dua, Hafizh Gemilang, yang suka gabut bareng dan

selalu siap sedia jadi tempat ketawa-ketiwi dan nitip motor;

9. Ci Angel Luzart dan Daniel Steven Nicholas, yang telah memberikan

masukan serta saran selama penulis melakukan penulisan skripsi;

10. Karib-karibku, seperjuangan sejak Orientasi Mahasiswa Baru, Bonita Widi

Destyani, Tantyo Bahriawan, dan Juwandi, yang punya cita-cita lulus sama-

sama;

11. Dan teman-teman seperjuangan lainnya yang ingin sama-sama cepat meraih

gelar S1.

Demikian laporan magang ini penulis susun dengan harapan dapat bermanfaat

bagi penulis maupun pembaca. Penulis menyadari bahwa terdapat beberapa

kekurangan dari segi penulisan atau kata-kata yang tertulis, maka penulis membuka

segala kritik dan saran untuk menyempurnakan laporan ini.

Tangerang, 03 Agustus 2018

Penulis,



vii

ISU ROHINGYA

DALAM PEMBERITAAN ONLINE

DI MYANMAR TIMES DAN THE NEW YORK TIMES:

ANALISIS KOMPARASI MEDIA

ABSTRAK

Oleh: Rizaldy Febriyansyah

Media merupakan sumber utama dari berbagai informasi atau isu yang ada di

dunia, baik itu berskala nasional mau pun internasional. Selain itu media juga berfungsi

sebagai alat untuk mengontruksi presepsi dari masyarakat global tentang negara asing,

budaya, dan ideologi.

Salah satu efek terbesar dari media adalah yang mana media dapat membentuk

opini publik tentang suatu hal yang diberitakan. Saat ini isu yang telah dibahas secara

global adalah isu Rohingya, Myanmar. Isu Rohingya ini juga telah menjadi

perbincangan di berbagai belahan dunia. Bahkan, isu ini telah masuk ke dalam salah

satu pembahasan di Forum Parlemen Dunia yang diadakan di Bali pada 6-7 September

2017.

Skripsi yang penulis tulis membahas menganai bagaimana isu Rohingya

dibingkai melalui bingkai konflik, national interest, dan news sources di media online

Myanmar Times dan The New York Times. Penulis memilih Myanmar Times karena

media tersebut merupakan situs berita bebahasa inggris pertama dan terbesar di

Myanmar. Sedangkan pemilihan The New York Times dikarenakan media asal Amerika

Serikat tersebut menjadi media online kedua yang paling sering dikunjungi di dunia

setelah CNN (Alexa.com, 2018).

Penulis menggunakan teknik analisis isi kuantitatif dengan sifat penelitian

deskriptif dalam penelitian ini. Pengujian reliabilitas instrumen penelitian ini

menggunakan rumus Cohen Kappa dengan bantuan SPSS versi 20.0. Penulis meneliti

59 berita sepanjang 25 Agustus – 25 Sptember 2017. Secara umum isu Rohingya


viii

dibingkai dengan bingkai konflik oleh Myanmar Times dan The New York Times dan

penggunaan sumber berita yang paling banyak digunakan adalah pejabat pemerintah.

Kata Kunci: Framing, Conflict Interest Frame, National Interest, News Sources,

Analisis Isi Kuantitatif, Myanmar Times, The New York Times


ix

ROHINGYA ISSUES IN ONLINE NEWS

AT MYANMAR TIMES AND THE NEW YORK TIMES:

MEDIA COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT

By: Rizaldy Febriyansyah

Media is the main source of various information or issues that exist in the world,

whether it is national or international. In addition, the media also functions as a tool to

construct the perception of the global community about foreign countries, culture, and

ideology.

One of the biggest effects of the media is that the media can shape public

opinion about something that is reported. Currently, the issue that has been discussed

globally is Rohingya issue, Myanmar. This Rohingya issue has also become a

conversation in various parts of the world. In fact, this issue has entered into one of the

discussions at the World Parliamentary Forum held in Bali on 6-7 September 2017.

The author's thesis discusses how the Rohingya issue is framed through the

framework of conflict, national interest, and news sources in Myanmar Times and The

New York Times online media. The author chose Myanmar Times because the media

was the first and largest English language news site in Myanmar. While the election of

The New York Times due to media from the United States became the second most

frequently visited online media in the world after CNN (Alexa.com, 2018).

The author uses quantitative content analysis techniques with the nature of

descriptive research in this study. The reliability testing of this research instrument uses

the Cohen Kappa formula with the help of SPSS version 20.0. The author examines 59

stories from August 25 to September 25, 2017. In general, the Rohingya issue is framed

in conflict frames by the Myanmar Times and The New York Times and the most

widely used use of news sources is government officials.


x

Keywords: Framing, Conflict Interest Frame, National Interest, News Sources,

Quantitative Content Analysis, Myanmar Times, The New York Times


xi

DAFTAR ISI

DAFTAR ISI Hlm.

HALAMAN JUDUL .................................................................................................... i

HALAMAN PERNYATAAN ..................................................................................... ii

HALAMAN PERSETUJUAN....................................................................... iii

HALAMAN PERSEMBAHAN..................................................................... iv

KATA PENGANTAR ..................................................................................... v

ABSTRAK ..................................................................................................... vii

ABSRACT ....................................................................................................... ix

DAFTAR ISI ................................................................................................... xi

DAFTAR TABEL......................................................................................... xiv

DAFTAR BAGAN ......................................................................................... xv

DAFTAR GAMBAR .................................................................................... xvi

DAFTAR DIAGRAM ................................................................................. xvii

BAB I PENDAHULUAN .................................................................................. 1

Latar Belakang ..................................................................................................... 1

1.1. Rumusan Masalah ...................................................................................... 6

1.2. Pertanyaan Penelitian ................................................................................. 7

1.3. Tujuan Penelitian........................................................................................ 8

1.4. Kegunaan Penelitian ................................................................................... 8

a. Kegunaan Akademis ............................................................................ 8

b. Kegunaan Praktis.................................................................................. 8

c. Kegunaan Sosial ................................................................................... 8

1.5. Keterbatasan Penelitian .............................................................................. 9

BAB II KERANGKA PEMIKIRAN ............................................................. 10

2.1. Penelitian Terdahulu ................................................................................ 11


xii

2.2. Teori dan Konsep yang digunakan ........................................................... 19

2.2.1 Isu Rohingya Sebagai Krisis Kemanusiaan ................................... 19

2.2.2 Berita Internasional .......................................................................... 20

2.2.3 Jurnalisme Online ............................................................................. 21

2.2.4 Framing Media atas Isu Krisis .................................................... 23

2.2.4.1 Five Crisis Frame ................................................................ 24

2.2.4.2 National Interest Frame ...................................................... 25

2.2.4.3 News Sources ....................................................................... 28

2.3. Hipotesis Penelitian .................................................................................. 30

2.4. Alur Penelitian.......................................................................................... 32

BAB III Metodologi Penelitian ...................................................................... 33

3.1. Jenis dan Sifat Penelitian ............................................................................ 31

3.2. Metode Penelitian........................................................................................ 34

3.3. Populasi dan Sampel ................................................................................... 35

3.4. Operasionalisasi Konsep ............................................................................. 40

3.5. Teknik Pengumpulan Data .......................................................................... 45

3.5.1 Data Primer ............................................................................................ 45

3.5.2 Data Sekunder ........................................................................................ 45

3.6. Validitas ...................................................................................................... 45

3.7. Reliabilitas................................................................................................... 47

3.8. Teknik Analisis Data ................................................................................... 53

BAB IV HASIL PENELITIAN DAN PEMBAHASAN ............................... 54

4.1. Objek Penelitian ................................................................................................ 54

4.2. Hasil Penelitian ........................................................................................... 56

4.3. Pembahasan ....................................................................................................... 81

BAB V SIMPULAN DAN SARAN ................................................................ 88

5.1. Simpulan ............................................................................................................ 88

5.2. Saran ............................................................................................................ 90

DAFTAR PUSTAKA


xiii

LAMPIRAN

RIWAYAT HIDUP


xiv

DAFTAR TABEL

Tabel 2.1 Perbandingan Penelitian .............................................................................. 12

Tabel 3.1 Jumlah Pemberitaan di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times......…..36

Tabel 3.2 Sampel Penelitian ………………………………………………………...37

Tabel 3.3 Tabel Operasionalisasi ……………………………………………………41

Tabel 3.4 Sampel Pilot Test …………………………………………………………47

Tabel 3.5 Interobserver Variation ……………………………..……………………48

Tabel 3.6 Interpretation of Kappa …………..………………………………………50

Tabel 3.7 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian Five Crisis Frame …………………50

Tabel 3.8 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian National Interest …………………..51

Tabel 3.9 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian News Sources ……………….……..51

Tabel 3.10 Nilai Reliabilitas ………………………………………………………...52

Tabel 4.1 Nilai Uji Chi Square Five Crisis Frame………………………...………...56

Tabel 4.2 Nilai Uji Chi Square National Interest………….………………………...68

Tabel 4.3 Nilai Uji Chi Square News Sources………..……………………………...76


xv

DAFTAR BAGAN

Bagan 2.1 Alur Penelitian ........................................................................................... 32


xvi

DAFTAR GAMBAR

Gambar 1.1 Media Bias Chart ....................................................................................... 5


xvii

DAFTAR DIAGRAM

Diagram 4.1 News Sources ......................................................................................... 78


1

BAB I

PENDAHULUAN

1.1 LATAR BELAKANG

Sebuah krisis kemanusiaan dengan skala dan cakupan yang cukup besar sedang

berlangsung di negara bagian Rakhine, Myanmar barat. Lebih dari 420.000 wanita,

anak-anak, dan pria Rohingya telah melarikan diri dari Myanmar karena kekerasan

yang terjadi tengah meluas di negara bagian Rakhine (Beyrer & Kamarulzaman,

2017, p. 1570).

Walaupun sejumlah kekerasan yang terjadi di Rohingya ini tidak

dipresentasikan dalam skala angka, penduduk minoritas di Rohingya telah

mengalami persekusi dalam beberapa dekade. Sejak 2012 lalu, para penduduk

Rohingya telah menjadi pengungsi internal (internally displaced persons (IDP))

Myanmar (Beyrer & Kamarulzaman, 2017, p.1570).

Hampir 400 orang tewas dalam pertempuran di Myanmar barat laut.

Pertempuran itu dimulai sejak 25 Agustus 2017 saat tantara Myanmar melancarkan

serangan kepada grilyawan Rohingya (Antara, 2017, para. 1-2). Serangan yang

terjadi pada 25 Agustus itu berakibat lebih dari 123.000 warga Rohingya telah

meninggalkan lokasi kekerasan di Rakhine, Myanmar, dan mengungsi ke

Bangladesh (BBC Indonesia, 2017, para. 2)


2

Diplomat di Yangon telah melaporkan bahwa distribusi makanan dan layanan

medis untuk kamp-kamp pengungsi ini telah dihentikan setelah serangan pada 25

Agustus 2017 itu yang menambah krisis kemanusiaan di Myanmar semakin parah.

(Beyrer & Kamarulzaman, 2017, p.1571).

Isu krisis Rohingya ini juga telah menjadi perbincangan di berbagai belahan

dunia. Bahkan, isu ini telah masuk ke dalam salah satu pembahasan di Forum

Parlemen Dunia yang diadakan di Bali pada 6-7 September 2017 (Sasongko, 2017,

para. 1-2).

Salah satu tema yang akan dibahas delegasi parlemen dunia adalah Ending

Violence and Sustaining Peace. Sesi ini merumuskan bagaimana peran parlemen

dalam mencegah timbulnya aksi kekerasan dan menciptakan perdamaian. Dan isu

kemanusiaan yang terjadi di Rohingya adalah salah satunya (Sjafri, 2017, para. 8).

Sadar bahwa masalah ini ada dalam konteks global, sejumlah media dunia juga

menyoroti krisis ini dalam pemberitaan media walaupun tidak menjadi topik

utama.

Dilansir dari BBC Indonesia, salah satu media asal Inggris yang sekaligus

menjadi salah satu media paling sering dikunjungi di dunia, The Guardian, pun

ikut serta menyuguhkan laporan ekslusif tentang isu Rohingya (Siregar, 2017,

para. 2).

The Guardian membuat sebuah laporan berjudul 'Pembunuhan masal di Tula

Toli: penduduk Rohingya mengenang horor serangan militer Myanmar'. Laporan


3

ini ditulis oleh wartawan Oliver Holmes dari kamp pengungsi Cox's Bazar di

Bangladesh (Siregar, 2017, para. 3).

Berita tentang Rohingya juga turun di The Times, yang mengulas pernyataan

Suu Kyi bahwa persekusi atas Muslim adalah berita palsu dalam edisi cetaknya

pada kamis (07/09/2017) (Siregar, 2017, para. 8).

The Telegraph juga menurunkan pemberitaan terkait konflik Rohingya, The

Telegraph mengutip kesaksian seorang ibu yang menempuh perjalanan panjang

membawa putranya yang berusia satu bulan. Ada juga ibu lain yang membawa

putranya berusia 14 tahun dengan tandu karena tertembak di bagian paha (Siregar,

2017, para. 11).

Rohingya pun menjadi topik utama di situs berita berbahasa Inggris di

Bangladesh, The Daily Star, dengan judul 'Turki berdiri bersama pengungsi

Rohingya: Ibu Negara' yang melaporkan kunjungan Emine Erdogan-istri Presiden

Turki, Recep Tayyip Erdogan- ke kamp pengungsian di Kutupalong, Cox's Bazar,

Bangladesh (Siregar, 2017, para. 12).

Media merupakan sumber utama dari berbagai informasi atau isu yang ada di

dunia, baik itu berskala nasional mau pun internasional. Selain itu media juga

berfungsi sebagai alat untuk mengontruksi presepsi dari masyarakat global tentang

negara asing, budaya, dan ideologi (Kucherenko & Christen dalam Bier M.

Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael J., 2017, p. 2).

Salah satu efek terbesar dari media adalah yang mana media dapat membentuk

opini publik tentang suatu hal yang diberitakan, terutama saat kondisi krisis


4

(Coombs dalam Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael J., 2017, p.

2).

Dalam sebuah penelitian empiris yang telah dilakukan juga menjelaskan bahwa

adanya hubungan antara kepentingan nasional, kewarganegaraan internasional,

dan komunikasi dari masalah krisis internasional yang tergambarkan dalam media

(Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael J., 2017, p. 3).

Dalam penelitian ini penulis memilih dua media untuk dijadikan objek

penelitian, yaitu The New York Times dan Myanmar Times. Pemilihan The New

York Times dikarenakan saat ini salah satu media asal Amerika ini tengah menjadi

salah satu media daring paling sering dikunjungi di dunia. The New York Times

berada di posisi kedua setelah CNN yang kini tengah menjadi media paling sering

dikunjungi di dunia (Alexa.com, 2018).

Seorang pengacara asal Amerika Serikat, Vanessa Ottero, yang dalam beberapa

tahun terakhir tengah meneiliti tentang media (lanskap dan kategorisasi), menilai

bahwa dari sisi penyajian fakta dan kompleksitas analisis, The New York Times

lebih baik dibandingkan dengan CNN (Ottero, 2018).

Sehingga hal inilah yang membuat penulis lebih memilih The New York Times

dibandingkan dengan CNN. Bahkan dalam bagan pembagian bias media lainnya

yang pernah ditulis oleh Vanessa Ottero, The New York Times juga memiliki

tingkat aktualitas yang lebih baik dibandingkan dengan CNN.


5

Gambar 1.1 Media Bias Chart

(Sumber: Ottero, 2018, para. 1)

Pemilihan Myanmar Times sebagai subjek penelitian kedua adalah karena

Myanmar Times merupakan situs berita berbahasa inggris terbesar di Myanmar.

(Sasongko, 2017, para. 13).

Pemilihan tema isu krisis Rohingya juga didasari dengan adanya kepedulian

masyarakat Indonesia terkait isu ini. Konflik yang terjadi memang berjarak cukup

jauh dari Indonesia. Namun, masyarakat Indonesia turut memerhatikan

perkembangan yang terjadi di Rohingya. Tidak hanya dari masyarakat Indonesia,

presiden Joko Widodo pun telah menyatakan komitmen Indonesia untuk


6

membantu mengatasi krisis Rohingya di Myanmar. Selain langkah diplomasi,

pemerintah Indonesia pun telah turun langsung membantu dengan memberikan

bantuan berupa makanan dan obat-obatan (Tempo.co, 2017, para. 1-4)

Kepedulian masyarakat Indonesia terhadap isu Rohingya juga terlihat dari

bagaimana masyarakat turun langsung untuk melakukan ‘aksi bela Rohingya’.

Contohnya adalah dengan adanya aksi bela Rohingya dari seribu orang yang

berasal dari sejumlah ormas keagamaan di Magelang pada 08 September 2017

(Gumilang, 2017, para. 3)

Selain itu ada juga ‘aksi bela Rohingya 169’ yang diadakan di gerbang Monas,

Jakarta Pusat pada 16 September 2017. Aksi ini diikuti oleh ribuan anggota

masyarakat yang mencakup masyarakat umum dan organisasi masa Islam

(Purnama, 2017, para. 2)

1.2 RUMUSAN MASALAH

Hal yang tidak bisa dihindari dalam sebuah pemberitaan adalah proses

pembingkaian. Pembingkaian atau framing adalah sebuah proses di mana sebuah

media memilih beberapa bagian dari realitas dan membuat hal tersebut lebih

menonjol dari yang lainnya (Entman dalam Cozma, Raluca & Kozman, Claudia,

2017, p. 5).


7

Pembingkaian media juga akan memberikan efek kepada bagaimana cara

konsumer media belajar, menginterpretasikan, dan menilai suatu informasi (De

Vreese dalam dalam Cozma, Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Semetko dan Valkenburg (2000) mengatakan bahwa sebuah konflik sering

digunakan untuk menarik perhatian audiens, atau bisa dijadikan dengan nilai berita

utama. Human interest berfokus pada sisi emosional dari krisis tersebut.

Sedangkan moralitas berfokus pada gambaran dari situasi dalam konteks moral

atau nilai-nilai agama atau social prescriptions (Cozma, Raluca & Kozman,

Claudia, 2017, p. 5)

Rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini adalah “Bagaimana bingkai media yang

dilakukan oleh Myanmar Times dan The New York Times dalam isu krisis

Rohingya?”

1.3 PERTANYAAN PENELITIAN

Pertanyaan penelitian dalam penelitian ini adalah:

1. Bagaimana framing konflik yang dilakukan oleh Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times terhadap isu krisis Rohingya (dalam hal konflik, tanggung

jawab, moralitas, human interest, dan konsekuensi ekonomi)?”

2. Bagaimana pemberitaan mengenai isu krisis Rohingya di Myanmar Times

dan The New York Times merefleksikan national interest di masing-masing

negara?


8

3. Apa sumber berita utama yang digunakan oleh Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times untuk pemberitaan krisis Rohingya?

1.4 TUJUAN PENELITIAN

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui bagaimana framing krisis,

national interest, dan news sources yang dilakukan oleh Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times terhadap isu Rohingya.

1.5 KEGUNAAN PENELITIAN

a. Kegunaan Akademis

Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat melengkapi kajian-kajian terkait analisis

komparasi media di Indonesia. Selain itu, penelitian ini juga diharapkan dapat

memperkuat hasil penelitian-penelitian sebelumnya tentang framing di media

daring internasional.

b. Kegunaan Praktis

Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat menjadi bahan pertimbangan media-media

daring, khususnya Myanmar Times dan The New York Times terkait framing

isu-isu global.

c. Kegunaan Sosial

Penelitian ini diharapkan dapat membangun kesadaran masyarakat akan isu-

isu global, terutama isu Rohingya.


9

1.6 KETERBATASAN PENELITIAN

Keterbatasan dari penelitian ini adalah di mana penelitian ini dilakukan kepada

media daring internasional. Dengan demikian penelitian ini tidak berlaku di

media-media daring di Indonesia.


10

BAB II

KERANGKA PEMIKIRAN

2.1 PENELITIAN TERDAHULU

Penulis memilih dua penelitian terdahulu sebagai referensi dan rujukan dalam

penelitian yang penulis lakukan. Penelitian pertama berjudul “Framing the flight

MH370 mystery: A content analysis of Malaysian, Chinese, and U.S. media” yang

ditulis oleh Lindsey M. Bier, Sejin Park, dan Michael J. Palenchar, pada tahun

2017.

Penelitian kedua berjudul “The Syrian crisis in U.S. and Lebanese newspapers:

A cross-national analysis” yang ditulis oleh Raluca Cozma dan Claudia Kozman,

pada tahun 2017.

Pada penelitian pertama, Lindsey M. Bier, Sejin Park, dan Michael J. Palenchar

melakukan penelitian tentang bagaimana framing yang dilakukan oleh dari media

yang ada di Malaysia, China, dan Amerika dalam periode 8 Maret 2014 hingga 28

Januari 2015.

Hasil penelitian ini menyatakan bahwa pembingkaian paling umum (dalam

konteks lima bingkai krisis/ five crisis frames) yang dilakukan oleh koran yang ada

di Malaysia, China, dan Amerika Serikat adalah atribusi tanggung jawab. Berbeda

dengan pembingkaian dalam hal national interest, media Malaysia lebih


11

membingkai kasus hilangnya MH370 dengan bingkai sosio-kultural yang

menginformasikan tentang kepercayaan, mitos, nilai, norma, artefak khusus,

dan/atau social practices of the country.

Pada penelitian kedua, Raluca Cozma dan Claudia Kozman ingin meneliti

bagaimana bagaimana framing, penekanan pemberitaan, dan pemilihan sumber

berita, yang dilakukan oleh media di Amerika dan Libanon dalam pemberitaan

krisis Siria dalam periode 21 Agustus 2013 hingga 21September 2013.

Selain itu, dalam konteks crisis media frame, kedua negara sama-sama

memberi pembingkaian dalam hal konflik dan tanggung jawab. Dalam konteks

penekanan, media yang ada di Amerika cenderung netral, hanya ada sekitar 3,2%

dari sampel koran Amerika yang menyatakan anti-Assad.

Tidak jauh berbeda dengan media yang ada di Libanon, sebagian besar

pemberitaan mereka cenderung netral. Hanya sekitar 5,5% yang menyatakan pro-

Assad dan 7,5% yang menyatakan anti-Assad.

Penggunaan sumber untuk pemberitaan juga berbeda dalam penelitian ini.

Koran di Amerika lebih cenderung menggunakan sumber U.S. officials (46,6%)

dan koran di Libanon cenderung menggunakan sumber International officials

(37,1%).

Adapun perbandingan penelitian yang diuraikan dalam tabel sebagai berikut.


12

Tabel 2.1 Perbandingan Penelitian

No. Penelitian 1 Penelitian 2 Penelitian 3

1. Nama

Peneliti

Lindsey M. Bier, Sejin Park,

dan Michael J. Palenchar

Raluca Cozma dan Claudia

Kozman


2. Tahun

Penelitian

2017 2017 2018

3. Asal Peneliti University of Southern

California, Republic of South

Korea Army, University of

Tennessee

A.Q. Miller School of

Journalism and Mass

Communication Kansas

State University &

Departement of

Communication Arts,

Lebanese American

University

Universitas Multimedia Nusantara


13

4. Judul

Penelitian

Framing the flight MH370

mystery: A content analysis of

Malaysian, Chinese, and U.S.

media

The Syrian crisis in U.S. and

Lebanese newspapers: A

cross-national analysis

Krisis Rohingya Dalam

Pemberitaan

Di Myanmar Times Dan New York

Times:

Cross-National Analysis

5. Pertanyaan

Penelitian

1. Bagaimana framing

yang dilakukan oleh

media berbahasa inggris

di Malaysia, China, dan

U.S. dalam batas

tanggung jawab,

konflik, konsekuensi

ekonomik, human

interest, dan moralitas?

1. Bagaimana framing

pemberitaan dalam

krisis Siria?

2. Bagaimana

treatment dalam

pemberitaan krisis

Siria?

3. Bagaimana news

coverage dalam

1. Bagaimana framing konflik

yang dilakukan oleh

Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times terhadap

isu krisis Rohingya (dalam

hal konflik, tanggung jawab,

moralitas, human interest,

dan konsekuensi ekonomi)?


14

2. Bagaimana media

berbahasa Inggris di

Malaysia, China, dan

U.S. merefleksikan

ketertarikan nasional

dalam batasan politik,

ekonomi, kemilieran,

sosio-kultural, dan

security objectives?

3. Bagaimana media

berbahasa Inggris di

Malaysia, China, dan

U.S. merefleksikan

pemberitaan krisis

Siria dalam batasan

war and peace

journalism?

4. Bagaimana

penekanan/tone

dalam pemberitaan

krisis Siria?

5. Sumber berita apa

yang digunakan oleh

koran di U.S. dan

Lebanon terkait

pemberitaan krisis

Siria?

2. Bagaimana pemberitaan

mengenai isu krisis

Rohingya di Myanmar

Times dan The New York

Times merefleksikan

national interest di masing-

masing negara?

3. Apa sumber berita utama

yang digunakan oleh

Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times untuk

pemberitaan krisis

Rohingya?


15

kewarganegaraan

internasional?

6. Tujuan

Penelitian

Tujuan dari penelitian ini

adalah untuk mengetahui

bagaimana framing yang

dilakukan oleh Myanmar Times

dan The New York Times

terhadap isu Rohingya.

7. Teori dan

Konsep

-Framing konflik

-National interest

-International citizenship

-Framing konflik

-Peace/war journalism

-News sources

-Jurnalisme online

-Framing konflik

-National interest

-News sources

8. Metode Konten analisis Konten analisis Konten analisis


16

9. Sifat

Penelitian

Kuantitatif Kuantitatif Kuantitatif

10. Instrumen

penelitian

Data Primer: teks berita di New

Straits Times, China Daily, dan

The New York Times

Data Primer: teks berita di

The New York Times, The

Washington Post, As-Safir,

dan Al-Mustaqbal

Data primer: teks berita di Myanmar

Times dan The New York Times

Data sekunder: situs internet,

skripsi, dan jurnal ilmiah

11. Hasil Hasil penelitian ini

menyatakan bahwa

pembingkaian paling

umum (dalam konteks lima

bingkai krisis/ five crisis

frames) yang dilakukan

oleh koran yang ada di

Malaysia, China, dan U.S.

Dalam konteks crisis

media frame, kedua

negara sama-sama

memberi pembingkaian

dalam hal konflik dan

tanggung jawab. Dalam

konteks penekanan,

media yang ada di

Dari kedua media yang diteliti, baik

Myanmar Times dan The New York

Times, sama-sama menonjolkan

bingkai konflik dalam five crisis

frame dan news sources. Namun,

walaupun keduanya sama-sama

menonjolkan bingkai konflik,

Myanmar Times dan The New York


17

adalah atribusi tanggung

jawab. Berbeda dengan

pembingkaian dalam hal

national interest, media

Malaysia lebih

membingkai kasus

hilangnya MH370 dengan

bingkai sosio-kultural yang

menginformasikan tentang

kepercayaan, mitos, nilai,

norma, artefak khusus,

dan/atau social practices of

the country.

Amerika cenderung

netral, hanya ada sekitar

3,2% dari sampel koran

Amerika yang

menyatakan anti-Assad.

Tidak jauh berbeda

dengan media yang ada

di Lebanon, sebagian

besar pemberitaan

mereka cenderung

netral. Hanya sekitar

5,5% yang menyatakan

pro-Assad dan 7,5%

Times memiliki cara pandang yang

berbeda terhadap konflik yang

terjadi. Myanmar Times melihat

konflik yang terjadi adalah konflik

antara teroris dengan pasukan

keamanan Myanmar. Sedangkan

The New York Times melihat konflik

yang tengah terjadi sebagai konflik

kemanusiaan.

Dari segi sumber berita, Myanmar

Times dan The New York Times

sama-sama menggunakan sumber

pejabat pemerintah sebagai sumber

berita utama untuk isu Rohingya.


18

yang menyatakan anti-

Assad.

Yang paling sering digunakan

adalah menteri, pejabat negara, dan

penasihat negara.


19

2.2 TEORI DAN KONSEP YANG DIGUNAKAN

2.2.1 ISU ROHINGYA SEBAGAI KRISIS KEMANUSIAAN

Krisis kemanusiaan merupakan sebuah peristiwa atau runtutan

peristiwa ancaman kritis terhadap kesehatan, kemananan, dan keberadaan atau

eksistensi suatu komunitas atau suatu kelompok besar dalam suatu wilayah

luas (Dapamede, Arumugam, Nuralin, & Sugiarto, 2009, p. 1).

Perang sipil yang mengakibatkan banyak penderitaan yang datang

sebagai konsekuensi pertempuran merupakan penyebab krisis kemanusiaan

yang umum terjadi (Donelly, 1993, p. 613).

Seperti yang sedang terjadi di Rohingya saat ini, yang mana kerap

terjadi konflik antara warga sipil Rohingya dengan militer pemerintahan

Myanmar yang tak kunjung reda. Terjadi berbagai tindak kekerasan kepada

warga sipil yang dilakukan oleh militer Myanmar yang mengakibatkan banyak

warga Rohingya mengalami luka tembak dan bakar (BBC Indonesia, 2017,

para. 11).

Konflik yang tak kunjung reda di Rohingya juga menunjukan bahwa

memang sedang terjadi sebuah krisis yang berkepanjangan. Rhenald Kasali

(2005) juga menyebutkan bahwa salah satu ciri dari krisis adalah di mana

terjadinya konflik yang terus menerus (Kasali, 2005, p. 89).


20

2.2.2 BERITA INTERNASIONAL

Media-media di dunia cenderung secara selektif ‘mendomestikasi’

sebuah kejadian sesuai dengan nilai-nilai yang bertahan lama kepentingan

nasional, dan agenda kebijakan luar negeri (Lee & Yang dalam Pan, 1999, p.

100) dari negara asal mereka.

Sebuah media akan menggambarkan sebuah metafora dari budaya

mereka sendiri agar sebuah kejadian atau sebuah berita bisa terlihat lebih

relevan dan sesuai dengan audiens di tempat mereka berada (Pan, 1999, p. 100).

Hal-hal di atas tentu dipengaruhi oleh latar belakang jurnalis itu sendiri,

kendala organisasi media, dan media-media besar yang datang untuk

memengaruhi produksi berita dengan kekuatan yang bervariasi (Pan, 1999, p.

100).

Di dalam masyarakat, sistem politik merupakan sebuah perangkat

struktural yang sangat penting untuk membangun narasi media. Media selalu

menyukai peristiwa tidak biasa dengan penuh drama, suspens, emosi, dan

gambar hidup (Pan, 1999, p. 100).

Media akan menulis narasi atau pemberitaan mereka dengan ideologi

dan kepentingan yang berlaku dari konstituen mereka masing-masing. Secara

singkat, jurnalis akan menyusun sistem maknanya sendiri, keterampilan

naratifnya, tata Bahasa visual, dan lain-lain (Pan, 1999, p. 109).


21

Faktor-faktor inilah yang berkontribusi pada koherensi narasi media dan

memperkuat wacana budaya mereka sendiri. Domestikasi dalam pembuatan

berita asing merupakan sebuah proses pengartikulasian diskursif (nalar) dalam

masyarakat (Pan, 1999, p. 110).

Sering dikatakan bahwa wartawan menulis draf pertama dari sebuah

cerita/sejarah. Namun, wartawan sekaligus menjadi produsen dan reproduksi

dari ideologi nasional dalam konteks internasional (Pan, 1999, p. 110).

2.2.3 JURNALISME ONLINE

Jurnalisme online adalah proses penyampaian informasi melalui

internet. Menurut Mike Ward (Romli, 2012, p. 15), ada beberapa karakteristik

jurnalisme online sekaligus hal yang membuat beda dengan jurnalisme

konvensional, yaitu

1. Kecepatan

Kecepatan di media online adalah sebuah kecepatan dalam

mengunggah berita dalam situsnya.

2. Multiple Pagination

Berita yang diunggah bisa dalam banyak halaman/link yang terkait.

3. Multimedia

Hasil yang diunggah dapat berupa gabungan dari teks, foto, video,

grafis, dan lain-lain.


22

4. Flexibility delivery platform

Jurnalis bisa menulis dan mengunggah berita kapan saja dan di

mana saja.

5. Archieving

Berita yang diunggah dapat terarsip dan dikelompokan ke dalam

kategori tertentu.

6. Relationship with reader

Interaksi antara khalayak dan media bisa tercipta di era media online

seperti saat ini.

Menurut Romli (2012) penulisan berita online dan konvensional dinilai

berbeda. Naskah untuk media cetak ditunjukan untuk dibaca, sedangkan media

online untuk dipindai atau diteliti secara seksama. Kecenderungan pembaca

media online yang melakukan pemindaian mengharuskan media online harus

sangat jelas, singkat, dan informatif (Romli, 2012, p. 27)

Bergesernya era jurnalisme ke era digital/online memang menjadi

sebuah fenomena yang luar biasa (Surya, 2010, p. 25). Pavlik (1998)

menyebutkan bahwa media online di dunia tumbuh dengan kecepatan yang

tidak terduga (Surya, 2010, p. 25).

Tidak hanya di dunia, Indonesia juga mengalami pertumbuhan yang

sangat signifikan dalam dunia jurnalisme online. Hal ini tentu beiringan dengan

perkembangan internet yang sangat pesat di Indonesia. Selain itu, pengaruh dari


23

runtuhnya rezim Soeharto dan “rezim dikontrolnya informasi” juga cukup besar

dengan perkembangan media di Indonesia (Surya, 2010, p. 25).

Angka pengguna internet di Indonsia pun kian tumbuh dengan

signifikan, dan media cetak mainstream pun berada di bawah ancaman

kebangkrutan seiring dengan peningkatan biaya produksi hingga 400%. Hal ini

juga yang mendorong sejumlah media cetak di Indonesia mulai beralih ke dunia

online untuk melanjutkan eksistensi medianya (Surya, 2010, p. 27).

2.2.4 FRAMING MEDIA ATAS ISU KRISIS

Bingkai media adalah “skema dari sebuah interpretasi” (Goffman dalam

Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael J., 2017, p. 3). Framing

menginvestigasi atribut mana dalam sebuah peristiwa atau isu yang diangap

paling penting oleh media (McCombs dalam Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., &

Palenchar, Michael J., 2017, p. 3).

Framing media adalah interpretasi dari suatu realitas dalam sebuah

pesan (McCombs dalam Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael

J., 2017, p. 3). Pembingkaian media dapat memengaruhi bagaimana pembaca

berita belajar, menginterpretasikan sebuah peristiwa/isu, dan menilai sebuah

informasi (De Vresse dalam Cozma, Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Setiap media akan mengembangkan konstruksi tertentu atas realitas.

Peristiwa yang sama dapat dikonstruksi secara berbeda dengan menggunakan


24

frame yang berbeda. Hal ini terjadi ketika peristiwa dilihat dengan cara yang

berbeda oleh media (Eriyanto, 2002, p. 76).

Efek lainnya dari framing adalah akan adanya sisi lain dari sebuah

fenomena yang terlupakan. Hal ini disebabkan karena framing hanya akan

menampilkan sisi tertentu yang menjadi fokus dari suatu media (Eriyanto,

2002, p. 168).

2.2.4.1 FIVE CRISIS FRAME

Penelitian ini menggunakan konsep five crisis frame milik

Semetko dan Velkenburg (2000), ia menemukan lima hal paling umum

digunakan dalam framing sebuah berita: konflik, human interest,

konsekuensi ekonomi, moralitas, dan tanggung jawab (Raluca &

Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Semetko dan Valkenburg (2000) memberi catatan bahwa

konflik selalu digunakan untuk menggambarkan ketertarikan audiens,

sebagai inti dari nilai berita, sementara bingkai tanggung jawab

menunjukan sebuah permasalahan dengan sedemikian rupa untuk

menunjukan tanggung jawab untuk penyebab permasalahan itu atau

solusi untuk pemerintahan, individual, atau grup (Raluca & Kozman,

Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Human interest berfokus pada kisah individu yang terlibat

dengan memberikan anekdot yang dapat digunakan oleh audiens untuk


25

berhubungan dengan materi sehingga dapat memanusiakan ide yang

abstrak (Cho dan Gower dalam Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Konsekuensi ekonomi menekankan pada akibat finansial dari

sebuah peristiwa. Sedangkan bingkai moralitas menunjukan sebuah isu

dalam konteks keagamaan atau keputusan moral (Semetko dan

Valkenburg dalam Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5). Neuman et

al. (1992) memberi catatan bahwa bingkai moralitas juga sering terjadi

secara tidak langsung melalui pemilihan kutipan dan sumber (Cho dan

Gower dalam Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

2.2.4.2 NATIONAL INTEREST FRAME

Galtung dan Ruge (1965) mengidentifikasi ada beberapa faktor

yang memengaruhi kecenderungan pemberitaan dalam peritiwa luar

negeri: elite nations, peristiwa negatif, peristiwa yang tidak disangka-

sangka, dan kedekatan budaya (Lee dan Yang, 1996, p. 2).

Di luar dari beberapa kecenderungan pemberitaan sebuah media

terhadap peristiwa asing, national interest/kepentingan nasional

menjadi lebih penting untuk memainkan peran sentral dalam

memberikan gambaran tentang dunia politik di media (Lee dan Yang,

1996, p. 2).

Selain itu, media juga terikat erat dengan kepentingan nasional

dan elite politik dalam arena kebijakan luar negeri (Lee dan Yang, 1996,


26

p. 4). Dalam penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Chin-Chuan Lee dan

Junghye ditemukan bahwa kepentingan nasional juga dapat dengan kuat

membentuk paradigma jurnalistik media internsional.

Selain ideologi politik, Chomsky (1988) mengungkapkan bahwa

kepentingan nasional dapat membangun semua aspek dari berita,

terlebih bagaimana sebuah isu dibingkai dan sebuah topik dipilih (Jang,

2013, p. 191).

Selain itu, penulis juga menemukan konsep national

interest/kepentingan nasional yang dikemukakan oleh Brewer (2006).

Dalam penelitiannya yang berjudul National Interest Frames and

Public Opinion about World Affairs, Brewer (2006) menggunakan

experimental data untuk menganalisis sejauh mana tiga tipe

kepentingan nasional (conflict, common, dan reciprocal exchange)

beresonansi dengan warga Amerika Serikat (Brewer, 2006, p. 90).

Dalam penelitian tersebut, Brewer (2006) mengemukakan ada

tiga tipe national interest atau kepentingan nasional. Pertama adalah

conflict interest frames yang menekankan sebuah isi media pada

kecederungan tidak mempercayai negara lain dan cenderung tidak

mendukung kebijakan di negara tersebut (Brewer, 2006, p. 91).

Tipe kedua adalah common interest frames yang menekankan

pada sebuah negara cenderung lebih percaya dengan negara lain dan

menginginkan kerja sama yang lebih besar (Brewer, 2006, p. 91). Di


27

dalam penelitian ini Brewer (2006) tidak menjelaskan secara jelas tipe

terakhir dari national interest, yaitu reciprocal exchange.

Konsep national interest milik Brewer (2006) kemudian

dikembangkan oleh Won Yong Jang (2013). Dalam penelitiannya yang

berjudul News as propaganda: A comparative analysis of US and

Korean press coverage of the Six-Party Talks, 2003–2007, Jang (2017)

menggunakan metode analisis isi dari pemberitaan Six-Party Talks.

Dalam penelitian ini, Jang (2013) mengembangkan konsep national

interest menjadi tiga tipe: umum, konflik, dan ancaman (Jang, 2013, p.

191).

Jang (2013) melihat bahwa dalam analisis yang ia lakukan, jenis

reciprocal exchange kurang sesuai dengan penelitiannya sehingga ia

menggantinya dengan threat atau ancaman. Jang (2013) menjelaskan

bingkai umum atau common interest frame mengidentifikasi bahwa

sebuah isu atau masalah merupakan hal yang biasa atau umum terjadi.

Dalam pandangan ini, sebuah isu bisa diselesaikan dengan kepercayaan

dan kerjasama (Jang, 2013, p. 191).

Bingkai konflik conflict interest frame menekankan pada adanya

ketidak sepakatan antara dua negara atau lebih. Bingkai yang terakhir

adalah bingkai ancaman/threat yang berfokus bahwa suatu isu atau

kejadian adalah sebuah ancaman yang mungkin saja dapat mengancam

negara lain (Jang, 2013, p. 191).


28

Secara keseluruhan, Jang (2013) menemukan bahwa berita

nasional dapat diinterpretasikan dengan pandangan gabungan, yang

mana pengaruh propaganda dalam peliputan yang dilakukan oleh media

saling berhubungan dengan sistem media dan kepentingan

nasional/national interest dalam kerangka ideologi dominan, sehingga

kepentingan nasioal pun menjadi salah satu hal yang dapat

memengaruhi isi pemberitaan (p. 199).

Dalam penelitian ini penulis mengambil konsep national interest

milik Jang (2013). Hal ini dikarenakan konsep national interest yang

telah dikembangkan oleh Jang ini lebih sesuai dengan penelitian yang

penulis lakukan.

2.2.4.3 NEWS SOURCES

Sumber berita dapat memengaruhi frame dari sebuah berita.

Pemilihan sumber berita adalah sebuah komponen kunci dari hasil akhir

sebuah produk berita. Dengan menggunakan sumber berita yang sama

dalam jangka panjang dapat memengaruhi pesan media dan juga

memengaruhi pembaca (Cozma, Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p.

8).

Interaksi antara jurnalis dan sumber berita adalah sebuah

kekuatan penting dalam membentuk suatu berita (Sigal dalam

Berkowitz dan Beach, 1993, p. 4). Jurnalis biasanya mempelajari


29

sebuah kejadian atau isu melalui sumber berita, dan hampir seluruh

informasi yang kemudian jurnalis itu kumpulkan mengenai isu atau

kejadian tertentu itu diambil dari sumber berita (Berkowitz dan Beach,

1993, p. 4).

Dikarenakan saat ini media tumbuh menjadi sebuah industri

bisnis, maka seorang jurnalis harus mempelajari bagaimana memilih

dan mengumpulan bahan berita (dari sumber berita) yang bisa

menggambarkan audiens secara luas (Berkowitz dan Beach, 1993, p. 5)

Sumber berita pun menghadapi tekanan dari organisasi mereka

sendiri, dari partai politik, dan pemilih sumber berita tersebut

(Berkowitz dan Beach, 1993, p. 5). Sumber berita memiliki afiliasi

organisasi yang berbeda dengan misi dan perspektif utama yang

berbeda, oleh karena itu tiap sumber berita juga dapat melihat suatu hal

dan melaporkan hal tersebut dengan cara yang berbeda (Lasorsa dan

Resse, 1990, p. 64).

Dua jurnal yang penulis jadikan acuan dalam konsep sumber

berita adalah milik Raluca Cozma dan Claudia Kozman yang berjudul

The Syrian Crisis in U.S. and Lebanese Newspapers: A Cross National

Analysis serta milik Haiyan Wang, Colin Sparks, dan Yu Huang, yang

berjudul Popular Journalism in China: A study of China Youth Daily.

Dalam jurnal yang dikeluarkan oleh Cozma dan Kozman (2017),

indikator sumber-sumber berita yang digunakan dibagi ke dalam


30

pejabat internasional, pejabat Amerika Serikat, pejabat Rusia, pejabat

Lebanon, pejabat Suriah, pemberontak Suriah, warga Amerika, warga

Lebanon, warga Suriah, ahli, dan lain-lain.

Sedangkan dalam jurnal yang dikeluarkan oleh Wang, Sparks,

dan Huang (2017), indikator sumber berita dibagi ke dalam pejabat,

negara, partai, ahli, dan sumber anonim.

Penulis dalam penelitian ini membagi indikator sumber berita

berdasarkan kedua jurnal yang penulis jadikan acuan. Dalam penelitian

ini, penggunaan sumber berita terbagi ke dalam organisasi internasional

pemerintah (IGO), organisasi bukan pemerintah (NGO), pejabat

pemerintah, pertahanan dan keamanan, masyarakat/warga, akademisi,

dan others.

2.3 HIPOTESIS PENELITIAN

Hipotesis dalam penelitian ini adalah:

H01: Tidak terdapat perbedaan framing dalam pemberitaan isu krisis

Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times.

Ha1: Terdapat perbedan framing dalam pemberitaan isu krisis

Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times.

H02: Tidak terdapat perbedaan national interest dalam pemberitaan

isu krisis Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York

Times.


31

Ha2: Terdapat perbedaan nasional interest dalam pemberitaan isu

krisis Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times.

H03: Tidak terdapat perbedan news sources dalam pemberitaan

isu krisis Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York

Times.

Ha3: Terdapat perbedaan news sources dalam pemberitaan isu krisis

Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times


32

2.4 ALUR PENELITIAN

Bagan 2.1 Alur Penelitian

Krisis Rohingya

Pemberitaan online tentang krisis Rohingya di

Myanmar Times dan The New York Times

tentang Krisis Rohingya

Framing

Krisis Rohingya dalam Pemberitaan online di

Myanmar Times dan The New York Times:

Analisis Komparasi Media

Five Crisis Frames:

1. Atribusi

Tanggung

Jawab

2. Konflik

3. Konsekuensi

Ekonomi

4. Human Interest

5. Moralitas

(Satmeko &

Valkenburg, 2000)

National Interest:

1. Konflik

2. Common

3. Threat

(Jang, 2013)

News Sources

1. Organisasi

internasional

pemerintah dan non-

pemerintah

2. Pejabat pemerintah

3. Pertahanan dan

keamanan

4. Warga/Masyarakat

5. Akademisi

6. Others

(Wang, Sparks, & Huang,

2017) dan (Cozma &

Kozman, 2017)


33

BAB III

METODOLOGI PENELITIAN

3.1 JENIS DAN SIFAT PENELITIAN

Penelitian ini berjenis penelitian kuantitatif. Pendekatan kuantitatif ini

memandang tingkah laku manusia sebagai sesuatu yang objektif dan dapat

diukur (Yusuf, 2014, p. 58).

Penelitian kuantitatif dilakukan apabila data yang dikumpulkan berupa data

kuantitatif atau jenis data lain yang dapat dikuantitatifkan dan diolah dengan

menggunakan teknik statistik (Yusuf, 2014, p. 43).

Penelitian kuantitatif kerap mencoba menetapkan hukum atau prinsip-

prinsip umum atau mencari sesuatu yang berlaku universal dan mengasumsikan

realitas sosial adalah objektif dan di luar kondisi diri pribadi seseorang (Yusuf,

2014, p. 45).

Penelitian dengan pendekatan kuantitatif harus dilakukan secara objektif.

Ini berarti bias subjektivitas penulis harus dihilangkan. Syarat objektifitas baru

dapat dilakukan oleh penliti apabila tersedia kategori analisis yang telah

didefinisikan secara jelas dan operasional sehingga peneliti lain dapat

mengikutinya dengan reliabilitas tinggi (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 1).


34

Penelitian ini bersifat deskriptif yang dimaksudkan untuk menggambarkan

secara detail suatu pesan, atau suatu teks tertentu. Sifat deskriptif ini semata

untuk deskripsi, menggambarkan aspek-aspek dan karakteristik suatu pesan

(Eriyanto, 2011, p. 47).

Sebuah penelitian tidak lepas dari paradigma yang merupakan seperangkat

kepercayaan atau keyakinan dasar yang menuntut seseorang dalam bertindak

dalam kehidupan sehari-hari (Salim, 2006, p. 63). Paradigma dalam penelitian

ini adalah positivistik yang dikembangkan oleh Auguste Comte.

Comte (Babbie, 2010, h. 34) mengatakan bahwa masyarakat dapat diamati

dan setiap fenomena yang ada di dalam masyarakat dapat dijelaskan secara

logis dan rasional.

3.2 METODE PENELITIAN

Penelitian ini menggunakan metode analisis isi kuantitatif. Analisis isi

merupakan salah satu metode utama dalam disiplin ilmu komunikasi. Analisis

isi terutama dipakai untuk menganalisis isi media baik cetak maupun elektronik

(Eriyanto, 2011, p. 10).

Analisis isi juga merupakan sebuah metode ilmiah untuk mempelajari dan

menarik kesimpulan atas suatu fenomena dengan memanfaatkan dokumen

(teks) (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 10).


35

Secara umum, analisis isi kuantitatif dapat didefinisikan sebagai suatu

teknik penelitian ilmiah yang ditunjukan untuk mengetahui gambaran

karakteristik isi dan menarik inferensi dari isi (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 15).

Analisis isi juga ditunjukan untuk mengidentifikasi secara sistematis isi

komunikasi yang tampak (manifest), dan dilakukan secara objektif, valid,

reliabel, dan dapat direplikasi (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 15).

3.3 POPULASI DAN SAMPEL

Populasi merupakan semua anggota dari objek yang ingin kita ketahui

isinya (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 109). Eriyanto (2011) juga mengatakan bahwa

populasi merupakan konsep yang abstrak/luas. Oleh karena itu, populasi harus

didefinisikan secara jelas agar anggota populasi dapat ditentukan secara cermat

(Eriyanto, 2011, p. 109).

Sebagai populasi, peneliti memilih semua teks berita yang memuat isu krisis

Rohingya di Myanmar Times (Mmtimes.com) dan The New York Times

(Nytimes.com) sejak 25 Agustus 2017 sampai dengan 25 September 2017. Total

populasi sebanyak 59 berita.

Periode waktu antara 25 Agustus – 25 September 2017 penulis pilih karena

kuantitas pemberitaan terkait isu Rohingya, khususnya sejak tragedi black

friday pada 25 Agustus, cenderung menurun. Data dapat dilihat pada tabel

berikut.


36

Tabel 3.1 Jumlah Pemberitaan

di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times

Periode Myanmar Times The New York Times

25 Agustus – 25 September 2017 37 berita 22 berita

26 September – 25 Agustus 2017 26 berita 13 berita

26 Oktober – 25 November 2017 19 berita 10 berita

26 November – 25 Desember 2017 12 berita 15 berita

(Sumber: Observasi Mandiri Peneliti)

Proses pencarian populasi ini penulis menggunakan dua teknik yang

berbeda antara di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times. Pada Myanmar

Times penulis mencari data secara langsung/manual di website Myanmar

Times, yaitu mmtimes.com. Penulis memasukan kata kunci “Rakhine” dan

“Rohingya” di kolom pencarian indeks berita.

Sedangkan untuk pencarian berita di The New York Times, penulis

menggunakan database akademik Lexis-Nexis dengan menggunakan kata

kunci “Rohingya”. Waktu pencarian populasi beita tersebut penulis lakukan

pada 22 Maret 2018.

Berdasarkan data yang penulis dapatkan dari hasil analisis tersebut, penulis

memilih periode 25 Agustus – 25 September 2017 karena dalam kurun waktu

ini kedua media tersebut mengeluarkan jumlah pemberitaan terbanyak

sepanjang 2017.


37

Untuk menentukan sampel penelitian, penulis menggunakan menggunakan

teknik total sampling karena jumlah sampel masih mampu dijangkau. Teknik

ini digunakan juga karena apabila jumlah populasi kurang dari 100 maka

seluruh populasi dijadikan sampel (Sugiyono, 2007, p. 124).

Untuk menentukan jumlah sampel coding, penulis menggunakan teknik

simple random sampling dengan memilih acak 10% dari total sampel yang ada.

Penulis akan memberikan nomor untuk setiap sampel yang ada, lalu melakukan

pengundian secara acak.

Jumlah sampel coding penulis sebanyak enam berita (10% x 59 sampel =

pembulatan 6 berita). Setelah itu, enam berita terpilih akan dijadikan sampel

bagi coder untuk melakukan penilaian.

Berikut adalah daftar teks berita terkait isu krisis Rohingya pada media

online Myanmar Times dan The New York Times periode 25 Agustus – 25

September 2017 yang penulis gunakan sebagai sampel penelitian.

Tabel 3.2 Sampel Penelitian

No Tanggal Judul Media

1 25 Agustus 2017 Report on Rakhine State is honest and

constructive

Myanmar Times

2 25 Agustus 2017 Statement by the State Counsellor Daw

Aung San Suu Kyi on today’s attacks

in Rakhine State

Myanmar Times

3 25 Agustus 2017 Over 70 killed in Rakhine after

militants attack

Myanmar Times

4 28 Agustus 2017 School shut down in northern Rakhine Myanmar Times

5 28 Agustus 2017 Government warns local, foreign

supporters of terrorist

Myanmar Times


38

6 29 Agustus 2017 Over 4.000 ethnic Rakhine flee

fighting

Myanmar Times

7 30 Agustus 2017 Bangladesh, India express support for

Myanmar after attacks

Myanmar Times

8 30 Agustus 2017 USDP’s proposal to condemn

terrorism rejected again

Myanmar Times

9 30 Agustus 2017 Military action in Rakhine legal, says

security chief

Myanmar Times

10 30 Agustus 2017 NDSC meeting may be called if

violence in Rakhine worsens

Myanmar Times

11 31 Agustus 2017 Hluttaw Oks action against terrorists,

help for displaced villagers

Myanmar Times

12 31 Agustus 2017 Group demands media access,

protection of Rakhine citizens

Myanmar Times

13 01 September 2017 Rakhine State and the raging

information war

Myanmar Times

14 04 September 2017 Nearly K2 billion donated to Rakhine Myanmar Times

15 05 September 2017 Indonesian FM discusses Rakhine with

State Counsellor, Commander-in-Chief

Myanmar Times

16 06 September 2017 Maungdaw Rehabilitation Committee

to assist Rakhine reconstruction

Myanmar Times

17 06 September 2017 Armed ethnic groups concerned about

Rakhine

Myanmar Times

18 06 September 2017 Rakhine fighting traps teachers Myanmar Times

19 07 September 2017 Government on alert against bombs in

Yangin, key cities

Myanmar Times

20 07 September 2017 Myanmar will not take back people

without papers

Myanmar Times

21 07 September 2017 ASEAN’s Timor response shows wan

on Rakhine

Myanmar Times

22 08 September 2017 Rakhine conflict about national

security, says French academic

Myanmar Times

23 08 September 2017 Review of Citizenship Law spurs

debate

Myanmar Times

24 11 September 2017 USDP accuses foreign media, NGOs

of making Rakhine conflict worse

Myanmar Times

25 11 September 2017 Government rejects appeal for

ceasefire

Myanmar Times

26 13 September 2017 Nearly 30 political parties blame govt

for Rakhine woes

Myanmar Times

27 15 September 2017 Rakhine conflict: beyond the blame

game

Myanmar Times

28 20 September 2017 A strong commitment to restore peace Myanmar Times

29 20 September 2017 State Counsellor condemns all human

rights violations in Rakhine

Myanmar Times


39

30 20 September 2017 Thousands rally to show support for

government on Rakhine

Myanmar Times

31 21 September 2017 Three bomb explosions damage

vehicles. Cause panic in Minbya

Myanmar Times

32 21 September 2017 Rakhine crisis taking toll on tourism Myanmar Times

33 21 September 2017 Senior officials visit Rakhine: priority

list coming in 2 weeks

Myanmar Times

34 22 September 2017 Rakhine situation: fact versus fiction Myanmar Times

35 24 September 2017 World is watching progress on

Rakhine

Myanmar Times

36 25 September 2017 Repatriation of refugees to Rakhine in

the pipeline

Myanmar Times

37 25 September 2017 Protesters in Mandalay slam terrorist,

foreign intervention

Myanmar Times

38 25 Agustus 2017 More Than 70 Killed in Fighting in

Western Myanmar

The New York Times

39 27 Agustus 2017 As Myanmar Fighting Sweels, a

Desperate Flight to the Border

The New York Times

40 29 Agustus 2017 More than 8.700 Rohingya Flee

Myanmar Fighting This Week

The New York Times

41 30 Agustus 2017 Violance in Myanmar Pushes at Least

18.500 Rohingya Into Bangladesh

The New York Times

42 01 September 2017 Boats Carrying Rohingya Fleeing

Myanmar Sink, Killing 46

The New York Times

43 02 September 2017 Desprate Rohingya Flee Myanmar on

Trail of Suffering: ‘It Is All Gone’

The New York Times

44 04 September 2017 Why Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace

Prize Won’t Be Revoked

The New York Times

45 04 September 2017 Muslims on 2 Continents Protest

Persecution in Myanmar

The New York Times

46 05 September 2017 Desprate Rohingya Flee Myanmar

Crackdown in Growing Numbers,

U.N. Says

The New York Times

47 06 September 2017 Refugees’ Flight and Land Mines Spur

Bangladesh Protest to Myanmar

The New York Times

48 08 September 2017 Fghan Anger Simmers Over U.S.

Leaflets Seen an Insulting Islam

The New York Times

49 08 September 2017 270.000 Rohingya Have Fled

Myanmar, U.N. Says

The New York Times

50 11 September 2017 Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar Is

‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ U.N. Rights Chief

Says

The New York Times

51 12 September 2017 Far From Myanmar Violence,

Rohingya in Pakistan Are Seething

The New York Times


40

52 13 September 2017 The Rohingya in Myanmar: How

Years of Strife Grew Into a Crisis

The New York Times

53 13 September 2017 Myanmar Leader Cancels U.N. Trip

Amid Outcry Over Rohingya Slaughter

The New York Times

54 15 September 2017 At Risk in Rohingya Exodus: 230.000

Children, Hundreads All Alone

The New York Times

55 16 September 2017 Bangladesh Plans to Build Huge

Refugee Camp for Rohingya

The New York Times

56 17 September 2017 Rohingya Militants Vow to Fight

Myanmar Despite Disastrous Cost

The New York Times

57 18 September 2017 Myanmar Follows Global Pattern in

How Ethnic Cleansing Begins

The New York Times

58 18 September 2017 Aung San Suu Kyi, a Much-Changed

Icon, Evades Rohingya Accusations

The New York Times

59 18 September 2017 Stellite Images Show More Than 200

Rohingya Villages Burned in

Myanmar

The New York Times

3.4 OPERASIONALISASI KONSEP

Penelitian analisis isi dimulai dari konsep. Secara umum konsep dapat

didefinisikan sebagai abstraksi atau representasi dari objek atau gejala sosial.

Agar dapat diukur dan diteliti, konsep harus diturunkan agar dapat dilihat secara

empiris. Inilah yang dinamakan dengan operasionalisasi konsep. Secara umum,

terdapat lima struktur konsep, yaitu konsep, variable, dimensi, indikator, dan

item (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 174-184).

Dalam penelitian ini, konsep penulis turunkan menjadi tiga, yaitu dimensi,

indikator, dan item. Dimensi merupakan aspek spesifik dari suatu konsep.

Makin kompleks suatu konsep, maka semakin banyak juga dimensi yang

dimiliki (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 183).


41

Selanjutnya adalah indikator yang merupakan sebuah observasi atau

pengamatan yang dipilih yang menggambarkan dimensi dari konsep yang ingin

diukur (Babbie dalam Eriyanto, 2011, p. 183).

Setelah konsep dipecah hingga menjadi indikator, selanjutnya adalah item

atau butir. Item merupakan pertanyaan atau kategori yang dipakai dalam lembar

coding (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 184).

Tabel 3.3 Tabel Operasionalisasi

Dimensi Indikator Item

Five crisis frames

(Satmeko & Valkenburg,

2000)

Atribusi tanggung jawab Menawarkan sebuah penyebab

atau solusi potensial dari sebuah

krisis dan cara menghubungkannya

dengan tanggung jawab.

Konflik Isu dibingkai sebagai suatu konflik

yang menunjukan ketidak

sepakatan antara individu dengan

individu, kelompok dengan

kelompok, atau antarnegara.

Konsekuensi ekonomi Memberitakan akibat finansial dari

sebuah peristiwa kepada individu,

grup, organisasi, atau negara.

Human interest Membingkai isu dari sisi

kemanusiaan, kisah individu yang


42

terlibat, atau sudut pandang

emosional dari sebuah krisis.

Moralitas Menempatkan sebuah peristiwa ke

dalam konteks moral, nilai

keagamaan, atau nilai sosial.

National interest

(Jang, 2013)

Common Mengidentifikasi bahwa sebuah isu

atau masalah merupakan hal yang

biasa atau umum terjadi. Dalam

pandangan ini, sebuah isu bisa

diselesaikan dengan kepercayaan

dan kerjasama.

Konflik Menekankan pada adanya ketidak

sepakatan antara dua negara atau

lebih.

Ancaman Berfokus bahwa suatu isu atau

kejadian adalah sebuah ancaman

yang mungkin saja dapat

mengancam/merugikan negara

lain.

News sources

(Wang, Sparks, & Huang,

2017) dan (Cozma &

Kozman, 2017)

Organisasi internasional

pemerintah dan organisasi

non-pemerintah

Sumber yang digunakan berasal

dari Perserikaan Bangsa-Bangsa

(PBB), komunitas internasional,


43

organisasi masyarakat sipil,

Eight Armed Ethnic Group,

Karen National Union,

ASEAN, organisasi islam,

organisasi partai pembangunan

dan serikat kerja, kelompok

organisasi antar-sektor, serikat

generasi pemuda mahasiswa

Myanmar, persatuan asosiasi

perjalanan, Fortify Rights,

organisasi solidaritas Rohingya,

dan UNICEF.

Pejabat pemerintah Sumber yang digunakan berasal

dari pemerintahan seperti presiden,

menteri, wakil menteri, parlemen,

sekretaris jendral, penasihat

hukum, pejabat negara,

departemen dalam pemerintahan,

komite, anggota komisi, duta

besar, kedutaan, dan direktorat

jendral.


44

Pertahanan dan keamanan Sumber yang digunakan berasal

dari jajaran tantara polisi, seperti

militer, tantara, dan polisi.

Warga/masyarakat Sumber yang digunakan berasal

dari kalangan masyarakat umum,

korban krisis, peraih nobel, dan

imam.

Akademisi Sumber yang digunakan berasal

dari jajaran akademisi seperti

akademisi Perancis, peneliti

internasional, institut, petugas

Pendidikan, dan guru.

Others Sumber yang digunakan di luar

dari sumber yang telah dijelaskan

sebelumnya, yaitu koran, direktur

yayasan, fact-finding, dan gambar

yang diambil dari satelit.


45

3.5 TEKNIK PENGUMPULAN DATA

3.5.1 DATA PRIMER

Sebagai data primer, penulis mengumpulkan seluruh teks berita terkait

isu krisis Rohingya di media online Myanmar Times dan The New York Times

periode 25 Agustus – 25 September 2017.

Untuk data terkait isu Rohingya di Myanmar Times, penulis mengambil

data secara langsung di website Myanmar Times, yaitu mmtimes.com. Penulis

memasukan kata kunci “Rakhine” dan “Rohingya” di kolom pencarian indeks

berita.

Hal berbeda penulis lakukan ketika mengambil data dari The New York

Times, penulis menggunakan database akademik Lexis-Nexis dengan

menggunakan kata kunci “Rohingya” pada 22 Maret 2018.

3.5.2 DATA SEKUNDER

Untuk melengkapi data dalam penelitian, peneliti mengambil data dari

buku, internet, jurnal, dan penelitian terdahulu yang relevan dengan penelitian

yang sedang penulis teliti.

3.6 VALIDITAS

Alat ukur sebuah penelitian harus memiliki tingkat validitas yang tinggi.

Validitas adalah sebuah hal yang berkaitan dengan apakah sebuah alat ukur

yang dipakai dalam penelitian dapat secara tepat mengukur konsep yang ingin

diukur (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 259).


46

Validitas sangat penting dalam sebuah penelitian yang menggunakan

metode analisis isi. Hal ini disebabkan karena setiap temuan yang didapatkan

dalam analisis isi didasarkan pada alat ukur yang dipakai (Eriyanto, 2011, p.

259).

Dalam penelitian yang penulis lakukan, alat ukur atau instrumen dalam

penelitian ini sudah bisa dinyatakan valid. Hal ini dapat dilihat karena dalam

alat ukur yang digunakan sudah menyertakan semua indikator dari konsep

secara lengkap (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 273).

Selain itu, alat ukur dalam penelitian ini juga telah digunakan dalam

beberapa penelitian sebelumnya. Di antaranya adalah oleh Lindsey M. Bier,

Sejin Park, dan Michael J. Palenchar (2017) dalam penelitiannya yang berjudul

“Framing The Flight MH370 Mystery: A Content Analysis of Malaysian,

Chinese, and U.S. Media”. Dalam penelitian tersebut Bier, Park, dan Palenchar

menggunakan konsep framing konflik, national interest, dan international

citizenship.

Setelah itu juga ada penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Raluca Cozma dan

Claudia Kozman (2017) dalam penelitiannya yang berjudul “The Syrian Crisis

in U.S. and Lebanese Newspapers: A Cross-national Analysis”. Dalam

penelitian tersebut Cozma dan Kozman menggunakan konsep framing konflik,

war journalism, dan news sources.


47

3.7 RELIABILITAS

Reliabilitas berbeda dengan validitas. Reliabilitas melihat apakah alat

ukur dapat dipercaya menghasilkan temuan yang sama ketika dilakukan oleh

orang yang berbeda. Sedangkan validitas berbicara mengenai apakah alat ukur

benar-benar mengukur apa yang ingin diukur (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 282).

Alat ukur bisa jadi tidak valid, tetapi tidak boleh tidak reliabel. Karena

alat ukur yang tidak reliabel merupakan indikasi bahwa alat ukur tersebut juga

tidak valid (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 282).

Dalam melakukan uji reliabilitas ini penulis melakukan pilot tes dengan

sampel sebanyak 10% dari populasi (10% x 59 berita = 6 berita). Enam berita

ini akan penulis pilih secara acak (simple random sampling) dengan bantuan

software random.org. sebelum melakukan pengambilan sampel, penulis

melakukan penomoran terlebih dahulu pada tiap unit berita. Berikut adalah

daftar enam berita terpilih yang akan dijadikan sampel penelitian oleh coder.

Tabel 3.4 Sampel Pilot Test

No. No.

Berita

Judul Media

1. 3 Over 70 killed in Rakhine after

militants attack

Myanmar Times

2. 20 Myanmar will not take back people

without papers

Myanmar Times


48

3. 47 Refugees’ Flight and Land Mines

Spur Bangladesh Protest to Myanmar

The New York

Times

4. 29 State Counsellor condemns all human

rights violations in Rakhine

Myanmar Times

5. 28 A strong commitment to restore peace Myanmar Times

6. 54 At Risk in Rohingya Exodus: 230.000

Children, Hundreads All Alone

The New York

Times

Dalam proses uji sampel ini penulis melibatkan dua coder, yaitu penulis

sendiri dan salah seroang mahasiswa jurnalistik di Universitas Multimedia

Nusantara, Naddya Dea Kusnadi. Coder kedua penulis pilih karena ia mengerti

terkait isu krisis Rohingya ini. Selain itu juga penulis telah memberi tahu

bagaimana cara dan teknik pengisian lembar coding yang akan dilakukan saat

melakukan uji sampel.

Uji reliabilitas yang penulis lakukan dengan menggunakan bantuan

SPSS 20.0 (Statistics Package for Social Science). Dalam proses pengujian

reliabilitas ini penulis menggunakan rumus Cohen Kappa.

Tabel 3.5 Interobserver Variation

Observer 1 Result

Yes No

Yes A B m1


49

Observer 2

Result

No C D m0

Total n1 n0 N

(Sumber: Viera & Garrett, 2005, p. 361)

Keterangan:

(a) Dan (d) : menunjukan angka setuju dari kedua koder

(b) Dan (c) : menunjukan angka tidak setuju dari kedua koder

Jika tidak ada “tidak setuju” dari koder, maka P0 = 1

Jika tidak ada “setuju” dari koder, maka P0 = 0

Perhitungan:

Expected agreement

Pe = [(n1/n)*(m1/n)] + [(n0/n)*(m0/n)]

Rumus Kappa,

K = (P0 – Pe) / (1 – Pe)

Keterangan:

K : Coeficient Cohens Kappa Reliability (Koefisien Reliabilitas)

P0 : Proporsi kesepakatan teramati

Pe : Proporsi kesepakatan harapan

1 : Konstanta

Dengan menggunakan rumus Kappa, dapat ditentukan reliabilitas antar

koder sebagai berikut (Viera & Garret, 2005, p. 362)


50

Tabel 3.6 Interpretation of Kappa

Poor Slight Fair Moderate Substansial Almost Perfect

Kappa 0.0 .20 .40 .60 .80 1.0

Kappa Agreement

< 0 Less than chance agreement

0.01 – 0.20 Slight agreement

0.21 – 0.40 Fair agreement

0.41 – 0.60 Moderate agreement

0.61 – 0.80 Substansial agreement

0.81 – 0.99 Almost perfect agreement

Tabel 3.7 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian Five Crisis Frame

Symmetric Measures

Value Asymp. Std.

Errora

Approx. Tb Approx. Sig.

Measure of Agreement Kappa .600 .324 2.151 .031

N of Valid Cases 6


51

Tabel 3.7 menunjukan angka reliabilitas antar coder yaitu K = 0.600,

hasil ini berarti nilai reliabilitas kategori five crisis frame termasuk ke dalam

moderate agreement. Asymp. Std. Error dalam tabel di atas juga menunjukan

angka besarnya kesalahan pengukuran terstandar. Semakin kecil angka error,

maka semakin reliabel juga hasil pengukuran.

Tabel 3.8 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian National Interest

Symmetric Measures

Value Asymp. Std.

Errora


Measure of Agreement Kappa .571 .353 1.549 .121

N of Valid Cases 6

Pada tabel 3.8 ditunjukan besarnya angka reliabilitas untuk kategori

national interest yaitu K = 0.571 Hasil ini pun menunjukan bahwa reliabilitas

kategori national interest termasuk ke dalam moderate agreement. Asymp. Std.

Error dalam tabel di atas juga menunjukan angka besarnya kesalahan

pengukuran terstandar. Semakin kecil angka error, maka semakin reliabel juga

hasil pengukuran.


52

Tabel 3.9 Nilai Koefisien Kappa Uji Penilaian News Sources

Symmetric Measures

Value Asymp. Std.

Errora


Measure of Agreement Kappa 1.000 .000 2.449 .014

N of Valid Cases 6

Pada tabel 3.9 ditunjukan angka reliabilitas untuk kategori news sources

yaitu K = 1.000. Angka ini membuat reliabilitas dari kategori news sources

masuk ke dalam almost perfect agreement. Asymp. Std. Error dalam tabel di

atas juga menunjukan angka besarnya kesalahan pengukuran terstandar.

Semakin kecil angka error, maka semakin reliabel juga hasil pengukuran.

Tabel 3.10 Nilai Reliabilitas

No. Kategori Kappa (K) Interpretasi Kappa

1. Five Crisis Frame 0.600 Moderate Agreement

2. National Interest 0.571 Moderate Agreement

3. News Sources 1.000 Almost Perfect Agreement


53

3.8 TEKNIK ANALISIS DATA

Teknik analisis data dalam penelitian ini menggunakan chi kuadrat/chi

square. Alasan memilih teknik ini adalah yang mana skala dalam penelitian ini

adalah skala nominal. Dan chi kuadrat atau chi square hanya dipakai apabila

datanya adalah data nominal. Selain itu, penggunaan rumus chi square juga

bertujuan untuk melakukan uji beda (Eriyanto, 2011, p. 329).

Agar lebih mudah dan praktis, proses analisis data ini dibantu oleh

program komputer yang bernama SPSS 20.0 (Statistical Package for the Social

Science).


54

BAB IV

HASIL PENELITIAN DAN PEMBAHASAN

4.1 OBJEK PENELITIAN

4.1.1 Gambaran Umum Myanmar Times (mmtimes.com)

Myanmar Times pertama kali diluncurkan secara mingguan oleh

Myanmar Consolidated Media, Ltd pada tahun 2000. Myanmar Times adalah

surat kabar berbahasa inggris utama di Myanmar. Perusahaan MCM juga

menerbitkan surat kabar harian berbahasa Myanmar, jurnal mingguan

berbahasa Myanmar, dan majalah fashion dan selebriti mingguan (About us,

para. 1).

Selain memiliki keunggulan karena berbahasa inggris, Myanmar Times

juga merupakan surat kabar milik swasta pertama yang mencakup berbagai

topik di luar olahraga (Wongpethkao, 2015, para. 8). Myanmar Times juga

diluncurkan dengan gaya dan pendekatan internasional. Pada saat diluncurkan,

Myanmar Times juga merupakan satu-satunya surat kabar yang memiliki

investasi asing (Wongpethkao, 2015, para. 9).

Myanmar Times, yang bukan hanya surat kabar swasta pertama, tetapi

bahkan sebagian dimiliki oleh pihak asing, memiliki fokus utama pemberitaan


55

di luar olahraga (area di mana pemerintah menginginkan kontrol penuh)

(Wongpethkao, 2015, para. 11)

4.1.2 Gambaran Umum The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The New York Times adalah sebuah surat kabar harian yang diterbitkan

di New York City. The Times merupakan salah satu surat kabar terbesar di

dunia, kekuatan utamanya terletak pada sisi editorial (The Editors of

Encyclopaedia Britannica, para. 1).

The Times didirikan pada 1851, sebuah surat kabar yang bertujuan

untuk menghindari sensasionalisme dan melaporkan berita secara terkendali

dan objektif.

Ochs membangun The Times dibantu oleh editor dari New York Sun.

The New York Times juga memanfaatkan teknologi untuk memperluas

edarannya, The Times meluncurkan versi online pada 1995.

Pada 2006, The New York Times meluncurkan versi eletronik, the

Times Reader, yang memungkinkan pembaca bisa mengunduh edisi cetaknya.

Pada 2007, publikasi dari The Times pindah ke Gedung New York Times yang

dibangun di Manhattan.

Selanjutnya, pada 2011 lalu The Times meluncurkan rencana

berlangganan untuk edisi digitalnya, sehingga dengan hal ini pembaca memiliki

keterbatasan dalam mengakses konten secara gratis.


56

4.2 HASIL PENELITIAN

Setelah dilakukan pilot test pada instrumen penelitian dan telah dinyatakan

reliabel, selanjutnya penulis melakukan Crosstab uji Chi Square untuk melakukan uji

beda sekaligus menjawab hipotesis. Setelah hasil ditemukan, kemudian penulis akan

mendeskripsikan hasil tersebut ke dalam semua analisis.

4.2.1 Five Crisis Frame

Variabel pertama yang penulis uji adalah mengenai lima bingkai krisis

atau five crisis frame. Setmeko dan Velkenburg (2000) mengatakan bahwa five

crisis frame adalah lima hal yang paling umum digunakan dalam proses

framing sebuah berita: atribusi tanggung jawab, konflik, human interest,

konsekuensi ekonomi, dan moralitas (Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Tabel 4.1 Nilai Uji Chi Square Five Crisis Frame

Myanmar Times * The NewYork Times Crosstabulation

No

Five Crisis Frame

Media Portal

Total Myanmar Times The New York Times

1 Atribusi tanggung jawab 14

23.7%

3

5.1%

17

28.8%

2 Konflik 22

37.7%

16

27.1%

38

64.4%


57

3 Konsekuensi ekonomi 1

1.7%

0

0.0%

1

1.7%

4 Human interest 0

0.0%

1

1.7%

1

1.7%

5 Moralitas 0

0.0%

2

3.4%

2

3.4%

Total 37

62.7%

22

37.3%

59

100%

(ᵡ2 = 8.822, df = 4, ρ > 0.05)

Berdasarkan hasil uji Chi Square tersebut, penulis mendapatkan bahwa

angka Asymp. Sig. sebesar 0.066 atau lebih besar dari 0.05. Hal ini menandakan

bahwa diterimanya H0 atau tidak adanya perbedaan framing antara Myanmar

Times dan The New York Times dalam isu krisis Rohingya.

Kedua media yang penulis teliti memiliki kesamaan dalam membingkai

isu krisis Rohingya, baik Myanmar Times maupun The New York Times sama-

sama menonjolkan bingkai konflik. Di Myanmar Times, sebanyak 22 dari 37

berita, atau sebesar 59,5% pemberitaan di Myanmar Times membingkai isu

Rohingya ke dalam bingkai konflik.


58

Tidak jauh berbeda dengan pemberitaan di The New York Times,

sebanyak 16 dari 22 berita, atau sebesar 72,7% pemberitaan di The New York

Times juga membingkai isu Rohingya ke dalam bingkai konflik.

Apabila dihitung dari seluruh sampel penelitian yang ada, sebanyak 38

dari 59 berita, atau sebesar 64.4% pemberitaan terkait isu Rohingya dibingkai

dengan bingkai konflik, baik oleh Myanmar Times mau pun The New York

Times.

Dari kelima jenis framing yang ada dalam kategori five crisis frame,

konsekuensi ekonomi dan human interest-lah yang paling sedikit digunakan.

Baik konsekuensi ekonomi mau pun human interest sama-sama hanya ada pada

satu berita saja.

4.2.1.1 Atribusi Tanggung Jawab

Pada bingkai atribusi tanggung jawab, Satmeko dan Valkenburg

(2000) mengatakan bahwa sebuah berita akan dibingkai dengan

menawarkan sebuah penyebab atau solusi dari sebuah krisis/isu. Selain

menawarkan penyebab dan solusi, bingkai ini juga akan

menghubungkan dengan bentuk-bentuk dari tanggung jawab atas

sebuah krisis/isu (Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Salah satu artikel yang membingkai pemberitaannya dengan

atribusi tanggung jawab adalah artikel yang dikeluarkan oleh Myanmar


59

Times pada 08 September 2017 yang berjudul “Rakhine conflict about

national security, says French academic”.

Apabila dilihat dari judul yang ada, berita ini dibingkai dengan

menunjukan penyebab dari sebuah krisis/isu/konflik. Dalam artikel

tersebut dikatakan bahwa konflik Rohingya/Rakhine disebabkan karena

adanya masalah pada keamanan nasional.

Tidak hanya diperlihatkan secara langsung dari judul, pada

paragraf pertama dan kedua artikel pun langsung ditonjolkan bagaimana

berita ini dibingkai dengan bingkai atribusi tanggung jawab yang

menawarkan sebuah penyebab dari konflik/isu.

Pada paragraf pertama sudah dituliskan “konflik hebat yang

sedang terjadi di daerah Rakhine bukanlah masalah keyakinan. Namun,

French academic mengatakan bahwa masalah kemanan nasional yang

menjadi penyebab konflik tersebut.” Hal ini menunjukan bahwa kalimat

pembuka pada artikel tersebut sudah menunjukan penyebab dari sebuah

isu, khususnya krisis Rohingya.

Tidak hanya pada kalimat atau paragraf pertama, pada paragraf

kedua pun berita ini langsung menuliskan kutipan langsung terkait

penyebab krisis Rohingya. Kutipan tersebut bertuliskan, “Kepala dari

French Institute, Dr Jacques P. Leider, mengatakan bahwa masalah


60

utama dari konflik ini adalah tentang keamanan nasional, bukan tentang

masalah agama.”

Selain Myanmar Times, The New York Times pun membingkai

pemberitaan mengenai isu Rohingya dengan bingkai atribusi tanggung

jawab. Salah satu contohnya adalah dalam artikel yang terbit pada 16

September 2017 dengan judul “Bangladesh Plans to Build Huge

Refugee Camp for Rohingya”.

Dalam artikel tersebut dikatakan bahwa untuk mengatasi adanya

“banjir” pengungsi Rohingya yang datang dari Myanmar, pemerintah

Bangladesh akan membangun kamp yang besar untuk menampung para

pengungsi Rohingya. Pemerintah Bangladesh akan membangun

setidaknya 14.000 tempat berlindung untuk menampung sekitar

400.000 pengungsi.

Bingkai atribusi tanggung jawab yang menerangkan bentuk

tanggung jawab dari adanya sebuah isu/konflik langsung terlihat pada

kalimat awal/lead berita tersebut. Kalimat “Bangladesh sedang

mengalami banjir pengungsi dari suku Rohingya yang belum pernah

terjadi sebelumnya. Pemerintah berencna membangun sebuah kamp

besar untuk menampung sekitar 400.000 pengungsi yang telah datang

dalam tiga minggu terakhir.”


61

“Salah satu pejabat Bangladesh mengatakan kalau pemukiman

yang akan dibangun dalam 10 hari mendatang akan berada di atas tanah

seluas 2.000 hektar di daerah dekat perbatasan antara Myanmar dan

Bangladesh. Pembangunan pemukiman ini akan dibantu oleh organisasi

bantuan internasional dan pasukan militer Bangladesh.”

Dari artikel tersebut dapat dilihat bahwa adanya penawaran

solusi dari penumpukan pengungsi yang terjadi di Bangladesh. Secara

umum, para korban Rohingya pergi mengungsi ke Bangladesh karena

letak negara yang berdekatan dan dinilai lebih aman.

Selain menawarkan solusi, artikel ini juga turut menunjukan

sikap tanggung jawab sebagai negara tetangga untuk membantu,

terlebih dalam keadaan konflik. Pemerintah Bangladesh ingin

membangun relasi yang baik antarnegara. Hal ini terlihat pada kutipan

kata-kata dari perdana menteri Bangladesh yang mengatakan, “kami

ingin adanya perdamaian, kami juga ingin adanya hubungan yang baik

dengan negara tetangga kami.”

4.2.1.2 Konflik

Bingkai kedua dari five crisis frames adalah konflik. Satmeko

dan Valkenburg (2000) juga mengatakan bahwa salah satu bingkai

paling umum terjadi adalah konflik. Bahkan bingkai konflik ini kerap


62

digunakan untuk menggambarkan ketertarikan audiens dan menjadi inti

dari nilai berita (Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Dalam bingkai konflik, pemberitaan akan diberikan penonjolan

dalam hal ketidak sepakatan antara individu dengan individu, kelompok

dengan kelompok, atau bahkan suatu negara dengan negara lainnya.

Bingkai ini adalah bingkai yang paling umum dilakukan dalam

pemberitaan isu Rohingya. Bahkan lebih dari 64% dari total sampel

yang diteliti membingkai pemberitaan dengan bingkai konflik.

Salah satu contoh dari pemberitaan yang dibingkai dengan

bingkai konflik adalah artikel di Myanmar Times yang terbit pada 25

Agustus 2017 dengan judul “Over 70 killed in Rakhine after militants

attack”.

Apabila dilihat dari judul yang diberikan, kita sudah bisa melihat

bahwa berita tersebut akan berisikan tentang konflik yang sedang terjadi

di Rakhine akibat serangan militan.

Dalam artikel tersebut dijelaskan bahwa sedang terjadi konflik

antara anggota militer dan kepolisian dengan ARSA (Arakan Rohingya

Salvation Army) di pos pengamanan Myanmar.

Adanya kalimat “setidaknya membunuh satu tentara, satu

petugas imigrasi, 10 polisi, dan 59 militan terbunuh dalam pertempuran


63

tersebut”. Kata “pertempuran” sudah menjadi kunci bahwa berita ini

dibingkai dengan menggunakan bingkai konflik karena adanya ketidak

sepakatan antara dua pihak. Berdasarkan Kamus Besar Bahasa

Indonesia (KBBI), pertempuran berarti perkelahian yang hebat.

Sedangkan menurut merriam webster, pertempuran berarti bertarung

dalam pertarungan fisik, atau berjuang untuk mengatasi seseorang

dengan menggunakan senjata.

Contoh lainnya adalah artikel The New York Times yang terbit

pada hari yang sama denga judul “More Than 70 Killed in Fighting in

Western Myanmar”.

Dalam berita tersebut juga terdapat penggunaan kata-kata

seperti “clashes/bentrokan” dan “troubled region/daerah yang

bermasalah” sudah menunjukan bahwa pemberitaan ini secara umum

dibingkai oleh bingkai konflik.

Sedikit berbeda dengan Myanmar Times, The New York Times

bahkan menjelaskan bagaimana serangan itu terjadi pada paragraf ke

dua. Kalimat “militan menggunakan pisau, senjata kecil, dan bahan

peledak dalam serangan di pos polisi dan militer” semakin menunjukan

bahwa konfliklah yang paling ditonjolkan dalam pemberitaan tersebut.


64

4.2.1.3 Konsekuensi Ekonomi

Bingkai ke tiga dari five crisis frame adalah mengenai

konsekuensi ekonomi. Secara umum, bingkai konsekuensi ekonomi

hanya menjelaskan atau menonjolkan bagaimana sebuah peristiwa/isu

akan memiliki akibat pada aspek finansial.

Dalam periode penelitian yang penulis lakukan, hanya ada satu

berita yang menggunakan bingkai ini. Satu-satunya berita yang

dibingkai oleh konsekuensi ekonomi adalah berita yang diterbitkan oleh

Myanmar Times pada 21 September 2017 yang berjudul “Rakhine crisis

taking toll in tourism”.

Pada artikel tersebut dijelaskan bahwa konflik yang terjadi di

wilayah Rakhine/Rohingya memiliki pengaruh pada sisi finansial.

Dengan adanya kalimat “Perusahaan pariwisata mengalami beberapa

kerugian akibat krisis yang terjadi di Rakhine, beberapa perusahaan tur

dan hotel baru-baru ini menerima pembatalan pemesanan”.

Selain itu, akibat finansial dari krisis Rohingya juga

diperlihatkan dalam kalimat “pembatalan pemesanan telah meningkat,

terutama untuk perjalanan Ngapali dan Mrauk-U. Para wisatawan tidak

menyadari bahwa (tujuan mereka) sangat jauh dari wilayah krisis”.


65

Bahkan di akhir berita terdapat kalimat “turis dari Jepang,

Spanyol, dan Amerika sangat sensitive dengan maslaha keamanan dan

keselamatan”. Hal ini menunjukan bahwa krisis yang sedang terjadi di

wilayah Myanmar memang cukup berpengaruh pada dunia pariwisata

di Myanmar, terutama untuk para pengusaha pariwisata dan hotel.

4.2.1.4 Human Interest

Bingkai ke empat adalah human interest. Fokus atau penonjolan

dalam bingkai human interest adalah tentang sisi kemanusiaan, kisah

individu yang terlibat, atau sudut pandang emosional dari sebuah krisis.

Dalam penelitian yang penulis lakukan, dari 59 sampel berita

yang digunakan, baik dari Myanmar Times mau pun The New York

Times, hanya ada satu berita yang dibingkai dengan bingkai human

interest, yaitu berita di The New York Times pada 02 September 2017

yang berjudul “Desprate Rohingya Flee Myanmar on Trail of Suffering:

‘It Is All Gone’”.

Artikel ini membahas bagaimana warga Rohingya merasa

kehilangan segalanya akibat krisis yang sedang terjadi. Membuat cerita

yang berlandaskan sudut pandang para korban.

Penggunaan kalimat deskriptif dalam pemberitaannya membuat

pembaca mampu membayangkan bagaimana kondisi yang dijabarkan


66

di dalam tulisan. Bahkan penulis berita menggunakan kalimat-kalimat

yang mendeskripsikan para korban.

Kalimat-kalimat tersebut seperti, “beberapa dari mereka terlihat

begitu kurus, mulai kelaparan, lesu, dan membawa bayi-bayi yang telah

dehidrasi”.

“Mereka adalah puluhan ribu orang Rohingya yang tiba dengan

tuduhan dan pembantaian di tangan pasukan keamanan Myanmar dan

gerombolan sekutu yang dimulai sejak 25 Agustus”.

Bahkan tulisan ini juga memuat ungkapan perasaan para korban,

seperti “tidak ada lagi bagian desa yang tersisa, tidak ada sama sekali”.

“Bahkan tidak ada lagi orang yang tersisa, sama sekali. Mereka semua

hilang”.

Beberapa deskripsi keadaan juga digunakan oleh penulis artikel

yang bertujuan untuk membuat pembaca ikut merasakan apa yang

dirasakan oleh para korban. Seperti yang tertera pada kalimat

“pendarahan postpartum istrinya telah meningkat sehingga ia tidak bisa

lagi berjalan atau menghasilkan susu untuk bayi mereka”. “Bayi-nya

berada di pelukan Pak Rahman, terlihat sangat kurus, dan kulitnya yang

kering serta memucat di persendiannya”.


67

Dari sejumlah penjabaran di atas terlihat bahwa sisi human

interest-lah yang ingin ditonjolkan oleh penulis artikel sehingga

pembaca bisa ikut merasakan sisi emosional dari para korban mau pun

krisisnya itu sendiri.

4.2.1.5 Moralitas

Bingkai terakhir dari five crisis frames adalah bingkai moralitas.

Pada bingkai ini fokus utama pemberitaan terletak pada bagaimana

sebuah peristiwa ditempatkan ke dalam konteks moral dan nilai-nilai

agama.

Bingkai moralitas dapat ditemui pada pemberitaan di The New

York Times yang berjudul “Fghan Anger Simmers Over U.S. Leaflets

Seen an Insulting Islam”.

Dalam pemberitaan ini terdapat kata-kata yang merujuk pada

nilai-nilai keagamaan, seperti “jihad” dan “disrespecting our religion”.

Selain itu juga dalam berita ini terdapat kalimat seperti “kalian

telah meremehkan perasaan 1,8 miliar mulsim dan semua yang mereka

anggap sakral”. Selain itu juga ada kalimat berupa “kami berjanji untuk

mempertahankan nilai-nilai kami, mempertahankan agama kami, dan

mempertahankan tanah kami”.


68

Dengan ini dapat dilihat bahwa terdapat sejumlah nilai-nilai

moral dan keagamaan yang tercantum dalam pemberitaannya. Oleh

karena itu, dapat dilihat pula bahwa bingkai yang dipakai adalah bingkai

moralitas.

4.2.2 National Interest

Variabel selanjutnya yang penulis teliti adalah national

interest/kepentingan nasional. Dalam penelinitian ini, ada tiga jenis bingkai

national interest yang penulis gunakan, yaitu common interest frame, conflict

interest frame, dan threat interest frame. Ketiga jenis national interest yang

penulis pakai merupakan gabungan dari jenis national interest yang telah

dikemukakan oleh Brewer (2006) dan Jang (2017).

Tabel 4.2 Nilai Uji Chi Square National Interest


No

National Interest

Media Portal


1 Umum 13

22.0%

2

3.4%

15

25.4%

2 Konflik 22

37.3%

19

32.2%

41

69.5%

3 Ancaman 2 1 3


69

3.4% 1.7% 5.1%

Total 37

62.7%

22

37.3%

59

100%

(ᵡ2 = 5.138, df = 2, ρ > 0.05)

Berdasarkan hasil uji Chi Square untuk kategori national interest,

penulis mendapatkan bahwa angka Asymp. Sig. sebesar 0,077 atau lebih besar

dari 0,05. Hal ini menandakan bahwa diterimanya H0 atau tidak adanya

perbedaan national interest antara Myanmar Times dan The New York Times

dalam isu krisis Rohingya.

Kedua media yang penulis teliti memiliki kesamaan dalam hal

kepentingan nasional di pemberitaan isu krisis Rohingya, baik Myanmar Times

maupun The New York Times sama-sama menonjolkan bingkai konflik. Di

Myanmar Times, sebanyak 22 dari 37 berita, atau sebesar 59,5% pemberitaan

di Myanmar Times memiliki bingkai kepentingan nasional berupa konflik.



Times juga memiliki bingkai kepentingan nasional berupa konflik.

Apabila dihitung dari seluruh sampel penelitian yang ada, sebanyak 41

dari 59 berita, atau sebesar 69,5% pemberitaan terkait isu Rohingya dibingkai


70

dengan bingkai kepentingan nasional berupa konflik, baik oleh Myanmar Times

mau pun The New York Times.

Bingkai lainnya yang sering digunakan adalah bingkai common/umum.

Sebanyak 15 dari 59 berita menggunakan bingkai common interest frame.

Lebih dari 25% pemberitaan dari seluruh sampel yang ada menyatakan bahwa

isu Rohingya cukup memberi ancaman ke aspek lain di Myanmar.

Dari ketiga jenis national interest frames ini, bingkai threats/ancaman

menjadi bingkai yang paling sedikit dipakai. Bingkai ini hanya ada pada tiga

berita dari 59 total berita yang penulis teliti. Dua berita dari Myanmar Times

dan satu berita dari The New York Times.

4.2.2.1 Common Interest Frame

Pada konsep common interest frame yang dikemukakan oleh

Brewer (2006), bingkai ini berfokus pada bagaimana sebuah berita

menekankan pada prinsip sebuah negara yang memiliki kepercayaan

kepada negara lainnya dan cenderung menginginkan terjadinya sebuah

kerja sama yang baik (p. 90)

Selain itu, Jang (2013) juga menggunakan dan mengembangkan

konsep common interest frame ini. Dalam penelitian yang digunakan

oleh Jang (2013), common interest frame berfokus pada sebuah

peristiwa atau konflik akan dianggap menjadi hal yang biasa terjadi.


71

Selain dianggap sebagai hal yang biasa, menurut Jang (2013), konflik

ini dapat diselesaikan dengan kepercayaan dan kerja sama (Jang, 2013,

p. 191)

Dalam penelitian yang penulis lakukan, sebanyak 15 dari 59

berita yang ditelti menggunakan bingkai common interest frame. 13

Berita dari Myanmar Times dan 2 berita dari The New York Times.

Salah satu contoh pemberitaan yang menggunakan bingkai ini

adalah berita yang terbit di Myanmar Times pada 30 Agustus 2017 yang

berjudul “Bangladesh, India express support for Myanmar after

attacks.”

Secara umum berita ini menjelaskan bagaimana pemerintah

Bangladesh dan India ingin menjalin kerja sama agar pemerintah

Myanmar bisa segera menyelesaikan masalah yang sedang dialami.

Seperti yang telah dijelaskan oleh Brewer (2006) dan Jang (2017)

bahwa common interest frame ini menekankan pada adanya kerja sama

untuk menyelesaikan sebuah isu/konflik. Maka dapat disimpulkan

berita ini dibingkai dengan bingkai kepentingan nasional umum.

Terdapat kalimat seperti “dalam sebuah surat resmi, Bangladesh

mengusulkan operasi gabungan di sepanjang perbatasan dengan

Myanmar, melalui kerja sama antara pasukan keamanan kedua negara,”


72

yang menunjukan bagaimana ingin dibangunnya kerja sama antara

Bangladesh dan Myanmar agar konflik segera berakhir.

Selain Bangladesh, dalam berita ini disebutkan bahwa

kementrian luar negeri India juga turut memberi dukungan kepada

Myanmar. Pada akhir berita terdapat kutipan langsung seperti, “kami

berharap bahwa para pelaku kejahatan ini akan dibawa ke pengadilan

dan kami memperluas dukungan kuat kami kepada pemerintah

Myanmar.”

4.2.2.2 Conflict Interest Frame

Brewer (2006) menerangkan bahwa jenis berita yang dibingkai

dengan conflict interest frame adalah pemberitaan yang menekankan

pada kecenderungan tidak mempercayai negara lain dan tidak

mendukung kebijakan di negara tersebut (Brewer, 2006, p.91). Bingkai

ini berbanding terbalik dengan common interest frame.

Jang (2013) menambahkan bahwa sebuah pemberitaan

dikategorikan masuk ke dalam bingkai conflict interest frame apabila

isi berita tersebut menyangkut pada adanya ketidak sepakatan antara

dua pihak atau lebih (Jang, 2013, p. 191).

Bingkai conflict interest frame memiliki porsi paling besar di

dalam penelitian yang penulis lakukan. Sebanyak 41 dari 59 berita yang


73

penulis teliti termasuk ke dalam conflict interest frame, dengan rincian

22 berita dari Myanmar Times dan 19 berita berasar dari The New York

Times.

Salah satu contoh berita yang termasuk ke dalam conflict

interest frame adalah berita berjudul “Over 4000 ethnic Rakhine flee

fighting” yang diterbitkan Myanmar Times pada 29 Agustus 2017.

Adanya ketidak sepakatan atau disagreement sudah nampak

pada bagian lead/kalimat pembuka pada berita tersebut. Adanya kalimat

“pertempuran antara teroris dan Tatmadaw meningkat selama tiga hari

terakhir”. Kalimat tersebut menunjukan bahwa Rakhine/Rohingnya

sedang mengalami konflik yang mana sedang adanya perseteruan antara

anggota militer Myanmar dengan ARSA atau yang media Myanmar

sebut dengan teroris.

Contoh lainnya adalah pemberitaan yang diterbitkan oleh The

New York Times yang berjudul “Violence in Myanmar Pushes at Least

18.500 Rohingya Into Bangladesh”.

Kalimat “pertempuran yang mematikan – antara pasukan

kemanan Myanmar dengan grup militan yang disebut dengan Arakan

Rohingya Salvation Army – dimulai ketika para militant menyerang pos

kemanan” cukup memberikan gambaran bahwa pemberitaan ini


74

dibingkai dengan conflict interest frame karena membahas adanya

perpindahan warga Rohingya ke Bangladesh karena pertempuran yang

terjadi di Myanmar.

Secara umum, conflict interest frame membingkai

pemberitaannya dari konflik yang sedang terjadi antara anggota polisi

militer Myanmar dengan pihak militan ARSA yang menuntut

kebebaswan warga Rohingya. Pemberitaan yang diterbitkan tidak

terkait konfliknya saja. Namun, juga tentang akibat yang ditimbulkan

seperti banyaknya warga Rohingya mengungsi karena takut akan

konflik yang sedang terjadi.

4.2.2.3 Threat Interest Frame

Bingkai terakhir yang ada pada national interest frame adalah

bingkai ancaman atau threat interest frame. Pada bingkai ini

memberikan penekanan bahwa sebuah peristiwa/isu/krisis dapat

mengancam hal lainnya, atau bahkan mengancam negara lain.

Jang (2013) memberikan contoh dengan adanya negara yang

memiliki bom nuklir merupakan ancaman karena berpotensi

menghancurkan (p. 191).


75

Tidak hanya berpotensi mengancam sebuah negara lain, bingkai

ini juga menekankan bahwa sebuah konflik dapat

mengancam/mengganggu hal-hal lainnya.

Salah satu contoh dari bingkai ancaman adalah pada berita yang

diterbitkan oleh Myanmar Times pada 28 Agustus 2017 yang bejudul

“Shools shut down in northern Rakhine”.

Pada berita ini dikatakan bahwa konflik yang sedang terjadi

cukup memberikan dampak yang besar pada dunia pendidikan, salah

satunya adalah dengan ditutupnya 426 sekolah di utara Rakhine.

Sekolah-sekolah ditutup untuk waktu yang tidak bisa

ditentukan, sebanyak 159.000 siswa dan 2.500 guru terpaksa

menghentikan kegiatannya karena terkena dampak dari konflik yang

sedang terjadi.

Di akhir berita juga terdapat kalimat, “jika aski terorisme terjadi

setiap tahun, maka edukasi anak-anak yang terkena dampak juga akan

terpengaruhi. Masalah di dunia Pendidikan adalah hal yang tidak

diharapkan oleh negara”. Kalimat ini menunjukan bahwa aksi

terorisme/konflik cukup memberikan ancaman pada aspek lain, yaitu

dunia Pendidikan.


76

4.2.3 News Sources

Variabel terakhir yang penulis teliti adalah bagaimana penggunaan

sumber berita dalam isu krisis Rohingya. Berdasarkan penjelasan konsep news

sources yang dijelaskan oleh Wang, Sparks, & Huang (2017) serta Cozma &

Kozman (2017), penulis juga membagi sumber berita ke dalam beberapa

kategori, yaitu organisasi internasional pemerintah dan organisasi non-

pemerintah, pejabat pemerintah, pertahanan dan keamanan, warga/masyarakat,

akademisi, dan others.

Tabel 4.3 Nilai Uji Chi Square News Sources


No

News sources

Media Portal


1 Organisasi

pemerintah dan

non-pemerintah

4

6.8%

5

8.5%

9

15.3%

2 Pejabat pemerintah 26

44.1%

10

16.9%

36

61.0%

3 Pertahanan dan

keamanan

2

3.4%

2

3.4%

4

6.8%

4 Warga/masyarakat 2 4 6


77

(ᵡ2 = 6.495, df = 5, ρ > 0.05)

Berdasarkan hasil uji Chi Square untuk kategori news sources, penulis

mendapatkan bahwa angka Asymp. Sig. sebesar 0,261 atau lebih besar dari 0,05.

Hal ini menandakan bahwa diterimanya H0 atau tidak adanya perbedaan news

sources antara Myanmar Times dan The New York Times dalam pemberitaan

isu krisis Rohingya.

Kedua media yang penulis teliti memiliki kesamaan dalam hal sumber

berita di pemberitaan isu krisis Rohingya, baik Myanmar Times maupun The

New York Times sama-sama menggunakan sumber pejabat pemerintah secara

dominan. Di Myanmar Times, sebanyak 26 dari 37 berita, atau sebesar 70,3%

pemberitaan di Myanmar Times menggunakan pejabat pemerintah sebagai

sumber pemberitaan.

3.4% 6.8% 10.2%

5 Akademisi 2

3.4%

0

0.0%

2

3.4%

6 Others 1

1.7%

1

1.7%

2

3.4%

Total 37

62.7%

22

37.3%

59

100%


78



Times juga menggunakan pejabat pemerintah sebagai sumber berita.

Berikut adalah diagram jumlah penggunaan sumber berita dominan dari

masing-masing kategori pada kedua media yang penulis teliti.

Diagram 4.1 Penggunaan News Sources

Sumber-sumber yang berasal dari pejabat pemerintah secara umum

yang digunakan adalah menteri, parlemen, sekretaris jendral, dan anggota

komite. Namun, sumber yang paling sering digunakan dalam kategori pejabat

pemerintah adalah menteri, pejabat negara, dan penasihat negara.

4

26

2 2 2 1

5

10

24

0 1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

PBB dankomunitas

internasional

Menteri, pejabatnegara, dan

penasihat negara

Tentara danmiliter

Korban danmasyarakat

umum

Institut, danpeneliti

internasional

Koran dan staelit

Myanmar Times The New York Times


79

Salah satu contoh artikel yang menggunakan sumber berita dari anggota

pejabat pemerintah adalah berita yang berjudul “over 4,000 ethnic Rakhine flee

fighting” yang terbit di Myanmar Times pada 29 Agustus 2017.

Pada paragraf pembuka berita sudah tertulis kalimat “Pejabat negara

bagian Rakhine mengatakan bawah lebih dari 4000 warga Rakhine

meninggalkan desa mereka karena pertempuran yang terjadi antara teroris dan

Tatmadaw yang terus meningkat dalam tiga hari ini.” Kalimat pembuka/lead

berita ini sudah menuliskan sebuah pernyataan yang berasal dari pejabat negara.

Pada paragraf berikutnya juga tertulis bahwa “menteri kesejahteraan

sosial Win Myat Aye dan pejabat negara bagian Rakhine memberikan bantuan

pada penduduk desa yang terkepung dan membantu proses evakuasi. Menteri

Win Myat Aye juga mengunjungi beberapa desa yang rusak parah akibat

pertempuran.” Pada dua paragraf berikutnya pun masih menggunakan sumber

pejabat negara dan menteri.

Bahkan penggunaan sumber yang dikategorikan ke dalam pejabat

negara ini juga berlanjut pada kutipan pertama dalam artikel tersebut. “Kami

hanya mengunjungi beberapa desa, dan mungkin di desa lain ada lebih banyak

orang yang meninggalkan rumah mereka,” ujar menteri Win Myat Aye.

Begitu juga dengan salah satu pemberitaan di The New York Times pun

menggunakan sumber yang berasal dari pejabat pemerintah. Artikel tersebut


80

berjudul “Aung San Suu Kyi, a Much-Changed Icon, Evades Rohingya

Accusations”.

Pada paragraf-paragraf awal dituliskan “akhirnya pemimpin Myanmar,

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, memberikan tanggapan dari desakan internasional

terkait krisis yang terjadi di Rohingya. Dalam pidatonya, Daw Aung San Suu

Kyi meminta para pendengarnya untuk ikut bergabung dalam memecahkan

masalah di Myanmar”.

Dan kutipan langsung pertamanya pun menggunakan kata-kata yang

diucapkan oleh pemimpin Myanmar, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. “Pasukan

keamanan telah diinstruksikan untuk mematuhi secara ketat kode etik dalam

menjalankan operasi keamanan.” Ini menunjukan bahwa sumber yang

digunakan berasal dari kalangan pejabat pemerintah.

Sumber terbanyak berikutnya yang digunakan dalam pembuatan berita

adalah dari organisasi internasional pemerintah dan organisasi non-pemerintah.

Secara umum, baik Myanmar Times mau pun The New York Times

menggunakan PBB sebagai sumber utama.

Salah satu contohnya adalah berita yang berjudul “At Risk in Rohingya

Exodus: 230.000 Children, Hundreds All Alone.” Data yang digunakan dalam

penulisan berita tersebut berasal dari PBB dan UNICEF. Namun, secara umum

UNICEF-lah yang lebih banyak digunakan.


81

Selain berasal dari pernyataan-pernyataan menteri, organisasi

pemerintah, parlemen, dan lain-lain, sumber lainnya yang digunakan dalam

salah satu pemberitaan terkait isu Rohingya adalah Satelit.

Sumber ini digunakan oleh The New York Times dalam

pemberitaannya yang berjudul “Satellite Images Show More Than 200

Rohingya Villages Burned in Myanmar”. Dalam berita yang diturunkan pada

18 September 2017 ini, isinya hanyalah gambar-gambar yang ditangkap dari

satelit terkait pembakaran yang terjadi di Rohingya.

4.3 PEMBAHASAN

Semetko dan Velkenburg (2000) menyebutkan bahwa terdapat lima hal yang

paling umum digunakan oleh media untuk membingkai sebuah berita, yaitu atribusi

tanggung jawab, konflik, konsekuensi ekonomi, human interest dan moralitas. Dalam

penelitian ini, penulis menemukan bahwa kedua media yang diteliti: Myanmar Times

dan The New York Times sama-sama lebih banyak menggunakan bingkai konflik saat

menulis berita terkait isu Rohingya sepanjang 25 Agustus 2017 hingga 25 September

2017.

Sebuah berita dikatakan dibingkai dengan bingkai konflik apabila fokus utama

atau penonjolan pemberitaan terdapat pada adanya ketidak sepakatan antara individu

dengan individu, kelompok dengan kelompok, atau antarnegara. Ciri-cirinya biasanya

ditandai dengan adanya perselisihan.


82

Hal ini juga menjadi titik di mana adanya kesesuaian dengan apa yang

dikatakan oleh Semetko dan Velkenburg (2000) bahwa konflik selalu digunakan untuk

menggambarkan ketertarikan audiens juga sebagai inti dari sebuah nilai berita. Dengan

kata lain bahwa konflik adalah bingkai pemberitaan yang paling sering digunakan

dalam sebuah berita ((Raluca & Kozman, Claudia, 2017, p. 5).

Hasil perhitungan yang didapatkan oleh penulis juga sekaligus menjawab

pertanyaan penelitian pertama dalam penelitian ini tentang bagaimana Myanmar Times

dan The New York Times membingkai isu Rohingya dalam konteks five crisis frame.

Dan penelitian ini menemukan bahwa baik Myanmar Times mau pun The New York

Times secara umum menggunakan bingkai konflik dalam pemberitaan terkait isu

Rohingya. Lebih dari 50% pemberitaan dari total sampel penelitian menggunakan

bingkai tersebut.

Kesamaan ini juga ditunjukan dalam hasil uji Chi Square yang menunjukan

bahwa memang tidak ada perbedaan framing yang digunakan oleh Myanmar Times dan

The New York Times. Dengan kata lain, hasil uji Chi Square yang dilakukan menerima

hipotesis nol yang menyatakan tidak ada perbedaan framing dalam pemberitaan isu

krisis Rohingya di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times.

Walaupun penulis menemukan persamaan framing yang umum dilakukan oleh

kedua media yang penulis teliti, Myanmar Times dan The New York Times masih

memiliki perbedaan cara pandang dalam melihat konflik yang tengah terjadi.


83

Myanmar Times secara keseluruhan melihat konflik ini sebagai bentuk adanya

perseteruan antara anggota keamanan militer Myanmar dengan anggota ekstrimis atau

teroris. Myanmar Times merepresentasikan sosok teroris ini sebagai kelompok yang

berniat untuk melemahkan orang atau kelompok yang berusaha membangun

perdamaian dan keharmonisan di negara bagian Rakhine/Rohingya.

Berbeda dengan cara pandang dari Myanmar Times, The New York Times

melihat konflik yang terjadi di Myanmar sebagai bentuk perlawanan dari anggota

militan yang disebut dengan ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) terhadap

anggota militer Myanmar yang telah melakukan kejahatan kemanusiaan. Bahkan tidak

jarang ditemukan kata-kata ethnic cleansing yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah Myanmar

kepada warga Rohingya dalam pemberitaan di The New York Times.

Pembingkaian berita terkait isu Rohingya juga dipengaruhi oleh faktor lainnya,

yaitu adanya kepentingan nasional/national interest. Chomsky (dalam Jang, 2013,

p.191) menyatakan bahwa kepentingan nasional dapat membangun semua aspek dari

berita, terlebih bagaimana sebuah isu dibingkai dan sebuah topik dipilih.

Brewer (2006) merupakan orang yang pertama kali mengungkapkan konsep

national interest atau kepentingan nasional. Ia membagi national interest ke dalam tiga

jenis, yaitu umum, konflik, dan reciprocal exchange. Kemudian konsep ini

dikembangkan oleh WonYong Jang (2013) pada penelitiannya terkait propaganda di

media. Jang (2013) melihat bahwa jenis reciprocal exchange kurang cocok untuk


84

digunakan dalam penelitian miliknya, sehingga ia menggantinya dengan threat interest

frame.

Memiliki hasil yang sama dengan five crisis frame, dalam penelitian tentang

national interest pun penulis menemukan bahwa secara umum Myanmar Times dan The

New York Times menggunakan bingkai konflik atau conflict interest frame.

Sebuah pemberitaan dikatakan termasuk ke dalam conflict interest frame

apabila berita tersebut menonjolkan adanya ketidak sepakatan antara dua pihak atau

lebih. Konsep ini mirip dengan konflik pada five crisis frames.

Kesamaan pembingkaian, baik pada five crisis frame mau pun pada national

interest menunjukan bahwa media memang selalu menyukai peristiwa tidak biasa

dengan penuh drama, suspens, emosi, dan gambar hidup (Pan, 1999, p. 100).

Tidak adanya perbedaan national interest di antara kedua media yang penulis

teliti juga sekaligus menjawab pertanyaan penelitian kedua dalam penelitian ini.

Kepentingan nasional kedua negara, Myanmar dan Amerika Serikat, direfleksikan

dalam bentuk konflik oleh pemberitaan-pemberitaannya terkait isu Rohingya.

Kepentingan nasional juga dapat memberi gambaran tentang dunia politik di

media. Hal ini terbukti dengan adanya sudut pandang konflik antara dua media yang

penulis teliti. Myanmar Times dengan sudut pandang bahwa konflik yang tengah

terjadi merupakan pertikaian antara anggota teroris dengan anggota militer Myanmar


85

sekaligus kerap menolak bahwa isu Rohingya ini sering dikaitkan dengan adanya

ethnic cleansing oleh pemerintah Myanmar.

Bahkan dalam salah satu pemberitaan yang berjudul “USDP accuses foreign

media, NGOs of making Rakhine conflict worse” menyebutkan bahwa keadaan di

Rakhine/Rohingya menjadi semakin parah/dipandang sparah karena pemberitaan

media internasional yang terlalu bermain politik dalam pemberitaanya. Dalam berita

tersebut disebutkan bahwa banyak media yang terus mengatakan bahwa konflik yang

tengah terjadi merupakan konflik agama. Padahal, menurut pemerintah Myanmar

konflik ini adalah murni tentang keamanan nasional.

Tidak satu sudut pandang dengan Myanmar Times, The New York Times secara

konsisten memperlihatkan bahwa ia melihat konflik yang terjadi adalah murni tentang

masalah kemanusiaan. Bahkan secara jelas dalam salah satu pemberitaannya, The New

York Times menuliskan kata-kata ethnic cleansing di bagian judul: Myanmar

Mengikuti Pola Global dalam Bagaimana Pembersihan Etnik dimulai.

Pada pemberitaan lainnya The New York Times juga menuliskan bahwa krisis

yang terjadi di Rohingya ini telah terjadi dalam beberapa dekade saat warga Rohingya

mengalami diskriminasi dan kekerasan dari negara yang mayoritas beragama Budha.

Apabila kembali melihat pada five crisis frame, salah satu bingkai yang sedikit

digunakan adalah bingkai moralitas. Bingkai ini memberikan penonjolan bagaimana

sebuah peristiwa dikaitkan ke dalam konteks moral atau nilai-nilai keagamaan. Dari 59


86

berita yang penulis teliti, hanya dua berita yang menggunakan bingkai ini dan keduanya

berasal dari The New York Times.

Pada periode yang telah penulis tentukan, Myanmar Times tidak menggunakan

bingkai moralitas. Hal ini cukup menunjukan bahwa Myanmar Times memang tidak

melihat konflik yang terjadi di Rohingya merupakan konflik agama atau etnik. Berbeda

dengan The New York Times yang memang memandang konflik ini adalah konflik

kemanusiaan yang menimpa etnis Rohingya yang mayoritas adalah penduduk

beragama islam.

Hal lainnya yang mempengaruhi bagaimana berita dibingkai adalah

penggunaan sumber berita. Dalam penelitiannya, Cozma dan Kozman (2017)

mengatakan bahwa pemilihan dari sumber berita merupakan salah satu komponen

kunci dari hasil akhir sebuah produk berita.

Pentingnya sumber berita juga dikarenakan biasanya jurnalis akan mempelajari

suatu isu atau kejadian melalui sumber berita. Bahkan hampir seluruh informasi yang

digunakan oleh jurnalis dalam menulis berita berasal dari sumber berita.

Tidak berbeda dengan five crisis frame dan national interest, tidak ada

perbedaan dalam penggunaan sumber berita pada Myanmar Times dan The New York

Times. Pada penelitian ini penulis menemukan bahwa secara umum sumber berita yang

digunakan bersumber dari pejabat pemerintah.


87

Sebuah sumber berita dinyatakan tergolong ke dalam pejabat pemerintah

apabila berasal dari presiden, menteri, wakil menteri, parlemen, sekretaris jendral,

penasihat hukum, pejabat negara, komite, departemen pemerintahan, anggota komisi,

duta besar, dan direktorat jendral.

Dari sekian banyak sumber yang berasal dari pejabat pemerintah, yang paling

sering digunakan adalah menteri, pejabat negara, dan penasihat negara. Myanmar

Times lebih sering menggunakan menteri dan penasihat negara dalam pemberitaannya.

Tidak jarang pernyataan-pernyataan yang diberikan oleh kedua sumber pun merupakan

pesan-pesan dari pemimpin Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi yang tidak disampaikan

secara langsung.

Pesan-pesan yang diberikan lewat sumber yang berasal dari pemerintahan

memberikan kesan bahwa konflik yang sedang terjadi bukanlah berasal dan disebabkan

oleh pemerintah Myanmar. Konflik dimulai dan diperparah oleh pihak-pihak di luar

pemerintahan Myanmar, terutama para ekstrimis/teroris.

The New York Times juga sering menggunakan sumber berita dari pejabat

negara. Namun, yang membedakan adalah The New York Times juga kerap

memberikan pernyataan-pernyataan dari orang-orang yang berada di dalam PBB

seperti sekretaris jendral, komisaris, dan pejabat-pejabat yang ada di PBB.


88

BAB V

SIMPULAN DAN SARAN

5.1 SIMPULAN

Berdasarkan hasil yang telah penulis dapatkan, penulis akan memberikan

beberapa simpulan terkait penelitian ini. Penelitian “Krisis Rohingya dalam

Pemberitaan Online di Myanmar Times dan The New York Times: Analisis Komparasi

Media” bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana framing krisis, national interest, dan

news sources yang dilakukan oleh Myanmar Times dan The New York Times terhadap

isu Rohingya.

Berikut adalah simpulan yang penulis dapatkan dari penelitian yang telah

dilakukan:

1. Secara umum Myanmar Times membingkai isu krisis Rohingya sebagai

konflik. Dalam five crisis frame, bingkai konflik merupakan bingkai

yang paling umum dilakukan. Sebanyak 22 berita dari 37 berita di

Myanmar Times terkait isu Rohingya dibingkai dengan bingkai konflik

dalam five crisis frame atau sekitar 37.7%. Dari kelima bingkai krisis

tersebut, bingkai human interest dan moralitas adalah bingkai yang

tidak pernah digunakan oleh Myanmar Times dalam pemberitaannya

terkait isu Rohingya. Bingkai media yang kedua adalah national interest


89

frame, secara umum Myanmar Times juga menggunakan bingkai

konflik dalam pemberitaannya. 22 dari 37 berita di Myanmar Times

menggunakan bingkai conflict interest frame atau sekitar 37.3%. Dari

tiga bingkai yang ada di national interest frame, yang paling sedikit

digunakan adalah bingkai ancaman, yang hanya digunakan dalam dua

berita atau sekitar 3.4%. Bingkai media terakhir adalah news sources,

Myanmar Times secara umum menggunakan sumber pejabat

pemerintah sebagai sumber utama pemberitaan dalam isu krisis

Rohingya. 26 dari 37 berita atau sekitar 44.1% pemberitaannya

menggunakan sumber utama pejabat pemerintah. Satu sumber

pemberitaan yang paling sedikit digunakan di Myanmar Times berasal

dari kategori others.

2. Tidak jauh berbeda dengan Myanmar Times, bingkai media yang

digunakan oleh The New York Times pun hampir sama dengan

Myanmar Times. Dalam kategori five crisis frame, bingkai konflik

adalah bingkai yang paling sering digunakan. Sebanyak 16 dari 22

berita atau sekitar 27.1% menggunakan bingkai konflik dalam

pemberitaan mengenai isu Rohingya. Yang tidak pernah digunakan

dalam kategori five crisis frame adalah konsekuensi ekonomi. Bingkai

media yang kedua adalah national interest frame, secara keseluruhan

bingkai yang digunakan adalah conflict interest frame. Sebanyak 19 dari

22 berita atau sekitar 32.2% pemberitaan di The New York Times terkait


90

isu Rohingya menggunakan bingkai konflik. Bingkai yang paling

sedikit digunakan adalah bingkai ancaman yang hanya digunakan hanya

dalam satu berita. Kategori terakhir dalam bingkai media adalah news

sources, sumber berita yang paling sering digunakan adalah pejabat

pemerintah, yakni digunakan dalam 10 pemberitaan di The New York

Times terkait isu Rohingya. Sumber yang tidak pernah digunakan dalam

pemberitaan terkait isu Rohingya adalah akademisi.

3. Meskipun memiliki kesamaan dalam framing media, kedua media yang

penulis teliti memiliki perbedaan sudut pandang dalam hal konflik.

Myanmar Times lebih memandang pada pertikaian antara

ekstrimis/teroris melawan anggota militer Myanmar, sedangkan The

New York Times lebih memandang konflik yang terjadi merupakan

konflik kemanusiaan.

5.2 SARAN

5.2.1 Saran Akademis

Penelitian terkait isu global seperti yang dilakukan penulis masih cukup

jarang ditemui di Indonesia. Hal ini terlihat saat penulis mencari penelitian

terdahulu terkait topik yang penulis pilih, konsep-konsep yang penulis gunakan

hanya ada pada jurnal-jurnal internasional.


91

Penulis berharap selanjutnya akan ada penelitian lanjutan dan juga

penelitian baru terkait isu global dengan konsep yang serupa atau pun lebih

banyak dari yang penulis lakukan.

Karena penelitian yang penulis lakukan ini memakai jurnal dan berita

yang berbahasa asing, penulis khawatir akan adanya kesalahan interpretasi dari

tiap konsep dan berita yang telah penulis kaji. Oleh karena itu, diharapkan

adanya penelitian lanjutan dari penelitian ini yang mungkin akan memberikan

hasil yang lebih komprehensif.

5.2.2 Saran Praktis

Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang penulis dapatkan, penulis berharap

nantinya industri media bisa lebih luas dalam memandang sebuah isu dan tidak

hanya berfokus pada satu bingkai pemberitaan saja. Sumber-sumber berita yang

digunakan pun lebih bervariasi agar terciptanya prinsip cover both side pada

media.

Industri media seharusnya bersikap netral dan memberitakan kejadian

dengan sebenar-benarnya, atau dengan kata lain tidak ada konten berita yang

dibuat karena kepentingan seseorang atau lainnya.


DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Ali, Sjafri. (2017). Krisis Rohingya masih jadi perhatian sejumlah media dunia.

Diakses pada 13 Maret 2018, dalam http://www.pikiran-

rakyat.com/nasional/2017/09/06/krisis-kemanusiaan-di-myanmar-sudah-jadi-

masalah-global-408832.

ANTARA. (2017). Serangan tentara Myanmar tewaskan hampir 400 warga Rohingya.

Diakses pada 19 Maret 2018, dalam

https://www.antaranews.com/berita/650141/serangan-tentara-myanmar-

tewaskan-hampir-400-warga-rohingya

Babbie, E. R.(2010). The Practice of Social Research. 12th ed. Wadsworth: Cengage

Learning, 530.

BBC. (2017). Konflik Myanmar: Pengungsi Rohingya membanjiri Bangladesh.

Diakses pada 19 Maret 2018, dalam http://www.bbc.com/indonesia/dunia-

41160159

BBC. (2017). Warga Rohingya: 'Menakutkan, desa dibakar, banyak anak dan orang

tua terpisah'. Diakes Pada 09 April 2018, dalam

http://www.bbc.com/indonesia/dunia-41096793

Beyrer, C., & Kamarulzaman, A. (2017). Ethnic cleansing in Myanmar: the

Rohingya crisis and human rights. The Lancet, 390 (10102), 1570-1573.

Berkowitz, D., & Beach, D. W. (1993). News sources and news context: The effect of


http://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/nasional/2017/09/06/krisis-kemanusiaan-di-myanmar-sudah-jadi-masalah-global-408832



https://www.antaranews.com/berita/650141/serangan-tentara-myanmar-tewaskan-hampir-400-warga-rohingya

https://www.antaranews.com/berita/650141/serangan-tentara-myanmar-tewaskan-hampir-400-warga-rohingya




routine news, conflict and proximity. Journalism Quarterly, 70(1), 4-12.

Bier M. Lindsey., Park, Sejin., & Palenchar, Michael J., Framing the flight MH370

mystery: A content analysis of Malaysian, Chinese. And U.S. media, The

International Communication Gazette, 0(0), 1-27. DOI:

I0.II77/I7480485I7707440.

Cozma, Raluca & Kozman, Claudia. (2017). The Syrian crisis in U.S. and Lebanese

newspapers: A cross-national analysis. The International Communication

Gazette, 0(0), 1-20. DOI: I0.II77/I7480485I77272I7.

Donnelly, J. (1993). Human rights, humanitarian crisis, and humanitarian

intervention. International Journal, 48(4), 607-640.

Dapamede, Theodorus U.R., Daniel R. L. Arumugam, Nuralim, Ernest Randy, &

Sugiarto, H. W. (2009). Krisis Kemanusiaan di Bangsa Beradab Indonesia.

Malang: Universitas Brawijaya.

Eriyanto. (2002). ANALISIS FRAMING: Konstruksi, Ideologi, dan Politik Media.

Yogyakarta: LKiS Group.

Eriyanto. (2011). ANALISIS ISI: Pengantar Metodologi untuk Penelitian Ilmu

Komunikasi dan Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial Lainnya. Jakarta: Kencana Prenada Media

Group.

Gumilang, Prima. (2017). Aksi Bela Rohingya di Borobudur, Massa Gelar Salat Gaib.

Diakses pada 31 Juli 2018, pada

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170908135848-20-240375/aksi-

bela-rohingya-di-borobudur-massa-gelar-salat-gaib


https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170908135848-20-240375/aksi-bela-rohingya-di-borobudur-massa-gelar-salat-gaib

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170908135848-20-240375/aksi-bela-rohingya-di-borobudur-massa-gelar-salat-gaib

Jang, W. Y. (2013). News as propaganda: A comparative analysis of US and Korean

press coverage of the Six-Party Talks, 2003–2007. International

Communication Gazette, 75(2), 188-204.

Kasali, Rhenald. (2005). Change!. Jakarta: Gramedia.

Lasorsa, D. L., & Reese, S. D. (1990). News source use in the crash of 1987: A study

of four national media. Journalism Quarterly, 67(1), 60-71.

Lee, C. C., & Yang, J. (1996). Foreign news and national interest: Comparing US and

Japanese coverage of a Chinese student movement. Gazette (Leiden,

Netherlands), 56(1), 1-18.

Liston, P. Siregar. (2017). Krisis Rohingya masih jadi perhatian sejumlah media dunia.

Diakses pada 13 Maret 2018, dari http://www.bbc.com/indonesia/dunia-

41186735.

Manning, P. (2000). News and news sources: A critical introduction. Sage.

McQuail, Denis. (1992). Media Performance: mass communication and the public

interest. London: Sage.

Mulyana, Deddy. (2002). Komunikasi Organisasi. Bandung: Remaja Rosdakarya.

Otero, Vanessa. (2017). The Chart, Version 3.0, What Exactly Are We Reading?.

Colorado: Ad Fontes Media.

Purnama, Rayhand. (2017). Warga Aksi Bela Rohingya '169' Banjiri Kawasan Patung

Kuda. Diakses pada 30 Juli 2018, dalam

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/olahraga/20170916101733-142-

242152/warga-aksi-bela-rohingya-169-banjiri-kawasan-patung-kuda




https://www.cnnindonesia.com/olahraga/20170916101733-142-242152/warga-aksi-bela-rohingya-169-banjiri-kawasan-patung-kuda

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/olahraga/20170916101733-142-242152/warga-aksi-bela-rohingya-169-banjiri-kawasan-patung-kuda

Romli, Asep Syamsul M. (2012). Juralistik Online: Panduan Praktis Mengelola

Media Online. Bandung: Nuansa Cendikia.

Salim, Agus. (2006). Teori dan Paradigma Penelitian Sosial. Yogyakarta:

Tiarawacana.

Shoemarker, P., & Reese, S. D. Mediating The Message; Theories of Influences on

Mass Media Content. 1996. White Plains, NY.

Sugiyono. (2007). Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif Kualitatif dan R&D. Bandung:

Alfabeta.

Sasongko, Joko Panji. (2017). Isu Rohingya Dibahas di Forum Parlemen Dunia.

Diakses pada 13 Maret 2018, dari

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170906125247-20-239792/isu-

rohingya-dibahas-di-forum-parlemen-dunia.

Surya, Yuyun. (2010). Online Journalism in Indonesia: The Use of Interactive

Technology in Indonesian Online Newspapers. Jerman: LAP LAMBERT

Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG.

Tempo.co. (2017). Jokowi: Perlu Aksi Nyata Bantu Rohingya. Diakses pada 31 Juli

2018, dalam https://nasional.tempo.co/read/905657/jokowi-perlu-aksi-nyata-

bantu-rohingyahttps://nasional.tempo.co/read/905657/jokowi-perlu-aksi-

nyata-bantu-rohingya

The top 500 sites on the web. (2018). Diakses pada 13 Maret 2018, dari

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News.


https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170906125247-20-239792/isu-rohingya-dibahas-di-forum-parlemen-dunia

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20170906125247-20-239792/isu-rohingya-dibahas-di-forum-parlemen-dunia

https://nasional.tempo.co/read/905657/jokowi-perlu-aksi-nyata-bantu-rohingyahttps:/nasional.tempo.co/read/905657/jokowi-perlu-aksi-nyata-bantu-rohingya



https://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News

Viera, A. J., & Garrett, J. M. (2005). Understanding interobserver agreement: the

kappa statistic. Fam Med, 37(5), 360-363.

Wang, H., Sparks, C., & Yu, H. (2017). Popular journalism in China: A study of China

Youth Daily. Journalism, 1464884917691987.

Wongpethkao, Pawares. (2015). The Evolution of the Myanmar Times. Diakses pada

31 Mei 2018, dari http://www.veropr.com/the-evolution-of-the-myanmar-

times/

Yusuf, A. M. (2016). Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif, Kualitatif & Penelitian

Gabungan.

Prenada Media.


http://www.veropr.com/the-evolution-of-the-myanmar-

http://www.veropr.com/the-evolution-of-the-myanmar-

LAMPIRAN


CODING BOOK

1. MEDIA PORTAL

1: Myanmar Times

2: The New York Times

2. FIVE CRISIS FRAME

1 = Atribusi tanggung jawab (Menawarkan sebuah penyebab atau solusi

dari sebuah isu/krisis).

2 = Konflik (Mengedepankan ketidak sepakatan antar-individu, kelompok,

negara, dan lainnya).

3. = Konsekuensi Ekonomi (Akibat finansial dari sebuah peristiwa).

4 = Human interest (Sisi kemanusiaan atau angle emosional dari sebuah krisis).

5 = Moralitas (Melihat sebuah peristiwa dalam konteks moral atau nilai agama).

3. NATIONAL INTEREST

Kepentingan nasional meruapakan salah satu faktor yang dapat memengaruhi

kecenderungan pemberitaan dalam peristiwa luar negeri.

1 = Bingkai umum / common interest frame (Peristiwa dianggap sebagai

hal biasa dan bisa diselesaikan dengan kerja sama).

2 = Konflik / conflict interest frame (adanya ketidak sepakatan).

3 = Ancaman / threat interest frame (sebuah kejadian mungkin menjadi

ancaman untuk orang lain/negara lain).


4. NEWS SOURCES

Sumber utama berita yang digunakan dalam pemberitaan.

1. Organisasi internasional pemerintah dan organisasi non-pemerintah:

Sumber yang digunakan berasal dari Perserikaan Bangsa-Bangsa (PBB),

komunitas internasional, organisasi masyarakat sipil, Eight Armed Ethnic

Group, Karen National Union, ASEAN, organisasi islam, organisasi partai

pembangunan dan serikat kerja, kelompok organisasi antar-sektor, serikat

generasi pemuda mahasiswa Myanmar, persatuan asosiasi perjalanan,

Fortify Rights, organisasi solidaritas Rohingya, dan UNICEF.

2. Pejabat pemerintah: Sumber yang digunakan berasal dari pemerintahan seperti

presiden, menteri, wakil menteri, parlemen, sekretaris jendral, penasihat hukum,

pejabat negara, departemen dalam pemerintahan, komite, anggota komisi, duta

besar, kedutaan, dan direktorat jendral.

3. Pertahanan dan keamanan: Sumber yang digunakan berasal dari jajaran tantara

polisi, seperti militer, tantara, dan polisi.

4. Warga/masyarakat: Sumber yang digunakan berasal dari kalangan masyarakat

umum, korban krisis, peraih nobel, dan imam.

5. Akademisi: Sumber yang digunakan berasal dari jajaran akademisi seperti

akademisi Perancis, peneliti internasional, institut, petugas pendidikan, dan guru.


6. Others: Sumber yang digunakan di luar dari sumber yang telah dijelaskan

sebelumnya, yaitu koran, direktur yayasan, fact-finding, dan gambar yang diambil

dari satelit.


CODING SHEET

Coder name: Rizaldy Febriyansyah

No. 1

Media portal

2

Five crisis frames

3

National interest

4

News sources

1 1 1 1 2

2 1 2 2 2

3 1 2 2 2

4 1 2 2 2

5 1 1 1 2

6 1 2 2 2

7 1 1 1 2

8 1 2 1 2

9 1 2 3 3

10 1 1 1 2

11 1 1 1 2

12 1 2 2 1

13 1 2 2 2

14 1 1 1 2

15 1 1 2 2

16 1 1 1 2

17 1 1 1 3

18 1 2 2 5

19 1 2 2 2

20 1 2 2 2

21 1 1 1 1

22 1 1 1 5

23 1 2 2 2

24 1 2 2 1

25 1 2 2 2

26 1 2 2 2

27 1 2 2 6

28 1 1 1 1

29 1 2 2 2

30 1 2 2 4

31 1 2 2 2

32 1 3 3 2

33 1 1 1 2

34 1 2 2 2


35 1 2 2 2

36 1 1 2 2

37 1 2 2 4

38 2 2 2 2

39 2 2 2 2

40 2 2 2 2

41 2 2 2 2

42 2 2 2 3

43 2 1 2 4

44 2 5 2 4

45 2 4 2 4

46 2 2 2 1

47 2 2 2 2

48 2 5 2 4

48 2 2 2 1

50 2 2 2 1

51 2 2 2 2

52 2 2 1 2

53 2 2 3 2

54 2 2 2 1

55 2 1 2 2

56 2 2 2 3

57 2 2 2 1

58 2 1 1 2

59 2 2 2 6


CODING SHEET

Coder name: Naddya Dea Kusnadi

No. 1

Media portal

2

Five crisis frames

3

National interest

4

News sources

1 1 1 1 2

2 1 2 2 2

3 1 2 2 2

4 1 2 2 2

5 1 1 1 2

6 1 2 2 2

7 1 2 2 2

8 1 2 1 2

9 1 2 2 3

10 1 1 1 2

11 1 1 1 2

12 1 2 2 1

13 1 2 2 2

14 1 1 1 2

15 1 1 2 2

16 1 1 1 2

17 1 1 1 3

18 1 2 2 5

19 1 2 2 2

20 1 2 2 2

21 1 1 1 1

22 1 1 1 5

23 1 2 2 2

24 1 2 2 1

25 1 2 2 2

26 1 2 2 2

27 1 2 2 6

28 1 1 1 1

29 1 2 2 2

30 1 2 2 4

31 1 2 2 2

32 1 3 3 2

33 1 1 1 2

34 1 2 2 2


35 1 2 2 2

36 1 1 2 2

37 1 2 2 4

38 2 2 2 2

39 2 2 2 2

40 2 2 2 2

41 2 2 2 2

42 2 2 2 3

43 2 1 2 4

44 2 5 2 4

45 2 4 2 4

46 2 2 2 1

47 2 2 2 2

48 2 5 1 4

48 2 2 2 1

50 2 2 2 2

51 2 2 2 2

52 2 2 2 2

53 2 2 2 2

54 2 5 1 1

55 2 1 2 2

56 2 2 2 3

57 2 2 2 1

58 2 1 1 2

59 2 2 2 6


Sampel Berita Myanmar Times

Report on Rakhine State is honest and constructive THE MYANMAR TIMES 25 AUG 2017

The Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, led by former UN Secretary General Kofi

Annan, has released a final report that makes honest and constructive recommendations.

These include calls for a process on citizenship verification, rights and equality before the law,

documentation, improving the lives of internally displaced people and more freedom of

movement, which disproportionately affects the Muslim population.

The report is the result of over 150 consultations and meetings by the commission’s members

since its establishment in September 2016. They travelled extensively throughout Rakhine State

and held meetings both inside and outside the troubled region. They met in Yangon and Nay Pyi

Taw, as well as in Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Geneva.

Following a request from State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Kofi Annan Foundation

and her office established the commission as a national entity with a majority of Myanmar

members. It was mandated to examine the complex challenges facing Rakhine and to propose

responses to those challenges. Annan revealed that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi asked the

commission to be bold with its recommendations.

“At the inauguration of the commission, the State Counsellor urged us to be bold in our

recommendations. We have followed that advice,” he said.

Annan said his group has put forward honest and constructive recommendations that would

create debate. “However, if adopted and implemented in the spirit in which they were conceived,

I firmly believe that our recommendations, along with those of our interim report, can trace a

path to lasting peace, development and respect for the rule of law in Rakhine State.”

In addition, the commission recommends the setting up of a national mechanism “to ensure the

effective implementation of its recommendations.”

Annan proposed a ministerial-level position to coordinate policy on Rakhine and ensure the

effective implementation of the recommendations. The appointee should be backed by a

permanent and well staffed secretariat, which will be an integral part and support the work of the

Central Committee on Implementation of Peace and Development in Rakhine State.

At the halfway point of the panel’s mandate in March, Kofi said he welcomed the initial steps by

the government to implement the recommendations contained in the interim report. But the

former UN chief admitted there is still a long road to travel before “we can be confident that the

peace and prosperity of Rakhine State are assured.”

At the press conference, he said that the armed forces and other security services have a critical

role to play in building a better future for Rakhine State. He was please, he added, that his

commission was able to meet and consult with the Commander-in-chief, Senior General Min

Aung Hliang and other senior officers of the Tatmadaw on several occasions.

Rakhine State faces complex political, economic and social challenges, he pointed out. They can

only be surmounted through a sustained and coordinated effort by the civilian and military

authorities at the Union, State and the local levels.

The international community should continue to play a strong, generous and impartial role in

support of the national efforts needed to help Rakhine move forward. “There is no time to lose.

The situation in Rakhine State is becoming more precarious,” he concluded.


Statement by the State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on today’s attacks in Rakhine

State MYANMAR STATE COUNSELLOR OFFICE 25 AUG 2017

I strongly condemn today’s brutal attacks by terrorists on security forces in Rakhine State.

I would like to commend the members of the police and security forces who have acted with

great courage in the face of many challenges. My thoughts are with the members of the police

and security forces who have lost their lives, and their families, friends and colleagues.

The government had been aware of the risk of attacks to coincide with the release of the

Commission’s final report yesterday and had issued instruction to relevant Union Ministers.

It is clear that today’s attacks are a calculated attempt to undermine the efforts of those seeking

to build peace and harmony in Rakhine State. We must not allow our work to be derailed by the

violent actions of extremists.

The government remains firm in its commitment to finding meaningful and lasting solutions to

the issues in Rakhine. I welcome the constructive approach taken by the Advisory Commission

on Rakhine State in their final report yesterday.

I welcome also the strong condemnation of the attacks today by the Commission’s Chairman, Dr.

Kofi Annan.

Nay Pyi Taw

25 August 2017

Over 70 killed in in Rakhine after militants attack

STAFF 25 AUG 2017

More than 70 people were killed in Rakhine State after militants carried out coordinated attacks

on security posts and military bases in the early hours of Friday.

According to the government, one soldier, one immigration officer, 10 policemen and 59

militants were killed in the fighting. As many as 150 militants are said to have been involved in

the attacks in at least 30 locations in Maungdaw district of northern Rakhine, according to

officials.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which at least

-- military personnel were killed and -- were injured.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi condemned the attacks in a statement on Friday.

"I strongly condemn today’s brutal attacks by terrorists on security forces in Rakhine State. The

government had been aware of the risk of attacks to coincide with the release of the [Rakhine

Advisory] Commission’s final report yesterday [Thursday] and had issued instructions to

relevant Union ministers," she said in the statement.

On Thursday, the commission presented its final report on the violence in Rakhine to the

government in Yangon and urged it to quickly implement its recommendations in the northern

state, which has been a hotbed of militancy. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi added: "Today’s attacks are a calculated attempt to undermine the

efforts of those seeking to build peace and harmony in Rakhine State. We must not allow our

work to be derailed by the violent actions of extremists."


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/staff

She said the government remains firm in its commitment to find meaningful and lasting solutions

to the conflict in Rakhine and welcomed the constructive approach taken by the commission in

its final report.

A similar attack by militants on security personnel happened last October, in which nine

policemen were killed.

Schools shut down in northern Rakhine

EI SHWE PHYU 28 AUG 2017

According to the Rakhine State education office, a total of 426 schools from northern Rakhine

state already shut down due to the terrorist attack of August 25, said U Aung Kyaw Tun,

education officer for the state education office, told The Myanmar Times.

A total of 184 schools from Maungdaw township, 222 schools from Buthidaung township and 20

schools from Rathedaung township are shut down.

Schools have been closed indefinitely for nearly 159,000 students and 2500 teachers affected by

the fighting.

“Terrorism is happening in our townships. Children cannot go to school. They haven’t since

August 25 due to the attacks.” said U Khin Aung, township education officer for Maungdaw

township.

According to U Than Tun, a local from Sittwe township, over 2000 villagers fled from their

homes and are staying in a monastery in Maungdaw; over 1000 villagers left their houses and

found shelter in Buthidaung township’s monastery.

“Some of the people are from Rathedaung township, I don’t know how many people are coming

from there,” he continued.

Last October, an attack already occurred near Maungdaw township in Rakhine State. As a result,

over 400 schools were shut down for nearly three weeks in Maungdaw and Buthidaung

townships.

“I think it’s worse than last October. Last year, the terrorists just attacked the police outpost.

Now it is not only the police stations but also the ethnic people.

The situation threatens livelihood of ethnic villagers, which makes it worse than last year,” said

U Tin Aung Moe, the deputy township education officer for Buthidaung Township.

“If terrorism happens every year, children’s education from affected areas could be affected. The

burden on education is an issue that the state is not expecting,” he added, in relation to the

attacks.

“Teachers who come from other regions and states are safe,” said U Kyaw Kyaw Win, Amyothar

Hluttaw MP for Maungdaw township (constituency No. 8) concerning employee security.

Government warns local, foreign supporters of terrorists NYAN LYNN AUNG 28 AUG 2017

The government on Sunday warned local and foreign supporters of the terrorists and the Arakan

Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) that it would use the full force of the law to go after them in

the aftermath of the attacks that killed 89 people.

The State Counsellor Office Information Committee said it has sought Interpol’s help to take

action against foreign supporters of the terrorist groups amid reports that some staff of the


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/ei-shwe-phyu

https://www.mmtimes.com/author/nyan-lynn-aung

international non-government organisations in the area had been involved when Taung Bazar

village was besieged by terrorists on August 26.

“On July 30, the government has already stated that energy biscuits which the World Food

Programme has distributed has been discovered at the camp where terrorists sheltered in Ma Yu

mountains,” the office said in a statement.

“As counter-terrorism is a common interest of global families, international organisations and

governments, including the United Nations, it is crucial to counter terrorists and the ARSA

terrorist group,” it added.

According to Tatmadaw, the police outposts and police stations in Maungtaw District in the

conflict-plagued Rakhine State were attacked by terrorists on August 25 and intermittent clashes

continue between the terrorists and security forces.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the attacks were “unacceptable” and expressed

hope that those responsible will be brought to justice.

The US State Department also condemned the attacks and urged all in Burma (Myanmar),

including in Rakhine State, to work toward peace and stability through their words and actions.

The Rakhine State general administration department said almost 5000 ethnic people fled their

homes to avoid being caught in the crossfire. The state government was scheduled to provide

them assistance.

U Tin Maung Swe, deputy director general, Rakhine State general administration department,

told The Myanmar Times the state government has already provided aid for 700 ethnic people

who sought refuge in Buthidaung township.

The chief minister visited the areas where the fighting occurred to help the fleeing people and

provide them with assistance.

“We could not confirmed yet how many ethnic civilians are fleeing because there are a large

number of them moving out of their houses to escape the conflict,” he said.

The government is trying to provide aid for the people who are fleeing in all directions as

security forces try to ensure their safety.

“There are enough security forces to protect the civilians. But the big problem are the mines

planted by the terrorists before they fled. These could endanger the lives of civilians,” said U Tin

Maung Swe.

The Tatmadaw said the terrorists attacks had killed ethnic people fleeing from the fighting. The

terrorists also torched the houses of ethnic people on August 27, the Tatmadaw added.

The Tatmadaw said a total of 20 Daingnet ethnic people from Yankarzedi village in Maungtaw

township fled to Aungzan Taungyinthar village as about 100 terrorists holding swords attacked

them near the bridge at the entrance to Kyaungdoe village at 2.30 pm on August 26.

The Tatmadaw added in U Maung Ba Sein alone, some 20 ethnic people escaped from the

fighting, and there were no reports about the conditions of the other trapped villagers.

U Kyaw Kyaw Oo, deputy officer of Maungdaw district administrative department, told The

Myanmar Times the situation is getting worse as the Tatmadaw and security forces try to

establish control of the area to protect the trapped villagers.

“The situation is very bad and gunshots are ringing out across the town [of Maungdaw],” he said.

He added many people are stuck in Maungdaw township, including innocent Muslim people.

“They live by themselves and the security forces try their best to guard them,” said U Kyaw

Kyaw Oo.


According to local Muslims in Maungdaw, they can’t go outside and they are also anxious

because the terrorist killed those they suspected to be working with the government.

A local Muslim from Maungdaw town said the security forces are guarding the area around the

Muslim quarter. However, no one can go outside from the quarter amid concerns that the

terrorists might mix in with the civilian population.

“I do not support the attacks. And I ask administrative officials to take care of those who did not

support the attacks. We are sandwiched between the terrorists and the security forces,” said the

local resident.

Over 4,000 ethnic Rakhine flee fighting NYAN LYNN AUNG 29 AUG 2017

Over 4000 ethnic Rakhine have fled their villages as fighting between terrorists and the

Tatmadaw escalated during the past three days, a Rakhine State official said Monday.

Minister for Social Welfare and Resettlement Win Myat Aye and Rakhine officials provided aid

to the beleaguered villagers and helped in their evacuation.

Minister Win Myat Aye and senior Rakhine officials visited some of the villages that were badly

damaged by the fighting, including the Taung Bazar village, where some 100 suspected terrorists

launched an attack on August 26.

The minister told The Myanmar Times that thousands of ethnic Rakhine were fleeing their homes

to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

“We only visited a few villages, so maybe in other villages more people have fled their homes,”

he said. “We are not sure if the number of evacuees has doubled but there is already a list of

evacuees.”

The Rakhine State information department said the ministers went to at least five villages in

two days and provided necessary assistance and medical kits for fleeing ethnic people. Many

people are fleeing to Sittwe, Rathidaung and Ponnagyun, which are safe places from terrorist

attacks.

Minister Win Myat Aye said they have enough provisions to support some 24,000 evacuees for

two months.

“We discussed with security forces the safety of all ethnic people and we are satisfied with

security conditions we have seen on the ground,” he said.

According to the administrative department of Maungdaw township, the police outposts and

stations in Maungdaw were attacked by terrorists before dawn on August 25 and clashes have

continued between the terrorist group and security forces since then. Security forces were also

conducting clearing operations in some villages.

U Kyaw Kyaw Oo, deputy officer of Maungdaw’s administrative department, told The

Myanmar Times many people are fleeing and some are settling in safer areas.

“In the past two days we recorded 5000 evacuees,” he said.

According to refugees living in the makeshift camps in Bangladesh, at least 2000 people have

crossed into Bangladesh since Friday.

Bangladesh, India express support for Myanmar after attacks NYAN LYNN AUNG 30 AUG 2017

The Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry has offered to help Myanmar with its security issues,

according to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper.




In a formal letter, Bangladesh suggested a joint operation along its shared border with Myanmar,

through cooperation between the border security forces of the two countries.

The decision was conveyed to Myanmar’s acting ambassador in Dhaka, Aung Myint on

Monday.

Many international communities, including India, condemned the recent attacks in Rakhine

State in which over 90 people have been killed. India also stated that it is concerned by reports

of renewed violence and attacks by terrorists in northern Rakhine State.

“We hope that the perpetrators of these crimes will be brought to justice and we extend our

strong support to the government of Myanmar” said Ministry of External Affairs of India.

USDP’s proposal to condemn terrorism rejected again PYAE THET PHYO 30 AUG 2017

The Union Solidarity and Development Party’s (USDP) proposal to condemn terrorism in

Rakhine State which it planned to submit to Pyithu Hluttaw was rejected by Speaker U Win

Myint, said MP U Hla Htay Win from Zayarthiri township on Tuesday.

He said he presented the submission of the proposal to Pyithu Hluttaw’s director general on

August 28 and but was told it could not be discussed in the parliament. This is the second time

that USDP’s proposals were rejected.

“The reason why parliament didn’t allow discussing our proposal was that the government has

already announced about terrorist organisation so that our proposal condemning terrorism is no

longer necessary. The parliament told us this morning,” said U Hla Htay Win.

He said he can’t accept what the speaker said because he assumed the situation is highly

dangerous for the country and that is why he attempted to submit the proposal.

“I want our MPs to have the right view. Only with the right view, they can act rightly. That is

why I tried to submit this proposal to guide them to see things the right way.”

“I dare to swear that I didn’t make this proposal based on hatred and thought of opposition. I

assume that we have duty to create a peaceful environment that we can leave to our next

generation. That is why I will continue trying,” said U Hla Htay Win.

He said there are schemes and incitements of some powerful countries behind the terrorist

attacks in Rakhine State, so things will go wrong if the country deals with this problem by a

single decision-maker.

“If things went wrong, authorities will say “sorry”. There is no sorry in politics. It will be too late

when they say sorry and our country may disappear at that time,” said U Hla Htay Win.

U Thaung Aye, Pyithu Hluttaw representative of Pyawbwe constituency, whose proposal was

rejected for Rakhine State terrorism said that the government should call the National Defence

and Security Council to have good administration and security.

“I want the government to have awareness. In human rights, we do not need to care for the

human rights of the ethnic people and the government staff who live in our country in accord

with law. They trespassed into our country with their human rights and created terrorisms. Do

they have human rights?” he said.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/pyae-thet-phyo

Military action in Rakhine legal, says security chief NYAN LYNN AUNG 30 AUG 2017

All military operations against terrorist attacks are legal, said National Security Adviser U

Thaung Tun on Monday, responding to criticism of the military’s actions after the terrorist

attacks in Rakhine State.

“We will exercise our right to defend ourselves. We will be disciplined in our response, and it is

all legal,” said U Thaung Tun.

He made the statement before the Minister of Home Affairs Lt. General Kyaw Swe, and other

senior officials met with the heads of diplomatic missions and UN agencies at the National

Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC) in Yangon on Monday to brief about the situation in

Rakhine State.

U Thaung Tun said security personnel have defended themselves as citizens, and every nation

has the right to protect its civilians and property. He called the attacks a crime against Myanmar

citizens, against the nation, and against law and order.

According to the Home Affairs Ministry, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has attacked at

least 40 police posts and checkpoints and one military base in three townships of northern

Rakhine State and there have been more than 60 clashes between security forces and terrorists

since Friday.

The reported death toll has climbed to over 100, including many terrorists.

“Many clashes have occurred while security forces carry out clearance operations,” said Pol.

Brig. General Win Tun of the ministry, adding that the operations were being conducted

“according to the rule of law.”

Pol. Brig. General Win Tun said many local Muslim participated in the attacks because the

terrorists threatened them if they refused.

Lt. General Kyaw Swe identified the attackers as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)

and said the attacks in Maungdaw township were planned well in advance and were assisted by

foreign funding and members of foreign terrorist organisations.

“Remote areas of the township are still dangerous but much of downtown area is under control,”

he said.

He said the government is investigating claims that landmines planted by the attackers had been

made from materials, such as steel pipes and ammonia, imported by staff members of

international non-government organisations.

Unlike most of Rakhine State, a majority of Maungdaw’s people identify themselves as

Rohingya Muslims. Tensions between that largely stateless community and Rakhine’s Buddhists

have persisted for more than four years after violence tore through the state in 2012, displacing

more than 100,000 people.

According to the Maungdaw district administrative department, there are nearly 200,000

Muslims in more than 150 villages in the northern part of Maungdaw where two attacks have

occurred since October 9 last year.

According to refugees living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh, at least 6000 people have crossed into Bangladesh since October’s military crackdown and clearance operation.

A UN spokesman said on Tuesday that UN Secretary-General António Guterres is deeply

concerned about the reports of civilians being killed by security forces in Rakhine State.

“The responsibility of the government of Myanmar is to provide security and assistance to those

in need,” said the secretary-general.



New satellite data is consistent with widespread burning in at least 10 areas of northern Rakhine

State, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch said the Myanmar government should grant access to independent

monitors to determine the sources of the fires and assess allegations of human rights violations.

“This new satellite data should cause concern and prompt action by donors and UN agencies to

urge the government to reveal the extent of ongoing destruction in Rakhine State,” said Phil

Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Shuffling all the blame on insurgents doesn’t spare the government from its international

obligations to stop abuses and investigate alleged violations,” he added.

NDSC meeting may be called if violence in Rakhine worsens HTOO THANT 30 AUG 2017

The National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) meeting will be called and coordinations

made if violent attacks in Rakhine State become more intense, said Deputy Chief of Military

Affairs Security Major General Than Htut Thein said Tuesday.

“If the conditions of violent attacks, killings and burnings become more intense, as it can

become a free area after the western gate is broken, National Defence and Security Council

(NDSC) meeting will be called and coordination will be made as necessary,” he said at the press

conference on Rakhine affairs held at the office of Commander-in-chief of Defense Services in

Nay Pyi Taw.

The high-powered NDSC has never been convened under the NLD government and the

proposal clearly indicates the seriousness to bring peace and stability to the conflict-prone

Rakhine.

According to Section 412 (a) of the constitution, if the president learns that or if the respective

local administrative body submits that there arises sufficient reason that would endanger the

lives, shelter and property of the public in a region or a state or a Union Territory or a Self-

administered area, after co-ordinating with the National Defense and Security Council, may

promulgate an ordinance and declare a state of emergency.

The security forces are operating in full strength and the administration has collapsed in

Buthidaung and Maungdaw as the villages there had been burnt down, he said.

“Government employees from administration, education and health departments had run away

for their lives to safe locations and they were no longer in the village as the administration has

broken down,” he said.

And as the sense of mistrust, concerns and hatred between the two communities is at the peak,

security forces, including the Tatmadaw members, has been trying to maintain peace and

security, said Major General Than Htut Thein.

Reports in the social media about convening the NDSC is not true and the Tatmadaw is just

following the decision of the President, according to Major General Aung Ye Win.

“On social media, people express the opinion that the Tatmadaw has six votes in the NDSC and

the civilians have five votes, and if NDSC decides, the Tatmadaw can do whatever they want.

Actually, whatever matter is discussed, the final decision will be made by the President.

The Tatmadaw has already reported the current situation, the situation that should be and the

situation that we want. Calling NDSC meeting or not depends on the government,” he added.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/htoo-thant

Hluttaw OKs action against terrorists, help for displaced villagers PYAE THET PHYO 31 AUG 2017

The Amyotha Hluttaw approved a proposal that urged the Union government to identify

members of terrorist organisations in Rakhine State, take action against them under the anti-

terrorism law, and help displaced ethnic people return to their villages, on Wednesday.

The urgent proposal was submitted by MP U Khin Maung Latt of Rakhine State’s Constituency

3 and discussed by 23 MPs. Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Major General Aung Soe

seconded the proposal and parliament approved it with 189 votes for.

The deputy minister said authorities will take action against terrorists and those who support

them in accordance with the anti-terrorism law, and section 144 has been used where necessary.

The Tatmadaw and Myanmar Police have tightened security to protect local people and are

focusing on development of the state, he added.

“We are trying to resettle displaced people and ensure security and stability. I seconded the

proposal because its objective is exactly like the government’s strategy,” he told the media after

the meeting.

On August 24, before Friday’s terrorist attacks in Rakhine, MP Daw Khin Saw Wai of

Rathedaung township submitted an urgent proposal to the Pyithu Hluttaw, but there were 232

votes against it after Minister for Home Affairs Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe said it should be

shelved.

Major General Aung Soe said that while Daw Khin Saw Wai’s proposal in the Pyithu Hluttaw

aimed to boost state security and administration, U Khin Maung Latt’s proposal was aimed at the

Union government.

“The main point of the latter is to identify violent terrorist organisations and take action against

them under the anti-terrorism law and ensure that ethnic Rakhine people who have had to flee

their villages can return home,” said the deputy minister.

He added that the government will continue to take action under international law against NGO

organisations it suspects of helping the terrorists.

“The places where terrorist groups have hidden have food provided by international

organisations, so they may be involved,” said Major General Aung Soe.

His proposal will protect people’s lives and property and reduce anxiety, said U Khin Maung

Latt.

“It helps to protect our country a lot,” he added.

Group demands media access, protection of Rakhine citizens NAW BETTY HAN 31 AUG 2017

In the wake of the Rakhine State crisis, civil societies in the country urged the government to

protect the rights of all citizens, provide proper media access and their intention to work with

authorities.

A total of 255 organisations from the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) expressed their

collective intentions in statement on August 28, in relation to the conflict in Maungdaw and

Buthidaung townships.

“We want people in Myanmar and international community to receive credible news and updates

in real time, about the situation of local communities, the situation on the ground as well as news

about the conflict.

“We demand the government of Myanmar swiftly grant unimpeded access for independent news

agencies and provide security to reporters, said the statement.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/pyae-thet-phyo

https://www.mmtimes.com/author/naw-betty-han

“We signed together and took a public stance on what is really going on in Rakhine,” said U Han

Soe, from Swetahar, a civil society organisation, who is also the coordinator of this event.

The groups also urged the media to raise awareness about the civil society impacted by the

Rakhine turmoil.

The message will also be sent to governmental organisations as a formal letter, said U Thant Zin

from Myanmar Alliance Transparency and Accountability organisation.

He added that it is the first time that the 225 organisations have come together to express a

stance, adding, “This is our way to participate.”

The statement emphasised the impact of armed violence in Rakhine State on families and

communities that have lost their lives, livelihoods and homes.

The participation of local communities and civil society organisations removes barriers and

restrictions that weakens public participation, read the statement.

The civil societies demand that the government protects the safety, dignity and basic human

rights of all the civilians with equity and fairness, and be accountable in accordance with

international human rights and humanitarian laws, added the statement.

The CSO statement comes days after terrorists carried out armed attacks on security forces in the

state. The fighting since then has killed about 100 people.

Rakhine State and the raging information war THE MYANMAR TIMES 01 SEP 2017

Two conflicts are raging in Rakhine State. One is on the ground and has claimed the lives of

about 100 people since the August 25 terrorist attacks in Muangdaw and Buthidaung townships,

while the second is in cyberspace and has intensified beyond all imagination.

After the attacks, which happened a day after the Kofi Annan commission released its final

report on Rakhine, the State Counsellor’s Office quickly came out with a statement strongly

condemning the attack along with guidelines for the media in addressing the issues in Rakhine.

National Security Adviser U Thaung Tun also gave a press conference and provided an official

account of what occurred in the northern territory.

The information relating to the incidents was well publicised throughout the world. Early

headlines focused on international condemnation of the attacks on government positions and the

resulting casualties. However, days after the attacks, the information flow began to ebb from

government sources. While the government managed to arrange for a group of reporters from

local and international media to cover the attacks, their access was limited.

Then Yangon-based civil society organisations urged the government to allow them into the

two troubled townships so they could assess the situation directly in the search for appropriate

remedial responses. Indeed, valuable lessons should be drawn from the aftermath of Cyclone

Nargis, which hit the Ayeyarwady Delta in 2008. Outside and independent assessments helped

Myanmar mobilise international support and win sympathy. Since then, Myanmar has become

more open with increased CSO presence. At the same time, after five decades of isolation, the

authorities were now willing to engage with CSOs, turning Myanmar into one of the most

dynamic people-centered ASEAN members. Although they receive foreign funding, their objectives are to provide additional assistance that will complement existing efforts on the

ground provided by the government of the day

In coming days, both media and CSO representatives should be allowed into the areas so they

can make independent assessments. Without additional evaluation on the ground, the credibility


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/myanmar-times

of information and observations provided by the government or security forces could be at the

low level. Obviously, to enter conflict areas all precautions must be taken to ensure safety.

The other front is the conflict being fought in cyberspace. These days, the ubiquitous social

media can do a lot of good and harm at the same time. Unsubstantiated rumours, biased

information and fake news are common these days – not only on issues related to Rakhine.

Extremist and terrorist organisations are well-versed in exploiting the unlimited potential of

cyberspace to their advantage.

The government and security forces must think outside the box as far as public diplomacy is

concerned. Myanmar is no longer a dictatorship but a democracy, and the whole world is

watching how the National League for Democracy, lead by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, would

resolve the conflict in Rakhine.

Media and CSO access to the conflict areas should be granted whenever there is a guarantee that

safety measures are in place. To avoid media and CSO scrutiny on the ground is not a good

option because it will allow extremists armed with high-tech resources to spread their message

and dominate the public discussion of the situation in Rakhine State.

To improve the awareness and understanding of the international community about Rakhine, all

concerned authorities must be candid. In a world of interconnectivity and instant information, it

is better to come clean at the first opportunity. That way, truthful information will prevail and

help all stakeholders in the country have a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the

government’s efforts to deploy preventive measure to provide public security.

Without understanding and support, especially of homegrown narratives, the rest of the world

will look elsewhere.

Nearly K2 billion donated to Rakhine STAFF 04 SEP 2017

Local private companies and families of the Tatmadaw have donated nearly K2 billion to

security forces, public servants and ethnic nationals temporarily seeking refuge from ARSA

extremist terrorists in Rakhine State.

The donation ceremony was held in Nay Pyi Taw on September 1, reported the state media on

September 2.

Commander in Chief of the Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was quoted

as saying that Tatmadaw will completely preserve and protect Myanmar’s sovereignty.

“Today’s donors are honoured and appreciated for their sympathy and spirit of nationalism,” he

said.

Not only the security forces, but also all public servants and the entire nation must defend

together with patriotism, he was quoted as saying in the state newspapers.

He added that Alethankyaw event that happened in 1942 when local ethnic nationals were

attacked and driven out must not happen again.

Indonesian FM discusses Rakhine with State Counsellor, Commander-in-Chief STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS 05 SEP 2017

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has expressed her government’s support for

Myanmar’s actions for the stability, peace and development in Rakhine State.



The visiting Indonesian official made the comments during a meeting with the State Counsellor

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Nay Pyi Taw at noon on September 4.

The Indonesian minister discussed about giving humanitarian assistance, exchanged views on

development and bilateral cooperation.

The meeting was also attended by Union Minister for the State Counsellor Office U Kyaw Tint

Swe, National Security Adviser U Thaung Tun, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs U Kyaw

Tin and Indonesian Ambassador to Myanmar.

The Indonesia Foreign Minister also met with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing separately in the

morning on September 4.

At the meeting, the Senior General explained the real situation of ARSA extremist terrorist

attacks in Buthitaung and Maungdaw in Rakhine State that started on August 25.

The Senior General and the Indonesian minister exchanged views on humanitarian assistance to

Rakhine, according to the State Counsellor’s Office and Commander in Chief’s Office Facebook

pages.

Marsudi said after the meetings with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the country’s armed forces

commander that “de-escalation” of tensions in Rakhine State should be the top priority of

Myanmar’s government.

Marsudi said she is the first foreign minister to meet with Myanmar’s leadership since violence

erupted again in Rakhine on August 25, triggering an exodus of Rohingya Muslims to

neighbouring Bangladesh.

She said in a statement: “The security authorities of Myanmar need to immediately stop all forms

of violence that occurred in Rakhine State and provide protection to all people, including the

Muslim community.”

Marsudi said Indonesia has submitted a five-point plan to Myanmar that needs immediate

implementation “so that the crisis of humanity and security will not worsen.”

Maungdaw Rehabilitation Committee to assist Rakhine reconstruction

CHAN THAR 06 SEP 2017

A Maungdaw Rehabilitation Committee called the “Western Border Rakhine Construction

Committee” was formed on September 4. It comprises Hluttaw MPs, historians and old leaders

from the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF)

The committee will be led by Alotaw Pyae Sayadaw and it will implement rehabilitation

projects focusing on economy, health and education for Rakhine residents who fled from the

terrorist attacks, adviser of the committee, Amyotha Hluttaw MP U Oo Hla Saw told the

Myanmar Times on September 5.

“This matter is related to all Rakhine people. We thought there should be a committee for

reconstruction, the development of the economy and education. False information regarding the

situation in Rakhine is being spread. One of the objectives of the committee is to address this

false news.” U Oo Hla Saw said.

There were 90 instances where terrorists and the Tatmadaw engaged in battle between August 25

and August 30. As a result, 370 terrorists were killed and nine were arrested, according to a

statement by the commander-in-chief’s office. Thirteen security members and two government

staff members also died.

Maungdaw was labeled as a “military operation area” in order to conduct clearing operations till

it becomes safe from terrorist attacks, according to the statements from the government

information committee and the commander-in-chief’s office.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/chan-thar

Ethnic people from 70 villages had to flee from their houses and take shelter in monasteries and

schools.

As open conflict is still underway in Maungdaw, the committee mainly focuses on rescue

missions and providing assistance, said U Oo Hla Saw. “After eliminating the terrorists, we will

set detailed strategies for the reconstruction of the area, including in the field of education and

health. Right now, we are mainly doing rescue missions,” he said.

The Western Border Rakhine Construction Committee will be based in Sittwe. It will also form

sub-committees to carry out the tasks.

Armed ethnic groups concerned about Rakhine CHAN THAR 06 SEP 2017

Leaders from eight armed ethnic groups, who signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement

(NCA) expressed their concerns over the terrorist attacks in Rakhine, at a meeting held in Chiang

Mai, Thailand starting on September 4. The meeting aims at drafting a peace strategy for the

implementation of the NCA.

At the meeting, Karen National Union Chair Saw Mutu Sae Poe discussed several topics, such

as: the current terrorist attacks in Rakhine State; the call by local political parties to hold a

National Defense and Security Council meeting; the opinion of the Federal Political Negotiation

and Consultative Committee – composed of 7 members of the northern alliance and led by

United Wa State Army; and the opinion of the United Nationalities Federal Council in the

drafting of the peace strategy.

“We need to think carefully whether the current political situation has any effect on our peace

process.” he said.

The peace strategy aims at smoothing out the implementation of the NCA, ethnic leaders told the

media. The inclusion of unsigned armed groups to the table is a possible item on the agenda for

peace implementation, and it should be written down in the peace strategy, he added.

“If we look at it from the international associations’ and government’s perspectives, I think

we’re under the Ethnic Armed Organisations. Truth be told, although we have the same goal,

there are some differences. You know that we are not made up of one ethnicity. There are a lot of

differences in the languages and cultures. And these differences should be acknowledged

honestly; the main goal should be established so that a collaborative strategy can be carried out.

Only then can we establish the federal state that we all desired.” said Saw Mutu Say Poe.

In order to draw and approve the peace strategy, organisations such as the Peace Process Steering

Team - which includes leaders from eight ethnic armed groups that signed the NCA - the Union

Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, and the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee, will have a

comprehensive meeting. The meeting will be held from September 4 to 7.

“We can only proceed toward the Federal Democratic Union we all wish for with unity among us

eight groups. We also need strategic discussions as well as co-operations with other ethnic

groups, all of the MPs and a third party”, said Saw Mutu Sae Phoe.

The ethnic groups signatory to the NCA have reviewed the peace process and implementation

conditions in Lawkhila.

Rakhine fighting traps teachers

EI SHWE PHYU 06 SEP 2017

About one hundred teachers and villagers have been trapped north of Maungdaw township,

according to a teacher from Yan Aung Pyin village. “Many villagers are trapped in the


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/chan-thar

https://www.mmtimes.com/author/ei-shwe-phyu

northern quarter of Maungdaw township. As far as I know, there are several teachers among

them” said the teacher, one of the headmasters of Yan Aung Pyin village, who requested not to

be named. He was also trapped in Yan Aung Pyin from August 25 to September 4, and was

rescued Monday.

On August 25, terrorist attacks shook northern Rakhine. Schools were shut down as a result.

According to the Rakhine State education office, 426 schools in northern Rakhine have shut

down due to the attacks.

U Phone Ko Naing, administrator of Kyein Chaung village said: “We already evacuated

teachers from our village to a safe place.”

According to the Wan Lark Foundation of Arakan, which works in humanitarian aid, peace and

development in the region, about 6000 people fled from northern Rakhine from August 27 to

September 5.

U Khine Kaung San, director of Wan Lark Foundation of Arakan, said, “I heard that many

people are trapped in their villages.”

The 6000 people are currently sheltered in 20 monasteries in Sittwe township. Some of them

have found refuge with relatives. About 2000 people from Buthidaung township and 1000 from

Maungdaw township have fled to urban areas and are sheltering in religious buildings or camps.

“I don’t know exactly but I think the remaining people are not trapped. I think it is just difficult

to reach these areas and people are afraid to go out due to landmines. Thus, I think they are

staying where they are. I don’t know whether the rescuers will venture there. We can’t say

exactly because the phone lines don’t work well,” added U Phone Ko Naing.

As a result of the terrorist attacks in northern Rakhine on August 25, 184 schools in Maungdaw

township, 222 schools in Buthidaung township and 20 schools in Rathedaung township are shut

down. Schools have been closed indefinitely for nearly 159,000 students and 2500 teachers

affected by the events. Last October, an attack occurred near Maungdaw township in Rakhine

State. As a result, over 400 schools were shut down for nearly three weeks in Maungdaw and

Buthidaung townships.

Government on alert against bombs in Yangon, key cities STAFF 07 SEP 2017

Government security forces have been placed on highest alert amid reports terrorists might

launch bomb attacks in Yangon, Nay Pyi Taw and other key cities, a government statement

said, as clearing operations continued in Rakhine state, which have been subject of deadly

attacks last week.

“Government has already issued security alerts and instructions to all state and regional

governments throughout the country,” the office of the State Counsellor said in a statement on

Tuesday.

“It is important to remain vigilant of the fact that there is a possible danger of terrorist attacks

being used to incite ethnic and religious tension or public unrest,” it added.

The government enjoined the people to be very vigilant specially when in public places and to

report any suspicious persons or activities in their areas. “People also need to be on guard against those instigators who, for their own benefit and interest,

will foment ethnic or religious tension using the possible threats of terrorist attacks,” said the

statement.

“The people are urged to stand together with the government and render their cooperation in the

government’s efforts to maintain peace and stability throughout the country,” it added.



The State Counsellor Office assured the people that the government is doing its best to stabilise

and secure communities in Rakhine in the aftermath of terrorists attacks on at least 26 security

force and police outposts in the conflict-ridden state starting on August 25.

The Tatmadaw said over 400 people were killed and tens of thousands were forced to flee from

their homes in the aftermath of the attacks and the subsequent government clearing operations.

“The government security forces are undertaking security operations to maintain peace and

stability that have been threatened by the brutal attacks of the ARSA extremist terrorist group in

Northern Rakhine State,” the Office of the State Counsellor said.

“At the same time, the government is providing emergency aid and relief to those who are

displaced by the attacks,”it said.

The government vowed that it would ensure that those inhabitants who are innocent and not part

of the terrorist movement would be able to live without fear for their safety and security, while

vowing to bring the terrorists to justice.

Myanmar has been under intense pressure from the international community over its alleged

failure to resolve the Rakhine issue, which has festered during the last five years.

The United Nations said that more than 125,000 refugees from Rakhine have fled to Bangladesh

since the fighting erupted in August.

Myanmar will not take back people without papers HTOO THANT 07 SEP 2017

People who fled to Bangladesh from the fighting in Rakhine State will not be allowed back in

without proof of citizenship, according to National Security Adviser (NSA) U Thaung Tun.

“Citizens must have proof of how many years they have lived in Myanmar. If found to be true,

they can come back. But it will not be possible if they are not a Myanmar citizen,” he told a news

conference on Rakhine at the State Counsellor’s Office on Wednesday.

Although a security warning was issued in major cities like Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon, Mandalay

and Mawlamyaing, people need not worry, he said, even though recent reports suggest that ISIS,

which has become weak in the Middle East, might try to infiltrate South East Asia.

The President is holding daily discussions on security matters in Rakhine State with the

ministries of Defence, Home Affairs and Border Affairs, as well as the NSA, he said. However,

he did not mention the possibility of the government calling a meeting of the National Defence

and Security Council.

The government is taking necessary measures to protect the State and the people and strengthen

the police in Rakhine State, he added.

The government is also implementing the recommendations of Kofi Annan’s advisory

commission on Rakhine, which delivered its final report on August 24. Initial measures include

allowing the media to enter the terrorist attack areas and giving humanitarian aid. However, one

of the recommendations – the amendment of the 1982 Citizenship Law – will have to be dealt by

the Hluttaw.

Many Muslim residents of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships have been asking

the government for help and handing over terrorists they had arrested, said Social Welfare,

Rescue and Resettlement Minister U Win Myat Aye.

“Some [Muslim residents] have contacted us to say that there were no attacks in their areas, they

never carried out any attacks, and they had to stay together for fear that they might be attacked,”

he said, adding that local authorities were trying to contact them to provide aid.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/htoo-thant

The Myanmar government is negotiating with donor countries and the Myanmar Red Cross

Society to accept humanitarian aid offered by the US, Britain, the EU and Denmark. Any country

that wants to donate aid has to first ask the government, U Thaung Tun said.

“They can contact the government. We are accepting it,” he added.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attended the UN General Assembly and delivered a speech last

September, but it has not yet been confirmed whether either President U Htin Kyaw or Daw

Aung San Suu Kyi will attend this year, he said.

ASEAN’s Timor response shows way on Rakhine SURIN PITSUWAN 07 SEP 2017

As a 10-member inter-governmental body, ASEAN prides itself on having survived many

regional crises and emergency situations, becoming “a community of sharing and caring

societies”.

However, the Rakhine communal crisis is a new challenge in which ASEAN’s credibility is

being put to test.

ASEAN has taken a role in containing a number of regional conflicts. In the early and late 1990s

the regional group helped tackle conflicts in Cambodia and engaged in international efforts to

restore law and order in East Timor. In early and late 2000s, ASEAN helped contain escalating

conflicts in Aceh, Indonesia, and border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand.

Even though those collective efforts were conducted with quiet diplomacy and collective

political will, they helped contain the conflicts.

When Myanmar was hit by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, ASEAN proved it could take a regional

leadership role in arranging a humanitarian response to the devastation caused by the disaster.

From 2008 to 2010, during which I spearheaded ASEAN’s humanitarian efforts, the regional

grouping, with the support of the United Nations, the World Bank and the international

community, was able to organise international humanitarian assistance to victims of the cyclone

at a time when Myanmar was still under sanctions by many countries.

The current prevailing and deteriorating situation in Rakhine, which the UN secretary-general

describes as a possible “human catastrophe”, is another test for ASEAN’s “solidarity, efficacy

and credibility.”

ASEAN can act to address the Rakhine crisis. In that event, here is my suggestion: Adopt the

modality of its engagement in the East Timorese 1999 crisis.

During that time, Thailand was the ASEAN chair. Some ASEAN member countries were not

willing to engage in an international effort to bring about peace and security to East Timor

during which anti-independence militants’ attacks on civilians turned into violence throughout

the country.

But Thailand’s prime minister at the time, Chuan Leekpai, as ASEAN chair, suggested these

words which helped break the deadlock: “Those ASEAN member states which are prepared and

willing can join the International Force for East Timor.”

He was referring to a multinational task force organised by Australia to address the humanitarian

and security crisis in the country from 1999-2000 prior to the arrival of the United Nations

peacekeeping force.

After Chuan’s remark, ASEAN engagement in East Timor became “a coalition of the willing”,

helping the regional grouping avoid having to gain the consensus required for its decision-

making principles.


ASEAN must now act again to address the Rakhine crisis. It will have to act fast to save lives

and prevent the carnage from deteriorating and escalating into regional tensions.

The world is watching. ASEAN’s credibility and profile are hanging in the balance.

– Bangkok Post

Surin Pitsuwan is former secretary-general of ASEAN and former foreign minister of Thailand.

Rakhine conflict about national security, says French academic NAW BETTY HAN 08 SEP 2017

The raging Rakhine conflict is not about religion but a national security matter, said a French

academic.

“This is not about religious problem or about ethnics. This is about national security,” Dr

Jacques P Leider, head of the French Institute of Asian Studies, told a workshop on Thursday

entitled “Talk on Rakhine Issue, Discussion on Finding Solutions”.

The six main topics discussed at the workshop were the background of the Rohingya people, the

main reasons for current conflict, migration problem, the international participation on Rakhine

issue, Asian communication and final solutions.

“All of the people in Myanmar from related sectors should look in every case that separates

terrorism and religion," he added.

Participants of the workshops, which include local and foreign academics and social experts, said

discussing the problem openly and frankly would be the first step in finding solution to the

problem.

“This is the first workshop in Myanmar which celebrated with local and international speakers to

share knowledge about the solutions of [the] Rakhine issue,” said U Ko Ko Hlaing, an

international researcher for the Defense Service Academy.

“This aimed to know what the international community thinks about Rakhine people’s struggles

based on reality. A solution may come out if the current situation was presented from their

standing point," he said.

The government needs to improve the development plan for the whole area, the infrastructure

projects, logistics and also power supply, U Ko Ko Hlaing added.

“It needs to come up with [a] quick-win income generation and job creation program along with

socio-economic development schemes such as health and education, settlement of citizenship

issue according to law, counter-terrorism measures including detoxification of dangerous

extremism in Rakhine State,” he added.

The participants noted that there is no such term as Rohingya, and in order to solve the conflict

issue in Rakhine, comprehensive approach must be done along with multi-faceted strategy.

‘’The terrorists appear in the situation for their own survival but it doesn’t mean we are

supportive of their manners,’’ a Bangladeshi participant said.

The participants also noted that international non-governmental organisations and international

media should be balanced in dealing with Rakhine issues. The governmental organisations

should have to go ahead about saving and helping the people by improving national security.

Review of Citizenship Law spurs debate AUNG KYAW MIN 08 SEP 2017

The Citizenship Law, enacted in 1982 by the Burmese Socialist Programme Party, is no ordinary

law but is directly related to all national races and national security.



https://www.mmtimes.com/author/aung-kyaw-min

The final report on Rakhine State by Kofi Annan’s Advisory Commission on August 24

recommended a review of the 35-year-old law because it is not in line with international

standards and conventions that Myanmar has signed and needs to be amended.

To amend the law has been debated among Myanmar people for a long time. Legal experts say

the citizenship law is best for national politics under military rule. During U Thein Sein’s

government, a proposal submitted by a Union Solidarity and Development Party MP urging the

government to repeal the law and enact a new one was approved by the Hluttaw.

The 35-year-old law has eight chapters and 76 sections. When reviewed, it was found to need

many revisions and insertions, so it would be better to repeal it and enact a new one, said MP U

Tin Mya of Sagaing Region’s Constituency No. 7, who submitted the proposal.

The Citizenship Law was drafted by legal experts like former President and Chief Justice Dr.

Maung Maung, but after 30 years, it was necessary to make amendments, U Tin Mya told the

First Hluttaw.

“When we study similar laws in neighbouring countries, we see that Chinese law is very stable,

as are those of India, Bangladesh and Thailand. So, we decided that a new law was needed,” U

Tin Mya said.

However, after much discussion, the proposal was scrapped, said former Amyotha Hluttaw MP

U Hla Swe.

Revising the law

The ruling NLD party stated before the 2015 election that the Citizenship law should be

reviewed and amended. The government and Hluttaw will be responsible for amending the law,

NLD Central Executive Committee member U Nyan Win told The Myanmar Times on

September 4.

“For a political solution, the law needs to be revised so that it doesn’t mention national race as

regards citizenship,” U Nyan Win said.

Kofi Annan’s report says “While recognising that the 1982 law is the current basis for

citizenship, the commission recommends that the government set in motion a process to review

the law. As part of such a review, the government might wish to consider the following: aligning

the law with international standards and treaties to which Myanmar is a state party, bringing the

legislation into line with best practices, including the abolition of distinctions between different

types of citizens, and that as a general rule, individuals will not lose their citizenship or have it

revoked where this will leave them stateless.

“Within a reasonable timeline, the government should present a plan for the start of the process

to review the citizenship law. The government should also propose interim measures to ensure

that – until new or amended legislation is in place – existing legislation is interpreted and applied

in a manner that is non-discriminatory. The law should be reviewed to ensure the equitable

treatment of all citizens.”

“All six Myanmar members on the commission said the law cannot be repealed immediately. It

is still valid today and verification must be done in accordance with that law,” commission

member Daw Saw Khin Tin said.

“At present, we have to do verification based on the 1982 law. It is a firm law still in force.

Without a firm law, we can’t do anything. We have explained this often to the Muslim

community,” she said.

Draft took six years


Although there may be weaknesses compared to international laws, it took six years to draft the

1982 law, and at the moment, there is no plan to amend it, said U Thein Swe, minister for labour,

immigration and population, after the release of the Annan report.

The law was enacted after revising the Union Citizenship Act of 1948. Ethnic groups who lived

in Myanmar before British colonial rule are defined as national races according to the law.

History records state that Bogyoke Aung San, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, tried to regain

independence with a promise to give citizenship to foreigners who were brought into Myanmar

by the British.

It was enacted under U Ne Win’s rule and skipped the stage of “rules” to “procedures”, said U

Kyaw Sein, former deputy director general of the Union Attorney General’s Office.

Legal documents in Myanmar are classified (in descending order of importance) as the

Constitution, laws, acts, rules, bye-laws, regulations, notifications, orders and directives.

Under the 1982 law, people were classified as a citizen, associate citizen, naturalised citizen or

foreigner, and respective procedures were enacted without stipulating rules first.

“After a law’s enactment, “rules” must first be stipulated and then “procedures”. During the

BSPP government, they used to skip the “rules” portion of the process because they had to be

submitted to U Ne Win first,” U Kyaw Sein said.

The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw’s Legal Affairs and Special Cases Assessment Commission was formed

in March 2016 to review current laws. Amendment of the citizenship law is related to state

policy, said U Kyaw Sein, who is also a member of the commission.

“There is no discussion of amending the law because it is a very big issue and will not be easy,”

he said. Opinions of it also vary among MPs, and some political parties and nationalist groups

want it left alone.

Citizenship for all

High Court Lawyer U Thein Than Oo of the Myanmar Lawyers Network said citizenship should

be granted to anyone, and only then will the law comply with international norms.

In all citizenship laws, national interests always have priority, so Myanmar can draft its

citizenship law any way it wants to, legal experts said.

U Htay Oo, an MP from Yangon Region and a high court lawyer, opposes amending the law to

grant citizenship to Bengalis and calls such a move irresponsible.

“Amending the law would be a step backward. If we relax it, it will be exploited, not only on the

Bangladesh border but also the China border. If we amend it carelessly, it will damage the state,”

he said.

Some legal experts and MPs welcome such an amendment, saying it would make it possible to

restore the Myanmar citizenship of those who lost it after the 1988 demonstrations.

“Rohingya are not recognised as one of our 135 national races, but they may be citizens. U

Razak was an Indian, but we pay respect to him every year on Martyrs Day. A national and a

citizen are different,” U Hla Swe said.

USDP accuses foreign media, NGOs of making Rakhine conflict worse NAW BETTY HAN 11 SEP 2017

The country’s main opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) blamed the

foreign media and international humanitarian organisations for the worsening conflict in Rakhine

State, a senior party leader said.



“Current Rakhine conditions are worse than before because of international media groups,” said

U Than Htay, president of USDP, during a workshop with representatives of 30 other political

parties.

The speaker noted that the main reason for the growing unrest in Rakhine is due to the biased

international media and international organisations, which describe the conflict as between two

religions even though it is plainly a national security issue.

“The international media and international organisations are playing politics,” said Dr Daw Yin

Nwe, a former member of the Rakhine commission.

The Rakhine issue reflects the failure of the government’s administrative system. It has become

the best proof for the weakness of government as it was made to be sustainable with Emergency

Act of Section 144 and could not be controlled with the normal administrative system, said U

Than Htay.

The workshop participants noted that a democratic country should be able to have an effective

administrative system, failure to do so would mean losing the sovereign right.

People should support the government’s efforts to ensure an effective administrative system,

they said.

The USDP sent the statements about the Rakhine issues to the related government organisations

about how to handle the international media and international organisations, but did not get any

response.

‘’We didn’t accept the statement of Kofi Annan’s commission and other international

organisations as our country issues is ours and does not need to be internationalised,” said Dr

Nandar Hla Myint, the spokesperson of USDP.

This Rakhine issue should be dealth with the Citizenship Law, Section 88, he said.

About 1.1 million IDPs live in Rakhine, but are denied citizenship and face restrictions on their

movements and access to basic services, according to reports. About 120,000 remain in camps

set up after deadly violence swept the state in 2012.

Government rejects appeal for ceasefire NYAN LYNN AUNG 11 SEP 2017

The government on Sunday rebuffed a ceasefire appeal by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation

Army (ARSA) terrorists to put an end to the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of people to

neighbouring Bangladesh and to allow humanitarian agencies to provide aid to civilians.

The ARSA, which the government has labelled extremist terrorist organisation, launched

simultaneous attacks against government security outposts in northern Rakhine State on August

25, triggering fierce retaliation from government security forces.

Hundreds of thousands of the Muslim minority people in the area fled to nearby Bangladesh for

fear of being trapped in the middle of the fighting and for fear of retaliation from government

forces.

"We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists," U Zaw Htay, government official and director

general of State Counsellor Office twitted on his official twitter as a respond to ARSA’s

statement calling for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid to civilian populations in the area.

They have declared a temporary cessation from offensive military operations in Maungdaw,

Buthidaung and Rathidaung townships for one month from September 10 to October 9 in order

for civilians to access humanitarian aids.

The statement came amid reports in the area about possible clashes between the ethnic Rakhine

community and the Muslim population amid rising tension.



Last week the government also called for the people to exercise extra vigilance amid reports that

ARSA extremist terrorists were preparing to launch bomb attacks Yangon and other key cities in

the country.

“It is important to remain vigilant of the fact that there is a possible danger of terrorist attacks

being used to incite ethnic or religious tension or public unrest” said the statement of State

Counsellor Office on September 5.

Moreover, the incitement of news came out on social media two days ago that the violence will

occur on today between two communities, Rahine and Muslim and be careful as people.

The Islamic Organizations in Myanmar urged Muslims not to believe in fake news being

spread in the social media that violence might erupt between the ethnic Rakhine communities

and Muslims in the conflict zones.

The Islamic Organization in Myanmar said it is standing together with government, civil society

organizations, and all of the people in a united effort to prevent such attacks.

“We are deeply concerned about the news of the planning of attacks by terrorist in big cities in

the country” said the statement of Islamic Organization.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the extremist terrorist group of ARSA has attacked

at least 40 different police posts and checkpoints and one military base across three townships in

northern Rakhine State since August 25.

There were also 60 reported clashes between the terrorist group and government security forces

since then.

The government initially reported that dozens of people were killed in the fighting, including 11

members of the security forces. The reported death toll has since climbed to over 300, including

many alleged terrorists.

Human Rights Watch said Myanmar authorities assert, without substantiating their claims, that

militants and Muslim villagers have burned 6,845 houses across 60 villages in northern Rakhine

State. Refugee accounts contradict the claims of Burmese officials.

According to the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) at least 294,000 Bengalis, who

identified themselves as Rohingya Muslims, have fled across the border to Bangladesh since

August 25 and UN estimates 270, 000 of them arrived in Bangladesh in just two weeks.

“US$77 million in funding was needed to deliver urgent aid for new arrival of them,” said ISCG

report.

Nearly 30 political parties blame govt for Rakhine woes NAW BETTY HAN 13 SEP 2017

Twenty-nine political parties on Tuesday blamed the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State on

the government’s indecision.

The political parties pinpointed the weakness in the government’s management and

administrative process as one of the key reasons for the upsurge of violence in some parts of

Rakhine.

The opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party and other parties also called for the

immediate convening of the National Security Commission to tackle the Rakhine problem.

“We announced many statements about the Rakhine issues as we can’t accept the statement of

Kofi Annan’s commission which was allowed to participate in resolving the Rakhine issues with

the support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,” said U Than Oo, the spoken person of 88 Generation

Students Youths Union of Myanmar Party.



The facts in the Kofi Annan commission’s August 24 report on Rakhine wrongly described the

1982 citizenship law and it should not be accepted, he added.

He pointed out that as early as September 2016, they have already suggested to the government

to declare state of emergency in the Rakhine State and to solve the problem using the country’s

anti-terrorism act.

U Than Oo also pointed out that the group also called for the urgent convening of the National

Security Commission but the government did not act on any of their suggestions.

“If the government accept the suggestions our political parties’ statement, the Rakhine conditions

won’t be terrible like today,” he added.

U Kyaw Thu Aung, secretary of the National Political Alliance Party, also faulted the

government for not consulting with other parties in tackling the Rakhine problem.

“Nowadays, government is very good in administrative system but it doesn’t mean very good

handling in every issue effectively. They should take the voice of citizens and their suggestion,”

he said.

Dr Nandar Hla Myint, the spokesperson of USDP, said the outcome of the workshops they held

on the Rakhine issue reflected the sentiments of the people.

“We just protect our nation like our home. The political parties don’t want to play politics in this

issue,” said Dr Nandar Hla Myint.

Rakhine conflict: beyond the blame game

The Myanmar Times NATIONAL NEWS15 SEP 2017

In a conflict zone, it is easy to blame unknown perpetrators. Victims who have suffered have

their own stories to tell. Some narrate them directly from their nightmarish experience. All in all,

for journalists, printed or broadcast, to obtain information describing the real situation in conflict

zones is the most difficult. Eyewitness accounts on the ground are the most important primary

source. Not all journalists can obtain accounts directly from these groups.

However, quite frequently, journalists depend on reliable sources. As in all conflicts, journalists

need quick accounts of incidents that are as comprehensive as possible. Some have time to

confirm and recheck their sources against others to ensure their information is accurate and as

impartial as possible. Obviously, no first draft of history is perfect. But most of the time, when

journalists get information, due to intense competition as well as social media, they tend to let go

of their stories as soon as possible.

That has been the journalist’s dilemma in reporting on Rakhine State over the past couple of

weeks because the developments there have many facets, depending on their sources. After the

attacks on August 25, most of the reports focused on the strong international condemnation of

the terrorist acts, and immediately the government labelled the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army

as a terrorist group. What came next were seemingly endless reports about Myanmar security

forces carrying out counter-terrorism attacks and clean-up operations and people fleeing their

homes and crossing the border.

Several days after security forces retaliated against ARSA, to counter what it described as biased

reporting, Nay Pyi Taw decided to allow two batches of local and foreign journalists to cover the

conflict. But it was a bit too late because the narrative was concentrated on Myanmar’s security

forces and the aftermath. Nobody questioned or focused on ARSA’s motives and intention

anymore.


https://www.mmtimes.com/national-news.html

Those journalists visiting the conflict zone in Muangdaw got first-hand accounts from villagers

and witnessed the reality on the ground. That much was clear. In an ideal situation, more

journalists would have access to the conflict area but only if their safety could be guaranteed. A

worse-case scenario would occur if an ill-intentioned element targeted the journalists.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been under severe pressure from her fellow Nobel

laureates and other world leaders, questioning her moral authority, but most Western leaders

understand her dilemma in tackling such a sensitive issue. She wholeheartedly accepted the

August 24 findings of the Kofi Annan Advisory Commission on Rakhine, even though some

among the security forces and opposition parties, particularly the Union Solidarity and

Development Party, did not share her view. She promised to set up a ministerial-level committee

to monitor the progress of implementing those recommendations.

After the attack, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has instructed security forces to follow a strict code of

conduct in carrying out security operations in the area. Most importantly, they must avoid

“collateral damage” and harming innocent civilians in their attempt to restore stability.

However, at this juncture, there are issues that the media have neglected to report such as other

affected ethnic communities, including the Mro, Daingnet and Kaman, and the various

community projects that are operating inside the besieged area. Indonesia, Thailand and other

countries have already provided humanitarian assistance.

At the moment, the government is providing aid to displaced persons without discrimination

within its borders. A lot more aid is needed, especially for those who have fled their homes and

crossed the border. The UN estimates there are at least 400,000 displaced people along the

Bangladeshi border.

It is crucial that the media have access to the conflict zone to assess the situation independently.

Misinformation about the situation could have serious repercussions and cause further delays in

humanitarian assistance. The attack on August 25 would not be the last. Nay Pyi Taw should be

prepared and learn from this experience, which has already affected the country’s reputation and

international standing.

A strong commitment to restore peace THE MYANMAR TIMES 20 SEP 2017

Here are excerpts of key issues the State Counsellor said her government faces in its efforts

toward national reconciliation and peace:

Efforts to restore peace and stability in Rakhine

Even before these outbreaks took place, we had established a Central Committee for rule of law

and development in Rakhine and invited Dr. Kofi Annan to lead a commission that would help

us to resolve the longstanding problems of that state. But in spite of all these efforts, we were

not able to prevent the conflict from taking place. Still, throughout the last year, we have

continued with our program of development and the establishment of peace and harmony.

After several months of seemingly quiet and peace, on 25 August, 30 police outposts, as well as

the Regimental Headquarters in Taungthazar village, were attacked by armed groups.

Consequent to these attacks, the government declared the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and

its supporters responsible for acts of terrorism, as a terrorist group in accordance with the

Counter-Terrorism Law, section 6, subsection 5.

There has been much concern around the world with regard to the situation in Rakhine. It is not

the intention of the Myanmar government to apportion blame or to abnegate responsibility. We


condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence. We are committed to the restoration

of peace, stability and rule of law throughout the state.

The security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to the code of conduct in carrying out

security operations, to exercise all due restraint, and to take full measures to avoid collateral

damage and the harming of innocent civilians.

Human rights violations and all other acts that impair stability and harmony and undermine the

rule of law will be addressed in accordance with strict norms of justice.

We feel deeply for the suffering of all the people who have been caught up in the conflict. Those

who have had to flee their homes are many – not just Muslims and Rakhines, but also small

minority groups, such as the Daing-net, Mro (Kamee), Thet, Mramagyi and Hindus – of whose

presence most of the world is totally unaware.

Humanitarian assistance was provided to displaced people by a team led by the Minister of

Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement from August 27 onward. Details of humanitarian

assistance programs will be made available to all of our guests in due course.

Advisory Commission’s report on Rakhine State

The final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, chaired by Kofi Annan, was

made public on August 25, the very day on which the last round of attacks took place. We are

determined to implement the recommendations of the commission. Those recommendations that

will bring speedy improvement to the situation within a short timeframe will be given priority.

Other recommendations we will have to take time over, but every single recommendation that

will benefit peace, harmony and development in Rakhine State will be implemented within the

shortest time possible.

The government is working to restore the situation to normal. Since September 5, there have

been no armed clashes and there have been no clearance operations. Nevertheless, we are

concerned to hear that numbers of Muslims are fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. We want

to find out why this exodus is happening. We would like to talk to those who have fled as well as

those who have stayed. I think it is very little known that the great majority of Muslims in the

Rakhine State have not joined the exodus. More than 50 percent of the villages of Muslims are

intact. They are as they were before the attacks took place. We would like to know why.

This is what I think we have to work toward: not just looking at the problems, but also looking at

the areas where there are no problems. Why have we been able to avoid these problems in certain

areas? For this reason, we would like to invite the members of our diplomatic community to join

us in our endeavour to learn more from the Muslims who have integrated successfully into

Rakhine State. If you are interested in joining us in our endeavours, please let us know. We can

arrange for you to visit these areas, and to ask them for yourselves why they have not fled, why

they have chosen to remain in their villages, even at a time when everything around them seems

to be in a state of turmoil.

Socio-economic development in Rakhine

The Rakhine State Socio-Economic Development Plan 2017-2021 has been drafted to boost

regional development. Hundreds of new jobs and opportunities have been created for local

people through public private partnerships. The viability of a new Special Economic Zone to

bring new jobs and businesses is being assessed. In terms of infrastructure development,

electrification has been expanded with new roads and bridges built, including a new highway

connecting remote areas previously only accessible by boat.


All people living in Rakhine State have access to education and healthcare services without

discrimination. Healthcare is being provided throughout the state, including hard-to-reach areas,

with new mobile clinics. The government has upgraded 300 schools in Rakhine. Vocational and

technical training programs have begun. Muslim students also have access to higher education

without discrimination.

Humanitarian aid had reached all communities in 95% of the affected areas before the attacks on

August 25. We are now starting another round of humanitarian aid that we hope will take care of

all the people in the region.

Citizenship and repatriation of refugees

With regard to citizenship, a strategy with a specific timeline has been developed to move

forward the national verification process. But this process needs cooperation from all

communities. In some Muslim communities, the leaders have decided that they will not join the

verification process. We would appreciate it if all friends could persuade them to join in the

process because they have nothing to lose by it.

We are also trying to promote inter-communal religious harmony by engaging interfaith groups.

A new curriculum is to be introduced in schools with a focus on moral civic ideas and peace and

stability. A new FM radio channel has been set up to provide information on, among others,

healthcare, the national verification process and education to all communities. It broadcasts in

Rakhine, Bengali and Myanmar languages.

Training and capacity-building for police and security forces is being provided with the

cooperation of the EU and United Nations agencies.

There has been a call for the repatriation of refugees who have fled to Bangladesh. We are

prepared to start the verification process at any time. A verification process was set up as early as

1993 based on the principles to which both countries agreed at the time. We can continue with

the verification of those refugees who wish to return to Myanmar. We will abide by the criteria

that were agreed on. As our national security adviser has assured Bangladesh, and which I can

confirm now, we are ready to start the verification process at any time. Those who have been

verified as refugees from this country will be accepted without any problems and with full

assurance of their security and their access to humanitarian aid.

Action will be taken against all people, regardless of their religion, race, or political position,

who go against the law and violate human rights as accepted by the international community. We

have never been soft on human rights in this country. Our government has emerged as a body

committed to the defence of human rights. Not of any particular community’s rights, but of the

rights of all human beings, within the borders of our country.

State Counsellor condemns all human rights violations in Rakhine

THE MYANMAR TIMES 20 SEP 2017

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi assured the world on Tuesday that Myanmar is ready

to take the necessary action to address the ongoing crisis in Rakhine State.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi condemned human rights violations in the Rakhine

State in her first public speech since the August 25 attacks on security forces in the north-western

region.

“We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence. We are committed to the

restoration of peace, stability and rule of law throughout the state,” she said.


Her 25-minute speech, which was delivered in English and televised live, touched on key aspects

of the situation in the region, including tangible actions taken by the government in the past few

months.

She said the recommendations made by Dr Kofi Annan’s Advisory Commission on Rakhine

State will be given priority and be implemented in full.

The diplomatic briefing came at the time when international pressure has been piling up on her

National League for Democracy government. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi decided to skip a

scheduled visit to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, sending her vice

president, Henry Van Tieo, instead.

She said security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to a code of conduct in carrying

out security operations, would “exercise all due restraint, and take full measures to avoid

collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians.”

Human rights violations would be punished under strict standards of justice, she told the

Yangon-based diplomatic community.

She revealed that since September 5, there have been no armed clashes and no “clearance

operations.” She was concerned by reports of the numbers of Muslims fleeing across the border

to Bangladesh. “We want to find out why this exodus is happening. We would like to talk to

those who have fled as well as those who have stayed,” she said, adding, “More than 50 percent

of Muslim villages are intact.”

Regarding the socio-economic development of Rakhine State, she said all people living there

have access to higher education, technical training and healthcare provided by new mobile

clinics. Humanitarian aid had reached all communities in 95pc of the affected areas before the

August 25 attacks.

On the repatriation of refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, she reaffirmed that Myanmar is

ready to accept them back under a joint-verification process set up by the 1993 agreement with

Bangladesh. “Those who have been verified as refugees from this country will be accepted back

without any problems and with full assurance of their security and access to humanitarian aid.”

Knowing that the world’s attention is focused on her and her government, she said Myanmar

does not fear international scrutiny.

Toward the end of her speech, she said if diplomats at the briefing are interested “in joining us in

our endeavours, please let us know.”

She said the government can arrange trips to the conflict zone so that visitors have the

opportunity to talk to villagers who have stayed in their area.

Diplomats gave her speech a thumbs-up, saying that she focused on issues and concerns that the

international community should be aware of.

“She addressed a mini-UN General Assembly in Nay Pyi Taw in the presence of the

diplomats.

“SC (State Counsellor) clarified her position on the issue of human rights, relief assistance to

IDPs and vulnerable people in Rakhine, and her government’s commitment to implement the

recommendations of Kofi Annan’s Advisory Commision.

“The ‘blame game’ does not help anybody in resolving problems. Rather it will weaken or even

derail on-going process and progress made by the less than 18-month old civilian government in

Myanmar,” said Nepalese Ambassador Bhim Udas.

Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang said, “It is very good for the whole world to have more

understanding of Myanmar’s position. The world really welcomes that.”


Indian Ambassador Vikram Misri said her speech was encouraging and contained a very

positive message. “The international community is ready to help the government of Myanmar in

addressing these challenges.”

Russian Ambassador Nikolay A. Listopadov said her speech was good and constructive. “We

strongly condemn violence and support the Myanmar government’s efforts to solve this problem.

I think that having security, peace and stability for those living in Rakhine State is important.”

Contacted by The Myanmar Times, the US Embassy said the US welcomes indications that

Myanmar is committed to providing access to humanitarian aid via the International Commission

of the Red Cross. “We look forward to learning further details.”

Thousands rally to show support for government on Rakhine NAW BETTY HAN 20 SEP 2017

Thousands of people on Tuesday gathered in front of the City Hall in downtown Yangon to show

their support for State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as she addressed for the first time

issues related to the violence in the Northern Rakhine State.

A huge crowd of people, some wearing yellow t-shirts printed with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s

photograph and motto – “We Stand With You.” – stood before a giant LED television screen

which broadcast live her speech from Nay Pyi Taw.

Some supporters were carrying red balloons and vinyl photos of the Myanmar leader while

others were dancing and singing nationalist songs.

Some people were chanting, “We love you, Mother Su”.

One group was wearing traditional Karen dresses and other Myanmar traditional clothes, while

others were carrying ballons as if they were going to attend a celebration.

The people could barely control their anticipation of the State Counsellor’s speech, hoping to

hear from their leader after weeks of being pilloried in the international media for allegedly

failing to address the plight of the Muslim minority in the Rakhine region.

The United Nations estimated that nearly half a million refugees from the restive Rakhine

province have fled to nearby Bangladesh to escape the alleged wrath of the Myanmar security

forces.

Yangon Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein and other parliament members led the crowd in front

of the City Hall.

The regular session of the regional parliament, which usually starts at 10am, was pushed back to

1pm so people can listen to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech in, perhaps, the most controversial

issue facing Myanmar today.

When the State Counsellor appearedon the giant screen and people broke into cheers and chants,

calling her name, “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” The red balloons were sent flying to the sky. Then

everybody fell silent as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi began her speech.

The State Counsellor’s address was broadcasted live at 10am. Another large group of supporters

were waiting at the center of Yangon to show their support for Daw Aung San Su Kyi who

delivered her speech in English.

“I don’t understand her speech as well but I trust and support her,” said U Kyaw Nyunt, 60 years

old, from Kamayutt Township.

He said that he was waiting for her speech in the park in front of the City Hall for about two

hours.



“I just came and to show my involvement as a Myanmar citizen on Rakhine issues. She stands

for Myanmar and we stand with her’,’ he added.

“The State Counsellor’s address is a kind of State level speech. It was in English as she would

like to describe the realistic conditions in Rakhine State to the international community. I won’t

understand her speech as well and I don’t understand English. But It’s okay as the international

audience just need to understand the issues and we just need to trust and support her,” said U

Aye Myint, 60, the founder of a charity school in North Okkala Township, named “Love house”.

People from all walks of lives gathered and listened to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech; people

of different ages and religions, as well as monks and foreigners. Most people gathered in front of

the city hall to show their support for the leader.

“The objective of my coming here is to show to the people that the monks also support Daw

Aung San Suu Kyi,” said U Ti Law Ka, the monks form Chauk Htet Gyi Monetary, Bahan

Township.

“People think that all of the monks didn’t stand with her. My coming proved their thoughts were

wrong,” he added while holding in his hands a photo of the State Counsellor.

“I came here to stand with Mother Su by doing what I can do. I trust and I support her all the

way” said Ko Htut Htut, a 37-year-old biker from Thuwunna Township. He was among a large

group of bikers who watched Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech.

But an American tourist who was among the big crowd in the City Hall found the whole thing

amusing.

“The Myanmar people supported the lady (Daw Aung San Suu Kyi) but they didn’t even

understand the speech. It looks a bit weird,” said Andrew David, 50, an American tourist. “They

have blind trust in her. I’m not sure they can separate personal respect and political issues. But

they looked very impressed.”

When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s concluded her speech after 25 minutes, all of the people shouted

the State Counsellor’s name again and sang nationalist songs.

Some groups of people were giving free bottled water to the public while the speech was being

delivered.

People continued to mill around the City Hall long after the speech was finished. Some of those

who understand English tried to explain to the other what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told her

international audience.

“I hope the international community would finally be able to understand the true situation in

Rakhine,” U Htin Lin Aung, 40 years old. He is wearing red T-shirt with the state counselor’s

photo. He looks very satisfied after hearing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s explanation.

While it is uncertain whether her speech could tame the international criticisms against the

Myanmar governent’s handling of the Rakhine issue, there is one thing that cannot be disputed:

The Myanmar people are behind Daw Aung San Suu Kyi all the way.

Three bomb explosions damage vehicles, cause panic in Minbya YEE YWAL MYINT 21 SEP 2017

Three bombs exploded along the roads between Sat Kyar and Than Shin villages in Minbya

township in Rakhine State, damaging two vehicles and triggering panic among the local

residents, a state parliamentarian said Wednesday.

The explosions occurred late Tuesday on the route connecting Minbya and Maruk-U, two top

tourist attractions in Rakhine with their ancient temples, pagodas and villages of cultural and

historical significance, said U Tun Thar Sein, No (1) state parliamentarian of Mrauk-U.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/yee-ywal-myint

A passenger bus and a cargo truck were damaged in the explosions but no casualties were

reported, said U Tun Thar Sein.

Local residents’ fear and panic are well-founded since the area is not part of Rakhine which have

been wracked by violence since August 25, when terrorists launched simultaneous attacks

against government security outposts in Northern Rakhine area, according to U Tun Thar Sein.

“This incident is well-planned. The intention is clear to disrupt the security as three explosives

were detonated,” he said.

The area has been temporarily closed to traffic when police investigators and Tatmadaw

inspected the remnant of the explosives, the legislator said.

The route is often used for transporting commodities from Yangon to Sittwe, disruption of the

road’s safety will have an economic impact, said a local resident.

“We are afraid that conflicts might start again,” said U Maung Than, a resident from Mrauk-U.

The explosions occurred a day after State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivered a speech

to the international community about the situation in the northern Rakhine.

She said her government was not afraid of international scrutiny on the Rakhine issue,

emphasising that her government condemns human rights violations and violence in the area.

Vice president U Henry Van Thio is currently attending the United Nations General Assembly in

New York on behalf of the State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Rakhine crisis taking toll on tourism EI EI THU 21 SEP 2017

Tourism operators have suffered a backlash from the Rakhine crisis, as several tour companies

and hotels recently received cancellations of reservations.

“Booking cancellations have increased, especially for Ngapali and Mrauk-U itineraries. Tourists

don’t realise that (these destinations) are very far from current crisis areas, even though it is in

the same state. Bagan and Mandalay are also located far from the conflict zone. Authorities in

charge should communicate where it is safe to travel,” U Thet Lwin Toh, chairman of the

Union of Myanmar Travel Association told The Myanmar Times.

According to hotel operators in Yangon, Ngapali beach and Bagan currently receive fewer

bookings, which mark a slight decline in comparison to the same period last year.

“Room bookings in Bagan had increased by 10 percent before the crisis. But in the last 10 days,

there have been several cancelations. Bookings in Ngapali beach has obviously decreased. The

new booking rate is stable, but we have to wait to see what happens,” said U Khin Aung Htun, a

hotel manager.

“At the moment, the booking rate just slightly declined. Tourism in Myanmar reduces poverty

and improves incomes at grass-root level,” said Daw May Myat Mon Win, chair of Myanmar

Tourism Marketing Committee and general manager of Chatrium Hotel.

The Ministry of Hotel and Tourism released travel advices on August 28 with regards to the

Rakhine crisis. According to the latter, Ngapali and Mrauk-U ancient city are still marked as

safe. As Myanmar continues to be an attractive destination, the ministry’s website urges visitors

to stay within the permitted areas.

“It was a good initiative from the tourism ministry. But recently, the State Counselor’s Office

warned that metropolis - such as Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon, Mandalay and Mawlamyaing – might be

targeted by terrorist attacks. Visitors feel that there is an ambiguity between the two statements,”

explained U Thet Lwin Toh.


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/ei-ei-thu-0

“If possible, they should invite international media to interview tourists safely touring the

area. That would be good for the industry,” he added.

Tourists from Japan, Spain and the United State are particularly sensitive about security and

safety issues, he said.

“Tour operators targeting Thai, Chinese and other Asian tourists are not much impacted by the

Rakhine crisis. But travelers wanting to visit Mrauk-U and Ngapali beach might be a little

worried. If the tourism ministry would make a press release again that would be of great help,”

he suggested.

There are not any plans to release another statement concerning the Rakhine issue again by

ministry of hotel and tourism at the movement, said U Myint Htwe, deputy director general of

the tourism ministry.

“The first statement is enough for the current situation. It includes all we wanted to say to

tourists. Thus, we will not release another statement,” he said.

According to the tourism ministry, Myanmar already welcomed more than 2 million

international visitors from January to the end of July, prior to the Rakhine crisis. It marks a 22

percent increase compared with the same period in 2016. The ministry expects to accommodate

3.5 million tourists by the end of the year.

Senior officials visit Rakhine; priority list coming in 2 weeks NYAN LYNN AUNG 21 SEP 2017

Authorities have conducted a survey of the restive Rakhine State to determine the projects and

programme to be implemented immediately in line with the recommendations of Kofi Annan’s

Advisory Commission and Maungdaw Investigation Commission in the state.

Dr Win Myat Aye, Chairman of the Committee on Implementing Recommendations on

Rakhine State, told The Myanmar Times on Wednesday that some permanent secretary level of

the committee visited Rakhine from September 18 to 20 to find out the current situation on the

ground in order to prioritise the projects that need immediate implementation.

“We need to determine the priority recommendations that could implement immediately as well

as to check the other recommendations whether it is a priority under the present condition,” said

Dr Win Myat Aye, who is also the Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister.

According to the Global New Light of Myanmar on September 19, during the survey trip the

committee members met displaced people from Maungdaw conflict areas and discussed

resettlement and future plans for IDPs.

“Security and rule of law should be considered while the committee implementing the

recommendations,” said U Nyi Pu, chief minister of Rakhine State and co-chair of the

Committee.

Dr Win Myat Aye said the initial projects that would be implemented in Rakhine will be out

within two weeks.

In addition, the implementation schedule for priority recommendations will be presented only

after the committee examines closely whether the projects respond to the actual need on the

ground.

“We will implement the practical matter which matches with on ground conditions as a priority

and the program needed to be benefit for people,” Dr Win Myat Aye said.

He added, the committee has to implement the projects immediately. The short term and long

term steps as well as the implementation should not be delayed.



On August 24, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State presented to the Myanmar

government 88 recommendations on ways to improve the situation in Rakhine.

The 63-page final report urged changes in the process of national verification set forth by the

1982 citizenship law to correct policies that discriminate against the Muslim minority in the area,

warning that failure to do so could lead to more violence and radicalisation.

Vice President U Myint Swe’s Maungdaw Investigation Commission, which released its final

report on August 6, made 48 recommendations to the government, including that the government

form a high-level committee to implement the recommendations.

The report included recommendations on governance and administration, news media, UN

agencies and INGOs, citizenship verification, religious affairs, socio-economic matters, national

security and boarder security, and cooperation with international security organisations.

Marzuki Darusman, chair of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on

Myanmar of the Human Rights Council released a statement on September 19, welcoming the

Advisory Commission’s report and calls for the early implementation of its recommendations.

He also stressed the urgency of implementing the recommendations following the escalation of

violence in the after the August 25 attacks on government security forces’ outposts.

“We need to address the institutional and structural issues which undermine the prospects for

peace, justice and development in Rakhine, and to propose concrete steps that may contribute to

improving the well-being of all communities in the state” he said in a statement.

During a diplomatic briefing on September 19 in Nay Pyi Taw, State Counsellor Daw Aung San

Suu Kyi said the government determined to implement the recommendations of the commission,

especially those that will bring speedy improvements to the situation within a short frame of time

will be given priority.

“Every single recommendation that will benefit peace and harmony and development in the

Rakhine State will be implemented within the shortest time possible. The government is working

to restore the situation to normalcy,” Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said.

U Tun Aung Kyaw, secretary of the Arakan National Party, said the party has already objected to

Kofi Annan’s commission and its recommendations, so they will monitor the implementation of

projects.

“We will object extremely to committee when the implementation will not be for the benefit of

the Rakhine community” he said.

The situation on northern Rakhine state including IDPs from Sittwe is very bad. Only the

government can stop it and the civilians must be protected and government urgently needs to end

the brutality, according to a Muslim resident in northern Rakhine.

“This is very sensitive and scary time,” he said. “It is difficult to say something about the

implementation committee because it is the government decision. I don’t want to give comment

about it now,” he said.

Rakhine situation: fact versus fiction THE MYANMAR TIMES 22 SEP 2017

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi ended her silence following the August 25 attacks by

briefing diplomats in Myanmar on Tuesday on the situation in Rakhine State. Her speech was

televised live and audiences around the world could watch it in real-time on the internet. In her

25-minute speech, she managed to touch on pivotal issues in the north-western region that made

global headlines. In the aftermath of the attacks, numerous reports have been written, both real

and fake, from around the world. Now, the State Counsellor has given us the official version of


what transpired in the troubled region, and the international community has had the opportunity

to evaluate her explanations.

The first important question she raised was about the human rights abuses that were widely

reported. She said succinctly that her government condemns all human rights violations and

unlawful violence, and that whoever perpetrated these horrendous acts will be punished

according to law.

She said that the military offensive ended on September 5 but the exodus of refugees continues

unabated. While more than 50 percent of the local communities in Rakhine State remain intact,

others chose to leave, she said, adding that she wants to know the reasons for the exodus of

people to Bangladesh. She also wants to know the dynamic between those who stayed and those

who decided to leave. In this connection, it is hoped that there will be a thorough investigation

by concerned authorities into the phenomenon.

As one of the world’s most famous human rights icons, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that

security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to a code of conduct and exercise all due

restraint in carrying out security operations. Furthermore, she said, full measures must be taken

to avoid ‘collateral damage’ and harming of civilians. That much was clear.

She also pledged to implement the August 24 recommendations of the Advisory Commission on

Rakhine State led by former UN chief Kofi Annan. Priority will be given to those that can bring

speedy improvement of the situation, she said, adding that other recommendations will take more

time due to the complexities of the issues involved.

On the citizenship and repatriation of refugees, the State Counsellor was forthcoming, saying

that the national verification process would have a timeframe and urging all Muslim

communities in Rakhine State to participate. All refugees who have been through the joint-

verification process would be able to return without any problem, she said.

Her speech also outlined what the government has done in social and economic development in

the state. There are more schools and more health-care facilities that would improve the living

standards and well-being of the people there.

Having been in power only 18 months, she asked for time to solve this long-running conflict.

Now that she has given her version of the events in Rakhine State, the international communities

can scrutinize what she has said and pledged. Now she has put her creditability and

trustworthiness where all can see.

Leaders who know her welcomed her commitment to allow humanitarian aid into the troubled

areas. International nongovernmental organisations had mixed reactions to her pledges,

especially on the repatriation of the hundreds of thousands of refugees.

The weeks and months ahead will be a litmus test in terms of domestic political development and

the level of international support for her government. Besides inviting diplomats to visit the

trouble areas, she must fulfil her pledges without delay, especially without upsetting or raising

eyebrows among the country’s security apparatus, which is still concerned about the possibility

of future attacks.

Outsiders need a better understanding of the environment in which Myanmar’s fragile

democracy is struggling to survived.

World is watching progress on Rakhine

The international community will closely monitor the implementation of State Counsellor Daw

Aung San Suu Kyi’s commitments to improve condition of the people in Rakhine, who have


been caught in renewed flare-up of violence over the past few weeks, a European Union (EU)

official said.

“The situation in northern Rakhine State and across the border in Bangladesh remains extremely

serious and has both our full attention and action,” the EU official told The Myanmar Times.

The official said the first major point the government needs to address is to ensure “the cessation

of all violence” in the troubled areas.

He said the commitments made by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in her speech on Tuesday to respect

human rights and to restore peace and the rule of law, are important in this regard.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s instructions to the security forces to adhere to the Code of Conduct

and to exercise all due restraint are also very important in restoring order, the EU official said.

He said EU would look closely into how the Myanmar government would ensure “full

humanitarian access to all humanitarian aid workers” to deliver assistance to the people affected

by the conflict.

“The European Union continues to insist on this essential point,” the EU official added.

EU asked the government to fully implement the recommendations in the final report of the

Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which was chaired by Kofi Annan, the official said.

“We are ready to support the implementation of these recommendations in all possible ways,” he

said.

In her speech on Tuesday, which was the first time she directly addressed the ongoing violence

in Rakhine, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi emphasised that her government does not condone human

rights violations and pledged to take action against all those who violate other people’s rights.

She also vowed to set in motion the system of repatriation of refugees who have fled to

Bangladesh and to deliver humanitarian assistance to people affected by the violence.

A number of diplomats expressed willingness to support Myanmar in addressing the challenges

to ensure humanitarian assistance reach the intended beneficiaries.

The United States welcomed the State Counsellor’s decision to speak publicly about the ongoing

violence and the resulting humanitarian crisis that has caused deep alarm around the world.

“We appreciate her commitment to restoring rule of law throughout Rakhine State and her

pledge to ensure justice for human rights violations,” Aryani Manring, US Embassy

spokesperson in Yangon said.

On September 19, Ambassador Scott Marciel and visiting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for

South East Asia Patrick Murphy attended the State Counsellor’s address to the diplomats in Nay

Pyi Taw.

The smbassador and Murphy met separately with the State Counsellor, Armed Forces Chief of

Staff Lt Gen Myat Tun Oo and other senior officials, the embassy said in a statement.

In the meetings, the ambassador urged the government and military to immediately facilitate

expanded humanitarian access to affected areas of Rakhine and commit to allowing refugees to

return to their homes, it added.

“He (ambassador) also raised allegations of human rights abuses and violations and called upon

the Myanmar security forces to end all violence and protect all communities,” Aryani Manring

said.

The ambassador and Murphy travelled to Sittwe on September 20 to meet with Rakhine State

government officials, civil society organisations, and members of ethnic minority groups to

discuss the situation in the state.

Murphy was to discuss his five-day trip in the country on Friday with journalists from all over

the world in Bangkok.


The two US officials urge the local leaders for full humanitarian access, an end to violence, and

the need to protect human rights of all communities to promote a more secure and prosperous

future.

“We note her reaffirmation that her government will carry out the final recommendations of the

Rakhine Advisory Commission as quickly as possible,” Aryani Manring said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday urged the government and the military to

facilitate humanitarian aid for displaced people in the affected areas and to address “deeply

troubling allegations of human rights abuses and violation.”

But some governments were apparently not satisfied with the response of the State Counsellor on

the raging Rakhine issue.

Despite the explanations of the National League for Democracy-led Myanmar government about

its stand on Rakhine, Britain decided to stop the military training program for Myanmar armed

forces based on the request of some members of the British parliament.

British newspaper The Telegraph said Britain spent 305,000 pounds (K566.20 million) last year

for the education program for the Burmese military on English, democracy and leadership. The

program did not include combat training.

The Tatmadaw in a statement on Wednesday said it ordered the immediate return five of its

officers who are in Britain under the program to promote relations and cooperation between the

armed forces of the two countries.

“The Tatmadaw will bring them back to Myanmar as quickly as possible,” it said. “No trainees,

including those who have been approved to be sent to Britain under previous agreements, will be

sent to Britain anymore.”

Local political analysts expressed hope Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech could tame the

international criticisms against the government’s handling the issue of Rakhine Sstate.

But the analysts were concerned how Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could overcome challenges in

addressing her commitments.

U Maung Maung Soe expressed his concern over the challenges to tackle related to the issue of

repatriation of refugees based on the 1993 agreement signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

He noted that four points were included in that agreement: those who have evidence that they

lived in Myanmar, those who have evidence they were born in Myanmar, those who can ensure

they have not been involved in any terrorist attacks against the country, and those who want to

return voluntarily to Myanmar.

“Government must have a good plan to carry out the agreement,” U Maung Maung Soe said.

According to the UN, over 400, 000 Bengalis fled to Bangladesh since the new violence in the

northern Rakhine erupted on August 25, following simultaneous attacks launched by the terrorist

group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on security forces.

The EU official said Myanmar’s leadership needs to show that the democracy they fought so

hard for can work for all the people of Myanmar, beyond ethnic, social and religious boundaries.

“During Myanmar’s fight for democracy, the international community and Europe never left the

people of Myanmar alone and we will not leave them alone now,” he said.

Translated By Ei Ei Toe Lwin


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/ei-ei-toe-lwin

Repatriation of refugees to Rakhine in the pipeline NYAN LYNN AUNG 25 SEP 2017

The government will carry out as fast as possible the repatriation of Muslim refugees who fled to

Bangladesh in the aftermath of renewed violence in the Northern Rakhine based on the on the

1993 Myanmar-Bangladesh agreement, a senior official said Sunday.

Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Minister (Menteri) Dr Win Myat Aye, who is the

chair of the Implementing Committee for the Recommendations on Rakhine, said it has

prioritised the repatriation of the refugees now stranded in Bangladesh even though the plan was

not part of the committee’s initial plan.

“We included the repatriation plan in our priority schedules after surveying ground situation

recently,” he told The Myanmar Times.

He added that the repatriation has been implemented based on the 1993 agreement between the

governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh and the committee has to repatriate people who

wanted to go back to Myanmar.

“We need a mechanism for repatriation as well as the experienced experts on this issue including

officials from related ministry such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said Dr Win Myat Aye.

According to the 1993 Joint Statement between Myanmar and Bangladesh, Myanmar agreed to

take measures to halt the outflow of refugees to Bangladesh, and to accept, after scrutiny, all

‘those carrying Myanmar identity cards’, ‘those able to present other documents issued by

relevant Myanmar authorities’ and ‘all those able to furnish evidence of their residence in

Myanmar’ and ‘all those willing to return to Myanmar’.

The President’s Office on September 13 set up a 15-member Implementation Committee for the

recommendations on Rakhine, led by Minister Dr Win Myat Aye, to take action on the

recommendations presented in the final reports of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on

Rakhine State and the Maungdaw Investigation Commission.

In addition, the authorities from the committee have conducted a survey of the restive Rakhine

from September 18 to 20 to determine the projects and program to be implemented immediately

in line with the recommendations of both the commissions in the state.

Dr Win Myat Aye said a detailed plan of priority of the scheme will be released after the third

meeting of the committee on Wednesday, and the committee members have been discussing

projects that need immediate implementation.

“The scheme on how to implement these projects will come out soon and those involved

authorities are discussing these now,” he said.

According to the government information committee, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

met with the Implementing Committee members on Saturday, and stressed the designation of

places to receive the refugees, as well as to establish working group to conduct systematic

verification process for urgent repatriation based on mutual agreement between Myanmar and

Bangladesh in 1993.

The State Counsellor also told the committee “To seek advice of UN-HABITAT so as to include

sustainable development aspects in the resettlement program for the affected community.”

She added the rehabilitation and resettlement program should not only be for the Muslims but for

Rakhines, and other minorities, including Hindus, who fled their homes due to the August 25

attacks launched by the Arakan Rohingya Salavation Army (ARSA) terrorists on government

security forces.

According to the UNHRC, more than 430,000 Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since the

fighting began between the ARSA terrorist group and government security forces.



The New York based Human Rights Watch said on Saturday that Myanmar security forces

have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing involving mass arson, killing, and other abuses

against the Muslim population, causing the flight of more than 420,000 people to neighbouring

Bangladesh in the aftermath of the August 25 clashes.

During the UN General Assembly, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on

Myanmar to take back the some 420,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled from violence in the

country and she said Bangladesh was making diplomatic efforts to persuade Myanmar to take

back the refugees.

“We have told Myanmar, they are your citizens, you must take them back, keep them safe...,”

Hasina told a meeting late Tuesday in New York.

Protesters in Mandalay slam terrorists, foreign intervention KYAW KO KO 27 SEP 2017

Residents in Mandalay Region on Tuesday took to the streets to condemn the attacks perpetrated

by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a terrorist group in Rakhine State, and also

to protest against foreign interference.

About 2000 people, including 700 monks, gathered at Mandalay’s Manawyaman field and urged

the government to follow the 1982 Citizenship Law that recognises three types of citizens in the

country – full-fledged, associate and naturalised citizens.

Full citizens are descendants of residents who lived in Burma prior to 1823 or were born to

parents who were citizens at the time of birth, while associate citizens are those who acquired

citizenship through the 1948 Union Citizenship Law.

Naturalised citizens are those who lived in Burma before January 4, 1948, and applied for

citizenship after 1982.

The law does not recognise the “Rohingyas” – who reside in Rakhine – as one of the 135 legally

recognised ethnic groups in the country, denying most of them Myanmar citizenship. Some

protesters were holding posters that read: “Those who are attempting to encroach on Rakhine

State are our enemies;” “Protect Rakhine State;” “We support police force members who are

protecting Rakhine State from terrorist attacks.”

“What happened recently in Rakhine is unusual. These attacks are attempt to encroach on the

country’s sovereignty,” said U Aye Paing. “It is necessary to fence off the Myanmar-Bangladesh

border at present. Those who carried out terrorist attacks are not our religion and their culture is

also different from us. Our country is poor so the rich countries can take them.”

The protesters said they reject the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory

Commission on Rakhine State, especially its call to amend the 1982 Citizenship Law. They said

Annan does not know Myanmar culture and customs.

The demonstration, which lasted about three hours, was attended by nationalist monk U Wirathu,

who criticised the media coverage of the Rakhine trouble as well as the government for failing to

firmly handle the issue.

U Myo Chit, another protest leader, said their rally was aimed to pressure the government and

the Tatmadaw to act decisively on the issue and inform the international community about the

sentiments of the ordinary Myanmar citizens about the problem.

“This concerns all of our nationality so that we all have to unite and solve these problems

without in favour to any political party,” he said. “There are some restrictions on today’s protest


https://www.mmtimes.com/author/kyaw-ko-ko

so I would like to say there is something wrong because our demonstration is facing such

restrictions under the so-called democratic government.”


Sample THE NEW YORK TIMES

More Than 70 Killed in Fighting in Western Myanmar

By AUSTIN RAMZYAUG. 25, 2017

HONG KONG — More than 70 people were killed on Friday in clashes between militants and

security forces in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, which outside observers called a worrying

upsurge of violence in the troubled region.

The dead included at least 12 members of the security forces and at least 59 Rohingya

insurgents, according to a statement from the office of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Daw Aung

San Suu Kyi. Myanmar’s armed forces said the militants used knives, small arms and explosives

in coordinated early-morning attacks on several police and military posts around Buthidaung and

Maungdaw, near Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh.

Rakhine is home to about one million Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority group that

faces repression in Myanmar, where they are largely confined to camps and denied full

citizenship rights.

Last October, a group of Rohingya militants killed nine police officers, escalating the level of

violence in a long-running conflict. Rohingya and international human rights groups say security

forces responded to those attacks by locking down the area and carrying out a far-reaching

crackdown, killing hundreds of people and forcing tens of thousands to flee.

This week, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which was formed last year by Ms.

Aung San Suu Kyi, and headed by Kofi Annan, a former secretary general of the United Nations,

submitted its final report. It called for urgent action to improve the citizenship status, freedom of

movement and human rights of Muslims in Rakhine. Failure to act would risk further “violence

and radicalization,” Mr. Annan wrote in an introduction to the report.

On Friday, Mr. Annan issued a statement saying, “I am gravely concerned by, and strongly

condemn, the recent attacks in Rakhine State.”

“The alleged scale and gravity of these attacks mark a worrying escalation of violence,” he

added. He also called on security forces to ensure that innocent civilians were not harmed.

A militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility for the

attacks, which it said were in response to recent raids by security forces. The group, formerly

known as Harakah al-Yaqin, is believed to have hundreds of fighters and to be led by Rohingya

based in Saudi Arabia, according to an International Crisis Group report.

A United Nations report in February said the military crackdown on the Rohingya had led to

gang rapes, the killing of hundreds of civilians and the forced displacement of as many as 90,000

people, acts that it said were most likely crimes against humanity.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/daw_aung_san_suu_kyi/index.html?inline=nyt-per


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/world/asia/muslim-rohingya-myanmar.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/world/asia/muslim-rohingya-myanmar.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/kofi_annan/index.html?inline=nyt-per

http://www.rakhinecommission.org/

http://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/mediation-and-crisis-resolution/rakhine-violence-2/

http://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/mediation-and-crisis-resolution/rakhine-violence-2/

https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/283-myanmar-new-muslim-insurgency-rakhine-state

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-un-report.html

The military and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi have generally denied allegations of ethnic cleansing or

a campaign of targeted violence against the Rohingya.

As Myanmar Fighting Swells, a Desperate Flight to the Border

By ERIC NAGOURNEY AUG. 27, 2017

Intensifying clashes between security forces and insurgents in western Myanmar sent terrified

civilians scrambling toward the Bangladesh border on Sunday in a desperate search for refuge.

The civilians are Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority group that faces repression in

Myanmar. About a million Rohingya live in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, and conflicts

between insurgents and security forces there have become increasingly deadly.

On Sunday, a statement from the country’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, said the

death toll from violence that began Thursday night had reached 96, The Associated Press

reported. The dead included both Rohingya insurgents and government forces.

But civilians may be at the greatest risk. A United Nations report in February said the military

crackdown on the Rohingya had led to gang rape, the killing of hundreds of civilians and the

forced displacement of as many as 90,000 people.

On Sunday, some managed to make it into Bangladesh.

But the journey was arduous — and many Rohingya did not make it, turned back at the border

by Bangladeshi soldiers.

Witnesses and refugees on the Bangladesh border quoted by The A.P. described a tense situation.

Thousands of Rohingya had sought unsuccessfully to flee from the Myanmar side. Witnesses

reported the sound of gunshots, and Bangladeshi villagers said they could see military

helicopters hovering in the Myanmar sky.

This woman was among those denied passage.

Still, an estimated 2,000 Rohingya were believed to have made it across the border overnight.

Several hundred others, however, were stuck in a “no man’s land” at one part of the border. They

could do little but await an opportunity to move forward — or for things back home to calm

down enough for them to return.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/myanmar/index.html?inline=nyt-geo

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/bangladesh/index.html?inline=nyt-geo



More than 8,700 Rohingya Flee Myanmar Fighting This Week

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE AUG. 29, 2017

GENEVA — As fighting in western Myanmar sent thousands of refugees fleeing to Bangladesh,

the United Nations top human rights official on Tuesday urged Myanmar’s military to show

restraint and accused the office of the country’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, of

issuing “irresponsible” statements that could endanger international aid organizations.

United Nations officials said more than 8,700 Rohingya, members of Myanmar’s Muslim

minority, have fled across the border to Bangladesh from Rakhine state since Saturday,

following clashes last week between security forces and a militant group identified as the Arakan

Rohingya Salvation Army. The fighting was reported to have killed more than 100 people.

In comments posted on Facebook on Sunday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office said the authorities

were investigating reports that staff members of international organizations “had participated” in

operations carried out by “extremist terrorists.” It said biscuits supplied by the United Nations

food agency had been found at a rebel camp site.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on

Tuesday that he utterly condemned the violence and that those responsible should be brought to

justice. But he also rebuked Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s office for its statements, which he said

were “irresponsible and only serve to increase fears and the potential for further violence.”

“I am extremely concerned that the unsupported allegations against international aid

organizations place their staff in danger and may make it impossible for them to deliver essential

aid,” Mr. al-Hussein said in a statement issued by his office in Geneva.

The comments, which appeared to have been removed from Facebook on Tuesday, pointed to the

deterioration in relations between the government and the United Nations since October, when

insurgents attacked police border posts in Rakhine.

Mr. al-Hussein lamented the latest upsurge in violence but said, “It was predicted and could have

been prevented.” He said “decades of persistent and systematic human rights violations,

including the very violent security responses to the attacks since October 2016, have almost

certainly contributed to the nurturing of violent extremism.”

In the security crackdown after those attacks, around 80,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh,

bringing accounts of summary executions, mass rape and villagers burned alive in their homes.

United Nations investigators who looked into those accounts said Myanmar’s army and police

might have committed crimes against humanity.

Mr. al-Hussein said that Myanmar’s authorities should “issue clear instructions to security forces

to refrain from using disproportionate force” and that those who use excessive force should be

held accountable.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/asia/myanmar-rakhine-killed-kofi-annan.html

The latest attacks in Rakhine have raised alarm among aid and human rights groups that

Myanmar may be on the brink of returning to similar violence. On Tuesday, the United Nations

said it had suspended aid operations in the state and had relocated noncritical international and

national staff members from Maungdaw, the state capital, because of safety concerns.

Most refugees who crossed the border in recent days were women and children, and there were

reports that some were wounded, the United Nations refugee agency told reporters in Geneva. It

voiced concern that the number of people needing help would rise in coming days. Thousands

more Rohingya were stranded on the Myanmar side of the border, with Bangladeshi guards

pushing back many of those trying to get across. The refugee agency called on Bangladesh to

open its border and allow those fleeing violence to find safety.

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that Myanmar’s army had built up its forces in northern

Rakhine since last week’s attacks. The group said that new satellite images pointed to

widespread burning in at least 10 areas of northern Rakhine, covering a larger amount of territory

than did the October violence.

The cause of the fires could not be identified but some occurred in locations that corresponded

with areas where witnesses reported deliberate burning of houses by the military, Human Rights

Watch said. It called for international pressure on the government to reveal what is taking place

there.

The United Nations has set up a three-person fact-finding mission led by a veteran Indonesian

investigator, Marzuki Darusman, to look into allegations of human rights violations by military

and security forces in Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine. The Myanmar government, however,

has said it will not cooperate or allow them to visit.

Violence in Myanmar Pushes at Least 18,500 Rohingya Into Bangladesh

By MEGAN SPECIA AUG. 30, 2017

The number of Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, who have fled

from Myanmar to Bangladesh since border clashes erupted five days ago has reached at least

18,500, the United Nations’ International Office of Migration said on Wednesday.

Thousands more are unable to cross the border, according to the migration office, or have found

temporary shelter in Sittwe, the capital of the restive state of Rakhine in western Myanmar.

Most of those making the journey are women, children and elderly people.

The deadly fighting — between Myanmar’s security forces and a militant group known as the

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army — began when militants attacked army and police outposts

near the border on Friday, prompting a swift crackdown by Myanmar’s government.

International human rights groups called the crackdown far-reaching and fear possible abuses

against the Rohingya minority, who have long faced repression in Myanmar.


https://www.nytimes.com/by/megan-specia


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/bangladesh/index.html?inline=nyt-geo

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org


https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/29/burma-satellite-data-indicate-burnings-rakhine-state

Those who crossed into Bangladesh this week have limited access to relief aid at makeshift

camps. The country already hosts about 400,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar in recent

years. The border between the two countries is officially closed.

In a statement released on Wednesday, William Swing, the migration office’s director general,

urged international aid for those seeking refuge in Bangladesh, and called for the violence in

Rakhine to end.

His remarks echoed calls earlier this week from Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights, who condemned the violence in western Myanmar and said

the government should “issue clear instructions to security forces to refrain from using

disproportionate force.”

At the United Nations on Wednesday, Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of Britain called a Security

Council meeting about Myanmar because of the violence.

“There is a threat to international peace and security, and it is right that the Security Council

should take time today to be briefed on that and consider whether there is more that we should be

doing,” he said before entering the meeting.

Asked what could be done, he said, “I doubt that there will be unanimity to do anything, as there

are certain countries on the Council that tend to resist anything else, but I think it’s an important

moment to take stock.”

On Wednesday in Yangon, hundreds of Buddhist nationalists gathered to support a harsher

crackdown on the Rohingya.

The protesters urged security forces to assert control over Rakhine State and denounced an

international advisory commission report issued last week that called for urgent government

action to protect the rights of Muslims.

The commission, led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, urged

Myanmar’s government to extend citizenship status for the Rohingya and allow them freedom of

movement.

Mr. Annan said the commission’s proposal was intended to “trace a path to lasting peace,

development and respect for the rule of law.”

“Violence will not bring lasting solutions to the acute problems that afflict Rakhine State,” he

said.


https://www.iom.int/news/un-migration-agency-iom-calls-restraint-more-aid-civilians-fleeing-myanmar

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-fighting-un-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi-bangladesh.html

http://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/towards-peaceful-fair-and-prosperous-future-people-rakhine-final-report-advisory

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/kofi_annan/index.html?inline=nyt-per

Boats Carrying Rohingya Fleeing Myanmar Sink, Killing 46

By AUSTIN RAMZYSEPT. 1, 2017

HONG KONG — At least 46 people believed to be Rohingya fleeing violence in western

Myanmar have been found dead on the banks of a river along the boundary with Bangladesh,

Bangladeshi officials said on Friday.

The dead — 19 children, 18 women and 9 men — were found at points along the Naf River over

the past three days, the officials said.

“We believe they were Rohingyas,” said Lt. Col. S. M. Ariful Islam, commanding officer of the

local border guard battalion. “They died because their boats capsized when they were coming to

Bangladesh by boat from Myanmar.”

An Associated Press photo showed Bangladeshi villagers on a beach covering the bodies of dead

Rohingya women and children with a tarp.

The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that faces oppression in Myanmar,

which denies them citizenship rights.

Last week a Rohingya militant group attacked police posts and a military base in Rakhine State

in western Myanmar, near the country’s border with Bangladesh. More than 100 people were

killed, including at least 12 members of the security forces and 80 militants.

Following those attacks, Myanmar security forces and armed local residents carried out a

campaign of mass violence against Rohingya that killed more than 200 people in Chut Pyin, a

village in Rakhine State, according to Fortify Rights, a human rights group that focuses on

Southeast Asia. The organization based its report on interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses.

“The situation is dire,” Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights, said in the group’s

statement. “Mass atrocity crimes are continuing. The civilian government and military need to do

everything in their power to immediately prevent more attacks.”

The violence touched off an exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh, where more than 300,000

Rohingya live in squalid refugee camps. Since the fighting began one week ago, at least 27,000

people have crossed into Bangladesh, with another 20,000 stranded between the two

countries, the United Nations said Thursday.

Many Rohingya have been blocked at the border by Bangladeshi guards, according to the United

Nations’ human rights agency, which called on Bangladesh to allow people fleeing violence to

cross freely into the country from Myanmar.

A Rohingya extremist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility

for the attacks last week. The government of Myanmar also blamed the group for the Aug. 26

killing of six Hindu villagers on in Maungtaw Township in northern Rakhine State.


https://www.nytimes.com/by/austin-ramzy

http://www.fortifyrights.org/

http://www.fortifyrights.org/publication-20170901.html




http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22018&LangID=E


The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has also killed some civilians it accused of being

government informants and blocked Rohingya men and boys from fleeing Maungdaw, a

township in Rakhine, Fortify Rights said.

The government of Myanmar denies that the Rohingya are citizens, instead calling them illegal

immigrants from Bangladesh. About one million of them live in Rakhine State, where their

ability to work and travel is limited.

Fires broke out in several parts of Rakhine State last week. The government said it was the result

of “Bengalis” setting fire to their own homes, using the term that Myanmar officials often use in

referring to the Rohingya.

Human Rights Watch, which documented the fires from satellite photos, said it was impossible

to tell the causes remotely, but said the information“bears a close resemblance to that found

during widespread arson attacks in Rakhine State during violence against the Rohingya in 2012

and 2016.”

In 2012, 10 Rohingya men were killed after three Rohingya were accused of raping and

murdering a Buddhist woman. In the riots that followed, dozens of people were killed and some

90,000 Rohingya fled into Bangladesh.

The United Nations top human rights official condemned the attacks last week and called on

Myanmar’s military to show restraint toward civilians. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United

Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, also criticized statements from the office of Daw

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, accusing United Nations agencies of aiding

Rohingya militants.

The fighting last week began just over a day after a panel created by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and

headed by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, issued a report saying that

Myanmar need to grant basic freedoms to the Rohingya or risk more “violence and

radicalization.”

In February, a United Nations report said a wide-ranging anti-insurgency campaign in Rakhine

state had led to the killings of hundreds of men, women and children by the military and police.

Those acts were “very likely” crimes against humanity, the report said.





Why Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace Prize Won’t Be Revoked

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN SEPT. 4, 2017

HONG KONG — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmarand a Nobel Peace

Prize laureate who once embodied her country’s fight for democracy, came under increased

pressure on Monday to denounce a military operation that has caused thousands of Muslim

refugees to flee across the border to Bangladesh.

As protests erupted across the region and a fellow peace prize laureate took to Twitter to

confront Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, some wondered whether the Nobel Committee, which

conferred the honor on her in 1991, would publicly criticize her or could even revoke the prize.

Demonstrations against the targeting of the Rohingya ethnic group, a persecuted Muslim

minority, took place on Monday outside Australia’s Parliament in Canberra. In Jakarta,

Indonesia, protesters burned photos of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and lobbed a gasoline bomb at the

Myanmar Embassy.

“The world remains silent in the face of the massacre of Rohingya Muslims,” Farida, an

Indonesian who organized the protest and uses only one name, told reporters.

The latest violence in Myanmar began last month when Rohingya militants attacked Myanmar

military positions, in what they said was an effort to prevent further persecution by the country’s

security forces.

The military responded with what it has called “clearance operations.” According to human

rights groups, soldiers razed hundreds of Rohingya homes in Rakhine State. As a result,

thousands of Rohingya have made the treacherous journey to squalid refugee camps across the

border.

Their plight has drawn increased attention — and renewed criticism — from many people

around the world, including other Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

“Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,”

Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim and the youngest recipient of the award, said in a Twitter

post on Monday. “I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the

same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”

Last year, several Nobel laureates — including Ms. Yousafzai, Desmond Tutu and 11 other

recipients — signed an open letter that “warned of the potential for genocide.”

Both the open letter and Ms. Yousafzai’s Twitter post were met online by critics of Ms. Aung

San Suu Kyi, who blamed her for the crisis and called for her prize to be revoked.

Those appeals are particularly poignant given Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s history as a political

prisoner. She spent 15 years under house arrest after winning a presidential election in 1988,


https://www.nytimes.com/by/russell-goldman



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-bangladesh-refugees-massacre.html


https://twitter.com/Malala/status/904449772844711938

https://www.facebook.com/Professor.Muhammad.Yunus/photos/a.117417148364538.16460.116196531819933/996372943802283/?type=3&comment_id=996621540444090&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D

which the ruling junta at the time refused to honor. Under a constitutional power-sharing

agreement, she was appointed state counselor after her party, the National League for

Democracy, won in a landslide election in 2015. Still, under the law, she cannot become

president and the military effectively controls many of the state’s levers of power.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been conspicuously silent on the Rohingya issue, and when pressed

by reporters, she has toed the military’s official line, which contends that the Rohingya are

illegally squatting inside Myanmar.

“No, it’s not ethnic cleansing,” she said in a rare interview on the subject in 2013.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is not the first Nobel laureate to stir controversy. In the past, activists

have called on the committee to revoke the awards of Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. In

1994, one member of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest when the award was shared

among the Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, and the Palestinian leader Yasir

Arafat. The committee member, Kaare Kristiansen, called Mr. Arafat a “terrorist” who did not

deserve the prize.

The Nobel Committee, all Norwegian citizens appointed by the country’s Parliament, has never

rescinded a prize and will not in Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s case either, said Gunnar Stalsett, a

former committee member.

“A peace prize has never been revoked and the committee does not issue condemnations or

censure laureates,” said Mr. Stalsett, a former politician and bishop who was a deputy member of

the committee in 1991, when Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi received her award.

“The principle we follow is the decision is not a declaration of a saint,” Mr. Stalsett said. “When

the decision has been made and the award has been given, that ends the responsibility of the

committee."

Muslims on 2 Continents Protest Persecution in Myanmar

By RUSSELL GOLDMANSEPT. 4, 2017

HONG KONG — Protests erupted Monday among Muslims in Asia, Australia and Russia over a

military campaign in Myanmar that has forced tens of thousands of fellow Muslims to flee across

the border to Bangladesh.

The demonstrations raised the pressure on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of

Myanmar and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once embodied her country’s fight for

democracy and human rights.

In Chechnya, tens of thousands poured into the streets in a government-sanctioned protest

against what the country’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, called Myanmar’s “genocide” against the

persecuted Rohingya minority.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/palestinians/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

https://www.nytimes.com/by/russell-goldman




http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russiaandtheformersovietunion/chechnya/index.html?inline=nyt-geo

Mr. Kadyrov also criticized the Russian government, issuing vague threats if the Kremlin does

nothing to stop violence that he compared to the Holocaust. “If Russia were to support the devils

who are perpetrating the crimes, I will go against Russia,” he said in a video released before the

rally.

Demonstrations against the targeting of the Rohingya took place on Monday outside Australia’s

Parliament in Canberra. In Jakarta, Indonesia, protesters burned photos of Ms. Aung San Suu

Kyi and lobbed a gasoline bomb at the Myanmar Embassy.

“The world remains silent in the face of the massacre of Rohingya Muslims,” Farida, an

Indonesian who organized the protest and uses one name, told reporters.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, deplored the

violence against Rohingya refugees and called for an investigation of the reported massacres.

Amid the protests, a fellow peace prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, took to Twitter to confront

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, asking her to condemn the violence. Some wondered whether the Nobel

Committee, which conferred the honor on her in 1991, would publicly criticize her or could even

revoke the prize.

Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, appeared to

go even further, suggesting Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi should intervene on behalf of the Rohingya.

“That’s what we would expect from any government, to protect everybody within their own

jurisdiction,” Ms. Lee told the BBC on Monday.

A Malta-based humanitarian group that has been rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean for

three years said on Monday that it was suspending operations there and sending its rescue ship,

Phoenix, to the Bay of Bengal to aid Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh. The

move follows months of rising tensions between the group, Migrant Offshore Aid Station, and

Italian and Libyan authorities.

The latest violence in Myanmar began last month when Rohingya militants attacked Myanmar

military positions. They said they were trying to prevent further persecution by the country’s

security forces.

The military responded with what it has called “clearance operations.” According to human

rights groups, soldiers razed hundreds of Rohingya homes in Rakhine State. As a result,

thousands of Rohingya have made the treacherous journey to squalid refugee camps across the

border.

Their plight has drawn increased attention — and renewed criticism — from many people

around the world.

“Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,”

Ms. Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim and the youngest recipient of the Nobel, said in a Twitter

post on Monday. “I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the

same.”


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/indonesian-president-jokowi-deplores-violence-against-rohingya-9182930

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/227723-Pakistan-deeply-concerned-over-killing-displacement-of-Rohingya-Muslims

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/227723-Pakistan-deeply-concerned-over-killing-displacement-of-Rohingya-Muslims

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/malala_yousafzai/index.html?inline=nyt-per


https://www.moas.eu/moas-shifts-operations-south-east-asia/

Last year, a group of Nobel laureates — including Ms. Yousafzai, Desmond Tutu and 11 other

recipients — signed an open letter that “warned of the potential for genocide.”

Some critics of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi blamed her for the crisis and called for her prize to be

revoked. Those appeals are particularly poignant given Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s history as a

political prisoner. She spent 15 years under house arrest after winning a presidential election in

1988, which the ruling junta refused to honor.

Under a power-sharing agreement, she was appointed state counselor after her party, the

National League for Democracy, won in a landslide election in 2015. Still, under the law, she

cannot become president and the military effectively controls many of the state’s levers of

power.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been conspicuously silent on the Rohingya issue, and when pressed

by reporters, she has toed the official line of the military, which contends that the Rohingya are

illegally squatting inside Myanmar.

“No, it’s not ethnic cleansing,” she said in a rare interview on the subject in 2013.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is not the first Nobel laureate to stir controversy. In the past, activists

have called on the committee to revoke the awards of Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. In

1994, one member of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest when the award was shared

among the Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasir

Arafat. The committee member, Kaare Kristiansen, called Mr. Arafat a “terrorist” who did not

deserve the prize.

The Nobel Committee, all Norwegian citizens appointed by the country’s Parliament, will not

rescind Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s prize, said Gunnar Stalsett, a former committee member.

“The principle we follow is the decision is not a declaration of a saint,” said Mr. Stalsett, a

former politician and bishop who was a deputy member of the committee in 1991, when Ms.

Aung San Suu Kyi received her award. “When the decision has been made and the award has

been given, that ends the responsibility of the committee.”

Desperate Rohingya Flee Myanmar on Trail of Suffering: ‘It Is All Gone’

By HANNAH BEECH SEPT. 2, 2017

REZU AMTALI, Bangladesh — They stumble down muddy ravines and flooded creeks through

miles of hills and jungle in Bangladesh, and thousands more come each day, in a line stretching

to the monsoon-darkened horizon.

Some are gaunt and spent, already starving and carrying listless and dehydrated babies, with

many miles to go before they reach any refugee camp.


https://www.facebook.com/Professor.Muhammad.Yunus/photos/a.117417148364538.16460.116196531819933/996372943802283/?type=3&comment_id=996621540444090&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/palestinians/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

They are tens of thousands of Rohingya, who arrive bearing accounts of massacre at the hands of

the Myanmar security forces and allied mobs that started on Aug. 25, after Rohingya militants

staged attacks against government forces.

The retaliation that followed was carried out in methodical assaults on villages, with helicopters

raining down fire on civilians and front-line troops cutting off families’ escape. The villagers’

accounts all portray indiscriminate attacks against fleeing noncombatants, adding to a death toll

that even in early estimates is high into the hundreds, and is probably vastly worse.

“There are no more villages left, none at all,” said Rashed Ahmed, a 46-year-old farmer from a

hamlet in Maungdaw Township in Myanmar. He had already been walking for four days. “There

are no more people left, either,” he said. “It is all gone.”

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority who live in Myanmar’s far western Rakhine State.

Most were stripped of their citizenship by the military junta that used to rule Myanmar, and they

have suffered decades of repression under the country’s Buddhist majority, including killings

and mass rape, according to the United Nations. A new armed resistance is giving the military

more reasons to oppress them.

But the past week’s exodus of civilians caught in the middle, which the United Nations said had

reached nearly 76,000 on Saturday, dwarfs previous outflows of refugees to Bangladesh in such

a short time period. Friday’s influx alone was the single largest movement of Rohingya here in

more than a generation, according to the United Nations office in Dhaka.

The dying is not yet done. Some of the Rohingya militants have persuaded or coerced men and

boys to stay behind and keep up the fight. And civilians who have stayed on the trail are running

toward conditions so grim that they constitute a second humanitarian catastrophe.

They face another round of gunfire from Myanmar’s border guards, and miles of treacherous hill

trails and flood-swollen streams and mud fields ahead before they reach crowded camps without

enough food or medical help. Dozens were killed when their boats overturned, leaving the bodies

of women and children washed up on river banks.

Tens of thousands more Rohingya are waiting for the Bangladeshi border force to allow them to

enter. Still more are moving north from the Rohingya-dominated districts of Rakhine State. And

the violence there continues.

“It breaks all records of inhumanity,” said a member of the Border Guard Bangladesh named

Anamul, stationed at the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp. “I have never seen anything like

this.”

Here, in the forests of Rezu Amtali near the border with Myanmar, dozens of Rohingya told

stories that were horrifying in their content and consistency.

After militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked police posts and an army

base on Aug. 25, killing more than a dozen, the Myanmar military began torching entire villages

with helicopters and petrol bombs, aided by Buddhist vigilantes from the ethnic Rakhine group,

those fleeing the violence said.




https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-refugees-boat-sinks.html


https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/283-myanmar-new-muslim-insurgency-rakhine-state

Person after person along the trail into Bangladesh told of how the security forces cordoned off

Rohingya villages as the fire rained down, and then shot and stabbed civilians. Children were not

exempt.

Mizanur Rahman recalled how on Aug. 25 he had been working in a rice paddy in his village,

known in Rohingya as Ton Bazar, in Buthidaung Township in Myanmar, when helicopters

roared into the sky above him.

“Immediately, I had fear in my heart,” he said. His wife came running out of their house with

their son, less than a month old.

They escaped to a nearby forest and watched as the choppers’ weapons engulfed the village in

flames. Myanmar security forces descended, and the sound of gunfire reached the forest.

Mr. Rahman’s extended family fled the next day, but not before seeing his brother’s body lying

on the ground, along with seven others. Three days later, as they climbed a hill near the border

with Bangladesh, Mr. Rahman’s mother was shot dead by a Myanmar border guard.

“Now we are supposed to be safe in Bangladesh, but I do not feel safe,” Mr. Rahman said, as he

wandered through a market in the Kutupalong refugee camp, with no money in his pocket.

His wife’s postpartum bleeding has increased so much that she can no longer walk or produce

milk for their infant son. The baby, cradled in Mr. Rahman’s arms, looked skeletal, parched skin

pinched at his joints. Other refugees took turns gently touching the baby’s feet to check if he was

still alive.

The Myanmar military said on Friday that nearly 400 people had been killed in the violence that

has swept across northern Rakhine since Aug. 25. Of that death toll, 370 people were identified

as Rohingya fighters. Fourteen civilians, including four ethnic Rakhine and seven Hindus, were

also reported killed. Myanmar officials, however, have given no specific accounting of civilian

Rohingya deaths.

Dozens of people I spoke to on the refugee trail said they had seen multiple people shot dead in

at least 15 different villages. Others spoke of families burned alive in their homes. Human rights

groups, while sifting through survivors’ testimonies, have begun to make estimates that could

add up to hundreds of Rohingya killed over the past week.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based watchdog, documented 17 sites where satellite

imagery showed extensive fire damage, including one village where 700 buildings had burned.

The Myanmar government claims Rohingya militants have torched their own homes in a bid for

international sympathy. And the military maintains its current operations in Rakhine are

designed at rooting out “extremist terrorists.”

There are, clearly, combatants on the Rohingya side. The state news media have reported that

more than 50 clashes have broken out between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, known by

the acronym ARSA, and Myanmar security forces over the past week.


That has further complicated life for civilians trying to flee.

Fortify Rights, a human-rights group based in Bangkok, interviewed villagers remaining in

Maungdaw township who said that ARSA was forcing men and boys to stay and fight. The

refugees flowing into Bangladesh have been predominantly women and children, leading to

speculation as to where the men are.

Mr. Ahmed, the farmer, said that he was too old to fight, but that 20 others from his village,

Renuaz, had remained. “They have nothing to lose,” he said. “The Myanmar government wants

to eradicate an entire ethnic group.”

What the survivors are fleeing into is no haven. Bangladesh is itself poor, overcrowded and

waterlogged, and has been reluctant to take on more displaced Rohingya. Around 400,000

already lived here before the exodus, according to government figures.

An urgent humanitarian disaster is brewing here in a country hard-pressed to feed itself, much

less a new influx of refugees that one Bangladeshi official estimated could soon surpass 100,000

people.

For now, the Border Guard Bangladesh is mostly turning a blind eye and allowing the Rohingya

to stream across the border.

But there is little help for them here, as they push on in hopes of reaching some of the grim

refugee camps further in.

A week after Myanmar’s military crackdown began, volunteers for the World Food Program in

Bangladesh worried that they had not been able to offer rice to the new arrivals at the camps.

“We are waiting for an order but it has not come yet,” said Mohamed Yasin, a Rohingya who

hands out food for the United Nations organization.

The luckiest of the Rohingya leaving the violence by trekking through the Chittagong Hills

hefted bamboo poles laden with their most treasured belongings: sacks of rice, umbrellas, solar

panels, water pots and grass mats.

Others, though, carried nothing at all because they had no time to organize anything before their

flight. Toddlers marched naked. Not a single person wore shoes, which would have been ripped

off by the sucking mud.

One woman staggered down a ravine in the downpour, an infant clutched in one arm and a live

chicken in a bag held in her other. Tripping on a root or a rock, she suddenly fell backward into

deep mud. Both she and the baby were so weak that there was no cry as they fell.

I reached out my hand to pull her up, and our eyes met, but she was too exhausted to form any

other reaction. She immediately turned her gaze forward to the trail, and I watched her as she

made her way down the gully and began trudging up a creek.



An international response to the crisis has started. On Wednesday, Britain arranged for a closed-

door meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the Rohingya emergency. The

civilian government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has faced mounting global criticism for refusing

to acknowledge the magnitude of the military offensive on civilian Rohingya populations.

On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein,

rejected allegations from Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration that international aid

organizations were somehow complicit in aiding Rohingya militants.

Earlier this year, the United Nations set up a special commission to investigate another military

onslaught that caused 85,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh over the course of the following

months, following an ARSA attack on police posts in October. But Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s

government has barred the United Nations team from Myanmar.

In an open letter to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, nearly a dozen of her fellow Nobel Peace Prize

laureates labeled last October’s military offensive “a human tragedy amounting to ethnic

cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

“Some international experts have warned of the potential for genocide,” said the letter, signed by

Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, among others. “It has all the hallmarks of recent past

tragedies: Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo.”

On Thursday and Friday, when thousands of refugees finally reached the village of Rezu Amtali,

a five-hour trek through the hills from the border, there were no aid groups to meet them.

Sympathetic villagers offered some drinking water and packets of snacks, while autorickshaw

drivers ferried families to the sprawl of makeshift settlements that surround the Kutupalong

camp. Most had to walk hours more, through torrential downpours, to reach the refugee

shantytown.

Standing at the edge of a muddy path to Rezu Amtali, after a five-day journey with only a few

handfuls of ruined rice to sustain them, a 6-year-old girl named Roufaja tugged at her mother’s

sleeve. “Are we in Bangladesh yet?” she asked.

Her mother, Fatima Khatun — whose husband was presumed dead and sister had been raped by

the security forces who had besieged their village — replied that they were.

“What are we going to do now?” her daughter asked, pulling at her sleeve again. “I’m hungry.”


http://www.rakhinecommission.org/the-final-report/

http://www.rakhinecommission.org/the-final-report/

Desperate Rohingya Flee Myanmar Crackdown in Growing Numbers, U.N. Says


HONG KONG — At least 123,000 Rohingya have fled from western Myanmar into neighboring

Bangladesh since late last month, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as a military crackdown

has destroyed villages and killed hundreds.

In recent days, a constant stream of desperate people has marched through muddy fields while

attempting to escape the violence. At least 46 Rohingya died last week when boats capsized

while crossing a river between the two countries, the Bangladeshi authorities said.

The Rohingya are a largely Muslim ethnic group who mainly live in Rakhine State in western

Myanmar, where they face severe restrictions on basic rights. On Aug. 25, Rohingya militants

attacked several police outposts and a military base, killing at least 12 members of security

forces.

The Myanmar military says it killed 370 Rohingya fighters in response to that attack. Soldiers

and Buddhist vigilantes have carried out a campaign against people in Rakhine State, and those

who have fled described seeing civilians shot from helicopters and homes burned to the ground.

Rohingya fleeing Myanmar have said that members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the

militant group that claimed it carried out the attacks on Myanmar government forces, have tried

to block men from fleeing villages and demanded they stay and fight against the government.

With villages still in flames in Rakhine State, the exodus that began last month is expected to

continue, rights groups and United Nations officials said.

There are “clear signs that more will cross into Bangladesh from Myanmar before situation

stabilizes,” Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and emergencies for the United Nations

migration agency, said on Twitter.

The “suffering will continue” without more international support, he added.

Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a humanitarian group based in Malta that has focused on

protecting migrants who travel over dangerous maritime routes, said this week that it was

shifting operations from the Mediterranean Sea to Southeast Asia to help with the Rohingya

crisis.

Rakhine State is home to about one million Rohingya, and in addition to those who have fled,

thousands more face a growing risk of violence and food shortages, Amnesty International said.

Last month the government of Myanmar accused aid agencies of colluding with Rohingya

militants, a claim that Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human

rights, called unsupported and irresponsible.







https://twitter.com/AbdikerM/status/904962243158265856

https://www.moas.eu/moas-shifts-operations-south-east-asia/


Aid agencies say the government has continued to block their access to Rakhine State, increasing

the risk to people of all ethnic groups fleeing the violence. “By blocking access for humanitarian

organizations, Myanmar’s authorities have put tens of thousands of people at risk and shown a

callous disregard for human life,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s director for crisis

response, said in a statement.

“Rakhine State is on the precipice of a humanitarian disaster,” she added.

The continuing violence has fanned criticism of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto

leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her struggle against military rule. On Monday, she

was confronted on Twitter by Malala Yousafzai, a fellow peace prize laureate, who asked Ms.

Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out about the plight of the Rohingya. The governments of several

predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey, have also

expressed concern.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her government have argued that the Rohingya are migrants from

Bangladesh who do not deserve citizenship rights, although most have roots in the area that go

back generations.

Refugees’ Flight and Land Mines Spur Bangladesh Protest to Myanmar

By HANNAH BEECH and AUSTIN RAMZY SEPT. 6, 2017

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — Bangladesh on Wednesday protested the huge influx of people

fleeing violence in Myanmar and raised concerns with Myanmar’s government about reports that

its military was placing land mines along the countries’ shared border.

Bangladesh “demanded immediate measures from Myanmar to de-escalate the ongoing

violence,” according to a statement from the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry.

Manjurul Karim Khan Chowdhury, director general for Southeast Asia for the Foreign Ministry,

issued the protest on Wednesday to Aung Myint, chargé d’affaires of the Myanmar Embassy in

Dhaka.

Myanmar’s government did not issue an immediate response. Zaw Htay, a spokesman for its de

facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, questioned who was responsible for the land mines in

comments this week to Reuters, which first reported Bangladesh’s allegations. “Who can surely

say those mines were not laid by the terrorists?” he asked.

More than 146,000 people are believed to have crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh since

late last month, according to the United Nations.

Nearly all are ethnic Rohingya, a Muslim group that has long faced oppression and denial of

citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. The surge across the border followed Aug. 25

attacks by a Rohingya militant group on police stations and a military base in Rakhine State.


https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-restrictions-on-international-aid-putting-thousands-at-risk/

https://www.nytimes.com/by/hannah-beech


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh-landmines/exclusive-bangladesh-protests-over-myanmars-suspected-landmine-use-near-border-idUSKCN1BH04F



Rohingya witnesses who have reached Bangladesh say that the military and vigilante mobs of

ethnic Rakhine have torched dozens of villages and sprayed bullets at fleeing residents. Satellite

photos have shown many fires in the area, which is unusual given the current monsoon

conditions, Human Rights Watch said.

At least 15 members of the Myanmar security forces and 370 members of the militant group

have been killed, the government says.

The violence has touched off an exodus of desperate people, carrying children and scant

possessions as they cross the border on foot. Land mines have increased their risk.

One woman was injured in a land mine explosion Monday, and two siblings were hurt in another

blast Tuesday, said Maj. Iqbal Ahmed of the Border Guard Bangladesh. Another two children

were injured slightly when a group of Rohingya spotted land mines and threw something to set

them off, he said.

The explosions occurred on Myanmar’s side of the border, Major Ahmed added. He would not

comment on whether the mines were laid by the Myanmar military.

At the government-run Sadar Hospital in Cox’s Bazar, some of the Rohingya who had been

admitted “had injuries consistent with land mine explosions,” said Dr. Shaheen Abdur Rahman

Chowdhury, the resident medical officer.

One of the injured, Hobaid, who uses one name, was admitted to Sadar Hospital with a gunshot

wound in the chest and land mine injuries.

He was hurt Friday in Maungdaw Township in Myanmar, near the Bangladeshi border crossing

of Tumbru, his brother Kojail said. Three men were killed when the land mine exploded, and

four were injured, Kojail said.

“What is happening to our people is monstrous,” said their father, Aktar Hussan, 70. “We don’t

know if things will ever get better. All we can do is to rely on almighty Allah.”

The Myanmar military has, for decades, been accused of using land mines in conflicts with

ethnic armies. Myanmar is one of 35 countries that have not joined an international treaty

banning antipersonnel mines. Rebel militias, like the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar’s

north, have also been accused of using land mines. Civilians are often the victims.

In addition to land mines, people trying to cross the border face other dangers. Last week, at least

46 Rohingya died when their boats sank while crossing a river between the two countries.

Even for those who have crossed safely into Bangladesh, grim conditions await. The Bangladesh

government estimated that 400,000 Rohingya refugees were already in the country before the

latest influx began.

The arrival of so many people in such a short time has put aid groups under extreme pressure,

and camps for them at a “breaking point” because of a lack of space, Duniya Aslam Khan,

spokeswoman for the United Nations’ refugee agency, said Tuesday.


https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/02/burma-satellite-images-show-massive-fire-destruction


http://www.icbl.org/en-gb/the-treaty/treaty-status.aspx



http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/9/59ae5b734/bangladesh-life-saving-assistance-needed-rohingya-influx-surges.html

“Those who have made it to Bangladesh are in poor condition,” she added. “Most have walked

for days from their villages — hiding in jungles, crossing mountains and rivers with what they

could salvage from their homes. They are hungry, weak and sick.”

Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State in Myanmar face an even bleaker picture, aid groups say,

with dwindling food and continuing military raids on their villages. The Arakan Rohingya

Salvation Army, the Rohingya militant group that claimed responsibility for the Aug. 25 attacks,

has also blocked some men and boys from leaving, refugees in Bangladesh said.

The government of Myanmar said Wednesday that more than 26,000 people had been displaced

in Rakhine State, but that figure does not include Rohingya civilians.

The government of Myanmar has denied that its military is attacking civilians in Rakhine State.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday that security forces were carrying out a campaign against

terrorists while protecting residents of the area.

“We know very well, more than most, what it means to be deprived of human rights and

democratic protection,” she said during a phone call with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of

Turkey, according to her office. “So we make sure that all the people in our country are entitled

to protection of their rights as well as the right to, and not just political, but social and

humanitarian defense.”

Mr. Erdogan, who last week called the violence against the Rohingya “genocide,” told her the

humanitarian crisis was rousing public anger, Turkish news media reported. Turkey later

announced it would send aid to Rakhine State.

Governments from several other predominantly Muslim countries, including Pakistan, Malaysia

and Indonesia, have also expressed concern. Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, the youngest Nobel

Peace Prize laureate, also confronted Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on Twitter.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi complained to Mr. Erdogan of “a huge iceberg of misinformation

calculated to create a lot of problems between different communities and with the aim of

promoting the interest of the terrorists.”

Mehmet Simsek, the deputy prime minister of Turkey, posted last month on Twitter that the

world was “turning a blind eye to ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar. Among the photos he posted

were some from other events and other countries.

A sea of unverified postings have purported to show bloodshed in Rakhine State. Large numbers

of recently created Twitter accounts have also hurled abuse at reporters and staff members of

nongovernmental organizations posting anything seen as sympathetic toward the Rohingya or

playing down the violence of the Rohingya militants.


https://www.facebook.com/state.counsellor/posts/1113877308746484

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/09/01/world/asia/01reuters-myanmar-rohingya-turkey.html

https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2017/09/05/turkey-to-send-aid-to-rohingya-in-myanmar-after-erdogans-talks-with-aung-san-suu-kyi


Afghan Anger Simmers Over U.S. Leaflets Seen as Insulting Islam

By MUJIB MASHAL, FAHIM ABED and FATIMA FAIZISEPT. 8, 2017

KABUL, Afghanistan — The sermon at the mosque in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter on Friday

sounded a familiar but disquieting theme.

“You have disrespected the feelings of 1.8 billion Muslims and all that they hold sacred,” the

imam, Muhammed Ayaz Niazi, bellowed, addressing the American forces in Afghanistan.

“Those who have committed this grave crime are trying to test our people, to see if they are dead

or alive. We promise to defend our values, defend our religion, defend our soil.”

Most of the Western missions are a stone’s throw from the mosque and, even if they didn’t

understand the local language, their staffs could hear the anger.

Once again, the American military had stumbled into insulting the religion of the people they are

here to help defend, inadvertently stoking anti-American anger and violence.

This time, the rage was over a leaflet dropped on homes in Parwan Province, north of Kabul, on

Tuesday night. The postcard- sized leaflets showed a lion, representing the American-led

coalition forces, chasing a dog, an animal seen as dirty in Islamic tradition, wrapped in the

Taliban flag.

The problem? The writing on the flag, in large letters, is the text most sacred to Muslims: the

shahada, the foundational declaration of faith in God.

American military officials quickly apologized, and so far the reaction has been less severe than

that following the NATO burning of Qurans in 2012, or the video of American Marines urinating

on dead Taliban fighters the same year.

But a suicide attack on Bagram Air Base on Wednesday, which wounded four people, was

carried out in revenge for the leaflets, the Taliban claimed.

American military officials said they were watching the situation “very closely.” Gen. John W.

Nicholson Jr., the top American and NATO commander, was in Belgium when the leafleting

took place, and his staff described him as “absolutely furious.”

Maj. Gen. James Linder, commander of the joint Special Operations forces in

Afghanistan, issued an apology on Wednesday, saying there was “no excuse for this mistake”

and promising to “make appropriate changes so this never happens again.”

The episode comes at a particularly awkward time for the United States and the Afghan

government, just after the Trump administration began stepping up the American military

presence here and the administration of President Ashraf Ghani has taken heat for failing to

criticize the Americans for an airstrike that killed 11 civilians in southeastern Afghanistan last

week.


https://www.nytimes.com/by/mujib-mashal

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-leaflet-us-apology-dog.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/asia/nato-commander-apologizes-for-koran-disposal-in-afghanistan.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/video-said-to-show-marines-urinating-on-taliban-corpses.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/video-said-to-show-marines-urinating-on-taliban-corpses.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-general-john-nicholson-.html?mcubz=3

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/world/asia/trump-afghanistan-general-john-nicholson-.html?mcubz=3

http://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-View/Article/1300116/major-general-james-linder-apology-for-distribution-of-religiously-insensitive/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/world/asia/afghan-civilians-killed-american-airstrike.html

Mr. Ghani, who has lived most of his life in the West and has struggled to find a firm

connection with large segments of his own people, has not spoken publicly about the

leaflets either.

“The forces in Bagram already apologized for the leaflets,” his spokesman, Shahhussain

Murtazawi said. “President Ghani is closely following these issues.”

Mr. Ghani has been vocally supportive of Mr. Trump’s new Afghan strategy, announced

last month, that increases the number of troops by an unspecified amount and doubles

American air power. Mr. Trump said the new strategy was not a blank check, but he has

provided no timeline for withdrawal or defined what constitutes success.

The anger comes during a week of tense public rallies and gatherings, which could spiral

out of the control of a government that has struggled to contain public demonstrations.

Several large protests against the killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar also ended

up addressing the leaflet issue.

“Those who are waging jihad for uprooting the Jews and Christians, and the infidel

Americans who are disrespecting our religion, their feet are worthy of being kissed,”

Abdul Satar Khawasi, a member of the Afghan Parliament, said at a pro-Rohingya protest

near the presidential palace.

In Parwan, where the leaflets were dropped, the governor, Muhammad Asim, condemned

the action, promising to punish those who committed “this unforgivable mistake.” But he

and other local officials also engaged in damage control, meeting with elders and urging

religious scholars to calm the anger that the Taliban was already seeking to exploit.

Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the provincial police chief, tried to get his constituents to put the

insult into perspective. “I told them that it was a mistake, and then I asked them what they

think about terrorist suicide attacks in mosques?” he said. “Attacks on funeral ceremonies,

attacks on schools? I told them the leaflets issue was a mistake and it was a bad thing, but

if they hold protests on Friday, it would not be beneficial.”

Sadullah Abu Aman, head of the council of religious scholars in Badakhshan Province,

had a similar message. “Americans are creating problems for themselves with publishing

such leaflets, they should not do this,” he said. But, he added, “we will not follow and

discuss this issue of leaflets too much, because the security situation in Badakhshan is

already not good, and if we discuss it too much it will make the security situation worse.”

By Friday night, with Friday Prayers long over, Afghan and American officials were

hoping the worst had blown over.

But official apologies have rarely quelled anger on matters of religion in conservative

Afghanistan. In 2011, protesters angry over news of a Florida church burning the

Quran stormed a United Nations office in the north, killing 12 people.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/asia/afghanistan-troops-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/asia/kabul-afghanistan-protest-bombing.html?mcubz=3

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-refugees-270000.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FMyanmar&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/world/asia/02afghanistan.html?pagewanted=all

After the Quran burning at Bagram came to light, violent protests eruptedaround the

country. Thousands besieged the base, shouting death to America and throwing gasoline

bombs, and at least 29 Afghans and 6 American soldiers were killed.

In the aftermath, the commanding general instituted mandatory training for all military

personnel in Afghanistan on the proper way to dispose of religious material. “We are

taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again,” the NATO commander, General,

John R. Allen, said at the time.

It hasn’t. But there was no training about the use of Quranic text on propaganda leaflets.

270,000 Rohingya Have Fled Myanmar, U.N. Says


HONG KONG — The number of Rohingya who have fled fighting in western Myanmar

has climbed sharply to 270,000, placing a huge strain on camps in Bangladesh where they

are seeking shelter, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday.

On Thursday, the United Nations agency said that about 164,000 Rohingya had fled since

fighting broke out in late August.

Two refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh that were already home to

nearly 34,000 Rohingya “are now bursting at the seams,” Duniya Aslam Khan, a

spokeswoman for the refugee agency, said in a statement.

“The limited shelter capacity is already exhausted,” she said. “Refugees are now squatting

in makeshift shelters that have mushroomed along the road and on available land in the

Ukhiya and Teknaf areas.”

The sharp increase is the result of more people leaving Myanmar and a more detailed

count of those already in Bangladesh, Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations and

emergencies for the United Nations migration agency, the International Organization for

Migration, said on Twitter.

The refugees in Bangladesh are mostly women and children who have arrived on foot, the

United Nations refugee agency said. Some have tried to make dangerous crossings by

boat. Last week, at least 46 Rohingya were found dead along the banks of the Naf River,

which forms part of the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group that has faced severe repression in Myanmar,

where a Buddhist majority has long ruled. About one million Rohingya live in Rakhine

State in the west of the country. An additional 300,000 to 500,000 live in Bangladesh,

many of them in grim refugee camps.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate

for her long struggle against military rule, has come under increasing international

criticism for the plight of the Rohingya. Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, also a


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/asia/nato-commander-apologizes-for-koran-disposal-in-afghanistan.html?mcubz=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/asia/5-soldiers-are-said-to-face-punishment-in-koran-burning-in-afghanistan.html


https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000005453328/inside-a-refugee-camp-born-of-ethnic-cleansing.html

http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2017/9/59b11b634/rohingya-sea-search-safety-bangladesh.html

http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/9/59b24a074/bangladesh-refugee-camp-capacity-exhausted-thousands-makeshift-shelters.html

https://twitter.com/AbdikerM/status/906066153969262592


Nobel laureate, wrote in a letterThursday that it was “incongruous for a symbol of

righteousness to lead such a country” that “is not at peace with itself, that fails to

acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people.”

Senator John McCain of Arizona also wrote to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi this week, noting

that he had been her friend and supporter and calling on her “to take an active role in

putting a stop to this worsening humanitarian crisis as it spreads throughout the country.”

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has

also confronted Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on Twitter over the violence against the

Rohingya.

The most recent surge of refugees came after a Rohingya militant group attacked several

police posts and a military base in Rakhine on Aug. 25. The government of Myanmar said

15 members of the security forces and 370 militants were killed.

Refugees say the military and Buddhist vigilantes have attacked villages, stabbing and

shooting people, and burning homes. The government of Myanmar denies citizenship

rights to the Rohingya and claims instead that they are illegal immigrants from

Bangladesh.

Myanmar officials have blamed the Rohingya for fires that have been seen burning in

many villages across Rakhine, saying they are burning their own homes.

A BBC correspondent on a government-chaperoned trip to Rakhine reported

Thursday that he saw Rakhine Buddhist men walking from an unoccupied Rohingya

village that had just caught fire. “One of them admitted he had lit the fires, and said he

had help from the police,” wrote the correspondent, Jonathan Head.

Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar Is ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ U.N. Rights Chief Says

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCESEPT. 11, 2017

GENEVA — The United Nations’ top human rights official accused Myanmar on

Monday of carrying out “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya

Muslims, hundreds of thousands of whom have crossed into Bangladesh since late August

to escape a military crackdown.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the

military’s “brutal” security campaign was in clear violation of international law, and cited

what he called refugees’ consistent accounts ofwidespread extrajudicial killings, rape and

other atrocities.


https://www.facebook.com/DesmondTutuOfficial/posts/1136360939841237

https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=press-releases&id=3FCCC07D-26B5-43EB-8E14-357E260595E7

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/malala_yousafzai/index.html?inline=nyt-per

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/world/asia/muslims-rohingya-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi-malala-myanmar.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41189564


https://www.nytimes.com/by/nick-cumming-bruce

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-bangladesh-refugees-massacre.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&_r=0

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-bangladesh-refugees-massacre.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article&_r=0

Mr. al-Hussein said the crackdown “resembles a cynical ploy to forcibly transfer large

numbers of people without possibility of return,” noting that Myanmar had progressively

stripped its Rohingya minority of civil and political rights for decades.

“The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” he said in a keynote

address before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

More than 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when

armed Rohingya militants attacked police posts and a military base in the western state of

Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. The Myanmar authorities said 15 members of the

security forces and 370 militants had been killed in the fighting.

Since then, Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh have told journalists, rights groups

and others that soldiers, along with some local residents, had set fire to numerous villages

and had butchered Rohingya men, women and children.

Some officials in Myanmar have said that Rohingya had set fire to their own homes and

villages. On Monday, Mr. al-Hussein called such accusations a “complete denial of

reality” that was damaging the international standing of a leadership that had benefited

from considerable good will as the country emerged from decades of military rule.

Mr. al-Hussein’s comments added to mounting international criticism of the military’s

actions in Rakhine. Some of it has singled out Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader

of the elected civilian government, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for

her resistance to the military dictatorship. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi does not control

Myanmar’s military, but she has yet to criticize its crackdown on the Rohingya.

On Friday, the Dalai Lama became the latest Nobel Peace Prize laureate to raise the issue

of her silence, following statements from Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and the

rights advocate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, both of whom called on Ms. Aung San Suu

Kyi to take action.

The Dalai Lama told journalists in Dharamsala, India, that those who were persecuting

Rohingya “should remember Buddha,” a pointed reminder to the Buddhists who make up

a majority of Myanmar’s population. Some Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar have

campaigned for Muslims to be driven out of the country.

The Buddha “would definitely give help to those poor Muslims,” the Dalai Lama said.

On Sunday, leaders who had gathered in Astana, Kazakhstan, for a meeting of the

Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued a statement condemning the “systematic

brutal acts” against the Rohingya and asked Myanmar to allow a United Nations fact-

finding mission into the country to investigate.

That mission was established after an earlier crackdown in Rakhine, in October, also in

response to a coordinated attack on security forces by Rohingya militants. Myanmar’s

government has refused to cooperate with the mission and has said it will not allow


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-refugees-270000.html


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/09/opinion/kristof-nobel-prize-aung-san-suu-kyi-shame.html

https://www.facebook.com/DesmondTutuOfficial/posts/1136360939841237?pnref=story


members of the group into the country. The mission is scheduled to report to the United

Nations rights council this month.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is currently led by President Recep Tayyip

Erdogan of Turkey. His wife, Ermine Erdogan, traveled to Bangladesh with a

consignment of humanitarian aid last week, urging the government in Dhaka to keep its

borders open for Rohingya refugees.

The militant group blamed for the August attacks, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army,

declared a unilateral, one-month ceasefire on Sunday, citing the need to allow the delivery

of humanitarian aid and urging Myanmar’s military to lay down its arms. The government

refused, saying it would not negotiate with terrorists.

In his address on Monday, Mr. al-Hussein said he was appalled by reports that

Myanmar’s military has placed mines along the border with Bangladesh. Amnesty

International said on Sunday that it had documented “what seems to be targeted use of

land mines” by Myanmar’s security forces at crossing points used by refugees.

The rights group said that one civilian near the border had been killed and that three

people, including two children, had been seriously injured by mines in the past week.

“This is another low in what is already a horrific situation in Rakhine,” said Tirana

Hassan, Amnesty’s crisis response director.

Far From Myanmar Violence, Rohingya in Pakistan Are Seething

By MEHREEN ZAHRA-MALIKSEPT. 12, 2017

KARACHI, Pakistan — It was happening again, but worse than ever: Hundreds of

thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims were fleeing Myanmar while under attack by

the security forces, and the deaths kept mounting.

Everybody in the vast Arkanabad slum of Karachi has family members who were

affected by the government raids that started last month.

Outside Myanmar, and perhaps now Bangladesh, Pakistan is home to the highest

concentration of Rohingya in the world, from a previous exodus of Rohingya in the

1970s and ’80s. A vast majority live in neighborhoods that are distressingly

impoverished even by Karachi’s standards.

Now they are angry that Pakistan is not doing more to stop the killing in Myanmar, let

alone improve the condition of the estimated 500,000 Rohingya who live in this

country.

“The government needs to do more: Send them more aid, send them food, and break

ties with Myanmar completely,” said Noor Hussain Arkani, who leads the Pakistan


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/americas/bangladesh-rohingya-land-mines.html


https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-army-landmines-along-border-with-bangladesh-pose-deadly-threat-to-fleeing-rohingya/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-army-landmines-along-border-with-bangladesh-pose-deadly-threat-to-fleeing-rohingya/



chapter of a charity in the Rohingya community, the Rohingya Solidarity Organization.

“We need world pressure behind us to end this violence, this hell. Just issuing

statements isn’t enough.”

Pakistan was among the earliest and most strident in condemning the Myanmar government for

its offensive, which started after Rohingya militants killed members of the security forces. The

United Nations said Tuesday that since then, at least 370,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh.

But even as politicians and civil society in Pakistan are up in arms over how members

of the Buddhist majority in Myanmar are abusing the Muslim Rohingyas there,

hundreds of thousands of Rohingya migrants here continue to live in desperation.

Across the Arkanabad slum — named after the old designation for Myanmar’s present-

day Rakhine State — decrepit shanties with temporary walls, often with no doors and

windows and unsteady corrugated roofs, serve as homes to more than 100,000

Rohingya.

The men mostly work as fishermen, while a small number weave carpets or are

employed in garment factories. Malnutrition and diarrhea are common among children

who have little access to schools and spend their days playing in rivers of garbage.

Residents said that up to 30 families shared a single tap of water. But even where

running water is available, it often flows for less than four hours a day. There are no

hospitals in the slums, and at least six women spoke of having a relative die giving birth

because she had been denied admission to government hospitals.

Still, what people complained of the most in interviews last week was routine

harassment by the police. Many spoke grimly of a “Burma Cell,” a special police

division responsible for cracking down on Rohingya migrants. (Burma is the former

name of Myanmar.)

Many Rohingya have carried Pakistani national ID cards for years but since the

authorities started cracking down on fake versions in 2014, many have found it hard to

renew their cards. And the second generation is being denied cards altogether, they

said.

“Without cards, we are blocked out of jobs, our children can’t apply for admission in

high schools and we can’t access government hospitals,” said Mr. Arkani, of the

Rohingya Solidarity Organization.

In the slum of Burmi Colony, many residents spoke of being forbidden by the police to

leave to fish. Mohammad Younis, a fisherman in his 30s, said he had not worked for

half a year and his monthly salary of around $600 had shrunk to less than $60.

“When I try and take my nets and go out, I get stopped by the police, who ask for my

ID,” said Mr. Younis, whose documents expired six months ago. “I show them

documents to prove I am trying to renew my ID card, but they don’t even let me leave

the colony.”


https://www.dawn.com/news/1356179

He added, “We will die, trapped here without access to our means of livelihood.”

Residents described arrests of people without cards who were then held either on

impossible bail or until they paid a bribe directly to officers.

Malik Ishfaque, the station house master at the police station under whose jurisdiction

many of the Rohingya-majority slums fall, said that officers were duty-bound to crack

down on anyone who did not possess valid documents. And while he acknowledged

that the Burma Cell used to exist, he said it had been dismantled.

Asked about instances of harassment and intimidation by the police that some

Rohingya had described, Mr. Ishfaque said: “We act against these people because they

are a group of thieves,” noting that crimes like pick-pocketing and robbery in the

surrounding area were mostly committed by the Rohingya.

Despite having little, the Rohingya have been trying to directly help their people back

in Myanmar.

Mr. Arkani said the community had raised money to send meat from 30 cows for the

new wave of refugees in Bangladesh, as no new refugees were being allowed into

Pakistan. The Rohingya Solidarity Organization had also set up a glass donation box,

but it was almost empty.

“We are so poor already, but even then we try to raise whatever little money we can

among ourselves,” he said. “But we need more help from Pakistani people who are rich,

who have resources.”

Many who live here cannot even officially identify themselves as Rohingya. To avoid

persecution and be accepted as naturalized citizens, many pretended to be Bengalis who

migrated from East Pakistan before the 1971 war of independence, after which it

became Bangladesh.

“You ask if we have enough to eat or drink, but I ask you: What is our condition when

we cannot even say we are Burmese?” said Noor Jabbar, a community elder whose ID

card expired three months ago but who has not succeeded in renewing it.

For his part, Khalid Saifullah, 70, who migrated from Myanmar four decades ago,

described persistent mistreatment. “They won’t let me be a citizen, because then they

have to give me rights and they won’t call me a refugee because then they have to give

me aid,” said Mr. Saifullah, showing the high school diploma he had received from a

school in Karachi. “I am not a citizen or a refugee. I am an illegal alien. I am nothing.”


The Rohingya in Myanmar: How Years of Strife Grew Into a Crisis

By MEGAN SPECIASEPT. 13, 2017

A military crackdown against the Rohingya ethnic group has driven hundreds of thousands of

men, women and children from their homes in Myanmar.

The Rohingya have faced violence and discrimination in the majority-Buddhist country for

decades, but they are now fleeing in unprecedented numbers from violence that the United

Nations human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, has called “a textbook example of ethnic

cleansing.”

Here’s how an old and bitter dispute has managed to become even more charged.

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group that practices a form of Sunni Islam and have lived in

Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest states, for generations. Before the latest exodus, an

estimated one million Rohingya lived there, but even then they were a minority in the state. The

group has its own language and cultural practices.

Some trace their origins there to the 15th century, an assertion the government disputes. Their

name itself refers to the area they claim as home, according to the Council on Foreign Relations:

Rohang derives from the word Arakan, the former name of Rakhine State, in the Rohingya

dialect, and ga or gya means from.

Myanmar doesn’t recognize Rohingya as citizens and sees them instead as immigrants from

Bangladesh who came to Rakhine under British rule. The country’s first census in 30 years,

carried out in 2014, didn’t count the Rohingya; those who identify as part of the group were told

to register as Bengali and indicate that their origins were in Bangladesh. The government’s

stance makes them one of the largest stateless groups in the world.

Many live in squalid conditions similar to refugee camps.

Violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine is part of a “longstanding pattern of violations and

abuses; systematic and systemic discrimination; and policies of exclusion and marginalization”

that have persisted for decades, according to the United Nations human rights agency.

Since a 1962 coup in Myanmar, the country’s successive governments have significantly limited

the rights of the Rohingya.

A law passed in 1982 denied them citizenship, leaving them off a list of 135 ethnic groups

formally recognized by the government. This limited the Rohingya’s access to schools and health


https://www.nytimes.com/by/megan-specia

http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2017/9/59b7a0914/bangladesh-unhcr-emergency-airlift-lands-dhaka-rakhine-crisis-deepens.html


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fasia&action=click&contentCollection=asia&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fasia&action=click&contentCollection=asia&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

http://www.rohingya.org/portal/index.php/scholars/65-nurul-islam-uk/293-muslim-influence-in-the-kingdom-of-arakan.html

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-migrant-crisis

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-migrant-crisis

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/research/evalreports/4ee754c19/states-denial-review-unhcrs-response-protracted-situation-stateless-rohingya.html?query=largest%20stateless%20group

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/FlashReport3Feb2017.pdf

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/FlashReport3Feb2017.pdf

http://un-act.org/publication/view/myanmars-citizenship-law-1982/

care and their ability to move in and out of the country. The government in Rakhine at times has

also enforced a two-child limit on Rohingya families and has restricted interfaith marriage.

Tensions in Rakhine have often erupted into violence, prompting hundreds of thousands to seek

refuge in Bangladesh and Pakistan in different waves over the decades.

In May 2012, the rape and murder of a Buddhist prompted a series of revenge attacks against

Muslims. The violence quickly intensified. The military began a wide-ranging crackdown, and

hundreds of thousands fled.

In October 2013, thousands of Buddhist men carried out coordinated attacks on Muslim villages

throughout Rakhine. Human rights groups say the violence that erupted in 2012 and continued

into 2013 amounted to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. A 2013 Human Rights

Watch report said violence in Rakhine was a “coordinated campaign to forcibly relocate or

remove the state’s Muslims.” The response from world leaders, however, has been limited.

Last October, an armed Rohingya insurgency came to light when militants from the Arakan

Rohingya Salvation Army, then known as Harakah al-Yaqin, attacked three border guard posts.

Over the four months that followed, Myanmar’s army, known as the Tatmadaw, and the police

killed hundreds, gang-raped women and girls, and forced as many as 90,000 Rohingya from their

homes.

On Aug. 25, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked again, targeting police posts and an

army base. Security forces cracked down on the wider population, and rights groups accused

them of killing, raping, burning villages and shooting civilians from helicopters. The exodus into

Bangladesh began: At least 400,000 Rohingya have fled.

An additional 12,000 people, mainly ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and other non-Muslims, are also

displaced within the state, according to Human Rights Watch. Myanmar has halted humanitarian

aid to Rakhine, leaving those still in the state with limited access to food and water.

Myanmar has framed the actions as a necessary counterinsurgency operation.

Governments from several predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia,

Pakistan and Turkey, have expressed concern about the most recent violence. Malala Yousafzai

of Pakistan and Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa have both called on their fellow Nobel

Peace Prize laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, to do something about

the bloodshed.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads Myanmar’s civilian government but does not control the

military, has largely avoided public statements about the crackdown and the flight of refugees.

But during a phone call last week with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, she

complained of “a huge iceberg of misinformation calculated to create a lot of problems between

different communities and with the aim of promoting the interest of the terrorists,” according to


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/world/asia/a-region-in-myanmar-limits-births-of-muslims.html?mcubz=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/asia/state-of-emergency-declared-in-western-myanmar.html?mcubz=1

https://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/as-violence-continues-rohingya-find-few-defenders-in-myanmar/?mcubz=1

https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims

https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/world/asia/muslim-rohingya-myanmar.html?mcubz=1




https://www.unicef.org/media/media_100834.html



https://www.facebook.com/DesmondTutuOfficial/posts/1136360939841237?pnref=story

https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/daw-aung-san-suu-kyi


her office. (On Wednesday, her office said she had canceled a planned visit to the United Nations

General Assembly.)

Analysts have said that it would be politically difficult for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to denounce

the crackdown, given the military’s political power and the unpopularity of the Rohingya among

the country’s Buddhists. Her critics say she has a moral obligation to speak out, and some

have called for her Nobel to be withdrawn.

Myanmar Leader Cancels U.N. Trip Amid Outcry Over Rohingya Slaughter

By RICK GLADSTONE and SOMINI SENGUPTASEPT. 13, 2017

Facing a storm of global criticism over an ethnic slaughter in her home country, the Nobel

laureate who is Myanmar’s most prominent political leader has canceled her planned visit to the

United Nations General Assembly.

The cancellation by the leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was announced by her office on

Wednesday, less than a week before the annual gathering in New York of leaders representing

the 193-member General Assembly, the largest forum for diplomacy.

Her decision to abandon the visit came amid an uproar over deadly attacks by security forces on

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, which is predominantly Buddhist.

In recent weeks, hundreds have been killed, including children. Nearly 400,000 have fled for

their lives into neighboring Bangladesh, according to officials and news reports from the region.

A chorus of international leaders and human rights groups have denounced the attacks as ethnic

cleansing — some have called it genocide — and have castigated Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi over

what they described as her indifference.

“She’s keeping silent, and that silence is essentially a green light for the military,” said Louis

Charbonneau, the United Nations director at Human Rights Watch.

While Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s views on the Rohingya killings are not clear, she caused an

uproar last week, partly attributing alarm about the crisis to a “huge iceberg of misinformation”

while discussing it with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

“Everything she has said doesn’t inspire confidence that she’s on the right side of this issue,” Mr.

Charbonneau said.

Some critics have called for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to be stripped of her Nobel Peace Prize,

which she won in 1991 for standing up to Myanmar’s military junta in a campaign for

democracy.

There had been widespread expectation that she would speak about the Rohingya killings at the

General Assembly. But a spokesman for her office, Zaw Htay, told reporters in Myanmar on

Wednesday that she had canceled her trip because of the crisis.

“She is concentrating on establishing stability,” the spokesman said in remarks quoted by news

agencies.

News of the canceled visit came as pressure has intensified at the United Nations for action to

halt the killings.

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, told reporters on Wednesday that the Rohingya situation was “catastrophic.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-united-nations-aung-san-suu-kyi-rohingya.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-suu-kyi-.html

https://www.nytimes.com/by/rick-gladstone

https://www.nytimes.com/by/somini-sengupta

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1991/kyi-facts.html

https://www.hrw.org/about/people/louis-charbonneau

https://www.hrw.org/about/people/louis-charbonneau

https://www.voanews.com/a/myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh/4016092.html

https://www.voanews.com/a/myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh/4016092.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-suu-kyi-.html

Asked if he agreed that the Rohingya were victims of ethnic cleansing, as his top human rights

official termed it this week, he was blunt.

“When one-third of the Rohingya population has to flee the country, can you find a better word

to describe it?” Mr. Guterres responded.

Mr. Guterres was addressing reporters in an hourlong news conference ahead of speeches next

week by presidents and prime ministers at the General Assembly.

“This is a dramatic tragedy,” he said. “People are dying and suffering at horrible numbers and we

need to stop it.”

In recent days, the exodus of Rohingya fleeing the violence into Bangladesh has tripled. Mr.

Guterres said he had spoken “several times” with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, though not since her

office confirmed that she would not attend the General Assembly.

She attended last year for the first time, and she asserted that her government was “standing firm

against the forces of prejudice and intolerance” in Rakhine State, where most of the Rohingya

population lives.

Mr. Guterres took the unusual step last week of having asked the Security Council to help end

the military strikes against the Rohingya. The 15-member body, empowered to impose sanctions

and other measures against the government of Myanmar, met privately as he spoke.

Members of the Security Council emerged later Wednesday afternoon to express “concern about

reports of excessive violence during security operations” in Rakhine and called for “immediate

steps to end the violence.”

It was part of what, in the diplomatic language at the United Nations, is known as press elements,

the weakest form of pronouncement that can be made by the Security Council.

The British ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, called it “an important first step.”

Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, is to preside over a meeting on Myanmar with other

foreign ministers on the sidelines of the General Assembly next week, Mr. Rycroft said.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a 72-year-old widow, endured many years of house arrest for her

defiance of Myanmar’s generals and had long been considered a heroine of modern times.

She resumed her national political prominence after her release in 2010. The country’s majority

party introduced a bill in Parliament last year and created a new post for her as state counselor,

which some analysts have compared to the role of a prime minister.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is prohibited under the country’s Constitution from becoming president,

because her children are British citizens, as was her husband. But in her role as state counselor,

as well as leader of the majority party in Parliament, she is the most powerful person in the

government.

The anger and despondency over her failure to stop the Rohingya persecution has spread to her

fellow Nobel laureates.

In an open letter to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi published last week, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of

South Africa said, “My dear sister: If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in

Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-ethnic-cleansing.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/world/asia/14myanmar.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/world/asia/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/world/asia/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi.html

https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/an-open-letter-from-desmond-tutu-to-aung-san-su-kyi-11123972

At Risk in Rohingya Exodus: 230,000 Children, Hundreds All Alone


HONG KONG — More than half of the Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar in the past

three weeks are children, including hundreds who traveled without family members, putting

them at particular risk in cramped, muddy camps in Bangladesh, aid workers say.

The United Nations says up to 400,000 Rohingya have fled the state of Rakhine in western

Myanmar since Aug. 25 and are now struggling to find food, shelter and clean water in

Bangladesh.

“The camps are totally overcrowded,” said Christophe Boulierac, a spokesman for Unicef. “It’s

very muddy and raining every day.”

Of those who have made it to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, about half arrived last week, Mr.

Boulierac said, placing extreme pressure on the already struggling relief operations.

“Very frankly speaking, we are scaling up, but it is such an unprecedented influx,” he said.

As of Friday, Unicef had counted 1,267 children at the camp who had been separated from their

families. Amid the disorder of the rapidly expanding settlements in Bangladesh, the

unaccompanied children are at particular risk for human trafficking, sexual abuse, child labor

and child marriage, Mr. Boulierac said.

Unicef has set up 41 spaces for children to relax and play, some of which can be moved around

the camps. The sites also make it easier for aid workers to identify which children have traveled

alone or have been separated from their families.

The needs of the children include food and nutritional support, basic health care and

psychological counseling. More than 18,000 children have received help through the child-

friendly spaces since Aug. 25. But with more than 230,000 children estimated to have arrived in

Bangladesh, many more will need help, Mr. Boulierac said.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that two-thirds of the refugees are women and

girls, 13 percent of whom are pregnant or breast-feeding. It has sent dozens of midwives to help

in the camps.

And the numbers are likely to grow, Mr. Boulierac said. “The worrying news is we don’t see any

indication that this influx is decreasing.”

The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, have been pushed out of

the country’s west for decades. They have been deprived of citizenship rights and are often

confined to villages with little freedom to travel and work.

Rohingya in Rakhine had already been living under a harsh security campaign that came after

attacks by militants last October. An attack on Aug. 25 by a Rohingya militant group known as

the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on police posts and a military base in Rakhine touched off

a renewed military crackdown that led to the mass exodus.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-muslim.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fasia

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-muslim.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fasia


The military and Buddhist vigilantes have burned villages and massacred civilians, according to

human rights groups and refugees. Bangladesh has also complained to Myanmar about reports of

land mines placed along their shared border, which have injured and killed civilians in recent

weeks.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called the

military campaign “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and a clear violation of international

law. The Nobel Peace Prize laureates Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Bishop Desmond Tutu

of South Africa have challenged Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, to

recognize the suffering of the Rohingya. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi won a Nobel Peace Prize in

1991 for leading a campaign against military rule.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who canceled plans to attend the United Nations General Assembly in

New York next week, has maintained the belief that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from

Bangladesh. While the Rohingya trace their history in Myanmar for generations, the belief that

they are foreigners is widely held there.

Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Peace Prize laureate, sent a letter with the signatures of 12 Nobel

laureates and others calling for the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to

stop the military attacks on civilians. “The arguments that the Myanmar government is using to

deny Rohingyas their citizenship are ludicrous,” the letter said.

Despite the international condemnation of Myanmar, efforts to punish its government have been

limited.

This week, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is also chairman of the Senate Armed Services

Committee, said he would kill funding to expand cooperation between the militaries of the

United States and Myanmar, “given the worsening humanitarian crisis and human rights

crackdown against the Rohingya people.”

Journalists and human rights investigators have been largely barred from Rakhine. A group of

journalists was taken there on a government-supervised trip last week, and some reported

seeing Buddhist men leaving a Rohingya village they had just set ablaze.

The lack of access has forced human rights groups to rely on satellite data and the testimony of

people who have fled to document the extent of destruction. Amnesty International said

Thursday that it had recorded 80 large-scale fires in Rakhine since Aug. 25, while the same

period in the past four years had no blazes of such size on record.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that 62 villages in Rakhine had been targeted by arson since

Aug. 25. “Our field research backs what the satellite imagery has indicated — that the Burmese

military is directly responsible for the mass burning of Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine

State,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch.





https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/world/asia/muslims-rohingya-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi-malala-myanmar.html




https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-muslim.html

http://muhammadyunus.org/index.php/news-media/news/1706-an-open-letter-by-12-nobel-laureates-and-18-eminent-global-citizens-to-united-nations-security-council-to-end-the-rohingya-crisis

https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=press-releases&id=122C1F35-B35B-456F-B089-DE885467F61B



https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-scorched-earth-campaign-fuels-ethnic-cleansing-of-rohingya-from-rakhine-state/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/myanmar-scorched-earth-campaign-fuels-ethnic-cleansing-of-rohingya-from-rakhine-state/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/15/burma-military-torches-homes-near-border

Bangladesh Plans to Build Huge Refugee Camp for Rohingya

By HANNAH BEECHSEPT. 16, 2017

BANGKOK — Bangladesh, facing an unprecedented influx of ethnic Rohingya, plans

to build a vast camp to house about 400,000 refugees who have poured into the

country over the past three weeks.

The new settlements will be built within the next 10 days on 2,000 acres in the Cox’s

Bazar district near Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar, officials have said. The

authorities plan to construct 14,000 shelters, each with the capacity to hold six families,

with the help of international aid organizations and the Bangladesh military.

Poor and overpopulated, Bangladesh is no haven for the Rohingya, a long-persecuted

Muslim minority from Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Camps were already overflowing

with at least 400,000 Rohingya before the current exodus was provoked by Rohingya

militants’ attacking Myanmar police posts and an army base on Aug. 25.

The Myanmar military then began a campaign of village torchings, extrajudicial

killings and gang rape, according to survivors and international rights groups.

Witnesses and rights organizations have also accused the military of using helicopters

to unleash a scorched-earth campaign, burning Rohingya villages.

The United Nations described the actions against the Rohingya as a “textbook example

of ethnic cleansing.”

With a record number of Rohingya fleeing over the border into Bangladesh, arrivals

have been forced to line the streets of local villages, begging for food and water, and

the current settlements have reached capacity.

The government said restrictions would be placed on any inhabitants of the planned

settlement. Rohingya will also be barred from traveling by vehicle in Bangladesh, and

only those registered as refugees will qualify for official assistance.

“The Rohingya refugees won’t be allowed to go outside the camp,” Asaduzzaman

Khan, the Bangladeshi minister of home affairs, said on Sept. 10.

Bangladesh stopped designating new refugees in the early 1990s, forcing hundreds of

thousands to fend for themselves by cobbling together bits of tarpaulin and bamboo to

build makeshift homes. This year, the government even debated a plan to confine all

Rohingya refugees on a flood-prone uninhabited island.

Aid groups have expressed worry about hunger and diseases like cholera spreading

through the squalid settlements in Bangladesh. The lack of an adequate sewage system

is also compounding fears about public hygiene. The Bangladesh Department of Public

Health Engineering said it would construct 500 temporary latrines, while the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has plans for 8,000 more.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-children.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-children.html

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000005453328/inside-a-refugee-camp-born-of-ethnic-cleansing.html




On Sept. 12, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh visited a Rohingya camp in

Kutupalong, where she hugged refugees and lamented the deaths of women and

children.

“We want peace; we want good relations with our neighboring countries,” she said.

“But we can’t tolerate and accept any injustice.”

Ms. Hasina is scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York

on Sept. 21, where she is expected to ask for help from the international community to

tackle the situation.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Myanmar’s civilian administration, announced she

would skip the annual meeting. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,

has been criticized for defending the Myanmar military’s crackdown and for staying

silent about the plight of the Rohingya.

Ms. Hasina has urged Myanmar to take back the Rohingya who have fled to

Bangladesh, much as Myanmar did during some earlier waves of displacement. Much

smaller populations of Hindus, Buddhists and animists living in Rakhine State in

western Myanmar have also been displaced by the violence.

On Friday, the Bangladesh government lodged a formal complaint with Myanmar about

alleged violations of Bangladesh airspace by Myanmar military aircraft and drones.

Myanmar dismissed a similar airspace protest this month.

The Bangladesh government has also been holding two Myanmar photographers

covering the Rohingya crisis for a German magazine.

The two, Minzayar Oo and Hkun Lat, are accused of entering the country under false

pretenses, on tourist visas. The Bangladeshi authorities have suggested that the two

may be spies, a charge denied by their lawyers and families.

Rohingya Militants Vow to Fight Myanmar Despite Disastrous Cost

Leer en español

By HANNAH BEECHSEPT. 17, 2017

BALUKHALI, Bangladesh — Nazir Hossain, the imam of a village in far western

Myanmar, gathered the faithful around him after evening prayers last month. In a few

hours, more than a dozen Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army fighters from his village

would strike a nearby police post with an assortment of handmade weapons.




https://www.nytimes.com/es/2017/09/28/como-la-violencia-en-birmania-radicalizo-a-una-nueva-generacion-rohinya


The men needed their cleric’s blessing.

“As imam, I encouraged them never to step back from their mission,” Mr. Hossain

recalled of his final words to the ethnic Rohingya militants. “I told them that if they did

not fight to the death, the military would come and kill their families, their women and

their children.”

They fought — joining an Aug. 25 assault by thousands of the group’s fighters against

Myanmar’s security forces — and the retaliation came down anyway. Since then,

Myanmar’s troops and vigilante mobs have unleashed a scorched-earth operation

on Rohingya populations in northern Rakhine State in Myanmar, sending hundreds of

thousands fleeing their homes in a campaign that the United Nations has called ethnic

cleansing.

From its start four years ago as a small-scale effort to organize a Rohingya resistance,

ARSA — which is known locally as Harakah al-Yaqin, or the Faith Movement — has

managed to stage two deadly attacks on Myanmar’s security forces: one last October

and the other last month.

But in lashing out against the government, the militants have also made their own

people a target. And they have handed Myanmar’s military an attempt at public

justification by saying that it is fighting terrorism, even as it has burned down dozens of

villages and killed fleeing women and children.

This radicalization of a new generation of Rohingya, a Muslim minority in a Buddhist-majority

country, adds fuel to an already combustible situation in Rakhine, Myanmar’s poorest state.

Increasingly, there is also concern that both the relatively few Rohingya who have

taken up arms and the broader population — hundreds of thousands of whom are

crowded in camps in neighboring Bangladesh — will be exploited by international

terrorism networks, bringing a localized struggle into the slipstream of global politics.

ARSA’s attempt at insurgency politics has been disastrous so far — a cease-fire that

they declared this month was rejected by the military, and they are reported to have

suffered lopsided casualties compared with the government’s. But the men caught up in

the cause insist that resistance is worth the steep cost, even to their families.

“This fight is not just about my fate or my family’s fate,” said Noor Alam, a 25-year-

old insurgent whose family was sheltering in a forest in Myanmar after their village in

Maungdaw Township was burned. “It’s a matter of the existence of all Rohingya. If we

have to sacrifice ourselves for our children to live peacefully, then it is worth it.”

Myanmar’s military, which ruled the country for nearly half a century, has

systematically persecuted the Rohingya, subjecting them to apartheidlike existences

and stripping most of their citizenship.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-muslim.html



The nation’s civilian government, led since last year by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has

justified the recent violent crackdown in Rakhine as a counterstrike against “extremist

Bengali terrorists.” Although the Rohingya claim long-held roots in Rakhine, the

official narrative in Myanmar holds that they are recent illegal immigrants from

Bangladesh.

“We’ve talked about the risks of radicalization for years, and the writing was on the

wall for some sort of militant activity,” said Matthew Smith, a co-founder of Fortify

Rights, a human rights watchdog group based in Bangkok. “In our view, the best way

to deal with risks of extremism and radicalization is to promote and respect the rights of

the Rohingya, which is not what the Myanmar military is doing.”

Since Aug. 25, these so-called clearance operations have caused more than 400,000

Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

Rohingya who have tried to escape the latest violence have also had to contend with

ARSA insurgents who want young men to stay back and fight. Rohingya informers,

who may have leaked details of the Aug. 25 strikes to the Myanmar military, have been

executed, according to rights groups.

ARSA has also been accused of killing other ethnic populations in Rakhine, such as

Hindus and Buddhist Rakhine. At least a dozen non-Rohingya civilians have been

killed since Aug. 25, according to Myanmar’s government, along with at least 370

Rohingya militants.

The radicalized population in Bangladesh’s overcrowded refugee camps does not hide

its fervor.

“Even if I stay in my home, I could get killed by the military,” said Abul Osman, a 32-

year-old madrasa instructor and ARSA fighter who spent three months hiding in the

jungly hills on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border after the group’s attack last October. “I

might as well die fighting for my rights, as directed by my almighty God. My sacrifice

will earn me a place in heaven.”

But not everyone wants to be sacrificed. When vigilante mobs and Myanmar’s soldiers

burned down his village, Noor Kamal, 18, tried to flee with his 6-year-old brother,

Noor Faruq. Both were hacked in the head by ethnic Rakhine armed with machetes and

scythes.

At a bleak government hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Noor Kamal shivered with

outrage at the ARSA insurgents from his village in northern Maungdaw Township, who

attacked a local police post last month. “We are the ones who are suffering because of

Al Yaqin,” he said. “They disappeared after the attack. We were the ones left behind

for the military to kill.”

The besieged villages in Rakhine and squalid refugee settlements in Bangladesh, where

at least 800,000 Rohingya now live in desperate conditions, make for fertile ground for

transnational militant groups looking for recruits, even if ARSA said this past week that

it had no links to such groups.



“We have seen how democratic and nationalist movements can be taken over by

transnational terrorist groups,” said Ali Riaz, a professor of politics and government at

Illinois State University who studies Islamic militancy in Bangladesh and surrounding

areas. “The presence of legitimate discontent, despair and desperation among hundreds

and thousands of people, growing radicalization of a movement, asymmetry of forces

engaged in the conflict and a religious dimension to the crisis all provide a conducive

environment.”

Mr. Riaz noted how in the southern Philippines, the Islamic State had grafted itself onto

a local separatist insurgency, dispatching foreign fightersand threatening regional

stability.

“Neither the Myanmar government nor the regional powers should let this situation

happen with the Rohingya,” he warned.

Earlier this month, in a video message, a leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen urged Muslims

in Asia to show solidarity with the Rohingya by launching attacks on “enemies of

God.”

The military has only intensified its retribution in Rakhine. As international outrage

mounted, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi blamed the Rohingya and their supporters for creating

an “an iceberg of misinformation.” Myanmar’s military has accused Rohingya of

burning down their own homes to garner international sympathy.

ARSA, which was founded by a Rohingya named Ataullah, who was born in Pakistan

and raised in Saudi Arabia, does not yet have the kind of firepower that can pose a

serious threat to one of Asia’s biggest armies. Its Aug. 25 strike involved thousands of

men but killed only about a dozen security officers. Its first assault, in October, killed

nine police officers.

By contrast, other ethnic rebel forces, which have battled the state for decades, have

clashed far more violently with the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s army is known. The

Arakan Army, an insurgency fighting for ethnic Rakhine rights, killed at least 300

soldiers in the first half of last year, according to a military document.

Unlike ARSA, neither the Arakan Army nor other ethnic militant groups have been

designated as terrorists by Myanmar’s government.

“Why does Burma call us terrorists?” asked Dil Mohammed, a university-educated

Rohingya now living in Bangladesh, using the former name for Myanmar. “It’s one

word: Islam.”

ARSA was formed four years ago, in the wake of sectarian clashes between the

Rohingya and the Rakhine. Dozens were killed, mostly Muslims. Since then, many

Rohingya have been barred from leaving their villages or sequestered in ghettos. Young

men have no jobs. The military shuttered mosques and madrasas, leaving the faithful

idle.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/isis-fighters-philippines-indonesia.html

The military’s heavy-handed response to the ARSA strike last October served as a

turning point. Nearly every Rohingya village in northern Rakhine now has an ARSA

cell with at least 10 members, according to fighters who fled to Bangladesh.

“We realized that it’s only through Al Yaqin that we can get our message to the

international community that we exist,” said the 70-year-old father of an ARSA fighter

who arrived in Bangladesh with two bullet wounds. “Otherwise, we will all just die.”

During their strikes, ARSA insurgents often dress in black and rouse themselves with

the chant “Speak loudly! God is the greatest!” In their initiation rites, the militants

promise that their families will not object if they die as martyrs. A dearth of weapons,

beyond homemade explosives and crude knives, has increased the chances of such

deaths.

Mohammed Jalal, whose cousin is the village ARSA chief and is still fighting back in

Rakhine, said he was willing to forfeit his son for the cause. “It is dangerous, but if he

dies for his people and his land, then it is Allah’s will,” he said.

Next to him, Mohammed Harun, 10, nodded his head. “I would go to fight,” he said. “I

am not scared.”

Myanmar Follows Global Pattern in How Ethnic Cleansing Begins

The Interpreter

By AMANDA TAUB SEPT. 18, 2017

The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, which the United Nations high commissioner for

human rights has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” highlights a problem

that the world has not yet figured out how to solve — and that can contribute, in

extremes, to the world’s worst atrocities.

National self-determination, the idea that a nation should have the right to freely choose

its political status, is a central tenet of the international system. It is enshrined in Article

1 of the United Nations Charter, which states that its purpose is “to develop friendly

relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-

determination of peoples.”

But scholars have long recognized that there is a problem inherent in self-determination

that can make it an enemy of the freedoms it is intended to protect.

Self-determination means not only defining what a nation is, but also who belongs in

that nation and who is an outsider. And during times of political upheaval, when

national identity comes under pressure and different groups compete for claims to self-

determination, such definitions can provide an impetus for mass violence and even

genocide against those deemed to be outsiders.


https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-interpreter

https://www.nytimes.com/by/amanda-taub

It is easy enough to define a “state” — a place with borders, territory and a sovereign

government. But a “nation” is a hazier concept — a group of people bound together by

some common characteristic, which may or may not match up precisely with state

borders. That is where things get tricky.

Most countries have a majority ethnic or religious group whose customs, culture and

religion dominate public life. But ethnic or religious definitions of the “nation,” when

translated into political priorities, put minority citizens at a disadvantage. If the

majority group wins self-determination, the resulting state will not be designed to

represent minorities, even if they technically have full citizenship.

That kind of definition can also create stress for the majority group. Kate Cronin-

Furman, a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s

Kennedy School of Government who studies mass atrocities, said that when nations are

defined around a majority ethnic group, that can lead to a sense of siege — a belief that

majority status needs to be protected, because if it shrinks, the claim of the majority on

the nation could as well.

In Sri Lanka, for instance, the Sinhalese majority has defined the nation as Sinhalese

and Buddhist. As a result, Ms. Cronin-Furman said, Sinhalese political rhetoric is

consumed with the idea that any expansion of rights to non-Sinhalese citizens is a threat

to the nature of the state.

Civic nationalism, which is based around citizenship and shared political beliefs rather

than ethnicity, is more inclusive. But that same inclusivity can make it challenging to

create a strong, cohesive sense of national identity. When that happens, focusing on

outsiders — identifying who is not part of the nation, rather than who is — can seem an

expedient shortcut.

Political psychology researchers have long found that when leaders cast outsiders as

different and threatening, that can strengthen insiders’ sense of identity and group

cohesion. But that can leave minorities at risk of discrimination or even violence.

In Europe today, for instance, politicians rarely make overt claims that their national

identity should be explicitly white or Christian. But warnings about the impact of

Muslim immigration, burqas and mosque minarets have become, even for many

mainstream politicians, a way to classify Muslims as outsiders.

Other groups in Europe have felt the sting of exclusion for much longer. The Roma

have long been treated as perpetual foreigners. Regardless of their legal citizenship,

they are seen as traveling interlopers who are not part of a nation’s civic identity or

culture. That has led to entrenched prejudice and discrimination that regularly spill

over into violence.

And the Jews, particularly before World War II, were also often treated as perpetual

aliens who were not truly part of the nation.


http://www.errc.org/reports-and-advocacy-submissions/imperfect-justice-anti-roma-violence-and-impunity/3827

At times of stress from factors like war, major political changes or economic collapse,

competition over who is entitled to national self-determination can trigger extreme

violence.

Stefan Wolff, a political scientist at the University of Birmingham in England who

studies ethnic conflict, has found that many of the world’s worst conflicts have arisen

when ethnic and political borders do not line up with one another. “From Kosovo to

Silesia,” he wrote in a 2004 article, “the competing claims of distinct ethnic groups to

self-determination have been the most prominent sources of conflicts within and across

state boundaries.”

When states collapse or state borders are withdrawn, he has found, that creates an

opportunity for groups to establish their claims to national self-determination. And

when multiple groups lay claim to nationhood within the same territory, “ethnic

cleansing” can come to seem like a grim but effective solution, a way to make ethnic

and national borders line up by forcing out members of competing groups.

When the former Yugoslavia collapsed, for instance, Bosnian Serb forces committed

atrocities against ethnic Bosniaks and Croats as part of their effort to establish a Serbian

Republic.

In Myanmar, the Rohingya have long been demonized as outsiders in their own

country. They have been present in Myanmar since the 12th century, according to

Human Rights Watch. But excluding them from the nation, and later even from legal

citizenship, has long been a political tool, part of the process of defining the nation by

deeming some outside it.

After British rule ended in Myanmar — then Burma — in 1948, the new government

argued that the Rohingya were illegal migrants from British-administered India, now

Bangladesh, not truly part of the new nation. A 1982 citizenship law effectively

stripped many Rohingya of citizenship, deeming them foreigners in their own country.

In 2015, the government disenfranchised the Rohingya en masse, preventing hundreds

of thousands from voting in national elections. And in recent years, politicians,

including the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, have implied that they

were terrorists who threaten the nation.

Today, civilian politicians and the military are jostling for control as the country moves

toward democracy. Laying claim to national identity is a way to lay claim to power.

And once again, that has had tragic consequences for the Rohingya.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the current head of the armed

forces, tried to justify the army’s attacks on the Rohingya by saying that it “has never

been an ethnic group in Myanmar,” and claiming that the mass violence that had

displaced so many was “an organized attempt of extremist Bengalis in Rakhine State.”

Independent observers say the army has burned Rohingya villages and targeted

Rohingya civilians in a campaign of rape and slaughter.


http://stefanwolff.com/publications/can-forced-population-transfers-resolve-self-determination-conflicts/

https://www.facebook.com/seniorgeneralminaunghlaing/posts/1711630188871462

National self-determination is not a license for attacks against minorities. But by

emphasizing that right, the international community may, however unintentionally,

have seemed to offer an implicit incentive for the catastrophe now playing out in

Myanmar.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Much-Changed Icon, Evades Rohingya Accusations

By RICHARD C. PADDOCK and HANNAH BEECHSEPT. 18, 2017

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize

laureate and de facto leader of Myanmar, stood before a room of government officials

and foreign dignitaries on Tuesday to at last, after weeks of international urging,

address the plight of the country’s Rohingya ethnic minority.

But those who expected her to eloquently acknowledge a people’s oppression were

disappointed.

In her speech, delivered in crisp English and often directly inviting foreign listeners to

“join us” in addressing Myanmar’s problems, she steadfastly refused to criticize the

country’s military, which has been accused of a vast campaign of killing, rape and

village burning.

“The security forces have been instructed to adhere strictly to the code of conduct in

carrying out security operations, to exercise all due restraint and to take full measures to

avoid collateral damage and the harming of innocent civilians,” she said.

It has been a stunning reversal for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 72, who was awarded the

1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her “nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.”

As she spoke, more than 400,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority long repressed by the

Buddhists who dominate Myanmar, had fled a military massacre that the United

Nations has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The lucky ones are

suffering in makeshift camps in Bangladesh where there is not nearly enough food or

medical aid.

A stark satellite analysis by Human Rights Watch shows that at least 210 Rohingya

villages have been burned to the ground since the offensive beganon Aug. 25.

Bangladeshi officials say land mines had been planted on Myanmar’s side of the

border, posing a threat to the fleeing Rohingya.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi tried to mollify her critics by saying she was committed to

restoring peace and the rule of law.


https://www.nytimes.com/by/richard-c-paddock


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-accepts-nobel-peace-prize.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-accepts-nobel-peace-prize.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/world/asia/rohingya-villages.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/world/asia/rohingya-villages.html



“We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence,” she said. “We feel

deeply for the suffering of all the people caught up in the conflict.”

But, asking why the world did not acknowledge the progress made in her country, she

also boasted that Muslims living in the violence-torn area had ample access to health

care and radio broadcasts. And she expressed uncertainty about why Muslims might be

fleeing the country, even as she sidestepped evidence of widespread abuses by the

security forces by saying there had been “allegations and counter-allegations.”

Her speech was remarkably similar in language to that of the generals who had locked

her up for the better part of two decades, in the process making her a political legend:

the regal prisoner of conscience who vanquished the military with no weapons but her

principles.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the assassinated independence hero Aung

San, who founded the modern Burmese Army. She is a member of the country’s elite,

from the highest class of the ethnic Bamar Buddhist majority.

Officials in her government have accused the Rohingya, who have suffered decades of

persecution and have been mostly stripped of their citizenship, of faking rape and

burning their own houses in a bid to hijack international public opinion. She has done

nothing to correct the record.

A Facebook page associated with her office suggested that international aid groups

were colluding with Rohingya militants, whose attack on Myanmar police posts and an

army base precipitated the fierce military counteroffensive. In a statement, her

government labeled the insurgent strikes “brutal acts of terrorism.”

During her address, made from a vast convention center in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s

capital, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi tried to evoke a program of grand goals including

democratic transition, peace, stability and development.

But she also cautioned that the country’s long experience with authoritarian rule and

nearly seven decades of ethnic conflict in Myanmar’s frontier lands have frayed

national unity.

“People expect us to overcome all these challenges in as short a time as possible,” she

said, noting that her civilian government only took office last year. “Eighteen months is

a very short time in which to expect us to meet and overcome all the challenges that we

are facing.”

There were worrisome signs from the moment she entered a power-sharing agreement

with the military after her National League for Democracy won the 2015 elections.

Myanmar’s generals — who ruled the country for nearly half a century and turned a

resource-rich land also known as Burma into an economic failure — stage-managed

every facet of the political transition. The Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar Army is known,

kept the most important levers of power for itself.


https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/world/asia/myanmar-election-results-aung-san-suu-kyi-parliament-majority.html

It also effectively relegated Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to the post of state counselor by

designing a Constitution that kept her from the presidency.

“It’s always a dance with the generals,” said U Win Htein, an N.L.D. party elder and

former military officer, who served alongside some of the Tatmadaw’s highest-ranking

generals.

He warned that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had to placate an army with a history of pushing

aside civilian leaders under the pretext of defending national sovereignty.

“The army, they are watching her every word,” he said. “One misstep on the Muslim

issue, and they can make their move.”

Yet even before the compromises that accompanied her ascension to power, Ms. Aung

San Suu Kyi was already distancing herself from the hopes invested in her by the rest

of the world.

“Let me be clear that I would like to be seen as a politician, not some human rights

icon,” she said in an interview shortly after her release from house arrest in 2010.

Such a recasting of her role has disappointed Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel

Peace Prize laureates. In an open letter, Desmond Tutu, the South African former

archbishop, advised his “dearly beloved younger sister” that “if the political price of

your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too

steep.”

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur and recipient of the prize in

2006, was more pointed.

“She should not have received a Nobel Peace Prize if she says, sorry, I’m a politician,

and the norms of democracy don’t suit me,” he said in a telephone interview with The

New York Times. “The whole world stood by her for decades, but today she has

become the mirror image of Aung San Suu Kyi by destroying human rights and

denying citizenship to the Rohingya.”

“All we can do,” he said, “is pray for the return of the old Aung San Suu Kyi.”

Beyond her personal legacy, the direction of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s leadership

carries global consequence.

“This is a democratic moment, and she represents Burma’s democratic promise,” said

Derek Mitchell, the former American ambassador to Myanmar. “The country sits at the

crossroads of Asia in a region where democracy is in retreat, which makes Burma’s

success even more important.”

In Tuesday’s speech, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, acknowledged the state of democracy in

her country.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/world/asia/14myanmar.html

“We are a young and fragile democracy facing many problems,” she said, “but we have

to cope with them all at the same time.”

But she also stressed that “more than 50 percent” of Rohingya villages in Myanmar’s

western state of Rakhine remained “intact.” And she seemed to borrow vocabulary

from a self-help manual when she described the need to research why certain villages

had not been touched by the violence.

“We have to remove the negative and increase the positive,” she said.

Through all of the current Rohingya crisis, and a series of military offensives against

other ethnic armed groups, she has publicly supported the military.

“We do not have any trust in Aung San Suu Kyi because she was born into the

military,” said Hkapra Hkun Awng, a leader of the Kachin ethnic group from northern

Myanmar, one of more than a dozen minorities whose rebel armies have fought the

Tatmadaw over the decades. “She is more loyal to her own people than to the ethnics.

Her blood is thicker than a promise of national reconciliation.”

Even before the mudslinging of the 2015 election campaign, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi

was sidestepping questions about the sectarian violence in Rakhine that

disproportionately affected the Rohingya. Rather than condemning pogroms against the

persecuted Muslim minority, she has dismissed accusations of ethnic cleansing and

called, instead, for rule of law to solve any problem.

Because most Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship by the military, it has not

been clear how any laws might apply to them. Even though Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said

Tuesday that Myanmar was prepared to repatriate refugees who can establish that they

are residents of Myanmar, that may be a formidable task for people who are unlikely to

have documents proving that.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has largely shielded herself from the media and has holed up in

the capital. Although a year ago, as the nation’s new civilian leader, she attended the

United Nations General Assembly, and was celebrated by world leaders, this year she

chose not to attend, avoiding criticism of her stance on the Rohingya.

Several heads of state who spoke on the General Assembly’s first day of speeches on

Tuesday in New York assailed Myanmar for the Rohingya crackdown, with some

describing it as an anti-Muslim atrocity.

The president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, whose country’s population of nearly

200 million is nearly half Muslim, said “the Myanmar crisis is very reminiscent of what

happened in Bosnia in 1995 and in Rwanda in 1994.” The president of Turkey, Recep

Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is majority Muslim and who spoke with Ms. Aung San

Suu Kyi recently, said the Rohingya had been “subjected to almost an ethnic cleansing,

with provocative terrorist acts used as a pretext.”


Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is attuned enough to public sentiment to understand the deep

reservoir of anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar. If anything, her equivocations on the

Rohingya have given currency to the widely held assumption in Myanmar that they are

illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who have occupied land that rightfully belongs to

the Burmese.

Since Myanmar’s political transition began, a virulent strain of Buddhist extremism has

pushed such attitudes further into the mainstream. Influential monks have preached

anti-Muslim rhetoric and pushed successfully for a law that circumscribes interfaith

marriage.

“Buddhist nationalist radicalism has been allowed to spread basically unchecked,” said

Min Zin, the executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar. “The

government is doing very little to stop it.”

Satellite Images Show More Than 200

Rohingya Villages Burned in Myanmar

By SERGIO PEÇANHA and JEREMY WHITE SEPT. 18, 2017

An analysis of satellite images from

Myanmar found that hundreds of villages

of the Rohingya ethnic minority have been

set on fire since late August

Myar Zin village


https://www.nytimes.com/by/sergio-pecanha

https://www.nytimes.com/by/jeremy-white

May 23, 2017

Sept. 16, 2017

Nwar Yon Taung village


May 25, 2017

Sept. 16, 2017

Villages set on fire

On Aug. 25, a Rohingya militant group staged a series of attacks against police outposts in

Rakhine state. In response, Myanmar’s military and local Buddhist vigilante groups began a

crackdown on the Rohingya, a Muslim minority.


Villages that have

been set on fire

Taungpyoletwea

MYANMAR

Myar Zin

BANGLADESH

Yae Twin Kyun

Buthidaung

Nwar Yon Taung

Maungdaw

MYANMAR

Rakhine

State

Bay of Bengal

10 MILES

The New York Times |Source: Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch conducted an analysis of satellite imagery, counting at least 200 villages

burned down in the offensive, which the United Nations has called “a textbook example of ethnic

cleansing.”




Yae Twin Kyun village

May 23, 2017

Sept. 16, 2017

The photograph below shows that on Thursday, smoke from fires in Myanmar was visible from

Shah Porir Dwip, a coastal town across the border in Bangladesh.

Smoke from fires in Myanmar was seen from Bangladesh on Thursday. Dar Yasin/Associated

Press


More than 400,000 Rohingya refugees, many of them women, children and seniors, desperately

fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the middle of monsoon season. Below, a photograph from

Sept. 12 shows one of the villages near Maungdaw that was attacked in Myanmar’s campaign

against the Rohingya people.

The remnants of a house in a village near Maungdaw. Reuters

Many reported that their villages had been burned down and that those who stayed were killed.

Dozens of overcrowded makeshift camps have emerged across the border, like the one below,

near the Bangladeshi village of Gumdhum.

Thyangkhali refugee camp in Bangladesh. Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse -- Getty

Images

Source: Satellite images from DigitalGlobe via Human Rights Watch
