THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

 Indonesia seeks peace in Rakhine

 Indonesia seeks peace in Rakhine

Amid all the in­ter­na­tional and do­mes­tic pres­sure build­ing up around the re­cent out­break of vi­o­lence in Myan­mar's Rakhine state, In­done­sia has launched what is ar­guably one of its most am­bi­tious peace mis­sions to date, field­ing its top diplo­mat to meet with Myan­mar's top brass.

All eyes will be on In­done­sia, which in spite of its con­tin­ued en­gage­ment and his­toric affin­ity to Myan­mar, will still have to prove whether it has enough lever­age to re­solve a multi-faceted prob­lem that has per­sisted through­out many years with­out reach­ing a so­lu­tion to the state­less­ness of the Ro­hingya Mus­lim mi­nor­ity.
Likely goaded by pres­sure from within the coun­try and abroad, Pres­i­dent Joko "Jokowi" Wi­dodo fi­nally broke his si­lence on the re­cent vi­o­lence in Rakhine, as­sert­ing the need to help vic­tims of vi­o­lence and dis­place­ment in a coun­try un­der­go­ing a tran­si­tion to­ward democ­racy.
The most re­cent cy­cle of vi­o­lence, al­legedly in­sti­gated by Ro­hingya mil­i­tants and wors­ened by a mil­i­tary counter-op­er­a­tion last month, has re­sulted in nearly 400 deaths and pushed some 38,000 Ro­hingya to flee across the bor­der into neigh­bor­ing Bangladesh.
Dur­ing an evening press con­fer­ence that fol­lowed For­eign Min­is­ter Retno LP Mar­sudi's de­par­ture to Myan­mar ear­lier that day, Jokowi said the sit­u­a­tion in Rakhine re­quired real ac­tion and not just empty con­dem­na­tion to help the dis­placed peo­ples.
"All of In­done­sia and I deeply re­gret the vi­o­lent acts that are hap­pen­ing in Rakhine state," Jokowi told a press con­fer­ence at the State Palace. "The gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to help in this hu­man­i­tar­ian cri­sis [and] to work to­gether with civil so­ci­eties in In­done­sia and [with the] in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity."
The Pres­i­dent said In­done­sia sent 10 con­tain­ers of food and med­i­cal aid in Jan­uary and Fe­bru­ary. The gov­ern­ment also built a num­ber of schools in Rakhine and is ex­pected to start build­ing a hos­pi­tal next month.
"This af­ter­noon [Sun­day], the for­eign min­is­ter left for Myan­mar to re­quest that [the Myan­mar] gov­ern­ment stop and pre­vent any more vi­o­lence, while also giv­ing pro­tec­tion to its peo­ple, in­clud­ing Mus­lims in Myan­mar, and pro­vide them ac­cess to hu­man­i­tar­ian aid," Jokowi said.
In her high­est pro­file diplo­matic peace mis­sion to date, Retno will be the first for­eign min­is­ter of any coun­try to en­ter Myan­mar and speak di­rectly with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties on the Rakhine cri­sis. The min­is­ter is sure to meet Myan­mar State Coun­sel­lor Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyi­daw on Mon­day, with whom last year she had can­did con­ver­sa­tions on the mat­ter. She is also hop­ing to meet with De­fense Min­is­ter Sr. Gen. U Min Aung Hlaing, the min­is­ter of the Pres­i­den­tial Of­fice, U Kyaw Tint Swe, and Na­tional Se­cu­rity ad­vi­sor U Thaung Tun.
"My visit to Myan­mar car­ries with it the will of the In­done­sian peo­ple, so that we may aid in the hu­man­i­tar­ian cri­sis, while also com­mu­ni­cat­ing the will of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity so that the cri­sis is quickly re­solved." she told re­porters ear­lier on Sun­day.
The min­is­ter has also been asked to com­mu­ni­cate with Bangladeshi au­thor­i­ties to over­see prepa­ra­tions for more hu­man­i­tar­ian aid to be sent next week for the refugees who crossed into the South Asian coun­try.
In the world's largest Mus­lim­ma­jor­ity na­tion, pub­lic opin­ion on the Rakhine is­sue has po­lar­ized in re­cent weeks. Amid the mount­ing rage over the vi­o­lence against the Ro­hingya, a Molo­tov cock­tail was thrown at the Myan­mar Em­bassy in Cen­tral Jakarta on Sun­day at 2:35 a.m.
The gaso­line bomb caused a small fire on the ter­race of the em­bassy, which was later ex­tin­guished by the po­lice. Of­fi­cers later found a shat­tered bot­tle with a wick at­tached to it. Po­lice could not make out how many peo­ple were in­volved. Jakarta Po­lice spokesman Sr. Commr. Argo Yu­wono said the po­lice had ques­tioned six wit­nesses and that of­fi­cers were check­ing CCTV footage. The Ge­gana bomb squad will be de­ployed to se­cure the em­bassy, Argo said.
While the con­text of the at­tack was ap­par­ently clear, the po­lice still could not ab­so­lutely con­clude the at­tack was re­lated to vi­o­lence against Ro­hingya Mus­lims.
In­done­sian In­sti­tute of Sciences (LIPI) re­searcher Sandy Nur Ik­fal said the pub­lic should be more aware of the struc­tural as­pects of the cri­sis, which boil down to com­pe­ti­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tive poli­cies.
"The re­li­gion card has been a main con­cern of mass or­ga­ni­za­tions [in In­done­sia]. It is not com­pletely wrong, but the is­sue would be bet­ter framed as a hu­man­i­tar­ian cri­sis and that ev­ery­one should be pro­tected, what­ever their race or be­liefs," Sandy said on Sun­day.
Myan­mar urged Mus­lims in the trou­bled north­west to co­op­er­ate in the search for in­sur­gents, whose co­or­di­nated at­tacks on se­cu­rity posts and an army crack­down have led to one of the dead­li­est bouts of vi­o­lence to en­gulf the Ro­hingya com­mu­nity in decades.
Aid agen­cies es­ti­mate about 73,000 Ro­hingya have fled into neigh­bor­ing Bangladesh from Myan­mar since vi­o­lence erupted last week, Vi­vian Tan, re­gional spokes­woman for UN refugee agency United Na­tions High Com­mi­sioner fo Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters on Sun­day.
Hun­dreds more refugees on Sun­day walked through rice pad­dies from the Naf river sep­a­rat­ing the two coun­tries into Bangladesh, strain­ing scarce re­sources of aid groups and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties al­ready help­ing tens of thou­sands.
The clashes and mil­i­tary coun­terof­fen­sive have killed nearly 400 peo­ple dur­ing the past week.
The treat­ment of Bud­dhist­ma­jor­ity Myan­mar's roughly 1.1 mil­lion Mus­lim Ro­hingya is the big­gest chal­lenge fac­ing leader Aung San Suu Kyi, ac­cused by Western crit­ics of not speak­ing out for the mi­nor­ity that has long com­plained of per­se­cu­tion.
Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Tayyip Er­do­gan said on Fri­day that vi­o­lence against Mus­lims amounted to geno­cide.
It marks a dra­matic es­ca­la­tion of a con­flict that has sim­mered since Oc­to­ber, when a smaller Ro­hingya at­tack on se­cu­rity posts prompted a mil­i­tary re­sponse dogged by al­le­ga­tions of rights abuses.
"Is­lamic vil­lagers in north­ern Maungtaw have been urged over loud­speak­ers to co­op­er­ate when se­cu­rity forces search for Arakan Ro­hingya Sal­va­tion Army [ARSA] ex­trem­ist ter­ror­ists, and not to pose a threat or bran­dish weapons when se­cu­rity forces en­ter their vil­lages," the state-run Global New Light of Myan­mar said on Sun­day.
ARSA has been de­clared a ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion by the gov­ern­ment. The group claimed re­spon­si­bil­ity for co­or­di­nated at­tacks on se­cu­rity posts last week.
In Maungni vil­lage in north­ern Rakhine, vil­lagers ear­lier this week caught two ARSA mem­bers and handed them over to the au­thor­i­ties, the news­pa­per added.
The army wrote in a Face­book post on Sun­day that Ro­hingya in­sur­gents had set fires to monas­ter­ies, im­ages of Bud­dha as well as schools and houses in north­ern Rakhine.
More than 200 build­ings, in­clud­ing houses and shops, were de­stroyed across sev­eral vil­lages, the army said.
While Myan­mar of­fi­cials blamed the ARSA for the burn­ing of the homes, Ro­hingya flee­ing to Bangladesh and hu­man rights watch­ers say a cam­paign of ar­son and killings by the army is aimed at try­ing to force the mi­nor­ity group out.
More than 11,700 "eth­nic res­i­dents" had been evac­u­ated from north­ern Rakhine, the gov­ern­ment has said, re­fer­ring to non-Mus­lims.
In Bangladesh, au­thor­i­ties said at least 53 bod­ies of Ro­hingya had ei­ther been found float­ing in the Naf river or washed up on the beach in the past week, as tens of thou­sands con­tinue to try to flee the vi­o­lence
 

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