DT e-Paper, Saturday, October 15, 2016

World
Terrified residents flee Rakhine state
as Myanmar crackdown widens
• Tribune International Desk
Towns and villages across northern
Rakhine state were deserted
on Friday, as terrified residents
fled a deadly military crackdown
on foot and by air, fearing Myanmar’s
restive western state could
once again be ripped apart by violence,
reports AFP.
Local officials believe hundreds
of people from the area,
home to many from the persecuted
Muslim Rohingya minority,
spent months planning attacks on
police posts along the Bangladesh
border that sparked the crisis this
week.
Twenty-six civilians have died
in the ensuing military lockdown,
state media reported -- rights
groups say the army is gunning
down unarmed Muslims on the
streets but the army say troops
are defending themselves against
attack.
Law enforcement said 50 “violent
attackers” tried several times
to overrun a security office on
Thursday but were repelled by police
and soldiers.
Families have been streaming
out of Maungdaw on foot, their
worldly possessions stuffed into
carrier bags and plastic buckets
or strapped to the front of bicycle
rickshaws.
Around 180 teachers, workers
and residents were also airlifted
out of the region at the epicentre
of the crisis, while hundreds
of government staff have poured
into the state capital Sittwe.
Journalists said Maungdaw
town and nearby villages were
like ghost towns, with shops shuttered
and armed police on patrol.
Many of those fleeing are local
Buddhists, who make up the majority
of the country but account
for less than 10 percent of the
population in northern Rakhine,
where most people are Muslim
Rohingya.
Long-simmering animosity
between the two groups erupted
into communal violence in
2012 that ripped the impoverished
state apart, leaving more than 100
dead and driving tens of thousands
of Rohingya into squalid
displacement camps.
“Many Rakhines are going back
to Sittwe,” said a resident of Buthidaung,
a town close to Maungdaw,
too scared to give his name.
“We are also afraid here because
the attackers ran away with
guns.”
A journalist reported seeing
clouds of smoke billowing from a
village Thursday near charred remains
of two dozen bamboo houses
that the military said had been
torched by “terrorists”.
Armed military troops and police force travel in trucks through Maungdaw, located in Rakhine State, on
October 14, 2016 as the government announced that terror groups were behind the series of attacks
Towns and villages across northern Rakhine state were deserted on October 14, as terrified residents fled a deadly military
crackdown on foot and by air, fearing Myanmar’s restive western state could once again be ripped apart by violence AFP
Myanmar
Maungdaw
NAYPYIDAW
RAKHINE
CHINA
150 km
The Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation issued a statement
calling for calm, after receiving
“disturbing reports of extra-judicial
killings of Rohingya Muslims,
burning of houses, and arbitrary
arrests by security forces”.
Jihadist videos
Rakhine state government spokesman
Min Aung said a group of 200-
300 border-post assailants had
spent months plotting the raids,
which were originally intended to
hit as many as seven targets.
It is not clear who carried out
Sunday’s border-post assaults,
though local officials have publically
pointed the finger at Rohingya
insurgents and others have privately
blamed Bangladeshi groups
across the border.
The military said late Thursday
troops had captured a fifth suspect,
along with a gun, ammunition
and flags featuring the logo
of the RSO, a Rohingya militant
group long considered defunct.
A journalist in the village
where they were said to be found
was prevented from investigating
by soldiers, who said they were
concerned attackers had laid landmines
after a blast on the first day.
The RSO vigorously denied involvement
in a statement.
But videos showing armed men
speaking the Rohingya language
calling for jihad that have been
circulating on social media have
raised concerns some others from
the persecuted minority may be
turning toward militancy.
“The videos appear to be entirely
authentic,” Anthony Davis,
a security analyst with IHS-Jane’s,
told said.
He noted the speaker in the
first video uses the Chittagong
dialect of Bengali spoken by the
Rohingya, while the old guns and
swords they carry match the kind
authorities claim were used in the
border post raids.
“The footage shows what appear
to be a rabble of typical Rohingya
youths -- poorly dressed,
ill-equipped and apparently untrained.”
Matthew Smith, chief executive
of activist group Fortify
Rights, said the videos appear to
show Rohingya located in the Myanmar-Bangladesh
border areas
-- though where exactly is unclear.
An aide of Myanmar’s de facto
leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, refused
to confirm whether the video was
real, but said the government
“doesn’t feel worried” about it.
The Nobel laureate has faced international
criticism for not doing
more to help the Rohingya, and on
Wednesday she vowed to follow
the rule of law when investigating
the border guard attacks. •
9
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2016
USA
US eases Cuba trade and
travel restrictions
DT
The US on Friday announced new
measures to further ease trade, travel
and financial restrictions on Cuba.
The changes, will allow export to
Cuba of some US consumer goods
sold online and let US firms improve
Cuban infrastructure for humanitarian
purposes. They also lift limits
on the amount of Cuban rum and
cigars US travellers can bring home
for personal use. -REUTERS
THE AMERICAS
UN chief to visit hurricanehit
Haiti
UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon will travel to Haiti on
Saturday to visit areas devastated
by Hurricane Matthew as a UN
funding appeal for the Caribbean
nation drew few donors. UN has
launched a flash appeal for $120m
to help Haiti cope with its worst
humanitarian crisis since the 2010
earthquake. Only $6.1m has been
raised so far, equal to 5% of the
total appeal, said UN spokesman
Dujarric. - AFP
UK
British FM eyes ‘military
options’ in Syria
Britain should consider military
options in Syria but they are still
a distant prospect and could only
happen in a coalition with the United
States, foreign minister Boris
Johnson said Thursday. “It is right
now we should be looking again at
the more kinetic, military options,”
said Johnson, who is due to host
talks on the conflict with other
Western powers on Sunday. -AFP
EUROPE
Italy to send troops to
Nato mission in Latvia
Italy will send about 140 troops
to join a Nato mission in Latvia
set up to boost defences against a
possible Russian attack, Foreign
Minister Paolo Gentiloni said
on Friday. The Western defence
alliance agreed in July to deploy
military forces in the Baltic states
and eastern Poland for the first
time and increase air and sea
patrols. -REUTERS
AFRICA
30 killed in Central African
Republic fighting
30 people were killed and 57 others
wounded during an attack on refugees
by Seleka militia in the north
of Central African Republic on
Wednesday. Avenging what they
said was the recent murder of four
young Muslims in the remote town
of dirt roads and thatched mud
huts, armed Seleka stabbed and
hacked to death refugees who had
fled previous violence in the region
and set fire to buildings. -REUTERS