BANGKOK: Several hundred Buddhist nationalists, including monks, rallied in Myanmar’s largest city on Wednesday to urge stronger action against insurgents from the Muslim Rohingya minority for attacks on police last week.
The attacks in Rakhine state in western Myanmar have spiraled into chaotic violence, with more than 100 dead and villages torched.
At least 18,000 Rohingya have fled the violence and crossed into Bangladesh in less than a week, with hundreds stranded in a no man’s land at the countries’ border, the International Organization for Migration said Wednesday.
The army, responding to last Thursday’s attacks, launched what it called clearance operations against the insurgents, but advocates for the Rohingya say they are attacking and burning Rohingya villages, shooting civilians and causing others to flee.
The government blames Rohingya insurgents and their sympathizers for the continuing violence. Government figures put the death toll since last week at a minimum of 103, including 12 members of security forces, 77 people described as insurgents and 14 civilians. There were reports of additional deaths Wednesday.
Rohingya advocates fear the death toll for civilians is much higher.
Most of Myanmar’s estimated 1 million Rohingya live in northern Rakhine state. They face severe persecution in the Buddhist-majority country, which refuses to recognize them as a legitimate native ethnic minority, leaving them without citizenship and basic rights.
Longstanding tension between the Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in bloody rioting in 2012. That set off a surge of anti-Muslim feeling throughout the country.
Wirathu, a Buddhist monk and leader of the anti-Muslim movement who is known for virulent sermons, told Wednesday’s protesters in Yangon that only the military can control the situation in northern Rakhine.
He criticized the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi for not responding quickly to the army’s call Tuesday for a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, which could declare a state of emergency in Rakhine and give the military absolute authority to enforce it. The military holds a majority on the council, which was created by the 2008 military-drafted constitution.
“Only the military’s commander in chief can protect the lives and the properties of the people,” Wirathu said. “The military is the only one that can give a lesson to tame the Bengali terrorists.” Myanmar nationalists use the term Bengali for Rohingya because of a belief they migrated illegally from Bangladesh, even though many families have been in Myanmar for generations.
Wirathu also denounced international aid groups that the government has accused, without evidence, of giving assistance to the Rohingya insurgents. The allegations have circulated widely on social media.
The Information Ministry said Wednesday that 45 homemade bombs were detonated and seven villages, one security post and two neighborhoods in the township of Maungdaw were burned down on Sunday and Monday.
Maungdaw, in the northern part of Rakhine state, is a center of the violence, though villages over a much wider area were also hit.
Sanjukta Sahany, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on the border with Myanmar, said the Rohingya crisis was not just an issue between Myanmar and Bangladesh but of international concern.
Ali Hossain, Cox’s Bazar district’s top government official, told The Associated Press that its resources were under huge stress after some 87,000 Rohingya entered Bangladesh since October last year and another 18,000 since last Friday.
The UN refugee organization on Tuesday urged Bangladesh to continue to allow Rohingya fleeing violence to seek safety. It said it was ready to help Bangladesh with assistance for the refugees.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked the United States on Wednesday to pressure Myanmar so its government would stop pushing Rohingya toward Bangladesh, her spokesman said.
Hasina made the request during talks with Alice Wells, US acting assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said Ihsanul Karim, Hasina’s press secretary.
The insurgent raids last Thursday were deadlier than an attack by the militants on three border posts last October that killed nine policemen and set off months of brutal counterinsurgency operations against Rohingya communities. Human rights groups accused the army of carrying out massive abuses, including killing, rape and burning down more than 1,000 homes and other buildings.
Myanmar Buddhists seek tougher action against Rohingya
Myanmar Buddhists seek tougher action against Rohingya
UK ‘morally incoherent’ in supplying arms to Israel, aid to Gaza: Oxfam chief
- Halima Begum criticizes stance of Britain, Western leaders
LONDON: Providing arms to Israel while offering humanitarian aid to Gaza at the same time is “intellectually and morally incoherent,” the head of Oxfam GB has told The Guardian.
The remarks followed Oxfam’s approval to formally intervene in a legal challenge opposing UK arms sales to Israel.
The judicial review is being brought by the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the majority being women and children, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.
Recent government data shows that the UK issued 108 arms export licenses to Israel between the Oct. 7 attacks and May 31, without rejecting or revoking any during this period.
Halima Begum, Oxfam GB’s chief executive, who recently returned from Israel and the occupied West Bank, criticized the UK’s stance.
She told The Guardian: “Whether you say they are components or whole weapons (being sold) is a moot point, because individual components collectively constitute these devices that are killing so many innocent people.
“The UK needs to stop selling these arms. The government can’t simultaneously give humanitarian aid and talk about its aspirations for peace in the region, then also ship bombs — it’s intellectually and morally incoherent.
“That the law doesn’t prevent the trade seems immaterial. If you knowingly sell weapons that are being used to kill thousands of innocent children and their parents, why would you continue?”
While Begum was unable to enter Gaza due to Israel’s attack on Rafah, she said she was left “shell-shocked” after hearing firsthand accounts of the humanitarian crisis from Palestinian colleagues evacuated from the enclave.
She highlighted historical precedents for the UK and US refusing to arm Israel, noting decisions in 1982 and 2002.
Begum said: “Margaret Thatcher halted weapons exports to Israel during the Lebanon War. Ronald Reagan suspended shipments of cluster munitions in July 1982 and he was reportedly so shocked by images of dismembered Palestinian children in a bombardment on Aug. 12 that he warned Israeli PM Menachem Begin ‘our entire future relations are at stake if this continues.’
“Israel ordered a complete ceasefire before the day was out. So, it wouldn’t be the first time a British or US government has drawn a moral line.”
She added: “Gazan children are being bombed, suffering from malnutrition and facing potential famine and the UK still can’t constrain the Israeli military. It defies belief we’d support this action; our humanity seems to be seeping away.”
Begum also noted that the Global South was largely unified on the need for action regarding Gaza and that it appeared to be “only Western leaders that don’t see what is morally the right thing to do.”
She added: “If you have a friend and their behavior is atrocious, you’re still able to say, ‘Look, as friends, you shouldn’t be doing that.’ That doesn’t mean you can’t offer your support to a friend.
“I feel as though that whole construction around Israel’s right to self-defense, every country has a right to defend themselves, but not at the cost of humanitarian law being ripped up in shreds, without any reference to human rights on the ground.”
The UK government declined to comment.
Saudi crown prince receives Eid Al-Adha greetings from Bahraini king
- King Hamad lauded the exceptional organization witnessed during this year's Hajj season
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received a phone call on Sunday from Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa during which they exchanged with them Eid Al-Adha greetings, Saudi Press Agency reported.
King Hamad lauded the exceptional organization witnessed during this year's Hajj season, which facilitated pilgrims performing their religious rituals with safety and ease.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman expressed his gratitude to King Hamad for his noble sentiments, asking God to accept the pilgrims’ Hajj and good deeds.
Frankly Speaking: Can Lebanon ever have an ‘independent’ president?
- Ziad Hayek explains how he would fix the economy and break the political deadlock without Hezbollah’s support
- Presidential candidate weighs in on relations with the GCC bloc and whether a war with Israel is now inevitable
DUBAI: People familiar with Lebanon’s sectarian politics and power camps are typically skeptical about the likelihood and success of a truly independent candidate for the presidency — a position that has been vacant since October 2022.
However, Ziad Hayek, who claims to be an independent, says that the current parliamentary climate makes it possible to stand successfully and work effectively as a president representing none of the main political camps.
“The makeup of parliament for the first time in Lebanon is such that it allows us to do that,” said Hayek during an appearance on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking.”
“The two general factions that are defined by either pro-Hezbollah or against Hezbollah and pro-Western camp or pro-East, these two larger factions are almost equally divided in parliament. And neither side is able or has been able for the past year and a half to get their candidate elected.
“And so I think that they need to come to terms with that situation. They need to focus on finding a president, a candidate that they can both feel comfortable with, and yet does not belong to either side.”
Challenged by “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen on whether he really stands a chance of success without aligning himself with Hezbollah, Hayek said only an independent could help the country to break with the past.
“The focus that I have today is on making sure that I’m an acceptable candidate to all sides, because all factions have to be comfortable, and I wouldn’t want to be the candidate of either side. That’s why I’m running as an independent candidate,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we are not going to move Lebanon from the mud … unless we really get to understand the issues that all the parties face and air concerns and allay their concerns. So that applies to Hezbollah and it applies to all the other parties.”
Hezbollah has significant support among the Shiite population of Lebanon and even among many Maronite Christians, including presidential contender Gebran Bassil — the son-in-law of former President Michel Aoun, who took office thanks to his backing of Hezbollah.
Given the political clout of Hezbollah and Lebanon’s other big parties, can an independent hope to break through? Hayek says it is precisely because these big hitters have consistently failed to get their own candidates elected that an independent can break the deadlock.
“Of course, I do understand that Hezbollah has an influential role in this election,” he said. “I don’t discount that. But so do other parties. Hezbollah has not been able to get its candidate elected so far, and neither have the other parties.
“Yes, I do understand that people may think that my position is a bit unrealistic simply because Lebanon has not had this type of situation before. But I think it is in this situation that we have the opportunity to break away from the past and look to Lebanon’s future in a different way.”
Hayek is not new to Lebanese politics. In 2006, he joined the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, becoming secretary general of the Republic of Lebanon’s High Council for Privatization and PPP until he was nominated to be president of the World Bank in 2019.
Having witnessed the devastating 2006 war, the financial crash of late 2019, the economic toll of the pandemic, the destruction of the Beirut port blast of Aug. 4, 2020, the government’s paralysis since October 2022, and now a low-intensity conflict on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, one has to wonder: Why on earth would he want to be president?
“I want this job because I really feel that this place is one of the best countries in the world with so much potential,” he said. “And yet the political discourse in it has been going in the wrong direction. And I would like to change that.
“I’m hoping to be able to change the political dialogue, focus more on socio-economic matters, how to develop the country, how to develop its economy, rather than continuing the conversation that usually takes place about ‘this faction wants this guy’ and ‘this faction wants that guy.’
“None of these candidates have presented any program, any vision for the future. So I would like to change the way that the Lebanese public looks at politics in general, and focus on policies.”
Bridging the political divide in Lebanon’s multi-confessional system that emerged after the civil war would be a tall order for any experienced politician with a party machine to back them up.
Hayek is confident that his background in finance, helping governments balance their books and facilitate reform, makes him ideally suited to getting even the bitterest of rivals to work together for the public good.
“I have made a career of being able to work with people that everybody else said: ‘No, you cannot work with this guy. You cannot work with this group,’” he said.
“The Lebanese public in general is really yearning for somebody that can address the needs that it has and the daily needs of the Lebanese citizen, not just the geopolitics of America and Iran and all this conversation that really leads nowhere at the end of the day for the common person on the street.”
Like it or not, Lebanon’s destiny is tied up in geopolitics. In fact, Hezbollah’s Iranian backers and their Israeli rivals have turned the country into a battlefield in their ongoing shadow war.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has launched daily rocket and drone attacks against Israel’s northern territories to draw fire away from its Hamas allies.
Israel has retaliated with its own air and artillery strikes against southern Lebanon, leading to fears of an escalation that could drag the wider region into a major confrontation.
Asked whether a full-scale war can be averted, sparing Lebanon a devastating Israeli invasion it can ill afford to fight, Hayek said he was hopeful “cooler heads will eventually prevail.”
“Both the Israelis and the Lebanese, including Hezbollah, have to realize, all of us, that these wars lead nowhere,” he said. “It’s just destruction on both sides. And at the end of the day, this conflict has gone on for decades. And all these wars end with some compromise and some agreement on a ceasefire that lasts for a certain period of time.
“We need to move towards finding a lasting peace. And the makings of that were already starting to happen when Lebanon reached an agreement on the delineation of the maritime borders with Israel. There was work that was continuing, helped along by the Americans.
“Unfortunately, this Gaza situation came up and changed things. But I think when the dust settles, we do need to go back to working on the task of making sure that we build a lasting peace.
“For now, it is a terrible situation. There is no doubt about it. I think that cooler heads will eventually prevail as they always do in every conflict. And we will see some agreement between the parties.”
Nevertheless, the rhetoric from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has continued to grow more hostile and the spate of cross-border attack more deadly, leaving some to conclude a full-scale war seems inevitable.
“Israel knows that it is in its best interest not to engage in a war in Lebanon that it cannot win,” said Hayek. “Lebanon is not Gaza. It’s going to be a lot more difficult. It’s something that Israel has experienced in the past, and I don’t think the Israelis wish to escalate the war in Lebanon.
“But continuing to play with fire, tit for tat and all of that, is not helpful because we are a hair trigger away from an escalation. I mean, any day there can be a strike that goes wrong beyond the normally accepted, currently accepted type of trading fire between the two parties.
“And such a situation can lead to a very fast escalation that may draw even regional powers into the equation. And I think that nobody wants that, really.”
Even if the region is spared a major war, Lebanon still has to contend with a broken economy, rampant corruption, shattered infrastructure, mass unemployment, extreme poverty, and a generation of young people who have fled abroad.
If he becomes president, how would Hayek go about untangling such a colossal mess?
“I have presented a plan specifically for Lebanon to get out of its financial crisis,” he said. “It is built on converting the bank deposits into tradeable CDs (certificates of deposit) on the Beirut Stock Exchange to enable the capital markets to come back to life again.
“It involves using some of the gold reserves to create funds for social development and for economic development. It includes regaining the ability of the government not to raise taxes but to collect taxes in order to pay for the services it needs to deliver to the Lebanese public. So I do have some ideas.
“I think that the International Monetary Fund’s approval is very important because we do need the seal of approval of the IMF to regain the confidence of investors. But I think there are many ways to discuss with the IMF what could be acceptable to them as well as taking the Lebanese reality into consideration.”
Hayek also wants to see Lebanon revive its economic ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council bloc, allowing Lebanese companies to prosper from investment opportunities, in particular Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 agenda.
“The relationship with the GCC is crucial,” he said. “Those countries are the hosts of hundreds of thousands, or tens of thousands of Lebanese that are working there. So they are very important currently to our economy with the remittances of these people.
“But also, of course, the Lebanese are contributing to the growth and development that is happening in the region because the Lebanese working there are highly educated, highly skilled, able to contribute in a big way.
“This mutual relationship of benefits needs to be strengthened. I think that with Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia and other plans in the UAE and other countries, these are big opportunities for the Lebanese, big opportunities for Lebanon to solidify its relationships with those countries and governments and projects and as well as for them to see that they already know that Lebanon has much to offer to contribute towards their success.”
Hajj pilgrims reach Jamarat Bridge
- It is here Muslims believe devil tried to talk Prophet Ibrahim out of submitting to God’s will
- Pilgrims then return to Makkah to do Tawaf, circumambulation of Kaaba
RIYADH: Hajj pilgrims on Sunday reached Jamarat Bridge as they advanced through Mina for the final rite, the stoning of the devil, on the first day of Tashreeq.
It is here that Muslims believe the devil tried to talk the Prophet Ibrahim out of submitting to God’s will. On the 10th day of Dul Hijjah, Hajj pilgrims collect small stones that they throw at three pillars in the Jamarat Al-Aqaba, representing the devil.
Huge crowds lined up to perform the rite, many holding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. The pilgrims say “Allah-u Akbar” (“God is the greatest”) each time they cast a pebble.
Pilgrims can stone the pillars any time from midday to midnight on the day of the ritual.
After finishing the ritual, male pilgrims traditionally shave or cut their hair and change out of their ihram. Women cut a lock of their hair.
The ihram symbolizes equality, religious unity and the pursuit of spiritual renewal.
Security guards sprayed the pilgrims with water as they braved searing heat to reach the Jamarat complex. Temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius have been recorded at the Hajj this year.
The pilgrims will then return to Makkah to do Tawaf, the circumambulation of the Kaaba.
Junaid Nizami, a pilgrim from Pakistan, told Arab News that he was impressed by the arrangements in place to ensure the safety of pilgrims.
“My experience in Jamarat was good and they prepared very well for the pilgrims. Also, the system (is created) in a way where no one can clash with each other. There are police, medical staff and helpers who are supporting the people.”
After dawn prayers, when pilgrims leave Muzdalifah and proceed to Jamarat to take part in the stoning rite, women and older pilgrims can delegate this responsibility to a male in their spiritual journey.
Swedish diplomat in ‘seventh heaven’ following release from Iran
- “I have been waiting for this for almost 800 days,” Floderus said
STOCKHOLM: Swedish citizen Johan Floderus said he was in seventh heaven following his release from an Iranian prison on Saturday, in a recording published on the Swedish government’s website on Sunday.
Sweden and Iran carried out a prisoner exchange on Saturday with Sweden freeing a former Iranian official convicted for his role in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in Iran in 1988, while Iran released two Swedes being held there.
“I’m in the sky but emotionally I’m in seventh heaven. I have been waiting for this for almost 800 days,” Floderus said in a recording of a telephone call between him and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson while he was on the flight back to Sweden.
Floderus, a European Union employee, was arrested in Iran in 2022 and charged with spying for Israel and “corruption on earth,” a crime that carries the death penalty.
He said he had dreamt of the day of his release endless times. “Only to later wake up on that damn concrete floor,” he said. “Now it is starting to sink in that I have left Iranian airspace and I am on my way back home again.”
In a radio interview earlier on Sunday, Kristersson dismissed criticism from the wife of Swedish-Iranian dual national, Ahmadreza Djalali, who remains in an Iranian jail after Tehran refused to include him in the exchange.
“I have a lot of respect for her disappointment, but don’t really understand the criticism. The alternative would have been to leave the two Swedes who could now come home,” he told Swedish radio.
