YANGON: Muslim Rohingya insurgents said on Saturday they are ready to respond to any peace move by the Myanmar government but a one-month cease-fire they declared to enable the delivery of aid in violence-racked Rakhine State is about to end.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) did not say what action it would take after the cease-fire ends at midnight on Monday but it was “determined to stop the tyranny and oppression” waged against the Rohingya people.
“If at any stage, the Burmese government is inclined to peace, then ARSA will welcome that inclination and reciprocate,” the group said in a statement.
Government spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.
When the ARSA announced its one-month cease-fire from Sept. 10, a government spokesman said: “We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”
The rebels launched coordinated attacks on about 30 security posts and an army camp on Aug. 25 with the help of hundreds of disaffected Rohingya villagers, many wielding sticks or machetes, killing about a dozen people.
In response, the military unleashed a sweeping offensive across the north of Rakhine State, driving more than half a million Rohingya villagers into Bangladesh in what the United Nations branded a textbook example of “ethnic cleansing.”
Myanmar rejects that. It says more than 500 people have been killed in the fighting, most of them “terrorists” who have been attacking civilians and torching villages.
The ability of the ARSA, which only surfaced in October last year, to mount any sort of challenge to the Myanmar army is not known but it does not appear to have been able to put up resistance to the military offensive unleashed in August.
Inevitably, there are doubts about how the insurgents can operate in areas where the military has driven out the civilian population, cutting the insurgents off from recruits, food, funds and information.
The ARSA accused the government of using murder, arson and rape as “tools of depopulation.”
The ARSA denies links to foreign Islamists.
In an interview with Reuters in March, ARSA leader Ata Ullah linked the creation of the group to communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine in 2012, when nearly 200 people were killed and 140,000, mostly Rohingya, displaced.
The group says it is fighting for the rights of the Rohingya, who have never been regarded as an indigenous minority in Myanmar and so have been denied citizenship under a law that links nationality to ethnicity.
The group repeated their demand that Rohingya be recognized as a “native indigenous” ethnic group, adding that all Rohingya people should be allowed “to return home safely with dignity ... to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
The Rohingya have long faced discrimination and repression in Rakhine State where bad blood between them and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, stemming from violence by both sides, goes back generations.
The ARSA condemned the government for blocking humanitarian assistance in Rakhine and said it was willing to discuss cease-fires with international organizations so aid could be delivered.
Some 515,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh but thousands remain in Rakhine.
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced scathing criticism for not doing more to stop the violence, although a military-drafted constitution gives her no power over the security forces.
Suu Kyi has condemned rights abuses and said Myanmar was ready to start a process agreed with Bangladesh in 1993 by which anyone verified as a refugee would be accepted back.
Many refugees fear they will not have the paperwork they believe Myanmar will demand to allow them back.
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Rohingya insurgents open to peace but Myanmar cease-fire ending
Rohingya insurgents open to peace but Myanmar cease-fire ending
China executes 11 linked to Myanmar scam compounds
- Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users have flourished across Southeast Asia
- The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in Wenzhou
BEIJING: China executed 11 people linked telecom scam operations, on Thursday, state media reported, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
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