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	Survivors of Myanmar"s sectarian violence relive ordeals by Reuters & agencies   Apr 2014   UN expert raises alarm on Rakhine State.   The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, today pressed the alarm bell on the further deterioration of the human rights situation in Rakhine State.   “Recent developments in Rakhine State are the latest in a long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community which could amount to crimes against humanity.” He warned that the evacuation of aid workers, following the recent attacks on UN and NGO premises in Sittwe, “will only increase the vulnerability of this community”.   “These workers were in Rakhine State providing essential life-saving support, including health services, water and food to internally displaced persons, isolated villages, and other affected communities,” he explained. “The withdrawal of these workers will have severe consequences on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, including the right to life.”   Water availability could reach critical levels within a week in some displacement camps, particularly in Pauktaw. The impact on healthcare will be particularly severe for the 140,000 people still in such camps in Rakhine State and the 700,000 vulnerable people outside the camps.   Mr. Ojea Quintana noted the Government’s commitment last week to ensure the safety and protection of UN and other international agencies’ personnel, and underlined the need for the prompt return of all humanitarian staff so that their life-saving work can resume with all communities.   Prior to these latest developments, in his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council in March the Special Rapporteur reported that, taking into consideration the information and allegations he had received throughout his six years on the mandate, crimes against humanity may have been committed in Rakhine State.   The Special Rapporteur also expressed concern about the ongoing census in Myanmar: “The Government’s decision against self-identification of the Rohingya for the census is not in compliance with international human rights standards,” he stressed.   Self-identification for the Rohingya has been at the root of some protests in the past in Rakhine State that led to violence and human rights violations and abuses for which there is yet to be accountability. “The ongoing census risks this cycle repeating itself,” the expert said.   “Self-identification should constitute a pillar of the collection of ethnically disaggregated data. It is related to respect for the rights of individuals to assert their own identity,” Mr. Ojea Quintana stated. “To deny self-identification is therefore a violation of human rights.”   During his latest mission to the country last February, the Special Rapporteur heard from a range of ethnic groups that the ethnic categories included in the census did not reflect how they identified themselves.   “It is not only in Rakhine State that people object to the ethnic categories included in the census,” he noted. “It became clear during my discussions with communities in Kachin State that the Government has approached the census without sufficient or meaningful consultation with all affected communities.”   Mr. Ojea Quintana’s views on the census and calls for the prompt return of all humanitarian staff are shared by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani; the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsák; the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Anand Grover; the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai; and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Mutuma Ruteere.   http://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/un-expert-raises-alarm-rakhine-state   October 2013   Violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state must end for sake of children – UNICEF   Citing the negative impact of the inter-communal clashes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on children in the region, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today urged all parties to put an end to the violence.   “In the name of Myanmar’s children, now is the time for this violence to end,” said Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF Representative in Yangon. “Hate messages and inflammatory propaganda just perpetuate the cycle of violence, and it is children who suffer.”   Rakhine state has been the site of inter-communal violence since June 2012, with clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, which eventually led the Government to declare a state of emergency there. Some 75,000 people were uprooted in the first wave of riots and another 36,000 were displaced by a second wave of unrest in October last year.   The latest wave of violence broke out on 29 September in the southern town of Thandwe. Initial reports soon after suggested that the fighting had been brought under control, but later reports stated that hostilities recommenced on 1 October and subsequently spread to Tha Byu Chaing, Pauk Taw, Shwe Hlay and Me Kyun townships. Deaths have been reported, along with the destruction of some 110 homes.   The violence has also caused a new wave of displacement of families and added to the fears of those displaced last year.   “When violence drives people from their homes, children who are displaced and those in the host communities suffer,” said Mr. Bainvel. “Displacement puts children at greater risk of family separation and domestic violence, they miss out on schooling and too frequently they experience physical and emotional damage.”   UNICEF is also concerned that the polarization resulting from ongoing inter-communal violence could stall or put at risk the many important reform processes currently underway in Myanmar, with negative repercussions for all of Myanmar’s children.   “Peace-building and reconciliation activities must be prioritized if Myanmar’s children are to have the future they deserve, and to which they have a right,” Mr. Bainvel said.   Welcoming recent calls for peace, stability and the rule of law and for the arrest of alleged perpetrators of violence, UNICEF called for all perpetrators of violations of the rights of children – particularly those who commit violent acts against children – to be held to account and brought to justice.   25 March 2013 (IRIN)   Ma Kyi, a 30-year old widow, wonders whether she will ever be able to return home. She is among 3,600 newly displaced people staying at Basic Education High School No. 1, in the central Myanmar town of Meiktila, following deadly sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims residents last week.   On 22 March, Burmese President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in four townships - Meiktila, Thazi, Wandwin and Mahlaing - and ordered the military to assist in quelling the violence, the worst to shake the country since clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine State in 2012.   At least five mosques were set ablaze and scores of homes burned, and at least 20 people are reported to have been killed since the violence began, but exact figures remain unknown. According to local authorities, more than 10,000 people have been displaced and are now living in six camps, including five schools and a local football stadium.   Ma Kyi told IRIN about her ordeal.   “Never in my life could I imagine this. It all happened so fast. Everything was on fire. We barely escaped with our lives. Everything I owned and worked for is gone. I have no idea what happened. Total strangers set my home and shop ablaze, but for what?   “I have no idea how we are ever going to recover from this. My husband had died earlier, and I was already struggling to support my family and two-month-old son. Now all we have are the clothes on our backs.   “What is the worst, I lost my medicine in the fire, which I need for my blood pressure and kidney disease. I had no choice but to leave it behind to get my elderly parents to safety. Now if I fall ill, I don’t know what will happen to my son. I haven’t been able to breastfeed my son since becoming ill earlier and had been feeding him milk powder. Now I have nothing and he looks so weak.   “When the violence broke out, we didn’t know what to do or where to go. We were afraid we would be killed by the mobs roaming the streets. In the end, my parents, my brother and I fled to the woods with our neighbours. Altogether there were about 200 of us.   “There, we stayed hidden for three days without food and water. Although it was hot and we had nothing, we didn’t dare return, nor could we sleep. We had to be very careful when going around.   “It was impossible to think straight as we heard a lot of rumours - threats that people were watching us and would attack us at night.   “Finally, on the fourth day the police arrived. Thanks to their help, we were able to safely leave the woods and take shelter in this school.   “We had never experienced anything like this before, and I don’t even know how this started. Never before has there ever been such fighting between Muslims and Buddhists before.   “I want to return to my home, but don’t even know if that’s even possible. I’m shocked at what I have witnessed.”   Oct 28, 2012 (Reuters)   Muslim survivors of six days of sectarian violence in western Myanmar spoke on Sunday of fleeing bullets and burning homes to escape on fishing boats after an attack by once-peaceable Rakhine neighbours.   The United Nations said 22,587 people had now been displaced after unrest between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhist Rakhines claimed at least 84 lives in Rakhine State and tested the reformist mettle of the quasi-civilian government that replaced Myanmar"s oppressive ruling junta last year.   "We were told to stay in our homes but then they were set on fire," said Ashra Banu, 33, a mother of four who fled the coastal town of Kyaukpyu after its Muslim quarter was razed on Oct. 24.   "When we ran out people were being shot at by Rakhines and police," she said. "We couldn"t put out the fires. We just tried to run."   New York-based Human Rights Watch earlier released before-and-after satellite images showing the near total devastation of the Kyaukpyu"s Muslim quarter.   Located about 120 km (75 miles) south of the Rakhine State capital Sittwe, Kyaukpyu is crucial to China"s most strategic investment in Myanmar: twin pipelines that will carry oil and natural gas from the Bay of Bengal to China"s energy-hungry western provinces.   No new clashes were reported on Sunday, but a Reuters journalist at Te Chaung camp near Sittwe witnessed a constant trickle of new arrivals, mainly from Kyaukpyu, where more than 811 buildings and houseboats were destroyed according to Human Rights Watch"s analysis of satellite imagery.   "The Rakhines came to attack us with knives. They set fire to our homes, even though we have nothing there for them. I left with only the clothes I am wearing," wept a 63-year-old woman who said her name was Zomillah, as she sat on a crowded space in Te Chaung camp. "I can"t go back."   The government estimates nearly 3,000 homes have been destroyed across in Rakhine State since Oct. 21. On Sunday, state television said the number of dead had risen to 84 from 67, but rights groups say the casualties are likely far higher.   Abdul Awal, 30, said police stood by as Rakhines burned their homes. "The Rakhines beat us, and the police shot at us. We ran to the sea and they followed us, beating us and shooting at us," he said. "I have to start a new life now."   A Buddhist Rakhine in Kyaukpyu tells a different story. Contacted by telephone by Reuters, he said Rakhines and Muslims had fought each other with knives, swords, sticks and slingshots. Overwhelmed, the Muslims then "set fire to their own houses as a last resort and ran away," he said. The resident estimates 80 to 100 Muslim boats left Kyaukpyu that day.   Te Chaung camp was created after a previous explosion of sectarian violence in June killed more than 80 people and displaced at least 75,000 in the same region. Already squalid and overcrowded, the camp was ill-equipped to cope with more inhabitants.   Forty-seven boats carrying 1,945 Rohingya men, women and children have landed at villages near Sittwe in the past few days, said a local official, who requested anonymity.   Myanmar"s Buddhist-majority government regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship. Bangladesh has refused to grant Rohingyas refugee status since 1992. The United Nations calls them "virtually friendless".   People at Te Chaung said many more boats full of Rohingya had left Kyaukpyu but had yet to reach land.   The camp lies on a remote coast at the end of a pot-holed road from Sittwe. Its tents and two-story huts are linked by muddy lanes and guarded by about a dozen unarmed officials.   The only obvious aid consists of sacks of rice from the World Food Program. The empty sacks double as sleeping mats. Many people bed down beneath trees.   Reuters saw no medical workers. Some of the camp"s inhabitants suffer from malaria. The children are naked and often malnourished.   Mohammed Jikeh, 34, a former fishseller, has lived here since the June violence, which he said claimed the lives of 11 relatives.   "We have no hope," he said. "We want this violence to stop. We want to live in peace. But like this none of us can survive."   The United Nations said the violence hit eight townships or districts, destroying 4,600 homes, and the number of people displaced could rise. It said the displaced needed "urgent humanitarian assistance".   "I am gravely concerned by the fear and mistrust that I saw in the eyes of the displaced people," Ashok Nigam, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator said in a statement on his return from a tour of Rakhine State"s trouble spots.   "The violence, fear and mistrust is contrary to the democratic transition and economic and social development that Myanmar is committed to," he said in a statement.   * See below recent reports:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22243676 http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/22/burma-end-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/22/burmese-police-buddhists-attack-muslims http://www.dvb.no/news/thein-sein-to-visit-britain-france-in-july/28815 http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/muslim-survivors-of-myanmars-sectarian-violence-relive-ordeals/ http://www.oslocenter.no/en/projects/burma/ Visit the related web page
	Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war by Edward Wilson Guardian News   27 October 2012   If you were born before 27 October 1962, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov saved your life. It was the most dangerous day in history. An American spy plane had been shot down over Cuba while another U2 had got lost and strayed into Soviet airspace. As these dramas ratcheted tensions beyond breaking point, an American destroyer, the USS Beale, began to drop depth charges on the B-59, a Soviet submarine armed with a nuclear weapon.   The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, had no way of knowing that the depth charges were non-lethal "practice" rounds intended as warning shots to force the B-59 to surface. The Beale was joined by other US destroyers who piled in to pummel the submerged B-59 with more explosives. The exhausted Savitsky assumed that his submarine was doomed and that world war three had broken out. He ordered the B-59"s ten kiloton nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing. Its target was the USS Randolf, the giant aircraft carrier leading the task force.   If the B-59"s torpedo had vaporised the Randolf, the nuclear clouds would quickly have spread from sea to land. The first targets would have been Moscow, London, the airbases of East Anglia and troop concentrations in Germany. The next wave of bombs would have wiped out "economic targets", a euphemism for civilian populations – more than half the UK population would have died. Meanwhile, the Pentagon"s SIOP, Single Integrated Operational Plan – a doomsday scenario that echoed Dr Strangelove"s orgiastic Götterdämmerung – would have hurled 5,500 nuclear weapons against a thousand targets, including ones in non-belligerent states such as Albania and China.   What would have happened to the US itself is uncertain. The very reason that Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba was because the Soviet Union lacked a credible long range ICBM deterrent against a possible US attack. It seems likely that America would have suffered far fewer casualties than its European allies. The fact that Britain and western Europe were regarded by some in the Pentagon as expendable pawn sacrifices was the great unmentionable of the cold war.   Fifty years on, what lessons can be drawn from the Cuban missile crisis? One is that governments lose control in a crisis. The worst nightmare for US defence secretary Robert McNamara was the unauthorised launch of a nuclear weapon. McNamara ordered that PAL locks (Permissive Action Links) be fitted to all ICBMs. But when the PALs were installed, the Strategic Air Command had all the codes set to 00000000 so that the locks would not impede a quick launch in a crisis. Nuclear weapons security will always be a human issue – at all levels. On one occasion, Jimmy Carter, the sanest of US presidents, left nuclear launch codes in his suit when it was sent to the dry cleaners.   The cold war has ended, but the thermo-nuclear infrastructures of the US and Russia are still in place. And the risk of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers remains very real. In 1995 Russian early warning radar mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a ballistic missile launched from an American submarine. An emergency signal was sent to President Yeltsin"s "Cheget", the nuclear suitcase with launch codes. Yeltsin, presumably with vodka close at hand, had less than five minutes to make a decision on a retaliatory strike.   "As long as nuclear weapons exist, the chances of survival of the human species are quite slight." Every study of long-term risk analysis supports Noam Chomsky"s claim. Ploughshares estimates there are 19,000 warheads in the world today, 18,000 of which are in the hands of the US and Russia. Whatever the exact numbers, the American/Russian nuclear arsenals are the only ones capable of totally destroying all human life. As security analysts Campbell Craig and Jan Ruzicka point out: "Why should Iran or North Korea respect non-proliferation when the most powerful states lecturing them possess such enormous arsenals?"   Most of all, the Cuban missile crisis showed that the weapons themselves are the problem. Britain is now in pole position to lead a "nuclear disarmament race". In a 2009 letter to the Times, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach denounced Trident as "completely useless". Ditching the system may be a no-brainer for the generals, but not for politicians afraid of a public opinion that equates nuclear weapons with vague notions of "being strong". And yet getting rid of Trident would gift the Treasury a windfall of more than £25bn – enough to finance a million affordable homes.   The decision not to start world war three was not taken in the Kremlin or the White House, but in the sweltering control room of a submarine. The launch of the B-59"s nuclear torpedo required the consent of all three senior officers aboard. Arkhipov was alone in refusing permission. It is certain that Arkhipov"s reputation was a key factor in the control room debate. The previous year the young officer had exposed himself to severe radiation in order to save a submarine with an overheating reactor. That radiation dose eventually contributed to his death in 1998. So when we raise our glasses on 27 October we can only toast his memory. Thank you, Vasya.
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