Boycott Myanmar Campaign

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, ASIA-UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE, 2 Dec 2019

Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service

We urge you to stand with the country’s oppressed national minorities.

We seek your solidarity with and participation in our grassroots activism campaign to bear economic, cultural and popular pressure on Myanmar so that the coalition government of Aung San Suu Kyi and the military may end the country’s persecution, discrimination and violence against the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.

As you may be aware Myanmar is being taken to the International Court of Justice, the world court, by the Gambia for allegedly violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which the country ratified in 1956.

This 9 December, the International Genocide Day, we human rights activists worldwide are standing up for Myanmar’s oppressed communities:  we are initiating an international “Boycott Myanmar Campaign”.

Our campaign is inspired by and modeled after S. Africa’s anti-apartheid boycott movement which helped trigger the end of the apartheid regime, helped free Nelson Mandela and anti-apartheid leaders, and ushered in a new era of racial equality for the majority S. African blacks.

UN and other credible investigations have documented Myanmar’s racist exclusion and discrimination against its Muslims, its national policies of violent and systematic persecution of Rohingya people, and state-directed military repression against its other national minorities such as Shan, Kachin, Ta’ang, Karen, Chin, Mon and Kayar (Kayah) communities.

The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission and the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights situation in Myanmar have officially called for accountability and justice for Myanmar’s minority victims of ‘gravest crimes in international law’ including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine and Kachin states.

But the international community – from the permanently-divided Security Council to regional blocs such as the Association of South East Asian Nations and liberal democratic governments of the West – have failed the wretched of Myanmar.  Besides, international corporations and foreign investors with commercial interests in and ties with the resource-rich Myanmar, from Singapore to Japan and S. Korea to India and China, as well as  other investors, have shown utter indifference to the cries of Myanmar’s oppressed communities, languishing in internment camps and war zones inside the country, and vast refugee camps across Bangladesh and Thai borders.

We urge you to use your power as citizens and consumers, both individually and as representatives/members of activist networks, religious communities, educational institutions, or professional or parliamentary associations.

Join hands with us.  Boycott businesses whose dollars fuel genocide and other crimes.  Cut institutional ties with Myanmar that has commissioned genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against its own peoples.

Will you add your name to a growing coalition of organisations when we launch the Boycott Myanmar Campaign on December 9?  You can send a “yes” to Maung Zarni, if you agree: fanon2005@gmail.com.

On or after December 9, you can also register at our website, BoycottMyanmar.org, in order to receive updates on events and how you can take action.”

THANK YOU!

__________________________________________

A Buddhist humanist from Burma, Maung Zarni is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center – Cambodia. Zarni is coordinator for Strategic Affairs for Free Rohingya Coalition and an adviser to the European Centre for the Study of Extremism, Cambridge, UK. His analyses have appeared in leading newspapers including the New York Times, The Guardian and the Times. Among his academic publications on Rohingya genocide are The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingyas (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal), An Evolution of Rohingya Persecution in Myanmar: From Strategic Embrace to Genocide, (Middle East Institute, American University), and Myanmar’s State-directed Persecution of Rohingyas and Other Muslims (Brown World Affairs Journal). He co-authored, with Natalie Brinham, Essays on Myanmar Genocide. Zarni holds a PhD (U Wisconsin at Madison) and a MA (U California), and has held various teaching, research and visiting fellowships at the universities in Asia, Europe and USA including Oxford, LSE, UCL Institute of Education) , National-Louis, Malaya, and Brunei. He is the recipient of the “Cultivation of Harmony” award from the Parliament of the World’s Religions (2015).


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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 2 Dec 2019.

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One Response to “Boycott Myanmar Campaign”

  1. James says:

    “Boycott Myanmar will do more harm than good”
    to over 50,5 millions people in Myanmar to all tribal ethnicities, including 5% Muslims (excluding Bangali Rohyangas), 6.5 % Christians, 0.7% Hindus and other different religions.

    Myanmar had already suffered enough over 60 years of under authoritarian military regime.

    Rohingyas were brought by British colonial occupation from neighbour border Bangladesh country to Myanmar for Rice paddy field workers without any legitimacy consent of unconstitutional Myanmar government at that time and only for the beneficial of Britain exclusively.

    After Britain’s withdrawal from Myanmar, the Rohingya people never did left and accumulated their mass population without birth control under the deliberate
    guidelines of their dogged religious leaders.

    Rohingyas were never belong or part of 135 Myanmar ethnic groups in total.

    Nevertheless there had been more than 5 major separate occasional documented Islamic Jihad had killed over 30,000 to 50,000 of Myanmar ethnic people since their illegitimate occupation.

    Over 90% of Muslims domination of about 40 villages near Bangladesh border are living with constant threats by their dominancy awhile more are coming from the backdoor Bangladeshian Cox’s bazar preceding inward making
    rapid land grabbing expansion within Myanmar territories.

    Also ISIS had brainwashed some Rohingyas and simultaneously attacked Myanmar border posts and killed border guards, had led to tightening up the security near Bangladesh border which resulted in undocumented number of
    Rohingyas fleeing back to Cox’s Bazar back towards
    Bangladesh.

    Although the number of fleeyers had been grossly exaggerated.
    Since Rohingyas and Bangladeshian refugees are can not be differentited
    at that Bangladeshian refugees ‘s camp known as Cox’s bazar,
    along since they are originally belonging to the the same origin of Place.

    Nowadays some Rohingyas are brainwashed, financially supported and militarily trained by hardliner ISIS terrorist group and among other various groups of underground Islamic extremists.

    The military style simultaneously
    attacked of Myanmar Border posts had caused the expelling of the terrorist ideological Rohingyas,
    illegally migrated poople, along with some worried innocent citizenship granted/ legal residency proof of documented Rohingyas people who went along with them during tightening up the border security.

    Myanmar people need “HELP” not punishment!

    A newly developing Democracy countries needs support “NOT RESTRICTIONS”