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                 UN Envoy Visits Burma's Stricken Rakhine State

   by Danielle Bernstein

   BANKGOK - The U.N.'s special envoy to Burma, Vijay Nambiar, returned
   Thursday from a visit to Burma's western Rakhine state, where sectarian
   violence has killed 21 people and destroyed scores of homes.
   Nambiar said he spoke with people caught up in the violence who are
   still "in a state of shock," and unwilling to return to their homes.
   There has been widespread violence in the area recently between
   Buddhists and Muslims, who are members of the ethnic minority known as
   the Rohingya.

   Speaking to VOA by phone from the Burmese capital, Rangoon, he said the
   city of Maungdaw, where the conflict erupted, is now largely calm, but
   that the situation in the state's capital Sittwe is still tenuous and
   he was unable to visit some areas. Nambiar confirmed that 21 people
   died in the fighting.

   Nambiar praised both the Border Affairs minister who traveled with him,
   and President Thein Sein, who responded by sending in the military to
   bring the situation under control, and declaring a state of emergency
   he described as "prompt, firm, and sensitive."

   "This is an issue which has the potential of impacting on the entire
   reform process and requires to be handled very sensitively and in line
   with the international norms of international conduct," he said.

   Burmese President Thein Sein said he is committed to equal justice and
   the rule of law in dealing with the aftermath of the conflict, he
   added.

   Rohingya have long been viewed by the government and most Burmese as
   immigrants who are not entitled to citizenship or other benefits of the
   state. The recent fighting has led to a rash of inflamed rhetoric on
   websites and in domestic media coverage against Rohingya.
   Violence broke out on June 3 when a mob of Buddhists in Rakhine
   allegedly attacked a bus and killed 10 Rohingya passengers in apparent
   retaliation for an earlier rape and murder of a Buddhist woman,
   allegedly by three Rohingya.

   It will take time to address the longstanding ethnic and sectarian
   tensions, said Nambiar.

   "I think increasingly everybody is conscious of the need to move away
   from such kind of ethnic stereotypes and characterizations of this
   nature because they realize that that is harmful to the entire project
   of reform," he said. "And I think while it is true that the messages
   that are being purveyed by being stressed by the top leadership need to
   filter down to the lower levels and there is still a lot of work to be
   done."

   U.N. refugee agency official Preeta Law, a deputy representative in
   Burma, warned the fighting could have an impact on the effort to
   resettle Rohingya refugees now living in camps across the border in
   Bangladesh.

   "There have been discussions recently about another group that could
   return from Bangladesh and from the refugee camps in Bangladesh to
   Myanmar [Burma], of course in a situation of this kind of violence
   that's happened right now, in the immediate term, this would not be
   something that we would be looking at at this time," Law said.

   Boats carrying women and children fleeing the violence have been turned
   back by the Bangladeshi government, despite the agency's plea to keep
   their border open.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/un-envoy-visits-burmas-stricken-rakhi
   ne-state/1211173.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/un-envoy-visits-burmas-stricken-rakhine-state/1211173.html