My title is misleading, I am not really sorting out this mess of groups, just giving you bits of information that hopefully one day will come together. Our interest in the Rohingya is that these Burmese Muslims are agitating for third country resettlement to the West. The recent devastating cyclone in Burma has given them an opportunity to be heard in the media. New readers go to our category “Rohingya Reports” for background.
Today I came across a press release from something called the Rohingya Youth Development Forum appealing for humanitarian aid for the Burmese in the wake of the storm. Checking out their website where most pages didn’t open, I came across the following list of groups that they are presumably affiliated with.
National Democratic Party for Human Rights (exile) HQ, USA
Arakan Rohingya Organization-Japan (JARO)
Rohingya Youth Development Forum (RYDF), Arakan-Burma
Rohingya Human Rights Council (RHC), Norway
World Rohingya Congress (WRC), USA
Burmese Rohingya Association in United Arab Emirate (BRA-UAE)
National Council for Rohingya (NCR) Malaysia
Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO)
Arakan League for Justice and Freedom (ALJF), Bangladesh
Union of Rohingya Communities in Europe (URCE), Denmark-Norway
Rohingya Community in Norway (RCN), Norway
Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia (BRCA)
Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan (BRJA), Japan
Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) Arakan, Burma
Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand (BRAT), Thailand
Arakan Rohingya Refugee Committee (ARRC), Malaysia
Ittihad-Tullab Al-Muslimeen (ITM), Arakan, Burma
Rohingya News Groups
Kalandan Press Network (KPN)
Rohingya Information Center (RIC), Malaysia
RohingyaNet
Rohingya Yahoogroups
I’ve highlighted ARNO because in more searching I came across this article from a group called the Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CRDB is not listed on the Rohingya Youth Development Forum list) in which its leader asserts the following and claims that his life is in danger from ARNO. He says before 9/11 ARNO was called the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front.
Our attention has been drawn to a press release issued by a petty Rohingya communalist group led by Mr Nurul Islam, the President of Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF) who changed the name of his organization into Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO), after September 11 incident.
The fall 2007 article goes on to explain.
In addition, one petty Rohingya communalist group have brutally killed a group of valiant Rakhine freedom fighters in the jungle which has turned majority of Rakhines against the innocent common Rohingyas and which has later resulted in the killing of thousands of Rohingya men, women and children in the communal violence. And finally we appealed to the international community to take necessary steps to stop Burmese military persecutions and genocidal operations against the Rohingyas from one and on the other hand to restore peace and communal harmony between two sister communities of Arakan – the Rakhines and Rohingyas.
These statements of ours against the communalist forces of Rohingyas who are very few in numbers, has seriously infuriated them and then they started all their attempts to exterminate us. Later, Mr Nurul Islam, the then President of Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF) made three attempts to kill me in collaboration of another Rohingya communalist so-called leader Maulan Saiful Islam, the then vice president of Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) with their armed cadres and in one such attempt, Mr Khairul Amin also participated as he was a central executive member of RSO’s student wing.
But since the existence of both ARIF and RSO was not recognised in Bangladesh being the rebel groups of Arakan, I had no chance to file any case with the police against their attempts to murder me. However, in 1994 we changed the name of the Rohingya Refugees Action Committee (RRAC) in to The Council for Restoration of Democracy (CRDB) for the greater interest of Burma and Rohingyas. Notably, on July 12.1995, we have held another press conference in the Chittagong Press Club on behalf of the CRDB which was also widely covered by different national and international media.
However, today the time we have announced our programme to hold a press conference in the national press club at Oslo with a view to let the world know the untold stories of Rohingyas’ plight and predicament as well as the Burmese military persecutions, those petty Rohingya communalist groups have been coming again forward to endanger my life. Now, the only option left for me is to produce all the evidences and witnesses of their past crimes against humanity and to seek the help of international humanitarian community to save my life from those petty communalists and their collaborators who have already endangered the life of thousands of innocent Rohingyas.
So, bottomline, what the heck is going on? Are we supposed to sort these groups out in order to let the correct Rohingyas into the US? How about if we don’t let any come to the US and let them work out their differances somewhere else.