Myanmar abolishes notorious border guard force

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Myanmar government has abolished the Nasaka border guard force, a much-feared group in the western Rakhine State that has controlled the lives of stateless Muslim Rohingyas and is notorious for human rights abuses. 

The one-line July 12 announcement from the office of President Thein Sein gave no reason for the abolishment.

The Nasaka – a word derived from the initials of its Burmese name – comprises police, military, customs and immigrations officials, and has had a heavy presence in Rakhine State where it has overseen the Rohingya.

Documented human-rights abuses blamed on the Nasaka include rape, forced labour and extortion. Rohingyas have not been allowed to travel or marry without the Nasaka's permission, which is never secured without paying bribes, activists say.

"The Nasaka's interest was to make money, and being posted in Rakhine State was a good place to make money," Chris Lewa, founder and director of the Arakan Project, a human rights group which monitors the situation of the Rohingya in Rakhine State, told Thomson Reuters Foundation. "The corruption of the Nasaka was very extreme."

Lewa said her sources in Myanmar told her that members of the Nasaka have not come out of their camps since Sunday, while the army took away the head of the Nasaka, though it is not clear why.

Police are now manning checkpoints once staffed by the Nasaka, though people were still paying the same bribes, Lewa's sources told her. Police had also taken over the responsibility of issuing border passes for people who crossed into Bangladesh.

"My understanding is the police are replacing the Nasaka, but it's difficult to say whether it is positive or negative. Let's wait and see. Generally people are not positive, they just hope it's not worse," she said. "Yesterday there was no change in extortion at checkpoints, or at the border crossing."

Rakhine State suffered two bouts of sectarian violence, in June and October 2012, that left 192 dead and 140,000 displaced – most of them Muslims. Ethnic hatred has deepened since then, with the enforcement of apartheid-like policies separating minority Muslims from the Buddhist majority.

"We're happy to see it (the Nasaka) go. It's a unit that has been synonymous with human rights abuses in Arakan state," Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said, referring to Rakhine State by its former name. "The question is what's going to replace it? We already see police extortion in Maungdaw (township) … Who's going to fill the security void?"

He said Human Rights Watch would be watching closely to make sure abuses do not merely transition from the Nasaka to other security forces.

"It's about accountability, not an administrative reshuffle and doing away with one abusive system and replacing it with another," he said.

"We're watching very closely: in other ethnic states, there has been use of ethnic-controlled militias. That would be something that would be much worse if that came up."

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/myanmar-abolishes-notorious-border-guard-force/