United League of Arakan
Statement on inequitable statement of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of Singapore
11 July 2019
IDPs and war refugees in Arakan state are suffering harsh living conditions with scarce food, water, cloth, and shelter in this rainy season that holding racial hatreds and prejudices against people of Arakan due to heavy losses in the battle fields, Myanmar Government and Myanmar Army are blocking humanitarian assistances from international and domestic donors.
Although Myanmar Government has shown that they are providing basic needs for over 50,000 IDPs by spending 300 Kyats (0.20 $) per refugee, in reality most of IDPs do not have sufficient access to food, water, shelter, sanitation or health services and humanitarian aid is much more needed to help them. Therefore, holding the principles of humanity, the dictates of public conscience and humanitarian grounds, International Arakanese Communities and families including the United League of Arakan are helping the helpless war refugees in Arakan state. Among these communities, the Arakanese Association (Singapore) is one of the social and charity organizations.
The unfounded accusation that the Arakanese Association (Singapore) is collecting a ‘National Fund’ for the Arakan Army is much the same as the Government of Singapore is collaborating with the Government of Myanmar to crush a social organization and our revolutionary organization is branded as a terrorist group is inequitable. Therefore, such taking security action of the Government of Singapore and Ministry of Home Affairs against Arakanese people working in Singapore is detrimental to IDPs in Arakan and supporting the Myanmar Army that has committed war crimes. On behalf of people of Arakan, we urge you to revise this action in consideration of the oppressed peoples of Arakan and the helpless IDPs in Arakan State with full moral responsibility.
We strongly oppose Professor Rohan Gunaratna’s groundless accusations in the article “MHA arrests at least six supporters of Myanmar insurgent group in Singapore” written by Linette Lai on the Straits Times at 10:32 am on July 10, 2019 that our organization is alleged as “a terrorist group that has assassinated ethnic Arakans living in Rakhine state”.
It has been a few months that the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army have been fighting in Arakan state and heavy clashes are still ongoing since the unilateral cease-fire announcement of the Myanmar Army on 21 December 2018 that has excluded Arakan region. Meanwhile, there are over ten thousand villagers who have fled their villages in fear of the Myanmar troops. In total, there are more than 50,000 IDPs now in Arakan state.
We continue to fight for our people, calling for confederate Arakan state. We call for an immediate release of Arakanese detainees and those arrested and deported from Singapore this week. And we call for a reasonable location for ongoing negotiation with Myanmar state.
This is our repeated response to the groundless accusation of the Government of Myanmar and Myanmar Army that the ULA/AA has never committed any terrorist acts at any time and never cooperated with any terrorist organizations.
United League of Arakan
