Arakan News Agency
Former United Nations secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan will chair a new nine-member advisory commission on Arakan State.
The office of Burma’s State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi announced the formation of the commission in state-run newspapers on Wednesday.
The announcement said the commission would recommend “lasting solutions to complex and delicate issues” in Arakan State.
Communal violence, mostly affecting the stateless Rohingya community, took place across Arakan State in 2012 and 2013, displacing up to 140,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Rohingya Muslims. Buddhist and Rohingya Muslim communities remain segregated across most parts of the state, with restrictions placed on displaced Rohingya Muslims’ movements and access to public services.
A Memorandum of Understanding is to be signed between Burma’s State Counselor’s Office and the Kofi Annan Foundation, the Wednesday announcement said.
News of the commission’s formation, minus Mr. Annan’s participation, was delivered during meetings in the Arakan State capital of Sittwe on Aug. 15, conducted separately with Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim Rohingya community leaders by the Central Committee for Peace and Development in Arakan State—a body chaired by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
The new commission will include three members from the international community, including Mr. Annan, and six from Burma—two Buddhist Arakanese members, two Muslim members and two government representatives. Both the Buddhist Arakanese and the Muslim members are from Rangoon, and the Muslim members are not themselves linked to Arakan State.
Besides Mr. Annan, the international members are Ghassan Salamé, a Lebanese academic and advisor to Mr. Annan as secretary general from 2003–2006, and Laetitia van den Assum, a career Dutch diplomat and advisor to UNAIDS from 2005-2006.
“We’ll work as a channel, conveying the voices of the affected communities on the ground. Without their involvement, we can’t work,” Muslim commission-member U Aye Lwin told The Irrawaddy.
“Our commission won’t conceal the truth,” he said.
He believed that Mr. Annan’s support would be constructive, due to his extensive experience in international affairs—including working as a conflict mediator—and his high global esteem.
Source: Irrawaddy
