270 Southwick Some have cautioned that protracted marginalisation can lead to radicalisation within the community and calls for separation.41 Moreover, Muslims in Southeast Asia have become increasingly concerned about violence against Muslims in Myanmar,42 with extremist groups having recently plotted or carried out attacks in Malaysia and Indonesia.43 In November 2012 in Yangon, U.S. President Barack Obama urged an end to ‘crushing poverty and persecution’ in Rakhine State, emphasising that ‘the Rohingya hold within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do.’44 In July 2013, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged the Myanmar Government to take ‘concrete action’ to protect minorities and punish perpetrators of atrocities in Arakan.45 The process of reform creates opportunities to take concrete, constructive action. The Myanmar Government has indicated that it is sensitive to how instability in Arakan threatens reforms and regional stability. It gave the Rakhine Investigation Commission a broad mandate to examine root causes and promote peace and reconciliation. President Thein Shein has condemned the violence and promised to take a ‘zero-tolerance approach to any renewed 41 42 43 44 45 Chris Lewa, ‘Testimony to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’ (3 December 2007) (‘The resentment spread by these policies combined with sheer poverty are conducive to radicalisation.’); Euro-Burma Office, ‘The Rohingyas’ (n 3) (‘The more the Arakan Muslims are excluded and marginalised in Arakan, the more likely they are to ask for a separate state. They will not ask for a state if they can co-exist as equals in Arakan State.’). Over the course of March-April 2013, anti-Muslim violence had spread to other areas in the country and against Muslim communities that have full citizenship, to the city of Meikhtila, Bago Region, Oakkan town, and to Kachin and northern Shan States. See Eliane Coates, ‘Myanmar’s Religious Violence Threatens Southeast Asia’ Today Online (2 July 2013) <www.todayonline.com/commentary/myanmars-religious-violence -threatens-south-east-asia> accessed 20 October 2013 (recounting that ‘since May at least eight people have died in a series of retaliatory attacks by Muslims from Myanmar against Myanmar Buddhists in Kuala Lumpur,’ that Indonesian police foiled an attempt by Indonesian militants to bomb the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta, that over a thousand Indonesian Muslims protested outside the same embassy to denounce persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, and citing ‘concerns that radical Muslims outside Myanmar could exploit the situation . . . to recruit followers’). Office of the Press Secretary, ‘Remarks by President Obama at the University of Yangon’ (19 November 2012) <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/19/remarks -president-obama-university-yangon> accessed 24 September 2013. Thomas Fuller, ‘U.N. Secretary-General Warns Myanmar on Religious Violence’ New York Times (11 July 2013) <www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/un-secretary-general-warns -myanmar-on-religious-violence.html> accessed 24 September 2013. tilburg law review 19 (2014) 261-275