Myanmar Shouldn't lead the Rohingyas to secession

If the Myanmar government doesn’t accept the Rohingyas as their citizen let a separate independent state for the Rohingyas be created in the Arakan region.

 Myanmar President U Thein Sein’s open confession that he desires to expel all the Rohingyas from Arakan uncovers one true that it was the Myanmar government that perpetrated the recent episode of communal rioting that killed and wounded and displaced unspecific number of people. According to Mr. Thein Sein, as “the Rohingyas don’t belong to their ethnicity so they are illegal and hence would be deported if any third country would accept them” and in his language “This is what we are thinking in the solution to the issue.”

Such irresponsible utterance of Mr. Thein Sein indicates that he and his associates is the main architect of the planted massacre against the relatively peaceful Rohingyas. The episode of so-called rape of a Buddhist woman allegedly by Rohingya youths was nothing but a pretext. Such conclusion is further strengthened seeing role of Myanmar security forces, who instead of protecting the Rohingyas sided with the Buddhist rioters. It means it was a state-sponsored massacre and the entire government of the Thein Sein should be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice for their crime against humanity.

On the other hand, claim of Myanmar President is contrary to history. There are enormous historical evidences and records to disprove his claim that the Rohingyas are illegal intruders. Arakan virtually is an extended cultural, linguistic and religious unit of ancient Bengal. As a natural Physiographic unit, the whole region of Arakan is separated from the rest of Myanmar by Yuma range running north to south. It is close to Bengal in comparison to mainland Myanmar where Muslims reside since over one thousand years. The medieval Bengali literature flourished in Arakan. The literary works of Daulat Kazi, Alawal, Mordon, Nassrulla Khan, etc., bear the testimony of Bengali Muslim predominance in the region.

Earlier The Arab Muslims first came in to contact with Arakan through trade and commerce during the 8th century A.D. and since then Islam started spreading in the region. After the advent of Islam in Arabia, Muslim traders, preachers, pirs, saints, darvish from Arabia, Iraq, Persia and other regions of central Asia gradually thronged the region. Moreover, the legendary Hanifar Tanki and Khayafurir Tanki (both are shrines) in the Mayu territory between the rivers Kaladan and Naf, the shrines of “Babazi Shah Monayam of Ambari” and “Pir Bader Shah” (Badr-al-Din Allamah), situated on the coast of the Bay of Bengal at Akyab, all bear evidence of the arrival of Muslim saints in Arakan in the early period of history. Muslim traders and preachers settled in the region that subsequently spread Islam among the locals in Arakan. The Rohingyas are the descendants of those Muslims. History says, Arakan was an independent country for centuries and the Burmese Buddhists invaded Arakan and during the British rule the region remained with Rangoon.

So the Rohingyas are not newcomers or intruders in Arakan. They are Muslims, they speak Bengali, still there is no scope that they originated from the territory which comprises Bangladesh today. But a few people of Bangladesh territory went to the region in search of work who married the local women and fathered children.

No government, other than Thein Sein, earlier ever claimed that the Rohingyas were illegal intruders in Myanmar. In fact, there is no scope to brand them as illegal intruders, as they are the original residents of this region, which was engulfed by the Buddhist settlers after Burmese invasion. Most importantly, the Rohingyas actively participated in the independence movement of Burma. Like all other Myanmar nationals they participated in all national and regional elections held in different phases of time. Even the former successive Myanmar governments signing agreements with Bangladesh facilitated the return of most Rihiingya refugees who crossed the border in 1978.

Now Thein Sein cannot reverse or bury history. In fact, he invokes a fatal game. If the Rohingyas, due to their marginality in all respects, including population and economy, are treated as illegal intruders in Arakan where they live for over thousands of years, then none is legal anywhere in the world. If his utopian theory is accepted it will be an example and whole world will face unprecedented chaos and rivalry as the majority will claim that the minority people are illegal intruders. His audacious statement to confine the Rohingyas to refugee camp and ultimately to deport them to a third country simply invites problem not for Myanmar, but for other countries, particularly for Bangladesh. Despite repeated anti-Rohingya genocide since 1942, they remained clam and loyal to Myanmar Union. But the irresponsible utterance of Thein may change entire scenario. He simply provokes the Rohingays to be armed and unruly to wage war against the non-Rohingyas now living in Arakan.

The expansionist powers around the world may avail of the situation that will seriously cause Myanmar and beyond. Sein should come to his sense that he doesn’t live in an age of darkness or barbarity or isolation. He should leave his military, better to say, dictatorial mindset and communality and stand for democracy, humanity and human rights, above all reality. He should repent and seek apology for such aggressive and inhuman utterance and take appropriate step immediately to rehabilitate all the Rohingyas in their homeland with equal status and privileges who are scattered in many countries of the world, including Bangladesh and end all types of discriminatory draconian laws and rules that were imposed on them in recent years.

The Myanmar leadership should come to its sense. They made crime snatching away all the rights of the Rohingyas, including their state-identity, voting rights, rights of having children, marriage, and all other privileges what they should enjoy as the nationals of Myanmar. Their problems seldom get international media coverage as they are marginal in number (around one million), and Muslims in faith. The international community remained, as if, ignorant of their problems, for decades. International community cried for democracy even awarded a Nobel Peace Prize to Aun Sun Shuki for her struggle for democracy, but paid no heed to the causes of the Rohingyas that led the Rohingyas to be persecuted by the predominantly Buddhist community under a so-called democratically elected government of Sein. Now the time has come to solve this problem once for all.

If the Myanmar government doesn’t accept the Rohingyas as their citizen let a separate independent state for the Rohingyas be created in the Arakan region with its capital in Akyab. Such tiny state has already been created for the religiously and ethnically minority people of East Trimor. The international community should ask Myanmar government what option they prefer whether they are ready to accept the Rohingyas with full status as Myanmar nationals or form a separate state in Arakan out of Myanmar. There is no other solution to the problem. If they choose the first option they (Myanmar government) are to pledge with a guarantee that such massacre will never occur again against the Rohingyas or any other marginal community now living in Myanmar.

Being a neighboring country Bangladesh can’t ignore the tragic state-sponsored persecution against the Rohingyas. Bangladesh government should genuinely evaluate the inner mindset of Myanmar and lodge strong protest against it, as Myanmar President points his finger towards Bangladesh as their ancestral abode what is totally contrary to historical facts and documents. There is little scope for Bangladesh to remain silent or try to solve the problem through bilateral dialogue that will simply prolong the problem and misery of the Rohingya people. Bangladesh should mend and warm up its cold relations with the Muslim and democratic world, ASEAN region, Japan and Australia and particularly ask China to bridle Myanmar. Initiative should be taken to table the issue before the regional and international forums. It is no longer a bilateral issue. Our passive role and tolerance made the Myanmar arrogant and believe that we are too weak to face Myanmar in any level. We should reverse such fancy conclusion of the Myanmar rulers. Rohingyas have rights to live in their homes in Myanmar, and Myanmar is obliged to create and provide congenial atmosphere in Arakan region for the honorable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees or create a separate independent homeland for them in Arakan what is actually belonged to them.*

BY :   Mohammad Zainal Abedin. : Email: noa@agni.com

Humayun laid to rest

Humayun Ahmed has been laid to rest at his favourite retreat at Nuhash Palli in Gazipur on Tuesday.

Thousands of people including his fans, relatives and friends thronged Nuhash Palli to say 'good bye' to the popular writer who captivated them for nearly four decades.

As Humayun was buried, rain, which had fascinated the writer most in his lifetime, poured down incessantly.

Humayun's elder son Nuhash led the pallbearers who gave their shoulders and placed Humayun in the grave. Nuhash was wearing a Panjabi of blue colour, the colour his father related with rainy season in many of his fictions.

Humayun's daughters Sheela and Nova, second wife Meher Afroz Shaon and her sons Nishad and Ninit attended the burial along with the writer's two brothers – Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Ahsan Habib – and two sisters.

Following family's decision early morning on Tuesday to bury Humayun at Nuhash Palli, the ambulance carrying Humayun's remains left BIRDEM mortuary. The ambulance with Shaon and her sons aboard reached Nuhash Palli at 12:05pm.

Nuhash, Sheela and Nova, Humayun's children with his first wife Gultekin, reached their before the ambulance came.

Fans started to throng Nuhash Palli as soon as the first light of the day appeared and about a kilometre of road stretching from Nuhash Palli to Pirujali village was filled with people.

All of them took part in the writer's last namaj-e-janaza conducted by the Imam of a local mosque Mozibur Rahman. The writer was laid to rest in his grave dug out at Humayun's favourite part of Nuhash Palli, Lichu Tola.

Humayun died on July 19 at a New York hospital after battling with Cancer for about ten months. His first janaza was held in United States followed by the one held at Jatiya Eidgah on Monday.

His burial site selection saw division among family members. Shaon claimed Humayun's last wish was to be buried at Nuhash Palli while the writer's three elder children from his first wife wanted their father to be buried at a place in Dhaka easily accessible by all.

Zafar Iqbal informed the media about the decision of burying his brother at Nuhash Palli at 2:30 am Tuesday saying they did not want to get Humayun's burial delayed anymore. 

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Humayun Ahmed: When the author and the reader became one

Humayun Ahmed’s body belonged to the writer but the soul belonged to us. The man who for nearly four decades had painted with words the middle-class sensibilities of an entire people has passed away. It was not just grief for the departed but pain of the knowledge that no writer shall probably ever again depict so well what was in essence our own face, our fate, us.

On July 23rd we buried us.

* * *

Few deaths have been mourned this way in our history. A writer however great is limited by the responsibility to create, make sense, convey beauty of the craft — the very nature of his art. But Humayun Ahmed transcended that limit not through art but by writing in the same rhythm of the beating heart of his readers. His gift as a writer is not the point because he had become his readers through his work — the image the people had of themselves. They read him to affirm, confirm and ultimately validate the sprit and notion of a people.

Again, he was us.

* * *

Many years ago, in the mid ‘70s when his fame was just being established, he had in an interview said that his writing was unexpected. He was a brilliant student, better than brilliant a chart toper. His preparation was for the life of an academic. But he had become a writer and it had changed his life. He gave up that world to become a full-time writer and filmmaker and shifted his space.

It was also a transition for a man who was so dearly held in so many lives, a challenge to his own image. The academic who also wrote novels changed and became the new Bangladeshi, a far more dramatic character than the older image of the scribe who is slightly helpless, the harmless kurta-pajama type we are used to imagining. By adopting a new lifestyle, he killed the stereotype of the Bengali author. There were critics of that but as the subsequent events of his life show, he had gone beyond them all.

* * *

What prepared him for this role? He came from an enormously gifted family whose father was killed in 1971. He spent a part of the war days as a Dhaka University student, seeing firsthand the terror of that year. But he emerged with a great sense of the people in distress and joy and related to the extraordinary power of those who survive.

The events of 1971 were key to the understanding of his people and when he began to write, he became the writer who had as if read almost every personal diary that had been written. Art at some point of time became almost irrelevant because he was not doing literature but writing our autobiographies.

* * *

This was not skill but a gift and one cannot argue with that nor perhaps locate it in the literary world. He not only wrote stories that brought to life the nuances of the middle-class — educated, aspiring, agonized, dreaming but often not in control — he knew what the maladies of his class were. His readers knew that it was a mine where the treasures of their own self would be found. His two most noted characters — Misir Ali and Himu — are an amalgam of such insights as they traverse the dark part of the spirit and mind often in conflict with each other. It is no accident that Misir Ali explores the psyche trying to live with the normal, abnormal and the paranormal in the same plane.

It is no accident that Himu is capable of enormous internal conflict and absurd behaviour confounding the very same society and people that had given birth to him. It is by bringing together these elements that are common in our society that the author constructed the new world. In some ways, the author was like the fabled French author George Simenon, whose character Inspector Maigret tries to solve cases but in actuality is holding a mirror up to show who they all were. We shall never know where the characters ended and the author began. And that mystery made him so addictive.

* * *

Humayun Ahmed documented the rising middle-class more successfully than any writer in Bangladesh. He could communicate with his readers in an almost supernatural way. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay of an earlier era connected with the readers but not with images of their own world. Humayun Ahmed took the ordinary lives and made them look outstanding. He made the mundane fascinating and in doing so anointed the world of the real with the glory and permanence of fiction. Few writers have tried that, even fewer have been so successful.

* * *

Somewhere in some space the writer, the readers and the characters all met and each took the cloak of the other and became a little bit of each other. We mourn something far more significant than the passing away of a writer; we grieve the death of our collective imagination that was personified by this man. The time for a critical review of his work will be done later. Today it is about the sadness of his death. He and his readers had become one in his fiction. Today we bury that both.

Goodbye.

BY : Afsan Chowdhury.

 

Pranab becomes Indian president

India’s ruling UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday won the Indian presidential elections by a huge margin, defeating his rival PA Sangma, backed by BJP and some other opposition parties.

Mukherjee, 76, will be sworn as the country's 13th president in the central hall of Parliament on July 25.

To be the first Bangalee to occupy the highest constitutional post, Mukherjee will succeed Pratibha Patil, India's first woman head of state.

Out of the total value votes of nearly 11 lakh, Mukherjee has so far secured 557,968, leaving Sangma way behind with 240,005 value votes as the counting of votes got over, according to parliament sources.

Emerging from the house of Mukherjee here, Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram told journalists that "I congratulate all UPA coalition partners and other supporting parties for this emphatic win of Pranab Mukherjee".

TV channels reported that Mukherjee got all the votes polled in the southern state of Kerala where Congress and its allies are in power and Left parties are the opposition.

In BJP-ruled Karnataka, Mukherjee got much more votes than Sangma due to cross-voting, they said.

BJP in Karnataka is riven by internal dissension which saw the party changing its Chief Minister in the state three times in last one year or so.

Celebrations erupted in front of Mukherjee's official residence in Delhi as also his ancestral house in a village Mirati of West Bengal state's Birbhum district and by Congress party activists in Kolkata.

Congress workers set off fire crackers, distributed sweets and sprayed each other with colour as they savoured the victory of Mukherjee.

The electoral college in Indian Presidential elections consists of members of both Houses of Parliament—Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha—and members of legislative assemblies in states. About 95 percent of the total 4896 electors, 776 members of parliament and 4,120 members of assemblies in states exercised their franchise on Thursday last.

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Is the Theme of ‘World Refugee Day’ becoming a farce?

June 20 marked the World Refugee Day. It was supposed to raise awareness of the plight of the estimated 42 million displaced people worldwide. A United Nations report released that week showed that 800,000 people were forced to flee across borders last year -- more than any time since 2000. In a message to mark the day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “We must not turn away from those in need. Refugees leave because they have no choice. We must choose to help.”

The emerging refugee crisis inside Burma (Myanmar) makes a mockery of Ban Ki-moon’s statement. His office has failed not only to stop refugee crises in our world from emerging but also in ensuring that the refugees are not turned away.

According to several human rights groups thousands of unarmed Muslims may already have been killed in the apartheid state of Myanmar. Many Rohingya young men, picked up by the government forces, have simply disappeared, and are now feared death. Many victims – old and young, afraid of being ambushed and tortured to death by the Rakhine extremists and their partners-in-crime -- the government forces, have ventured out to seek asylum as refugees in Bangladesh, where they have been denied entry.

Despite the theme for this year’s World Refugee Day being: 'Refugees have no choice. You do,' the international response to the Rohingya crisis has been rather too slow and too safely guarded.

The Government in Bangladesh has pushed back fleeing Rohingya refugees seeking asylum. “Bangladesh never signed any kind of international act, convention or law for allowing and giving shelter to refugees,” said the foreign minister Dipu Moni recently. “That’s why we are not bound to provide shelter to the Rohingyas.” But how can Bangladesh ignore its obligations – not just islamically, but also under international obligations? Has she forgotten that Bangladesh itself was born in 1971 amid a massive refugee crisis? And now to deny such humanitarian help to suffering Rohingyas is simply inexcusable!

As noted by investigative journalist Dan Morrison, Bangladeshi officials might have served their case better by condemning the violence while pointing out that Bangladesh is among the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries, that in 1978 and 1991 it sheltered Rohingyas fleeing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and that as it struggles to meet the aspirations of its 160 million citizens, it cannot consider another “temporary” influx of refugees. Instead Dr. Dipu Moni’s statements came across as callous at a time when images of suffering Rohingyas are being flashed across the world.

No action has been taken by the world community to either prevent a repeat of genocidal campaigns against the persecuted Rohingya people or punish repeat offenders - those responsible within the Union (of Myanmar), state and local government, and the civilian provocateurs of hatred. Interestingly, while the ultra-racist provocateurs within the Burmese and Rakhine Buddhist community continue to justify the denial of citizenship rights to the Rohingyas of Burma, and preach and provide material aid for extermination campaigns against them, many of these hypocritical monsters have no moral bites to living as naturalized citizens in countries like the UK and the USA. Nothing has been done to stop these neo-Nazi spiritual children of Julius Streicher amongst the Buddhist community of Burma.

But if the world community is serious to stop the refugee crisis, it is not too late. It can still stop the bleeding process by ensuring that violence against targeted minorities is a crime. It can stop such war crimes by bringing the advocates and perpetrators of crime to justice either through the local government agencies or the World Court in the Hague. And above all, it can pressure its governments to not reward the criminal state.

Sadly, however, morality is long gone in our world, and is replaced by hypocrisy. And this fact is well known amongst the perpetrators of such war crimes, and thus, there is no end of such crimes in a foreseeable future. Consider, e.g., the governments in the USA and the UK (and there are plenty of such examples). The Obama administration has lately announced that it would waive longstanding sanctions on investment and financial services in Burma. The new policy does not restrict U.S. companies from partnering with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), Burma’s state-owned oil company and the main source of revenue for the previous military government. The decision was timed to coincide with a trip by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Cambodia.

Similar is the case with the UK. Recently, Britain’s trade and investment department has opened an office in Rangoon as the latest move by the UK government to increase its presence in Burma. According to a report by The Telegraph, the opening of the new trade office came during a three-day visit last week by a trade delegation that included executives of some of the UK’s most influential companies, e.g., Anglo American, BP, British Gas, Ernst & Young, Rolls Royce and Shell.

The European Union, Australia and other countries have also eased sanctions against Myanmar. By lifting the investment ban, the West has lost the leverage necessary to bring about reform, while people inside are still suffering from human rights abuses and mass atrocities. When we reward a criminal for its crime, how can we expect it to reform?

Remember the June 30 dateline set by the Thein Sein government for an inquiry report on current violence in the Arakan (Rakhine) state, triggered by the lynching of ten tablighi Muslims (visiting from Rangoon) on June 3? It came and went. No one has heard anything about that report.

Instead, what the world community heard lately is simply bizarre! Myanmar presidential office released a statement last week citing that it would not recognize the Rohingya and would hand over responsibility for them to the UN’s refugee agency in Arakan State, adding that it was also “willing to send the Rohingyas to any third country that will accept them.” How wonderful! So, just like that a minority Muslim community that has known no other home outside the Buddhist-majority country is now treated as if they are outsiders, thus, ducking responsibility of the Myanmar government, which not only has failed to prevent the crisis but also has been a partner-in-crime in what appears to be a well-orchestrated pogrom against the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan. It has neither allowed foreign journalists to get to the troubled area, nor has it allowed foreign NGOs to come to the aid of the internally displaced minorities. What a travesty! This behavior is typical of a lawless ‘Mogher Mulluk’ with no accountability, no justice and no fair play. It is simply disgusting!

The Rohingyas are being targeted for this horrendous crime simply because of their race and religion. Looking darker and closer to the South Asian race (found in Bangladesh and India) as opposed to the more oriental (Mongoloid) looking majority – the Rakhines in the Arakan state and the majority Bamar inside Myanmar, and being Muslims as opposed to Buddhist, the Rohingya have been targets of state sponsored ethnic cleansing.

Of course, the denial of citizenship rights of the indigenous Rohingyas of Arakan is nothing new, and did not start with Thein Sein’s statement last week; it started full-blown from the Ne Win era. A series of ethnic cleansing drives has since been launched by the military regime, in full cooperation of the racist Buddhist elements within the Arakan state and Burma. Thus, before the 1982 Citizenship Law was enacted, there were Shwe Kyi Operation (1959), Kyi Gan Operation (1966), Ngazinka Operation (1967-69), Myat Mon Operation (1969-71), Major Aung Than Operation (1973), Sabe Operation (1974-78), Naga Min (King Dragon) Operation (1978-79) – which alone saw the forced exodus of some 300,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh, Shwe Hintha Operation (1978-80), and Galone Operation (1979). Lest we forget, after 1982, there was the infamous Pyi Thaya Operation of 1991-92, which again saw the forced exodus of some 268,000 Rohingyas out of Burma. The aim of all these genocidal campaigns has been crystal clear: deny all the rights to the Rohingyas; falsely claim that they are outsiders from Bangladesh, or more specifically from Chittagong; continue periodic extermination campaigns with support from the local Rakhine Buddhist community; drive them out of the apartheid state of Burma by making their lives simply unbearable and miserable.

While this slow but steady genocidal campaign has been going on inside apartheid Burma for more than half a century, with little notice from the outside world (after all, the country still remains closed to most foreign journalists and international monitoring agencies), draconian measures violating each one of the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were taken to ensure that the remaining Rohingyas opt out. And surely the evil strategy has been working: majority of the Rohingyas are now refugees outside Burma. Those daring to stay within remain the most persecuted people on earth. They have no freedom of any kind, in much contrast to most of us living outside who take such privileges for granted.

With the so-called reforms initiated by the new regime of Thein Sein (a former military general) since last year, our hopes have been rather high imagining that his is a departure from the feudal past, and that he understands what it would take for his most impoverished country of Southeast Asia to survive and prosper in the 21st century. No, we are wrong. Nothing truly has changed inside Myanmar. It remains locked in its savage, feudal/imperial past. Racism and bigotry remain the apartheid character of this Buddhist majority country to drive out others, making the country exclusively for the majority race and religion.

It is not difficult to understand why Suu Kyi, the so-called democracy icon, remained noticeably silent on the subject of anti-Rohingya prejudice. Through her silence to condemn gross violations of human rights of a persecuted community, she has proven to be another immoral politician that cannot be trusted as a leader. Many of her supporters within the Rakhine and Burmese Buddhist communities are part of the country’s ‘pro-democracy’ movement. They are outright hostile to non-Buddhists and Rohingyas of Burma.

Thus, there is no camouflaging any more. The so-called democracy movement has been a farce; its leaders have proven that they are nothing more than neo-fascists of our time. Their brand of democracy is for their particular race and religion only. It is not of inclusion but only of exclusion. There is no place for a Shan, a Kachin, a Karen, and of course, a Rohingya, and countless nameless ethnic and minority groups in that equation. There is no place for a non-Buddhist in Myanmar. Period! Thus, the state remains at war everywhere inside.

More than 70,000 people have been displaced in the north by the on-going conflict between the Kachin Independence Army and the Burmese Army. On 6 July, nearly 1,500 residents in Panghsai township, near the border with China, attempted to cross into China after being ordered to evacuate their villages by the Burmese army. The refugees were then driven back into Burma by Chinese border guards. The displaced communities are now living in makeshift tents on the Burmese side, near the Chinese border and in Myitkyina, while others continue to hide in the jungle. In spite of a recent peace agreement with the Karens, some 60,000 officially recognized refugees still live in camps along the Thailand-Burma border. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) the total number of refugees (including the Rohingyas) living in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border is 150,000. There are some 50,000 refugees (of various ethnic groups) that live in Northeast India and another 12,000 living in temporary settlements inside Malaysia. And as to the Rohingyas, more than a million are now living as refugees in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and elsewhere. The UNHCR estimates that some 91,000 people (mostly Rohingyas) have been affected by the latest extermination campaign against the Rohingyas of Arakan.

On July 11, Antonio Guterres, the UNHCR chief, met Thein Sein in Naypyidaw. He told reporters at a press conference in Rangoon the following day that the Rohingyas are an internally displaced people. He said, “The resettlement programs organized by UNHCR are for refugees who are fleeing a country to another, in very specific circumstances. Obviously, it’s not related to this situation.”

The latest salvo from Thein Sein once again shows that the Rohingya community is in a perilous situation. In recent weeks, villages belonging to the Rohingya have been burnt to the ground, whilst refugees fleeing to other countries have been refused entry and left to fend for themselves onboard rickety boats on rough seas. The Myanmar Government refuses to accept the Rohingya people as citizens, who as such have no rights in a country they call their motherland. This treatment of its inhabitants is in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles 3, 6, 13, 15, and 16. Reports covered by the Guardian of UK have suggested mass burning, looting and murder of Rohingya men, women and children. Anti-Muslim prejudice is endemic in Burmese society.

It’s a shame to think that many Burmese, who suffered for so long under military dictatorship, harbor such racism and bigotry.

As noted by human rights group, this issue is much larger than a Myanmar-only problem; it is fast becoming one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing alongside the likes of Rwanda and Bosnia. Can the world community afford to witness another such crisis in our time? If not, what should it do to stop the massacre of the Rohingyas of Burma?

BY :  Dr. Habib Siddiqui, USA
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