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1 September 2017
Rohingyas
are now the most persecuted people on Earth. Also, the present
Bangladesh Government has conveniently forgotten it's
own past history of the 1971 liberation war against Pakistani military junta
(when many from Bangladesh crossed over the border and had taken refuge in
India) and, has joined hands with the Burmese Government in this barbaric
killing and burning of the helpless Rohingyas by
closing down its border with Burma. We are demanding an
immediate and urgent UN intervention. Dr. Hasanat
Husain MBE Convenor Voice For Justice
World Forum Myanmar
army 'beheading children and burning people alive' according to eyewitnesses Fears of mass atrocities
against Rohingya civilians in Myanmar were growing
after eyewitness accounts emerged of children being beheaded and people
burned alive. Stop the genocide against Rohingya
Muslims in Myanmar Rohingya Muslims,
considered the world’s most persecuted minority, have lived for centuries in
Myanmar’s far western Rakhine state. Denied
citizenship by a military junta since 1982, they have been stateless and
without the most basic human rights, thus prey to indiscriminate rape,
torture and killing by Myanmar’s militants and allied mobs. United Nations officials report that tens of
thousands of Rohingya women, children and men are
streaming into neighboring Bangladesh after
trudging through treacherous ravines and jungles, many falling along the way.
Bangladesh simply does not have the means to provide relief to the
approximately 100,000 who have managed to flee Mayanmar
so far. We in San Jose, CA, call upon our elected
officials and lawmakers, as well as all Americans of conscience, to demand
that Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace-prize winner who is the de facto
leader of Myanmar, stop the torture and killings of Rohingya
Muslims. She has not said a word so far, a stance that has been denounced by
many governments but unfortunately, not ours. Her silence has only emboldened
Myanmar’s militants and security forces in their relentless,
seemingly state-sanctioned genocide of Rohingya
Muslims. We further call upon our government to demand
that the Myanmar government give Rohingya Muslims
citizenship in a country where they have lived for centuries, and to accord
them the same dignity, safety and security that the Buddhist majority enjoy.
We also call upon our government to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees
streaming into Bangladesh, and to sponsor and enforce a resolution in the UN
Security Council to immediately stop the genocide of Rohingya
Muslims.
VFJ Dr. Hasan Zillur Rahim San Hose, USA telegraph.co.uk ............................................................................................................. .............................................................................................................. The Rohingya
Genocide and Inadequate Response from Bangladesh Taj Hashmi I believe “genocide” is the
right word to describe the ongoing mass killing, rape, and expropriation of Rohingyas in Mayanmar. Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin
(1900-1959) first used the expression in 1943, to denote the mass killings, rapes,
torture, extortions, and marginalization of Jews and others in Axis-occupied Europe in
the 1930s and 1940s. As Lemkin
has defined genocide, and its
origin, growth, and overall impact on society at large, with examples from
what Hitler, Mussolini and their cohorts did to Europeans, appropriately
explains the Rohingya Genocide in
Myanmar, going on intermittently since 1948 [Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied
Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress, (Washington, D.C.:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944]. One finds all the elements
of what constitute a genocide present in Myanmar
with regard to the persecution of Rohingyas, such as intentional action to
destroy a people, usually an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group, in
whole or in part. According to Professor David
Simon, Director of Genocide Studies Program at Yale University: “A genocide is
underway against the Rohingya of Myanmar…. As
several recent reports document, in recent months, security forces, allied
militias, civil society organizations, and citizens have committed atrocities
ranging from pillaging, looting, and forced displacement to rape, torture,
and murder against the Rohingya” [Yale Macmillan Center, “Commentary – Lessons of the Rohingya
genocide”, January 17 2017]. According to eye-witness accounts, Myanmar’s
security forces killed at least 900 Rohingya
civilians in the first two days after 25th August
– the day
ARSA gunmen attacked 30 police and military camps in Myanmar [Adil Khan, “Rohingya Villages
Burning Again”, Countercurrents. August 31, 2017].
I write this to highlight
the inadequate response by the world, and by the
people and Government of Bangladesh to the ongoing mega genocide of Rohingyas in the Rakahine or Arakan State of Myanmar. I also highlight here Bangladesh
Government’s ambivalence about the genocide in Arakan.
Shockingly, the influx of tens of thousands of Rohingya
refugees into Bangladesh seems to be the bigger issue for its people and
government than the genocide per se. Nothing more, nothing less! This is an appraisal of the
Rohingya crisis in historical and contemporary
perspectives. I am going to use some historical data and flaws and follies of
the governments of Myanmar, Bangladesh, China, India, and the US. I am going
to critique some experts and analysts of international affairs, human rights,
political economy, development agencies, and “ordinary people” across the
board in Bangladesh and elsewhere. I am relying on academic, historical and
sociological sources, contemporary accounts, eye-witnesses, and the social
media – blogs, emails, and Facebook – to appraise what the “ordinary people”
think about the main factors behind the Rohingya
Crisis. I find some eye-witness accounts and interviews of fleeing Rohingya victims on electronic media very fascinating and
useful. Although we have learnt
from former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that
the Rohingyas belong to the “single biggest stateless
community in the world”, we have no idea about the total number of Rohingyas in the world. We know around two million Rohingyas have fled Myanmar since 1978, but we have no
clues about the total population of these people who are still in Myanmar.
Our guestimate of “two to three million” may be
attributed to the deliberate exclusion of the Rohingyas
from census operations by successive autocratic regimes in Myanmar, since
1962. We only come across the most racist, prejudicial observations by
Myanmar authorities about the “exceedingly high”
birth-rate among the Rohingyas in Arakan. Then again, Arakan
having 20,000 square miles of territory is not an over-populated state, from
any stretch of the imagination. However, some analysts’
sweeping assertions about the state of anarchy in Arakan
is problematic, especially one by Columbia Professor Saskia
Sassen, who imputes “corporate land grabs” to the
sufferings of “both Buddhist and Muslim
smallholders” in Myanmar. Her naiveté is well-reflected in her inability to
differentiate Buddhist and Muslim smallholders as victims of “corporate land
grabs”. She has raised the question: “Is the focus on religion just a
distraction?”. She thinks: “Myanmar
has become a last Asian frontier for our current modes of development –
plantation agriculture, mining, and water extraction. Its location makes it
even more strategic. Besides being the largest country of south-east Asia,
Myanmar is between the two most populous countries in the world, China and
India, both hungry for natural resources…. Foreign firms
have moved in, land grabs have risen, smallholders keep losing ground.
Farmers have become poorer or lost their land. But the land market is
booming” [Saskia Sassen,
“Is Rohingya persecution caused by business
interests rather than religion?” Guardian,
4 January 2017]. The Guardian article
is a balderdash, a counterproductive exercise which
could divert the whole issue or the real problem somewhere else in a futile
debate over Globalization, foreign investment, land grabbing etc. Myanmar's
majority Burman Buddhists have been persecuting the
Rohingyas since their annexation of Arakan in 1784. Some scholars estimate as high as 50 per
cent of Chittagonians are descendants of Rohingya refugees/settlers in greater Chittagong.
Thirty-five thousand Rohingyas are said to have
fled to Chittagong in 1784 alone. More than 50 per cent of the entire Rohingya population in Arakan
are now living as refugees or illegal settlers in various countries. One may
find an objective account of the history of the Rohingyas
– especially the way they have been victimized by the majority Buddhist
politicians, security forces, and people during the pre- and post-colonial
periods – in Riccardo Marzoli’s
scholarly work, [“The Protection of Human
Rights of Rohingya in Myanmar: The Role of the
International Community”, Master’s Thesis, LUISS University, Rome 2015]. Unfortunately, no civil and
military government in Bangladesh has yet behaved with some dignity and
courage to warn their Myanmar counterpart to behave, to respect international
law and human rights of minorities. From their insensitive reaction to the
mass killing of Rohingyas, and pushing thousands of
them as refugees into Bangladesh, by Myanmar, it appears that Bangladeshis
have simply forgotten the history of their Liberation War. They must not
forget that but for India’s generous help – especially, its sheltering ten
million Bengali refugees during the War – Bangladesh would not have come into
being only after a nine-month-long armed struggle in 1971. Both the
successive BNP and Awami League Governments since
1978 have tried to address the problem Rohingya
refugees through UN and human rights organizations. A Retired Principal
Secretary to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Kamal
Siddiqui, in a personal communication to me wrote
on 31st August
2017 with regard to Bangladesh Government’s lukewarm support for the Rohingyas: Has Bangladesh the moral
right to behave like this? In 1971, when it was facing genocide from
Pakistanis, did not India help Bangladesh with shelter, arms and training? I
am afraid both AL and BNP have similar policy towards the Rohingyas.
I was in PM's Office in 1992-93 when Rohingyas came
in large numbers to Bangladesh…. I see the same indecent behaviour now. I
hope Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Malaysia and Indonesia will get together and do
something to help the beleaguered Rohingyas and put
Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh to shame. Bangladesh Government has
not yet warned its counterpart in Myanmar that it would take retaliatory
measures against the latter for pushing tens of thousands of Rohingyas into Bangladesh. Like its predecessors, the military-backed puppet
government of Aung San Suu
Kyi is not only denigrating the Rohingyas
as thugs, killers, terrorists, and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, but is
also denying it has ever committed any genocide against any community in
Myanmar. Alarmingly, while more than 60,000 Rohingya
refugees had entered Bangladesh by 2nd September, in one week following 25th August
disturbances – attacks by Rohingya militants and
counterattacks by Myanmar’s law-enforcers and civilians – by September 4th,
the number of refugees swelled to 90,000. As there are no signs of any
remission in the intensity of organized attacks and killing of Rohingyas by Myanmar’s law-enforcers and majority Rakhaines – who are burning down Rohingya
villages and burning Rohingya men, women, and
children alive to death – Bangladesh might end up getting more than a million
Rohingya refugees before the end of the year [BBC
World News, 2nd-4th Sept,
2017]. Bangladesh Government since
the overflow of Rohingya refugees at its “sealed”
border with Myanmar has recently opened its border, and allowing the refugees
in. However, Bangladesh Government’s Rohingya
policy is full of loopholes, contradictions, and ambivalence. Even after the
resurgence of mass killing of Rohingyas had begun
by Myanmar’s law-enforcers and civilians on 25th August,
Bangladesh Government proposed joint-military operations with Myanmar against
“Rohingya militants fighting in Rakhine
state” [“Bangladesh offers Myanmar
military aid against Rohingya rebels” AFP/Arab News, 29 August 2017]. This stand is not that
different from the Modi Government’s latest
decision to deport all Rohingyas from India
[Reuters, August 14, 2017]. I'm afraid, if Bangladesh
continues playing a hostile role towards Rohingya
refugees, and starts joint military operations against Rohingya
insurgents along with Myanmar, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which is fast turning
into a revolutionary/terrorist-insurg ent outfit in Arakan and
elsewhere in Myanmar, will backfire and eventually destabilize Bangladesh. Then again, Bangladesh
Government’s ambivalence and the lack of any sense of direction in its
foreign policy is well-reflected in its appeal to Washington to “put pressure
on Myanmar” to stop the inflows of refugees into Bangladesh. PM Hasina “made the appeal when US
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice
Wells met her at her office” [Daily
Star, August 31, 2017]. At the end of the day, it appears that for the
Bangladesh Government, and the vast majority of Bangladeshis, the “Rohingya Crisis” in Myanmar is all about the influx of
unwanted refugees into Bangladesh! Interestingly, European
countries – including United Kingdom – have registered their displeasure at
the recurrence of state-sponsored violence against the Rohingyas
in Myanmar. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson urged Suu
Kyi to end violence against the Rohingyas,
immediately. British electronic and print media has been giving wide coverage
of the brutal mass killing and rape of Rohingyas,
and setting fire to their houses by Myanmar’s law-enforcers and civilians
since long. BBC World News (TV) is not coverage away from showing documentary
evidences of government-sponsored mass killings and expropriations of Rohingyas in Arakan. Instead of
blaming the Rohingya victims as perpetrators of
terror, The Economisthas squarely blamed the Myanmar
authorities for the rise of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which the weekly imputed
to the Government’s “savage violence in 2012” against the Rohingyas
[“Myanmar’s Rohingyas: Gory days”, September 2nd 2017]. The same report reveals
that the Rohingyas who live in Rakhaine
“have long suffered persecution”, and that “Most are denied citizenship and
therefore have little access to education or health care. They are the
world’s largest community of stateless people. Strict laws govern their
movement and where they can live: some 120,000 live in squalid camps as a
result of past conflicts.” Myanmar’s authorities are so paranoid and
uncomfortable with the UN World Food Programme, which they believe are in
cahoots with Rohingya rebels,
that they have decided to refuse visas to a UN human-rights team.
“Allowing such delegates to visit would suggest Myanmar has nothing to hide.
Sadly, it is keeping much under wraps”. This report – along with other
international media reports – reveals that the latest ARSA attacks on 30
police posts and a military base on August 25th signalled
the new surge of state-sponsored terrorism against the Rohingyas
[Ibid]. Several other media outlets
in Britain have been very forthcoming and objective in their reports on the
ongoing ethnic cleansing process in Myanmar. One Guardian report
tells us a thousand tales about what is going on in Arakan:
“Gunfire and explosions
crackle in the hills. Plumes of smoke from burning villages streak the
monsoon-grey sky. Refugees fleeing for their lives are pouring into
Bangladesh over the Myanmar border as the conflict between Myanmar security
forces and Rohingya militias escalates and
risks spiralling into a humanitarian disaster” [“Thousands of Rohingya flee Myanmar amid tales of ethnic cleansing”, Guardian,
2 September 2017]. Yet another British media
report is very succinct, and leaves nothing for speculation: “Fears of mass atrocities
against Rohingya civilians in Myanmar were
growing after eyewitness accounts emerged of children being beheaded and
people burned alive”, writes Fiona MacGregor from
Yangon [“Myanmar army 'beheading
children and burning people alive' according to eyewitnesses”, The
Telegraph, 2 September 2017]. While the US and Israel
have been avowedly against ARSA and other Islamist insurgent/terrorist
outfits everywhere, including Myanmar, some American and Israeli media
outlets and intellectuals have strong reservations about their countries’
support for the rogue regime in Yangon, which has blood of innocent Rohingya men, women, and children on its hands. While
responding to a petition by Israeli human rights activists who wanted their
country to snap ties with Myanmar, Israeli authorities have said the
relationship is “clearly diplomatic”, influential Israeli daily Haaretz has recently
published an op-ed which is very critical of Israel’s relationship with
Myanmar Government, which has expelled about 90,000 Rohingyas
in one week and killed many, including 12 children. Israeli lawmakers unite
to fight arms exports to countries, including Myanmar, that violate human rights
[John Brown, “As Violence Intensifies, Israel Continues to Arm Myanmar’s
Military Junta”, Haaretz,
Sept 4, 2017]. By the way, it might be of
some interest to people who think the so-called Muslim Ummah is in solidarity
with the Muslim victims of unjust wars, persecution, and terrorism, that
“Islamic” Pakistan is in an advanced stage of signing a deal with Myanmar,
permitting the latter to manufacture Pakistani designed JF-17 fighter planes
[Naveed Siddiqui,
“Myanmar in ‘advanced negotiations’ with Pakistan to licence-build JF-17
fighter”, Dawn, February 08, 2017]. Despite all
the prevalent brouhaha about the “solidarity” among the members of the
elusive Muslim Ummah,
so far only Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, and Qatar have publicly condemned the
rogue regime in Yangon, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, who happens to be a
Nobel Laureate in Peace. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan have
taken large numbers of Rohingya refugees, around
400,000 and 200,000, respectively. One wonders, if they have taken them as
sources of cheap labour, or out of genuine compassion for these hapless
people, or if there are some other hidden agendas behind it, not known to us! One wonders, if Saddam
Hussein could be overthrown for his persecution of Shiites and Kurdish
people, why Myanmar should remain unpunished for its genocidal
crime against the Rohingyas! Their situation is not
that different from the Bengalis of erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971, who after 25th March
were no longer willing to remain as citizens of Pakistan. They identified
themselves with Bangladesh, which they fought for and liberated on 16th December1971.
Now, on the same token, I do not think it is enough to urge the
military-backed Myanmar regime to treat the Rohingyas
as equal citizens, with full human rights and dignity. It is also important to
make the world understand, the Rohingyas are a
nation from every definition of the expression, and they are entitled to
exercise their right of self-determination, under UN observation. South Sudan
is the latest example in this regard. The Rohingyas
might declare independence, or join -- “re-join” – Bangladesh after living
under Burman and British occupation for more than
200 years since 1784. As we know, historically Arakan
was never integral to Myanmar, so are the Rohingyas
not a minority community in Myanmar from any stretch of the imagination. Bangladesh should not only
extend generous material and moral support to the Rohingyas
– within and beyond Bangladesh – in their
(what has already become) freedom struggle against Myanmar, but it should
also do its best to champion the cause of human rights and dignity. It is
time Bangladesh becomes more generous, assertive, and above all, a powerful
voice for the freedom struggle of the Rohingyas of Arakan. Bangladeshis should never lose sight of their own
history. They must affirm with no ambiguity that Arakan
is integral to Bangladesh. It is a Bengali land, forcibly occupied and
annexed by Burmans in 1784. The exigencies of
humanity, and national pride, dignity, and
self-respect of the Bengali nation of Bangladesh are at stake here.
Bangladesh must assert its claim over Arakan, and
must be proactive in sheltering the Rohingya
refugees, who are above all fellow human beings, and their not-so-distant
cousins, as well. So far, we have only seen
Islam-oriented people – mainly madrasa students and
teachers – publicly demonstrating against the mass killing of Rohingyas in Myanmar, only because the victims are
Muslims. It is sad, although not surprising, that we only come across Muslim
solidarity among conservative sections of the Muslim population in
Bangladesh, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Very few people in the Muslim World seem
to have bothered to condemn the killing and persecution of fellow human
beings in Myanmar or elsewhere in the world. The Bangladesh government’s
ambivalence, and at times bias against the Rohingyas,
is partially responsible for the collective indifference of the people in
Bangladesh. Most “leading
intellectuals” and members of the moribund civil society – who once played
historic role from 1948 to 1971, and beyond up to the fall of Dictator Ershad in 1990 – have remained silent at the ongoing mega
genocide in Myanmar. One may cite the latest signature campaign by members of
the civil society against some Bangladeshis’ making controversial and
defamatory comments against Chief Justice S.K. Sinha,
to highlight the state of the terminal decline and degeneration of the civil
society in Bangladesh. Early this month, only 25 civil society members put
their signatures on the mildest possible statement against the organized
defamation of the judiciary. Last but not least,
Bangladesh must affirm the following points in the most unambiguous terms: a) Rohingyas in Arakan are not Bangladeshi
intruders, rather more than 50 per cent of Chittagonians
are descendants of Rohingya refugees from Arakan, who came and settled there since the Burman Buddhist annexation of the independent kingdom of Arakan in 1784; b) Historically Arakan and Bangladesh were parts of the bigger entity
called Bengal, and they in the pre-British colonial days were at times
together under the Mughals, or lived side by side
as independent entities; c) Bangladesh is not going
to remain the main dumping ground of Rohingya
refugees; d) The Rohingya
issue is well-beyond a subject of counterterrorism studies or a terrorist
problem – it is about a persecuted minority’s right of self-determination,
and a life-and-death issue for them, and the entire humanity; e) Bangladesh must accept all Rohingya refugees – if the circumstances force it to do
so – and must not join
Myanmar, India, or any other country in its so-called quest for countering
ARAS terrorism; f) Bangladesh must urge the
UN, China, the West, and the Muslim World, and all humanitarian aid agencies,
human rights organizations, including the Red Cross and international and
Bangladeshi NGOs, philanthropists, and civil societies to generously help the
Rohingyas within and beyond Myanmar. g) Bangladesh should mobilize
public opinion across the world against Myanmar’s brutal regime, which has
been engaged in the mass killing and expropriation of Rohingya
minorities in Myanmar; h) Last but not least, it is
time for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to have her “Indira Gandhi (1971) moments” by championing the cause of
the freedom-loving Rohingyas – for the sake of
humanity and just peace – by allowing Arakan to
become another South Sudan of South Asia. Bangladesh just cannot remain
indifferent to the Rohingya crisis, it must not
abandon its own people to die at the hands of brutal Burman
invaders, or live as their slaves, indefinitely. Every society has certain
taboos – cultural/religious, social, and political – set apart and designated
as restricted or forbidden to associate with, or even to bring in ordinary
discussion. The Rohingya issue (for some strange
reasons) seems to be such a taboo in Bangladesh. Both people and government
here don’t want to go beyond certain limits to have a candid discussion on
the crux of the Rohingya issue, which goes beyond
the subject of organized persecution and killing of Rohingyas
in Myanmar. Far from being a peripheral
issue for Bangladesh – or just a “refugee problem for over-populated
Bangladesh” – the Rohingya issue has everything to
do with Bangladesh, its identity, integrity, honour, and dignity. Both Rohingyas and Arakan are rather
integral to Bangladesh, historically, culturally, and geopolitically. Now
it’s time that Bangladesh asserts in unambiguous terms: “Rohingyas
aren’t Bangladeshi intruders into Myanmar. They are Bengalis from Arakan, which is their ancestral home for more than a thousand
years. Arakan and the Rohingyas
are inseparable from Bangladesh and Bengalis; and Bangladesh just can’t be a
dumping ground for persecuted and expropriated Rohingya
refugees from Myanmar.” Unfortunately, what we hear
from the Government, media, and a tiny minority of Bangladeshi intellectuals
is all about asking (rather requesting) Myanmar to take back Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh; and to treat its Rohingya minority humanely. Some Bangladeshi Muslims and
Islamic organizations occasionally protest the killing and persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar, seemingly only because the victims
are Muslims. The problem is no longer Myanmar’s internal problem, as it was
never so in the past 200 years; it has everything to do with Bengalis, and
the state of Bangladesh! According to a CNN documentary (Jan 31, 2017) more
than 92,000 Rohingyas have entered the country in
the last one-year alone. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh
Government has taken two absurd decisions: firstly, it has virtually refused
to grant refugee status to the Rohingyas on the
flimsy ground of “over-population”; and secondly, it has proposed to “settle”
Rohingya refugees at Thengar
Char, a remote, marshy, and uninhabitable island, more than 37 miles from the
mainland of Bangladesh, which is often submerged in water. “This is a
terrible and crazy idea ... it would be like sending thousands of people to
exile rather than calling it relocation,” a Bangladeshi government official
told CNN recently, and he didn’t want to be named because he feared reprisals. Although Bangladesh isn’t a
signatory to the UN Refugee Convention (for some strange reasons), the
country has a moral obligation to accept refugees, as the country was born,
as one analyst has put it, “experiencing refugeehood”.
During our liberation war, around 10 million people (one out of every seven
of that time population) took refuge in neighbouring India. Last but not
least, Bangladesh has another obligation to the Rohingya
Bengalis from Arakan, which until 1784 was integral
to Bengal. A CNN documentary (Jan 31,
2016) on the plight of the Rohingya Bengalis is
heart-rending and revealing. While the Rohingyas,
the sons and daughters of the soil of Arakan or the
Rakhaine State of Myanmar for more than one
thousand years are at the receiving end of murder, rape, torture, and
expropriation at the hands of Myanmar authorities and Buddhist majority, the
Bangladesh authorities have remained very insensitive to these hapless
refugees. They should learn as to how some Western nations, especially Germany,
Sweden, and Canada, have welcomed and accommodated Muslim refugees from
Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Muslim World. Bangladesh should take a
proactive role in addressing the Rohingya issue. It
should pay heed to what the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Ms Alison Blake has recently told
the world about the persecution of the Rohingyas in
Myanmar in the most unambiguous terms: “Hearing
the description of the torture from Rohingyas who
fled Rakhine state in Myanmar, it seemed that it is
tantamount to genocide.” As reported in the Time magazine
(March 14, 2017), Yanghee Lee,the UN
Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar believes
the Myanmar authorities “may be trying to expel the Rohingya
population from the country altogether.” It’s strange but true,
while the situation for the Rohingyas in Myanmar is
comparable to the plight of the victims of the Syrian civil war, the people and government in Bangladesh are at most
lukewarm about the ongoing genocide of Bengali Rohingyas
in Myanmar. They aren’t enthusiastic about extending whole-hearted support to
the Rohingya refugees, let alone finding out a
permanent solution to their problem. They even avoid raising the question:
Aren’t Rohingyas Bengalis, and Arakan
integral to Bangladesh? The reasons aren’t far to seek. Firstly, Bangladeshis
in general don’t know the actual history of the Rakhaine
State of Myanmar, and the Rohingya people, who
aren’t descendants of Bangladeshi intruders into Myanmar but are indigenous
to the state, also known as Arakan. Bangladeshis
don’t know that Arakan is an occupied territory,
and the Rohingyas are the only legitimate
inhabitants of the territory. Arakan
was a Bengali-speaking Muslim kingdom up to 1784, when Buddhist Barmans annexed the kingdom to what is Myanmar today. The
British occupied Myanmar or Burma in 1826 and ruled the country up to 1948.
When the British left, Arakan, also called Rakhaine, remained a part of Myanmar. Meanwhile, thanks
to Myanmar government policy, Buddhist/Barman people had outnumbered the
indigenous Bengali Rohingyas in Arakan.
After 1948, Arakanese Muslims tried to become
independent, in vain. The rest is history. Salil Tripathi, a London-based renowned journalist and human
rights activist, in his well-researched article in 2015 gave a lurid
description of the premeditated ethnic cleansing by Myanmar’s military-backed
regimes, in historical and contemporary perspectives. He writes: “This May, Tomás Ojea Quintana, a former
United Nations special rapporteur on human rights
in Myanmar, said publicly that ‘the Rohingya are in
a process of genocide.’ Soon afterwards, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Desmond Tutu called the persecution of the Rohingya
a ‘slow genocide’.” His account of what has happened to Arakan
since Myanmar’s independence in 1948 is very discomforting too: “By the time the Japanese
invaded British-controlled Burma as part of the Second World War, in early
1942, about a third of the population of Sittwe, Arakan’s biggest city, was Muslim – almost all of them Rohingya. That is no longer so. Today’s Sittwe – the capital of Rakhine
state, home to some 150,000 people, and a place of peeling colonial houses,
ramshackle huts and crowded, noisy bazaars – is almost exclusively Buddhist.
The attacks in 2012, which were as vicious there as elsewhere in the state,
forced thousands of Muslims away. Fewer than 5,000 remain, confined to Aung Mingalar, once a thriving
Muslim quarter” [Salil Tripathi, Beyond All Bounds: How Myanmar’s democratic
opening has failed the Rohingya”, Caravan
Magazine,1
November 2015]. One may cite multiple
historical sources to show as to how the Rohingyas,
who are living in Arakan since the 8th century,
embraced Islam during the 9th and
15th centuries,
have not only become a minority in Arakan, but they
have become victims of a “slow genocide” in their own ancestral home. The
number of Rohingyas who have lost their lives –
dignity, honour, and properties – at the hands of Myanmar’s military and
civilians since 1942 is overwhelmingly and disproportionately high to their
total population in Myanmar. Around 50 per cent of Rohingyas
live as refugees and undocumented illegal workers in various countries. There
are credible sources and estimates about the size of the Rohingya
Diaspora. Bangladesh is said to have sheltered around 500,000 (according to
BBC, another 90,000 have entered the country in ten days, following the new
surge of violence on 25th August). There are 200,000
to 350,000 of them in Pakistan; 200,000 to 400,000 in Saudi Arabia; 150,000
in Malaysia; 100,000 in Thailand; 40,000 in India; 11,000 in Indonesia; and
10,000 in UAE. The Rohingyas
have a checkered history. They lived in the Muslim
kingdom of Arkan or Rakhaine.
Some of their Budhist rulers in the medieval period
adopted Islamic names and titles, and struck coins with Arabic and Persian
inscriptions. For several centuries, Arakan and the
Greater Chittagong had a common government, until the separation of the later
in 1666 under the Mughal rulers of India. In 1784, Bodawpaya, a Buddhist Burman
king annexed Arakan, which became a British
territory, not long after they occupied Myanmar in 1826. Soon, the British
brought tens of thousands of Bengalis to work in Myanmar. And Mayanmar Government since Independence in 1948, are
demanding the expulsion of all Bengalis and Rohingyas,
as foreigners, which is similar to what Sri Lankan majority Buddhist
Sinhalese community did to the minority Tamils. Sinhalese majority community
demanded the expulsion of all Tamils from Sri Lanka. They simply denied all
historical evidences about many Tamils, who had been living in Sri Lanka for
several thousand years. During the Japanese
occupation of Myanmar (1942-1945) while Burman
Buddhists in general collaborated with the Japanese occupation army, Rohingyas in general remained loyal to the British, and
many joined the anti-Japanese resistance army of the V-Force, raised by the
British. In 1942 alone, about a hundred thousand Rohingyas
got killed at the hands of Burman Buddhits. Shortly after Myanmar's
independence from the British in 1948, the Union Citizenship Act was passed,
defining which ethnicities could gain citizenship. According to a report [“Is Genocide Occuring in Myanmar’s Rakhine
State?”, October 2015] by the International Human
Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, the Rohingya were not included. The act,
however, did allow those whose families had lived in Myanmar for at least two
generations to apply for identity cards. A massive exodus of Rohingyas took place following the Independence. Meanwhile, before the Independence in January 1948,
Muslim leaders from Arakan addressed themselves to Muhammad
Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan,
and asked his assistance in incorporating Arakan to Pakistan, considering their religious
affinity and geographical proximity with East Pakistan. Two months later, the north
Arakan Muslim League was founded in Akyab (modern Sittwe). It
demanded annexation to Pakistan. The proposal was never
materialized since it was reportedly turned down by Jinnah saying that he was
not in a position to interfere into Burmese matters [ Moshe Yegar, The
Muslims of Burma: A Study of a Minority Group, South Asian Institute,
Heidelberg University, Verlag Otto Harrassowitz-Wiesbaen, 1972, p.10]. In 1962, General Ne Win
staged a military coup in Myanmar. His ascendancy signalled the beginning of
extremely hard time for the Rohingyas and other
ethno-national minority groups in the country. All citizens were required
to obtain national registration cards. The Rohingya,
however, were only given foreign identity cards, which limited the jobs and
educational opportunities they could pursue and obtain. Consequently, several
hundred thousand Rohingyas left the country after
1962. In 1978, a large-scale military operation (Operation King Dragon, also known as Operation Nagamin) took place in northern Arakan. Officially, it was
against Rohingya insurgents, who had been fighting
for an Islamic State, but actually it classified individuals living in Arakan as “citizens” and “illegal immigrants” from
Bangladesh. Consequently, around 250,000 Rohingyas
fled to Bangladesh. Most of them later returned to Bangladesh under UN
supervision, and faced arbitrary arrests, rape, torture, and expropriation. In 1982, a new citizenship
law effectively rendered the Rohingya stateless.
They were not among the 135 recognised ethnic groups in Myanmar. In order to
obtain the most basic level (naturalised citizenship), there must be proof that
the person's family lived in Myanmar prior to 1948, as well as she/he has
fluency in one of the national languages. Many Rohingya
lack such paperwork because it was either unavailable or denied to them. Henceforth, many Rohingyas cannot vote in Myanmar.In 1990, the
National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San
Suu Kyi won 392 of the
485 seats in Myanmar parliament. And despite their support for the NLD, as
more than 250,000 Rohingyas were forced out from Arakan into Bangladesh. Since the 1990s, the military
junta and the military-backed puppet government of Aung
San Suu Kyi (since 2016)
are grossly discriminating against the Rohingyas.
Afterwards, indiscriminate expropriations, rape, torture, expulsion, and
murder of Rohingyas by security forces and Burman Buddhists became the norm. Now, in regards to the Rohingya issue, the options for Bangladesh are very
limited. It can, however, now play a different ballgame with Myanmar. As
Bangladesh should pressure Myanmar to take back all the Rohingya
refugees who have fled to Bangladesh in the last few years, it should also
involve the UN, international human rights agencies, and China (which has
considerable influence with the Myanmar authorities) to make Myanmar respect
international law and human rights of people living under its suzerainty. Then again, the
ambivalence, contradictions, and the absence of any sense of direction in
Bangladesh Government’s Rohingya policy are big
problems toward an amicable settlement of the refugee problem. This is
evident in the following excerpts from a UN aid agency official – who wants
to remain anonymous and currently working at Cox’s Bazar
– who shared his opinion on Facebook on 1st September
2017 : a) For some unknown reasons,
the Bangladesh Government has not prepared any list of Rohingya
refugees. Consequently, although there are around 400,000 Rohingyas
in the country, there are only around 33,000 of them in the list of the UNHCR; b) This indecision would
eventually hurt Bangladesh, as if and when there is an agreement for
repatriation of the refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, the latter would not
accept anybody who are not enlisted in the UNHCR’s list; c) As Bangladesh Government’s
2014 policy on “National Strategy on Myanmar Refugees and Undocumented
Myanmar Nationals in Bangladesh” does not recognize Rohingyas
as refugee or asylum seekers but as illegal immigrants or intruders in the
country, they are not entitled to any international aid, and right of return
to their homeland; d) And this Bangladesh
Government is legitimizing the exploitation and marginalization of Rohingya refugees, and this policy might backfire to the
detriment of law and order and overall security of Bangladesh. To conclude, Bangladesh just can’t afford to be a passive spectator of the ongoing persecution of the Rohingyas who are indigenous to Arakan, once integral to Bangladesh. Now, there are some open-ended, --- and possibly embarrassing – questions in this regard. If Bangladesh should assert its claim on Arakan is altogether a different and difficult question! If there is a military solution to the problem, is another problematic question. One may agree with what Professor Bhuian Monoar Kabir of Chittagong University, wrote in a private communication to this writer. He thinks there could be three alternative options for the Rohingyas; and Bangladesh could play a positive role in attaining in accordance with the will of the majority of the Rohingya people:1. Northwestern Arakan could be autonomous, with full citizenship rights
to the Rohingyas; 2. Northwestern Arakan could become an independent Rohingya
state; |
