A Rohingya mother and her children carry water from a stream to their refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (PHOTO: Reuters)
BANGKOK—An exiled Rohingya activist last night appealed to MPs and to
National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi to assist
the almost 2 million Rohingya living in Burma and elsewhere.
“I would like to ask our beloved Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out of
behalf of Rohingya people, and ask for the return of our lost rights,
the rights our forefathers had,” said Maung Kyaw Nu, the president of
the Burmese Rohingya Association of Thailand.
The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority living mostly in western
Burma’s Arakan State where they are denied Burmese citizenship, and
subjected to various forms of discrimination: they generally have to
wait two to three years for permits to marry; are usually prohibited
from leaving the village where they live; and are subject to human
rights and other abuses by local civil and military authorities.
When Rohingya couples do receive permission to marry, they must sign
an agreement that they will not have more than two children. If a couple
marries without official permission, the husband can be prosecuted and
spend five years in detention—with Buthidaung jail in northern Arakan
State thought to hold prisoners in this category.
However, the Rohingya say they were promised equal rights by Burma’s
colonial-era independence heroes, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s father,
Gen. Aung San, in return for their support in the struggle against
British rule.
“In 1946 General Aung San visited my area,” said Maung Kyaw Nu. “He
said to our people ‘I give you a blank cheque, please co-operate with
me.’”
All told, around 750,000 Rohingya live in Burma, mostly in Arakan
State in the country’s west, with an estimated 1 million more living in
exile in Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and elsewhere—an exodus prompted by
decades of human rights violations and discrimination.
Rohingya endure squalid and dangerous conditions in camps in
Bangladesh and third countries, such is the oppression they face at
home, say activists. Some Rohingya undertake a perilous sea journey to
Thailand, where in 2009 Thai authorities were accused of pushing
Rohingya boats out to sea and leaving the refugees to their fate on the
open waters. Other Rohingya attempt get to Indonesia or Australia in
search of a new life, including a group of 26 who were almost
shipwrecked en route to Australia from Indonesia, subsequently helped to
land in Timor-Leste by local fishermen.
The push factor could be increasing, according to Human Rights Watch
Asia deputy director Phil Robertson, who says relations between the
Rohingya and the majority Buddhist Rakhine in the western region are
deteriorating, even as Burma continues a recent glasnost. “While there
are now some Rohingya MPs, some Buddhist Rakhine in the state assembly
are raising issues for the Rohingya,” he said.
Phil Robertson says Burma’s treatment of the Rohingya and the
country’s 100-plus other ethnic minorities is a litmus test for the
government’s reform credentials. “Is there a place for the Rohingya in
Burma?” he asked.
Thai photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin has visited the region.
“Between the Rakhine and the Rohingya there is always tension,” he said,
speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, where his
exhibition “Stateless Rohingya: Running on Empty,” is on display.
Burma is scheduled to host a meeting of the Asean human rights
commission from June 3-6. It seems unlikely that the Rohingya issue will
be discussed at the get-together, as according to Phil Robertson, the
Rohingya were not discussed during the commission’s last meeting in
Bangkok.
“So far, Asean has been ducking this issue,” he said, asking: “Can
Asean grapple with a fundamental regional problem, and solve it?”
Source: Irrawaddy
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