Rohingya need help, not just lip service from Myanmar govt
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| (Photo: The Nation) |
November 3, 2013
Fear of safety and communal strife is forcing the minority community to flee the country
The UN refugee agency this weekend issued a statement warning about the possible exodus of boat people from Myanmar because of the outbreak of violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine state.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) pointed out that more than 1,500 people had left Rakhine state by boat last week and there were reports that some of them had drowned off the coast.
Fear of personal safety and instability in Rakhine state are some of the reasons why a growing number of the people are leaving, according to the UNHCR.
The ongoing tension between the Buddhist and Muslim communities in Rakhine state this past year has resulted in numerous casualties. More than 140,000 are internally displaced.
The violence has been largely described as communal, but experts warned that it was on the verge of becoming a genocide if left unchecked.
The violence in Rakhine state has also fostered anti-Muslim sentiment in this Buddhist-majority country that has been on course for political reform over the past couple of years.
A leading monk even came out and called for the boycott of Muslim businesses in Myanmar.
But while the open anti-Muslim campaign is something relatively new, the ill treatment of the Rohingya by the state is not. And as the UN just pointed out, things are not getting better.
During the first eight months of this year, the UN estimated that more than 24,000 people, mostly Rohingya, from the Myanmar-Bangladesh border had left the
area in search of a better life in places like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Rohingya travel by boat because they have no citizenship, making travel over land that much more difficult.
There were hopes that Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy, would provide some moral support.
But apparently, party politics in Burma has taken its toll on the once-icon of democracy and human rights and a person who many believed possessed a great deal of moral authority.
Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the situation in human rights in Myanmar, recently warned that the anti-Muslim feeling could seriously damage the country's economic and political reforms.
President Thein Sein has paid lip service to the need to coexist peacefully but more has to be done to translate this into reality. Groups like Human Rights Watch have suggested that local authorities are turning a blind eye to the killings of Muslims.
The Myanmar government has been working hard to push through a peace deal with the armed ethnic armies but unfortunately, the underlying issue of discrimination against Muslims and particularly Rohingya receives only lip service.
With the armed minorities, Myanmar speaks of democracy, human rights and dignity and explores the kind of concessions they are willing to make to obtain a peace agreement with them.
One can only hope that the Burmese leaders would extend the same principles to the Rohingya and other Muslims in the country.
