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Desperate
Rohingya victims from villages of Maungdaw, whose nests burnt down by Myanmar
army, limb to Bangladesh and weep tear of blood on November 21, 2016. (Photo – REUTERS/Mohammad
Ponir Hossain)
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By Aung Aung
The number
of Rohingya rape victims, death, burnt houses, and arrested people is
increasing day by day in Maungdaw. International Community urges Myanmar
government to stop human rights violation instead of taking immediate action
for its cruelest crimes against humanity.
The
Genocidal Clearance Operation of Myanmar Government in Maungdaw caused
extra-judicial killing of 700 innocent civilians, about 200 gang-raped women,
burnt down of 1400 houses, more than a thousand tortures and interrogations,
and more than 50000 internally displaced persons.
Nobel
Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government arrogantly dismisses all evidence,
including satellite imagery of HRW and eyewitness accounts, and persists in
denying any wrongdoing as it substitutes the army’s propaganda. The United
Nations has called for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses in
Myanmar against ethnic Rohingya.
Myanmar has
long persecuted the country’s Rohingya minority, denying it basic rights to
citizenship, to marry, to worship and to an education. Extra-judicial killing,
arrests, persecutions and long prison sentences were common methods of
repression under the former military regime, and such practices were continued
under the former civilian government elected in 2010. The practice has not
ceased rather it extends to the way complete destruction of Rohingya in Arakan.
Rohingya
have been under persecution since 1960s and State has started genocidal program
against them since 1990s depriving all fundamental rights including
Citizenship. Later, in 2012, State organized violence and keep all Rohingya in
the concentration camps and ghettos.
Recently
under newly so-called civilian
government led Nobel Laureate has started genocidal operations against them in
Maungdaw District since 10 October 2016. The only reason of killing, burning,
raping and arresting of Rohingya by Myanmar government is the faith they
believe in. According to State policy, if they convert to Buddhism, there will
be no persecution at all.
The
military’s genocidal operation began as a response to an attack on Oct 9 by
unknown armed assailants that left nine police officers dead in Maungdaw
District. Within 100 days, NLD government let to destroy two Mosques in Hpakant
and ThuYe ThaMin, confiscate 100s of Muslims’ cows by Buddhist extremists. The
Oct 9 attack may have been set off by an earlier government announcement that
it planned to destroy illegal structures in the area, including more than 2,500
homes, 600 shops, a dozen mosques and more than 30 schools.
In September
2015, the Obama administration eased remaining economic sanctions on Myanmar,
citing, among other achievements, the new government’s focus on bringing
“respect for human rights to its people. But easing sanctions turn to a license
to continue Rohingya Genocide and practice apartheid policy against Muslims in
Myanmar.
Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi herself insists on underlining the Rohingya’s foreignness by referring
to them as “Bengalis” and argues that the government’s response to the attack
is based on “the rule of law.”
Genocidal
operations called “clearance operation” forces to leave hundreds of Rohingya
whose homes were burnt down and properties were looted by Myanmar military to
Bangladesh. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB)’s push-back poses a serious security
threat to the lives of Rohingya refugees and it does not relay the message of
good-neighborliness in the time of great despair.
Bangladesh
encountered two massive waves of Rohingya refugee influx when King Dragon
Operation and Operation Clean Nation (Pyi Thaya) were launched in 1978-79 and
1991-1992 respectively. The first operation forced an estimated 297,000
Rohingya and more than 250,000 in the latter.
The majority
of them were forcibly repatriated and the continuous cycle of persecutions made
the large part the repatriated Rohingya to become refugees for second time and
for some third time. Currently around 500,000 Rohingya scatter across
Bangladesh including 32,600 in two registered refugee camps in Kutupalong and
Nayapara, more than 57,000 in Leda, Kutupalong and Nayapara unregistered
refugee camps.
During my
childhood, my grandfather told me the story of Jungle where predators eat praise
for their survival. Now, we feel our lives in Myanmar are worse than preys in
the Jungle. Though we are in the Global Villages, the World Order, Superpowers
and Leaders become kings of the Jungle or predators ignoring the most
persecuted Rohingya face genocide.
A grade-8
student asked me “Teacher! According to tradition, all Muslims are like a body,
pain any part of the body affects the whole body. Now, Muslims are killing each
other everywhere in the name Islam ignoring Quranic principle “Killing one is
equal to the whole humanity”. Bangladesh authority does not feel pain of
extra-judicial killing of Rohingya in Myanmar. Does Islam really exist on
Earth?”
Aung San Suu
Kyi is legitimizing genocide in Myanmar and has entrenched the persecution of
the Rohingya minority, according to state crime specialists at Queen Mary
University of London. Thomas MacManus, lawyer and ISCI researcher says “Aung
San Suu Kyi must be held to account.
The
Rohingya need strong advocates and they need the world to understand that the
persecution they face is genocidal. Only enormous pressure on the Myanmar
government will succeed in halting the devastation. The Rohingya are staring
death in the face.”