The Rohingya are
often described as the world’s most persecuted minority. A Muslim minority of
about 1.1 million people living mainly in the state of Arakan, in Myanmar, who
are not recognised as citizens by the Burmese government.
Without a
nationality, Rohingya Muslims have faced harsh persecution in their home state
which has made thousands of them embark on dangerous journeys to Bangladesh,Thailand and Malaysia amidst
reports of abuse.
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| Source: International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) |
In the latest
development following their persecution, Malaysia has accused Myanmar of
engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of the Muslim minority, as former United Nations
chief, Kofi Annan, visited a burned-out village in violence-hit Rakhine state.
Malaysia’s statement
noted that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighbouring
countries in recent years, including approximately 56,000 to Muslim-majority
Malaysia.
The Myanmar
government has said that the Rakhine crisis is an internal issue, but observers
are quick to point out that the issue is part of a long-term, systematic
strategy by the government to remove the Rohingya minority.
Myanmar is made up
of a predominantly Buddhist faith which accounts for 80 percent of the
population, other groups include Burmese folk religion, Protestantism,
Catholicism, Hinduism and Islam which makes up about 4 percent, according to a
2010 poll.
International
pressure on the country is mounting as the continuous persecution and
government restrictions have been likened to apartheid. Many of the “lucky
ones” who make it out of Myanmar to neighbouring countries earn less than
minimum wages and live in dire conditions, surrounded by waste and abject lack
of concern from foreign governments. Many are trafficked to countries such as
Malaysia with no idea what might occur, and with them are tales of horrors,
from illness to violence and in many cases death.
According to Amnesty
International, the Bangladeshi government has begun forcibly repatriate asylum
seekers regardless of international law.
Parts of Rakhine,
have been on military lockdown since October 9, where nine border police guards
were killed in what appeared to have been coordinated attacks on security
posts. The government said the assailants were Islamic militants and began its
search for what it said were hundreds of Rohingya jihadists.
More than 150,000
people who normally receive life-saving assistance have been barred from food
and medical aid for over six weeks.
Buddhist teachings
tend to promote peace and compassion, as the first precept is abstaining from
taking life, and the Buddha clearly stated that the taking of human or animal
life would lead to negative karmic consequences.
So, why has there
been an ensuing dispassion among both ethnoreligious groups in Myanmar?
Victims
and Violence
A report released by ISCI found compelling evidence of
state-led policies, laws and strategies of genocidal persecution stretching
back over 30 years, and of the Myanmar State coordinating with Rakhine
ultra-nationalists, racist monks and its own security forces in a genocidal
process against the Rohingya. http://statecrime.org/data/2015/10/ISCI-Rohingya-Report-PUBLISHED-VERSION.pdf
The unstable nature
of the relationship the Rohingya Muslims have with Burmese locals goes as far
back as 1559 AD when Burmese king Bayinnaung imposed sanctions upon his Muslim
subjects and from then on it has been a tale of oppression and bloodshed.
By 1921, despite the
colonial powers of the British, the divides between the two groups continued to
widen in a fashion similar to genocide. Muslims, regardless of their heritage,
were referred to as “Kala”–which roughly translates to “black” and used to racially
discriminate them.
At the peak of the
poor relations, on 22 September 1938, the British set up an Inquiry Committee
to investigate the riots. It was determined that the discontent was caused by
the deterioration in socio-political and economic condition of Burmese locals.
However, the report was used to incite sectarianism by Burmese newspapers.
In recent times, the
persecution entered a devastating phase in 2012 when over 200 Rohingya men,
women and children were killed following massacres sparked by the rape and
murder of a Rakhine woman by three Muslim men. Homes were destroyed and around
138,000 Rohingya were displaced and ended up in what are effectively detention
camps.
A further 4,500
desperate Rohingya people live in a squalid ghetto in Sittwe, Rakhine state’s
capital.
The Myanmar
government’s escalating institutionalised discrimination against the Rohingya
has allowed hate speech to flourish, encouraged Islamophobia and granted
impunity to perpetrators of the violence.
The systematic, planned
and targeted weakening of the Rohingya through mass violence and other
measures, as well as the regime’s successive implementation of discriminatory
and persecutory policies against them, amounts to a process of genocide. This
process has accelerated during Myanmar’s transition to democracy.
The reality of the
situation is that, the Buddhists in Myanmar have never accepted Muslims as
citizens regardless of migratory patterns and settlements. The Citizenship Act
only goes further to prove such a narrative, instead Rohingyas are required to
provide multitude of proofs to provide rights to them as Muslims.
The governments has
shown little concern in addressing the issue and have been known to try to
convert them to Buddhism, deport them to other countries and also engage them
in government-run projects without remuneration, further adding to their
discrimination and persecution.
For many Rohingyas,
the alternative is escape. Malaysia’s Muslim politicians, seeking a chance to
encourage religiousness, insist that ethnic Malays have a duty to help the
Rohingyas. Unless something changes, things will shift from bad to worse for
Rohingyas in Myanmar.