The Daily Star
“This is clearly, clearly, clearly genocide that is going
on by the Burmese government and military against the Rohingya people." Mairead
Maguire.
No one would realise better than a woman how it feels
when a child is snatched away from the arms of a mother and slaughtered, a man
is murdered before the eyes of his wife, or a girl is raped.
That is what happened to countless Rohingya women back in
Rakhine State of Myanmar.
Nobel laureate https://youtu.be/pJ6ss9QXL3E
As three Nobel laureates listened to such harrowing tales
of tortured women and children one by one in the refugee camps of Cox's Bazar,
they could not hold tears back.
The trio, all of them mother themselves, then urged
Myanmar's de facto leader and their fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to
speak out about violence against the Rohingyas, often dubbed one of the most
persecuted minorities in the world.
They implored her to "wake up" to the
brutalities, warning she otherwise risks prosecution for "genocide".
The three Nobel Peace Prize winners -- Tawakkol Karman,
Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire -- demanded those responsible for the
atrocities in Rakhine should be hauled to the International Criminal Court.
“We appeal to Aung San Suu Kyi, our sister laureate.
Think of your children being pulled off your arms, because you are a mother,
and massacred and villages burnt,” said Maguire, who is from Northern Ireland.
“Don't deny the Rohingya people their right to life,” she
said in an emotion-choked voice after listening to the Rohingya women at
Thyangkhali refugee camp in Ukhia of Cox's Bazar yesterday.
A violent military crackdown launched last August sent
700,000 Rohingyas fleeing to Bangladesh, sparking an unprecedented humanitarian
emergency in the border district where the refugees are now sheltered in
teeming, squalid camps.
Accounts of mass killing, rape, looting, burning of
villages and shooting of civilians kept coming with the refugees over the
months, while global condemnation poured in for the army campaign which the UN
termed a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing”.
Yemen's Tawakkol Karman said it is time Aung San Suu Kyi
woke up, or she will be one of the perpetrators of the crime.
“If she could not stop all this crime, she has to resign
now. It is very important,” she said, adding Suu Kyi otherwise could be
prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.
“We, women Nobel laureates, call for those criminals
prosecuted at the ICC … so we don't expect our sister Aung San Suu Kyi to be
one of them in the future. If she will continue her silence, she will be one of
them.”
The Nobel laureates came to Bangladesh on Saturday and
began a visit to the Rohingya camps to assess the allegations of violence against
Rohingya women and the overall refugee situation.
The Nobel Women's Initiative, a platform of six female
peace laureates established in 2006, is organising the visit in partnership
with Naripokkho. On Sunday, they visited the refugee camps in Kutupalang and
Balukhali.
They held a meeting with Refugee, Relief and Repatriation
Commissioner Abul Kalam in Cox's Bazar yesterday morning and visited the
refugee camps in Thyangkhali.
The three laureates, who all through their lives have
fought for human rights and democracy, expressed their anger at the inaction of
world leaders over the Myanmar crisis.
The UN Security Council discussed the Rohingya issue
several times but failed to take any concrete action against Myanmar that had
denied the minority people citizenship and rights to education, movement,
healthcare etc.
The Rohingyas have been fleeing since 1980s and the
latest influx that began on August 25 last year is the largest, raising the
number of refugees in Bangladesh to over a million.
In the first 10 days of this month, about 1,500 Rohingya
crossed over from Myanmar.
'CLEARLY GENOCIDE'
“Every single woman we met said they were raped, they
lost families. One woman's baby was taken off and butchered by the Myanmar
soldiers. This is clearly clearly clearly genocide that is going on by the
Burmese government and military against the Rohingya people,” added Maguire.
Terming it an orchestrated attempt to remove the
Rohingyas out of Myanmar and out of history, she said the Nobel laureates reject
the genocide policy of Myanmar.
"We reject this genocide policy of the Burmese
government. They will be taken to the ICC and those who are committing genocide
will be held responsible.
“As a human family, we cannot allow genocide of a whole
people. The world must act,” said Maguire, who spent her life in bearing
witness to oppression and standing in solidarity with people living in
conflicts.
“We have, as a human family, to remove impunity because a
people and military think they can kill and slaughter little children because
this is a slaughtering way of allegiance in a massive massive scale. Where is
our world going?”
She further said, “The international community has to say
enough is enough and we all have to raise our voices and not remain any more
silent.”
Yemen's Tawakkol Karman said the Rohingyas are really
facing genocide, a massacre, but the international community has “disappeared”.
“It is shame for all of us, for the international
community that they are silent in front of the genocide,” she said, calling for
the perpetrators of the crimes to be held accountable and tried at the
international court.
The first Arab woman to win Nobel Peace Prize, Karman
said the sufferings of the Rohingyas have been going on for decades under the
eyes of the world.
“Now we are seeing an ethnic cleansing. That's shameful
with the world, shameful that these women have been raped and their children
slaughtered. The worst crime is that they have been displaced from their homes,
their country.
“Now this is a real real appeal to the international
community, the UN and the Security Council to wake up. It is the time now to
wake up.”
Later, Karman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation she had
spoken to 15 women who said their husbands and some of their children had been
killed, and they had been raped repeatedly by soldiers.
"You can't imagine what we heard today," said
Karman, who won Nobel Peace in 2011 for her nonviolent struggle for the safety
of women rights and peace-building in Yemen.
Iran's Shirin Ebadi said that as members of international
community it is their upmost demand Myanmar military be taken to the
International Court of Justice.
“We are all paving the way for that,” said Ebadi, who was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for promoting human rights, in particular
the rights of the women, children and political prisoners.
Meanwhile, she said, Rohingya refugees are still coming
into Bangladesh that must stop because it is not good for the minority group and
it also creates intense pressure on the people of Bangladesh.
The Nobel laureates expressed gratitude to Bangladesh
government and people for their generosity in hosting the refugees, and urged
the UN and international community to ensure the Rohingyas have basic needs and
services.
“We are with you, with Bangladeshi people,” said Karman.