Returning Rohingya refugees is like sending
Holocaust survivors to gas chambers, says Myanmar rights activist
By Sorwar Alam
ANKARA
Bangladesh needs to form a broader
international alliance to resolve the issue of roughly 1 million Rohingya
refugees in the country, a rights activist and political dissident from Myanmar
has said.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency on Global
Genocide Day, Maung Zarni said four regional powers plus Israel either support
or protect Myanmar’s genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority group in the
western Rakhine state.
"No genocide is ever committed by a
single nation state. Whenever genocide is committed there has always been
coalition of friend that either supports the criminal regime or that protects
the regime,” he said.
Russia, China, India, Japan and Israel have
both economic and military interests in Myanmar, according to Zarni, and this
lends silent support to Myanmar at the international forums.
The genocide in Myanmar is committed
"with the collaboration, complicity and support of" these states, he
added, suggesting that a "counter alliance" against these states is
crucial to resolve issues such as their safe repatriation.
The Rohingya, described by the UN as the
world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since
dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
According to Amnesty International, more than
750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly children and women, fled Myanmar and crossed
into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority
Muslim community.
To solve the Rohingya issue “there has to be
some form of intervention. I don’t mean the military intervention. There are
different types of intervention,” he added.
He suggested the Bangladesh government to
mobilize the international community by organizing a wider international
conference in Dhaka to determine the future of the Rohingya.
Zarni went on to say that Dhaka should form
an “alternative alliance” along with Latin and North American states, EU, the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and other countries that oppose the
Rohingya genocide at the UN Human Rights Council.
Repatriation is no longer a solution
Zarni, who is a member of the board of
advisors of Genocide Watch and a non-resident fellow at Genocide Documentation
Center in Sleuk Rith Institute, Cambodia, suggested that talking to Myanmar’s
de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to resolve the Rohingya crisis “is utterly
useless”.
“Suu Kyi is either unwilling or siding with
the military or not accepting even the UN’s voting that this is a crime that
her army is committing.
“Relaxing a few rules is not going to solve
[the issue] in a place where Rohingya are no longer accepted as part of Burma
[former name of Myanmar].”
Underlining that Bangladesh is carrying a
huge burden by accepting the refugees, Zarni noted that it was not Dhaka's duty
to feed them.
“For Bangladesh to be able to keep one
million Rohingya on its soil, ......the international community has to meet the
humanitarian obligation by providing Bangladesh with 100 percent money to feed
them, medical supply, technology, education, all kind of things.”
Bangladesh feels two-pronged pressure from
the international community which expects the country to host the refugees with
its limited resources.
Only 40 percent needs of the refugees in
Bangladesh are met, said Zarni, who has lived in exile for more than 30 years.
He likened Rohingya repatriation to Myanmar
to sending Holocaust survivors back to gas chambers at Auschwitz. “It is a
suicide, [Because] the perpetrators are still in power.”
“You would be stupid to think that your old
perpetrators are going to protect your children… You cannot trust a rapist, and
go and live in the same house with the rapist. The killers are still around.
You cannot go back.”
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a Rohingya
repatriation agreement last year that suggested that the repatriation has to be
voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable. But the process had been postponed
several times due to protests by the refugees.
"Because they just saw what happened to
their mothers and fathers and children. A lot of them survived the rape. And
they saw their own children killed while they are being raped. So, you cannot
tell these people to go back. If they don’t want to go back and if Bangladesh
forces them to go back then Bangladesh would become a bad guy. Because that is
against the international humanitarian law, I think that Bangladesh is aware of
it.”
Massive prison
Citing recent reports of Rohingya fleeing
Myanmar by boats, Zarni stated that persecution of Rohingya is still going on
in Myanmar.
Trying to give a glimpse of their life in
Myanmar, he said: "Rohingya villages are not villages anymore. They are
designated as security grids by military and a villager has to pass four
security check points to go to the next village."
"Women don’t have access to prenatal
care. Rohingya are not allowed to move from one village to the other, to go to
a clinic. The doctor-patient ratio is 1 to 186,000 for Rohingya while the
national average is 1,000 or 2,000 patients per doctor."
“It is like a massive prison with a higher
concentration of guards,” he added comparing the Rohingya area in Myanmar to
Gaza in Palestine.
Zarni also spoke against Dhaka's plan to
resettle 100,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a recently emerged island in
the Bay of Bengal.
“People start to express serious concern
because they [the shelters] look more like a prison camp. The video documents
coming, they are not normal village. And also, the island is two hours by
[motor] boat from the nearest shore.
He stressed that Rohingya want to go back to
Myanmar and live a peaceful and dignified life.
"Give them their lands and forests and
rivers back. They know how to live. Poorly, but they don’t need to rely on
anybody. They never relied on anybody,” he added.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya
Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by
the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown
into fires, while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, titled
"Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience."
Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were
raped by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned
down and 113,000 others vandalized, it added.
The UN has documented mass gang rapes,
killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and
disappearances committed by Myanmar state forces. In a report, UN investigators
said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.