BANGKOK
- An exiled Rohingya activist last night
appealed to MPs and to National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu
Kyi to assist the almost 2 million Rohingya living in Burma and elsewhere.
“I
would like to ask our beloved Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out of behalf of
Rohingya people, and ask for the return of our lost rights, the rights our
forefathers had,” said Maung Kyaw Nu, the president of the Burmese Rohingya
Association of Thailand.
The
Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority living mostly in western Burma’s Arakan
State where they are denied Burmese citizenship, and subjected to various forms
of discrimination: they generally have to wait two to three years for permits
to marry; are usually prohibited from leaving the village where they live; and
are subject to human rights and other abuses by local civil and military
authorities.
When
Rohingya couples do receive permission to marry, they must sign an agreement
that they will not have more than two children. If a couple marries without
official permission, the husband can be prosecuted and spend five years in
detention—with Buthidaung jail in northern Arakan State thought to hold
prisoners in this category.
However,
the Rohingya say they were promised equal rights by Burma’s colonial-era
independence heroes, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, Gen. Aung San, in
return for their support in the struggle against British rule.
“In
1946 General Aung San visited my area,” said Maung Kyaw Nu. “He said to our
people ‘I give you a blank cheque, please co-operate with me.’”
All
told, around 750,000 Rohingya live in Burma, mostly in Arakan State in the
country’s west, with an estimated 1 million more living in exile in Bangladesh,
Malaysia, India and elsewhere—an exodus prompted by decades of human rights
violations and discrimination.
Rohingya
endure squalid and dangerous conditions in camps in Bangladesh and third
countries, such is the oppression they face at home, say activists. Some
Rohingya undertake a perilous sea journey to Thailand, where in 2009 Thai
authorities were accused of pushing Rohingya boats out to sea and leaving the
refugees to their fate on the open waters. Other Rohingya attempt get to
Indonesia or Australia in search of a new life, including a group of 26 who
were almost shipwrecked en route to Australia from Indonesia, subsequently
helped to land in Timor-Leste by local fishermen.
The
push factor could be increasing, according to Human Rights Watch Asia deputy
director Phil Robertson, who says relations between the Rohingya and the
majority Buddhist Rakhine in the western region are deteriorating, even as
Burma continues a recent glasnost. “While there are now some Rohingya MPs, some
Buddhist Rakhine in the state assembly are raising issues for the Rohingya,” he
said.
Phil
Robertson says Burma’s treatment of the Rohingya and the country’s 100-plus
other ethnic minorities is a litmus test for the government’s reform
credentials. “Is there a place for the Rohingya in Burma?” he asked.
Thai
photographer Suthep Kritsanavarin has visited the region. “Between the Rakhine
and the Rohingya there is always tension,” he said, speaking at the Foreign
Correspondents Club of Thailand, where his exhibition “Stateless Rohingya:
Running on Empty,” is on display.
Burma
is scheduled to host a meeting of the Asean human rights commission from June
3-6. It seems unlikely that the Rohingya issue will be discussed at the
get-together, as according to Phil Robertson, the Rohingya were not discussed
during the commission’s last meeting in Bangkok.
“So
far, Asean has been ducking this issue,” he said, asking: “Can Asean grapple
with a fundamental regional problem, and solve it?”
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