Myanmar's president has pledged to consider new rights for the stateless
Rohingya minority ahead of a landmark visit by President Barack Obama, but
stopped short of a full commitment that citizenship and other new freedoms
would be granted.
In a letter sent to the United
Nations on Friday, President Thein Sein made conciliatory remarks that
condemned the "senseless violence" in western Rakhine state between
Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya.
Almost 200 people have died and
more than 100,000 have been displaced since June in fighting between the two
communities, reports Associated Press.
The persecution of Rohingyas also
affects Bangladesh. Whenever communal violence breaks out in Myanmar, the
minorities intrude into Bangladesh through Teknaf bordering area.
Bangladesh accommodates around
29,000 registered Rohingya refugees, although different estimates suggest the
number of the Myanmarese minorities unofficially living in and around Cox's
Bazar ranges between 2.5 and 5 lakh. (One lakh is equivalent to 100,000.)
Yesterday, the world's top
Islamic body called for the international community to protect Muslims in
Myanmar's unrest-hit Rakhine state from "genocide".
"We expect the United States
to convey a strong message to the government of Burma so they protect that
minority, what is going on there is genocide," said Djibouti's Foreign
Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who is the acting chairman of the Organisation
of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
"We are telling things how
they are, we believe that the United States and other ... countries ... should
act quickly to save that minority which is submitted to an oppressive policy
and a genocide," he said at the end of an OIC foreign ministers' meeting
in Djibouti.
OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu of Turkey also urged a stop to what he called "ethnic
cleansing" of the Rohingya, considered among the most persecuted groups in
the world by the United Nations.
"We would like the international
community to act immediately to stop the ethnic cleansing," he said.
The 57-member OIC decided at an
August summit in Mecca to take the issue before the UN General Assembly, writes
AFP.
Obama tomorrow will become the
first sitting US president to visit Myanmar in a short but hugely symbolic trip
that he hopes will spur greater reform in the once isolated country and
highlight a rare success for his policy of engaging pariah regimes.
Ahead of the visit, Thein Sein
said yesterday that the communal unrest was hampering the country's reforms and
causing it "to lose face" on the world stage.
In October, he blocked the OIC
from opening an office in the country, following rallies against the organisation's
efforts to help Rakhine's Muslims.
In his letter to the UN, Thein
Sein made no promises and offered no timeline for resolving the tensions, but
it marked an overture to the international community and to Obama.
The White House has urged Myanmar
to take urgent action to end the strife and has said Obama will press the
matter with Thein Sein, along with demands to free political prisoners as the
Southeast Asian country transitions to democracy after a half-century of
military rule.
Thein Sein in his letter said his
government was prepared to address contentious issues "ranging from
resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship,"
according to a statement from the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon that contained excerpts from the letter.
He said he also would look at
issues including work permits and permits granting freedom of movement for the
Rohingya to ensure they are treated in line with "accepted international
norms."
The UN statement called Thein
Sein's letter a step "in the right direction."
It was not clear from his letter
whether Thein Sein was changing his stance on citizenship for the Rohingya. He
has previously cited strict citizenship laws stating that only Rohingya whose
families settled in the country before independence from Britain in 1948 were
considered citizens.
Meanwhile, Civil society
activists in New Delhi have protested against what they said Myanmar's
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's unwillingness to acknowledge Rohingya
Muslims' plight in her homeland.
The protesting groups, including
the Association for Protection of Civil Rights and the Democratic Students'
Union, on Friday issued a statement, in which they disapproved Suu Kyi's
continuous silence and ambivalent attitude towards the violence against "a
section of her compatriots known as Rohingyas."
Suu Kyi, who is now on a visit to
India, told NDTV in an interview on Thursday that both sides were responsible
for the ethnic violence in the Rakhine province and she did not want to take
sides because she wanted to promote national reconciliation.
"The political position [on
the issue] of Suu Kyi, the daughter of respected General Aung San who stood for
democracy, peace and minority rights in Burma, is highly condemnable in all respects,"
the statement says.
"Its a complete hypocrisy
that Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't stand by the victims of the ethnic cleansing in
Burma [Myanmar], but wants India to stand by her cause," it adds.
The activists on Friday were
agitating outside a leading women's college in the capital of India.
Suu Kyi had discredited the
plight of Rohingyas by describing the situation in Myanmar as a mere issue of
law and order, they said, adding her fight for democracy would remain
incomplete until she spoke against the persecution of such minorities in her
own country.
The protesters were detained for
a brief period at Greater Kailash Police Station before being freed.
The United Nations has called the
Rohingya -- who are widely reviled by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar -- among
the most persecuted people on Earth.
Myanmar denies the Rohingya
citizenship, even though many of their families have lived in Myanmar for
generations.
The UN estimates that 800,000 Rohingya
live in Myanmar, where they face heavy-handed restrictions: They need
permission to marry, have more than two children and travel outside of their
villages.
News Desk
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