SOURCE  BBC

Nasima, 22, is from the Rohingya ethnic group, a Muslim minority that lives in western Burma. Rights groups say it is one of the most persecuted communities in the world – they were made stateless in 1982, and deemed to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Several hundred thousand have since crossed into Bangladesh, where people speak a similar language. This year Dhaka has been accused of arresting hundreds of Rohingya and forcing them over the border – claims the government denies. It says it is too poor to help them. The BBC’s Mark Dummett spoke to Nasima in the Kutupalong makeshift camp, which is now home to more than 30,000 Rohingyas.

“In Burma my people face persecution, so that’s why we come to Bangladesh,” Nasima said. “In my family’s case, we came under pressure from the government because we had some property.

“One day, the army accused my father of sheltering someone who had just returned from Bangladesh. Anyone who comes back to Burma is sent to jail, so it is illegal to look after them. But that accusation was false.

“They took my father to a military camp and beat him up. After seven days they sent us his blood-stained clothes and said they would kill him.

“So we sold all our cattle and chickens at the market. We sent that money to the camp and they then released him.

“Later, my brother was attacked by some Buddhist people. He was badly injured and after lots of suffering he eventually died.

“As I grew up, my father decided that I wasn’t safe in Burma. The government doesn’t let us marry so he told me to leave for Bangladesh.

“We had a relative who was handicapped and a beggar, and she agreed to look after me.

“We took a boat over the river and it was very dangerous. On the other side we were stopped by the Bangladesh Rifles [BDR].

“They demanded bribes of 100 taka each [$1.50] to let us through, but we only had 100 taka between us.

“‘You must leave the girl with us then,’ the BDR men said. But my relative refused and argued that she could not move without me helping her. So finally they let us through.”

Police raid

Nasima said: “I already had one sister in Bangladesh but I didn’t know where she was living. So we went to Cox’s Bazar and lived as beggars.

“Sometimes people would give us a little rice or a bit of money to survive.

“Finally I met a man who knew my sister. She was living in Alikadam, and her husband came and got me.

“I lived there for two years, working as a farm labourer. Life was fine, and I was able to marry and have a child.

“But five days after the baby was born the police arrived. They came without warning when we were having dinner.

“They rounded up all the Burmese men including my husband and my sister’s husband and put them in a police truck.

“I told the police that I had a newborn and that we could not survive without my husband.

“I begged them to let him stay, but they said that the Rohingya should expect no mercy. So I told them to take me too.

“They put me into the lorry and drove us to the river.

“They found a fishing boat and threatened to beat up the captain if he didn’t take us to the other side – to Burma.

“Once we got there, he told us that he had seen some other Rohingyas being shot by the Nasaka [the Burmese border guards], and he told us how to follow the river upstream and then sneak back into Bangladesh.

“We walked the whole night and then finally in the morning we got back to this side.

“That’s when I noticed there was something wrong with my baby. He had died during the journey and I hadn’t even realised it. We dug a small hole with our bare hands and buried him there.

“We came to a road and waved to a passing jeep. We begged the driver to save our lives and take us away from there. All I had to pay him with was my scarf.

“He had heard about the Kutupalong camp and said that the Rohingya were safe there.

“One week after arriving at the camp my husband said he had to go and find work. He left and I have no idea where he is now.

“I survive by going into the jungle and collecting firewood to sell. If I collect some, I can then eat a little.

“This week I have only had three meals. But I am living alone. It is much worse for some of the families with 10 or 11 mouths to feed.

“Death would be better than this life.”

By BENEDICT ROGERS                  SOURCE    DVB
Published: 28 May 2010

When I visited the makeshift camps for Rohingya refugees on the Bangladesh-Burma border, I made up my mind there and then that I would not rest until their plight received the attention it needs and deserves.

In all my travels to places of poverty, conflict and oppression, I don’t think I have seen human misery on such a scale. It was wet season and the rain seeped through the ground and dripped through the roof of every shack. Children were malnourished, some chronically, and the sick were dying with no access to medical care. Teenagers were teaching younger kids, because there was no schooling available. They told me that they themselves should still be in education, but there were no opportunities for them and so they shared their limited knowledge with those younger than them. (more…)

SOURCE   ”THE HUFFINGTON POST”

For Riya, life in the refugee camps in Bangladesh isn’t much better than Burma. Her shelter rests on the side of a hill pieced together with scraps of tarp and chunks of mud, and she only has access to water for one hour a day. Since being born, her son has been inflicted with numerous illnesses. He suffers from continuous bouts of diarrhea, his belly is distended from malnourishment, his scrotum enlarged, and his thighs and lower belly covered in red pustules. Riya scrounges for food from relatives, collects and sells firewood from the local forest, and begs for money outside the camp just to avoid hunger. Under these conditions, she cannot seek medical care for her son because of the constant need to find food to avoid starvation. Riya shares the common sentiment in the refugee camp that the choice between living in Burma or fleeing to refugee camps in Bangladesh, is “like a choice between a crocodile and a snake.”

For many Rohingya refugees, like Riya, they sought sanctuary in Bangladesh after being subject to state-sponsored persecution in Burma. Many have experienced property seizures, forced labor, military conscription, and have been prohibited from practicing their faith, or freely traveling, marrying or having children without permission from Burmese authorities. The Rohingya are an ethnic, Muslim minority from Burma who have no legal recourse and no protection from human rights violations. This is because of a 1982 law denying the Rohingya citizenship in their country of origin. This lack of nationality is the root of their persecution in Burma and the reason why the Rohingya cannot return home.

With no prospects for change in Burma, and a deplorable reception in Bangladesh, the Rohingya refugees are essentially being “warehoused.” As defined by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, this means they are kept in a “protracted situation of restricted mobility, enforced idleness, and dependency.” They are denied basic human rights such as the right to wage-earning employment, freedom of movement, access to courts, and public education. Although many Rohingya have been languishing in Bangladesh refugee camps for 19 years, this group is little known outside of Southern Asia. Yet, the Rohingya are a population deserving of international attention and advocacy on their behalf.

As a stateless group, the Rohingya are stuck in between a country that denies them citizenship and a country that denies them refugee status. To ensure their humane treatment, the conditions and outlook facing the Rohingya must be changed. First and foremost, their forcible repatriation to Burma must stop. Protection from forced return to a county of persecution is a widely practiced custom known as non-refoulement. Yet despite being accepted by some as customary international law, the principal of non-refoulement goes unrecognized in Bangladesh. Rohingya refugees have recently come under threat from an unprecedented campaign by Bangladesh authorities to forcibly return them to Burma. Because persecution of Rohingya persists in Burma, their repatriation must stop.

Second, international humanitarian organizations must be permitted to enter the camps and offer basic needs services to the Rohingya to ensure their survival. This is especially important in light of the inadequate levels of aid. In the past, the government of Bangladesh has tacitly allowed a few non-governmental organizations to provide services to the Rohingya, but recently rescinded their approval for some. Now, organizations like Islamic Relief are forced to end their operations in Bangladesh due to lack of government approval. Islamic Relief had provided primary support for 13,000 Rohingya refugees in a makeshift camp. Their exit increases the already overwhelming need for basic survival services.

Riya’s experience is just one example that illustrates the need for durable solutions for refugees in the midst of protracted conflict. Unfortunately, Riya’s story is not uncommon. There are 39,000 other Rohingya refugees living in refugee camps and an estimated 200,000 undocumented Rohingya living in Bangladesh.

As we approach March 17th, there is special occasion to raise awareness about the Rohingya and advocate on their behalf. This date marks the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Refugee Act by President Carter. The Refugee Act demonstrates U.S. recognition of the ongoing refugee phenomenon, and the need to provide a haven and overseas assistance for the persecuted.

On this anniversary, the law that demonstrates our desire to provide refuge should be commemorated, but this anniversary should also draw policymakers’ attention to the continuing need to provide assistance to those fleeing persecution. There needs to be recognition of the continued displacement of the Rohingya and progress on policies that ensure their humane treatment. As Americans, we need to recognize our ability to act on behalf of those we have not met, our responsibility to choose empathy over apathy, and our power to affect change by placing pressure on our government. This is a population that cannot wait 19 more years for a solution to their displacement.

By Dr. Habib Siddiqi   SOURCE ”THE ASIAN TRIBUNE”

The subject of minorities is a very touchy one in any country, especially in nation-states where a national heritage or culture or identity (often dictated by the majority population) defines the characteristic of the state.

Such modern concepts of states get complicated if there are other minorities that live in the state, each claiming to be a separate “nation” by virtue of its religion, language, culture, etc.

Bangladesh has about 12% religious minorities, including approximately 10% Hindus, the remainders being Buddhists, Christians, agnostics, atheists and animists. Roughly one percent of the population lives in the high hills, e.g., Jayintia, Garo Hills and Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) districts.

Historically the Bengal delta was husbanded by people who resorted to wet cultivation while the people in the hills, who were outside tax collection from ruling authorities, resorted to dry cultivation for their staple food. In the olden days of the Mughal rulers the authority of the state sometimes ended where the hills began.

As we all know it was the marauding attacks from the Maghs (Arakanese Buddhists) and Portuguese pirates, which were sponsored by the Buddhist Kings of Arakan, that led to Shaista Khan’s campaign to re-conquest Chittagong and its hilly districts, ensuring these territories’ sovereignty within the Mughal rule. His campaign stopped shy of the present-day Arakan that demarcated itself from Bangladesh by the Naaf River. During the subsequent Nawabi rule of Bengal and British Raj the territorial boundary remained the same, i.e., both those districts remained integral to Bengal and outside Buddhist rules of Arakan, Burma and Tripura.

Unlike the Mughal and Muslim Sultanates of Bengal, the British Raj (esp. during the Company era) was more interested about collection of revenue and had little concern about the goodwill of the local people and their legitimate grievances whether or not such taxes were burdensome. It was their heavy handedness that led to the horrible famine of 1769-1773 (corresponding to Bangla Year 1176-1180, and more commonly therefore known as “Chiatturer monontor”) killing some 15 million people of Bengal (that included Bihar and Orissa). One in every three person perished in that great famine.

During the British Raj a more drastic and concerted effort was taken to reclaim hilly areas under taxation. In order to increase revenue collection, the Raj created local tribal chiefs in the Hilly districts, Rajas, who would ensure payment of such revenues. For the planes, it had by the 19th century already instituted a similar scheme of collecting revenues from the zamindars (not to be forgotten in this context the Sunset Law), who essentially became the enforcer of collecting such revenues in the form of money or kind (e.g., paddy) from the raiyats – peasants, and petty merchants. That is, the role of the zamindars was similar to a revenue collector in modern times.

The CHT districts with their deep forests, much like many other hilly parts of pre-modern era India, often became refuges to rebels and revenue- and tax-evaders who would settle (without its true connotation) there to escape from being hunted down by the ruling authority. In 1784 in the nearby Arakan there was a massive genocidal campaign that was steward-headed by the racist Buddhist king of Burma — Bodaw Paya — who had invaded the independent state. Arakan – the land of poets Alaol and Dawlat Kazi – had a significant population of Muslims (commonly known as the Rohingya people) who had lived in the other side of the Naaf River for centuries. [As shown elsewhere by this author, the origin of the Rohingya people of Arakan pre-dates the settlement of the Tibeto-Burman people there.] The genocidal campaign by the Buddhist king led to a mass scale forced eviction and exodus of hundreds of thousands of people of Arakan to the nearby territories of British India, esp. to Chittagong and CHT districts of today’s Bangladesh. Nearly a hundred thousand people, mostly Muslims, were killed by the Burmese extermination campaign. The Mahamuni statue of Buddha itself was stolen away from the Arakan. Many Muslims were taken as slaves and forced to live elsewhere, e.g., in places like the Karen State of Burma.

Those Rohingya Muslims who were able to save themselves from Burmese annexation of Arakan, like many Magh Arakanese, settled mostly in the Chittagong and CHT districts. The Muslim refugees and their descendants that had lived and settled in those places came to be known by the local name Ruhis, depicting their Rohingya/Arakan origin. During the Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26, Arakan and subsequently the vast territories of Burma came under the British Rule. The exiled Rohingya/Ruhi Muslims and Maghs of Arakan, and their descendants, were allowed and encouraged to resettle in those territories south of the Naaf River. While many did return, others remained behind in Chittagong and CHT districts. The British policy and the subsequent process of return of the Arakanese exiles, esp. the hard-working wet cultivating Rohingya people, facilitated the cultivation of vast territories within Burma, which had hitherto remained barren and uncultivable. This enriched the coffer of the British Government through collection of revenues and taxes. Many descendants of the exiled Rohingyas (or Ruhis of Chittagong) would also become seasonal laborers in Arakan.

Today, the bulk of the ethnic minorities that live in the Chittagong Hill Tract districts are the descendants of those fleeing refugees from Arakan who fled the territory during Bodaw Paya’s extermination campaign. They are our Chakma and Marma people. (There are two other ethnic minority groups living in the CHT – the Kukis and the Tripuras. The former are also known as the Chins in Burma and Mizo in India; while the latter lives mostly in the Tripura state of India.)

Their history to the territory cannot be traced with any authenticity before that historical event of 1784. This does not mean that there was no migration of people over the hills; in fact, there was migration in those days of porous borders where geography was not often attached with politics, state and administration. Like any nomadic people, the hilly people had no permanent settlement to the territory – they moved to and fro between porous borders of today’s Bangladesh, Tripura (India) and Burma. Their migration from outside, much like the Ruhis of Chittagong and CHT, cannot be traced before 1784.

Since the British rule of the territories dating back to 1826, many Bengali Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims have moved to the CHT for a plethora of reasons, including administrative jobs, logging, trade and commerce, a trend that was to continue well unto the Bangladesh period with development of industrial infrastructure there.

After the emergence of Pakistan in 1947, the CHT was made part of East Pakistan. During the War of Liberation, its Raja (Tridib Roy) openly aligned itself with the Pakistan regime, thus leaving a strong sense of betrayal and mistrust between the local Bengali or Chittagonian people and the Hilly people. During the war of liberation and in the post-liberation era, many Bengalis were kidnapped and killed by the extremist elements of the Hilly people. [A relative of mine was one such casualty who was kidnapped and later presumably killed, never to be found later.] Crimes of this nature continued unabated making the territory unsafe and insecure. Outside the towns, there was virtually no functioning of the government. The territory became impassable and unlivable for most Chittagonian and Bengali speaking people. They would be kidnapped, and often times killed, even when ransom money had been paid to the kidnappers.

The so-called Shanti Bahini comprising of armed hilly bandits and extremists demanded autonomy and they were aided and armed by anti-Bangladeshi forces from outside. With the assassination of Bangabandhu Sk. Mujib, as the political scene changed drastically inside Bangladesh, the Shanti Bahini had a new sponsor – India – to destabilize the country. This led to tense situation between the government of Bangladesh and the Hilly people, leading to the deployment of the BDR and Army. The era of instability persisted during the military-supported governments of Zia and Ershad when hundreds of soldiers and officers died fighting against the criminal hilly terrorists.

After the overthrow of the military dictatorship, the situation improved somewhat, especially with the signing of peace treaty in 1997 under the first Hasina administration which stipulated total and firm loyalty towards the country’s sovereignty and integrity for upholding the political, social, cultural, educational and economic rights of all the people living in the hilly region. Unfortunately because of its demography and geography, the region continued to see infiltration of arms from outside, which inevitably have gone to forces that are destabilizing the region. Thus, even to this day, criminal hilly gangs who are opposed to the peace treaty and armed by anti-Bangladeshi governments and NGOs continue to harass the local police, BDR and military outposts, and kidnap and kill Bengali-speaking population, including members of the local and foreign NGOs that work on various projects aiming to improve the economic and social condition there.

In the last two decades, the CHT has also seen the incursion of narcotics and harmful drugs from Burma and India. Outside drug-traffickers, the territory has also become a natural hideout for many refugees and secessionist groups from Burma that are opposed to the SPDC oligarchy.

As noted elsewhere, some of the Arakan National Congress (ANC) member parties are terrorist organizations (e.g., ALP) and are heavily involved in drug trafficking. It is worth noting that ANC is a racist, chauvinist, ultranationalist Rakhaine organization that opposes to Rohingya human rights. In the past they have carried armed excursions from the CHT against the hated SPDC regime ruling in Burma.

In recent years some NGOs have emerged with ulterior motives that are at odds with aspirations of the people and territorial integrity of Bangladesh. No place offers them a better venue than the Hilly Districts where a sizable number of ethnic minorities live. They want withdrawal of Bangladesh Army that has preserved the territorial integrity. They want enactment of fascist ghettoization laws that would confine a particular ethnic or religious group into living in enclaves or reserves. They want forced removal of Bengali Muslims and Hindus from the hilly districts. It goes without saying that such demands are unrealistic and are sure recipes for dismemberment of Bangladesh. Their anti-Bangladesh activities are also bolstered by some human rights activists with foreign affiliations whose agenda includes weakening the sovereignty of Bangladesh. Not to be forgotten in this context are also some local players that are opposed to the current government. The latest unrest in the CHT may well fall into their scheme to destabilize the government.

As Bangladesh government renews its pledge for harmony, territorial integrity and stability, it cannot afford to appear weak against forces that threaten its very existence. Any measure that offers exclusion over inclusion, ghettoization over pluralism, discrimination over equal opportunity is undesirable and must be avoided.

As hinted earlier, economics has been a key driver shaping the demography within our planet. And Bangladesh (whose GDP owes much to the foreign remittance of her economic labors working overseas) with scarcity of land is no exception to that grand rule. In the post-liberation period, with the sharp growth of job opportunities within the hilly districts, some Bangladeshis have settled into the CHT. Many hilly people likewise have found jobs in the planes of Bangladesh, away from their traditional homes in the hills. This is quite natural for a country whose constitution allows for pursuit of freedom of movement, employment, economic prosperity and happiness for all. With a high fertility rate among Bengalis and Ruhis, it is no accident that they are a majority in some Hilly districts today.

The Hilly people are aware of these trends and have immensely benefited from the overall economic prosperity of the region. Most of them are against the extremists within their community. They also understand that they are the best protectors and preservers of their language and heritage, something that is becoming rather difficult for small minorities in a global economy of our time. In that balancing act between preserving cultural heritages and ripping the benefits of economic prosperity they would be better advised to follow the American/Canadian Amish/Mennonite example as opposed to that of the Native Americans living in the Indian reservations.

In closing, to qualify as an aborigine a member of an indigenous people must exist in a land before invasion or colonization by another race. More stringent definitions require that the aborigines have resided in a place from time immemorial; i.e., they are the true sons and daughters of the soil. From this definition, the Koori, Murri, Noongar, Ngunnawal, Anangu, Yamatji, Nunga and other aboriginals in Australia, the Maori of New Zealand, the Uyghurs of Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China, the Chechens in Chechnya of Russia; the Siberian Tatars, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets and Selkup people of Siberia in Russia; the Native Indians of the USA and Canada, Eskimos of Canada and few other races in Central and South America are the true aborigines (or more correctly, aboriginals) of our world.

It is not difficult to understand why the British anthropologist T.H. Lewin (1839-1916) did not consider the tribal people living in CHT as aborigines. The brief analysis above also confirms that view. Thus, the Mongoloid-featured hilly people are as much settlers to the CHT as are the Chittagonians/Ruhis and other Bangladeshis living there. Calling these latter people “settlers” while calling the Mongoloid featured Hilly people as the “adibashis” or aborigines would be false and insincere! Simply put: all the people living in the CHT are the adhibashis (residents) there.

Dr. Siddiqui has authored two books and co-edited another one on the Rohingyas of Burma. His book – “The Forgotten Rohingya: Their Struggle for Human Rights in Burma” – is available from Amazon.com

ORIGINAL SOURCE: BURMA LIBRARY

Ne Win’s Speech, on 8 October 1982 (Regarding 1982 Citizenship Law)

“Comrade Central Committee members: What I am going to speak today is about an important law, the Burmese Citizenship Law. If this law must be explained, what has happened in the past must necessarily be recalled. I have no desire to hurt anybody in recounting this recent history. However, the truth might perhaps hurt somebody sometimes. but I do not wish to hurt anyone and I will try not to do so.

I would like first to explain about conditions that prevailed in Burma as a subject nation. After a part of Burma had been annexed by foreigners in 1824, one war after another was fought and the whole of our country subsequently became a subject nation. After becoming a subject country, we officially regained independence on (more…)

Rohingya Delegate at United Nation (UN)Human Rights Council

ANWAR S. ARKANI

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direkt

By KMM , 4th November 2009

The Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group who live in the North Arakan State of Burma, adjacent to Bangladesh. They are an ethnic minority of Burma; Due to their racial differences with the Burmans, they were being officially declared by the Illegal Military Regime as non-citizens of Burma, making them stateless people. Burmese military’s officials claim that Rohingyas are “foreigners” in Burma and they have been/are being treated not only as alien but also modern salves.

The 1982 citizenship law of Burma does not give any protection and effective nationality to Rohingya Community. Therefore, it’s assumed that the Rohingyas are Stateless Community in their Ancestral homeland.  Universal Declaration of Human Rights States that: (more…)

A key Asian conference in Bali, Indonesia, on people smuggling and human trafficking has failed to discuss in detail or resolve the issue of the Rohingya ethnic minority, tens of thousands of whom are holed up in various Asian countries, having fled Burma.

The Rohingyas, a mainly Muslim minority with a distinct culture and language, have been fleeing persecution at the hands of Burma’s military-led government for the past three decades – mostly to Bangladesh, where there are an estimated 200,000, but also to many other Asian countries. A few are classed as refugees, but the majority are stateless migrants without rights.  (more…)

Deriving from recent debates about ethnicity and other axes of identity in contemporary cultural geography, anthropology and history, my aim here is to respond to ’scholars’, ‘academics’ and ‘intellectuals’ whose discontent with ‘Rohingyas’ seems to be more politically motivated than objective examination of the politics of ethnicity (My apology if this observation dose not reflect the complex Rakhaing-Rohingya struggle).

Before I start off, I should admit that my research area is not western Burma or Arakan/Rohingya/Rakhaing. Therefore, my discussion is less about the specificity of Rohingyas/Rakhaing/Arakan affairs than the very nature of identity at a conceptual level. My purpose here is not to take side with Rohingyas or to blame Rakhaings for being anti-Rohingyas (as I will discuss at the end). Instead, my aim is to point out that it is inappropriate and misleading the public to promote conceptually wrong arguments as if they are academically sound research and scholarly opinion. Most importantly, I’d like to discuss how these arguments theoretically and empirically contradict the understandings of ethnicity that have been articulated in broader academia. (more…)

ASTV Rohingya Stateless People

Exclusive Rohingya Review

By Khin Maung Lay

The Rohingya, a people previously unknown to many, were recently the focus of international media attention  when two groups totaling around 1,000 people landed on the shores of Thailand. For years, mostly during the winter when the ocean is comparatively calm, many Rohingya have boarded poorly equipped boats and embarked on journeys from their homeland in Arakan, a state in the western part of Burma. They cross the Andaman Sea to escape persecution and to search for a better life in Southeast Asia. But in January, the Thais did not greet the Rohingya with wide grins and open arms. Instead, authorities in the “Land of Smiles” forced them back into their boats and returned them to the ocean. Abandoned in open waters, hundreds perished.

The Rohingya have lived in Arakan (also known as Rakhine) for many centuries. They are descendants of different waves of migrants, including Arab merchants, seafarers, large contingents of Muslim armies from Bengal, captive Muslims carried by pirates in the 16th and 17th centuries, the family and retinue of Moghul Prince Sha Shuja, as well as a large number of converts. Mostly Muslim, they have developed an identity, culture and language separate from the largely Buddhist Burmese. Today, of a total of three million Rohingya, an estimated 1.5 million live in Burma while another 1.5 million live in exile. Of the exiles, most live in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, some live in the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Malaysia, and a few live in Europe, Japan and Australia. Many hope they will one day be free to return to a Burma that recognizes and protects their rights. (more…)

By Prof. Marranci

I have discussed and provided some information about the quite unknown tragedy of Rohingya Muslims elsewhere in this blog. Normally, Rohingya Muslims make news only when there is a dearth of other stories. Today, more people know who the Rohingya are because of shocking reports in which some tourists in Thailand have  witnessed and documented the severe mistreatment of refugees by the Thai army on Thai beaches. The UN has asked access to the refugees, some of whom have been expelled, and an investigation into the alleged mistreatment.  Rohingya Muslims are virtually stateless, and to define them as ‘economic migrants’, as the new Thai government has attempted to, is unrealistic no less than the full probe they have promised, which however is to be conducted by the same Thai army involved in the international scandal.

It would be easy to present Rohingya Muslims as the victims of ‘evil’ Buddhists, but the reality is very different:  Rohingya Muslims are  victims of their lack of strategic value, both for their native Southeast Asia and the wider international community. Similarly to the tragic reality of Black Muslims in Darfur, their lives have no economic, or political, value for the rest of our cynical world. In a certain sense, since Rohingya Muslims are also unable and unwilling to start a conflict in the region, this also diminishes the chance that their tragic odyssey from place to place will be terminated soon. (more…)

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

An often-practiced devious way to grab someones land is to deny his right to that property. Nothing could be more horrific when a government itself gets into such a criminal practice. The most glaring example of such a crime can be seen in the practices of the regimes that have ruled Burma (now Myanmar) since its independence from Britain in 1948 (esp. since 1962 when Gen. Ne Win came to power). In our times, one can hardly find a regime that has been so atrocious, so inhuman and so barbarous in its denial of basic human rights to a people that trace their origin to the land for nearly a millennium. [1[ The victims are the Rohingya Muslims living in the Arakan (now Rakhine) state. They have become the forgotten people of our time. The Burma Citizenship Law of 1982 has reduced them to the status of ?Stateless.

The ruling junta in Myanmar do not want to know and let others know that the Rohingyas have a long history, a language, a heritage, a culture and a tradition of their own that they had built up in the Arakan through their long history of existence there. Through their criminal propaganda - to garner support among the Buddhist majority - they have been feeding so much misinformation against the Rohingya that even Joseph Goebbles must be amazed in his grave! The level of disinformation has reached such an alarming level that if you were to talk with a Burmese Buddhist, he/she would say that the Rohingyas are foreigners in Arakan; they don?t belong to Burma; they belong to Bangladesh.[2] Such allegations are unfounded. Distinguished scholar Abdul Karim writes, “In fact the forefathers of Rohingyas had entered into Arakan from time immemorial. [3] (more…)

FACTS ABOUT THE ROHINGYA MUSLIMS OF ARAKAN IN MYANMAR (BURMA)

Arakan, formerly called Rohang, lies on the north–western part of Burma with 360 miles coastal belt from the Bay of Bengal. It borders 167 miles with Bangladesh both by land and sea. Rohingyas have been living in Arakan from time immemorial. They are a people with distinct culture and civilization of their own. They trace their ancestry to Arabs, Moors, Pathans, Moghuls, Bengalis and some Indo-Mongoloid people. Early Muslim settlements in Arakan date back to 7th century AD.

Due to large scale persecution through ethnic cleansing and genocidal action against them, about 1.5 million Rohingyas are forced to leave their hearth and home since Burmese independence in 1948. This unfortunate uprooted people are mostly found in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; also in UAE, Thailand and Malaysia. (more…)

Almost 14 years have passed since the UN General Assembly recognized the suffering the Rohingya experienced at the hands of Burma’s military regime. Yet, Rohingya and Muslims from Burma continue to be subjected to a widespread and systematic campaign of persecution and discrimination at home and the denial of basic protection and fundamental rights in neighboring countries.

Often overlooked in global media coverage, the plight of more than 1 million Rohingya and Muslims from Burma should be more closely watched by the international community, to prevent what increasingly appears to be another genocide in the making.

ROHINGYA AND MUSLIMS IN ARAKAN STATE:  SLOW-BURNING GENOCIDE

The experiences of more than 1 million Rohingya and Muslims from Burma are often overlooked in global media coverage, whether in Burma or in exile in Bangladesh, Malaysia and elsewhere. (more…)

Introduction

Ever since the occupation of Arakan by Burman invaders in 1784 CE the Rohingya Arakanese have been made targets of extermination and genocide with the ulterior motive of turning Arakan into a Buddhist dominated province of Burma. Following separation of Burma from British India and attainment of Home Rule in 1937, the Burmese again availed the opportunity to continue its policy of Rohingya extermination – genocide. However the 1962 military take-over drastically changed the Burmese political scenario. Extermination and genocide increased, and within nearly 4 decades about half (1.5 million) of total Rohingya population had been forced to flee their homeland and those remaining in the country are counting their days in utter misery, fear and frustration. (more…)

Dr.Abid Bahar Ph. D.

Well, the above can’t be my statement. Those of you, who know me,  know, I have been working with the Rohingya people and Burma for the past 31 years. But surprisingly Burmese people who lived with Rohingyas are the ones who claim that they have never heard of the name “Rohingya.” It is as if saying I have never met my brother, or I have never seen my neighbour; sounds strange to me but not funny. Such assertion about an ethnic group aimed at intentionally ignoring them is called xenophobia, fear of the stranger. When Rohingyas as Burmese are made into strangers by the Rakhine gentlemen like Aye Kyaw and Aye Chan and the monk Ashin Nayaka in their statements and in their writings, it is more than xenophobia but is called racism. A matter of extreme intolerance: an idea that also goes against even Buddhism.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} (more…)

Dr. Habib Sidiliqui

Imagine this. You are living in a country that does not recognise you as a citizen in spite of the fact that your forefothers lived there for centuries, if that were not enough  of  a  traumatic experience,  consider  that other ethnic groups who are fighting the regime for self-determination  and  human rights   consider  you   as outsiders.  It must be your worst kind of nightmare when you realise that half of your people have been forced to take asylum or refuge outside, and you may be the next in line to seek a way out of this living hell.

Nightmare, a living reality

Your country is run by a military regime that is the most brutal, savage and guilty of committing the worst form of ethnic cleansing of this century. Those of you who dared to still reside in the country face daily intimidation, extortion, abuse and repression. You are forced to such a destitute condition that you dare neither to complain against its innate savagery nor oppose its deep brutality by supporting opposition. That is, the regime follows the textbook case of undermining opposition by directly attacking the civilians who support them, which is more like draining the pond until the fish cannot swim. (more…)

Summery of the Facts

From The Rohingyas of Arakan, A F K Jilani

The following historical facts prove that the Rohingyas are indigenous people of Arakan. “Muslims arrived and settled since last 1000 to 1200 years in Burma” (The SLORC Publication ‘ Thasana Yongwa Htoonkazepo’ p.65).

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-font-family:”Angsana New”; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} (more…)

Dr. Habib Siddiqui
An often-practised devious way to grab someone’s land is to deny his right to that property. Nothing could be more horrific when a government itself gets into such a criminal practice. The most glaring example of such a crime can be seen in the practices of the regimes that have ruled Burma (now Myanmar) since its independence from Britain in 1948 (especially, since 1962 when Gen. Ne Win came to power). In our times, one can hardly find a regime that has been so atrocious, so inhuman and so barbarous in its denial of basic human rights to a people that trace their origin to the land for nearly a millennium.[1] The victims are the Rohingya Muslims living in the Arakan (now Rakhine) state. They have become the forgotten people of our time. (more…)

Martin Smith

A preliminary point I want to highlight is that, while Burma has many complex ethnic problems, the plight of the Muslims of Arakan is by far the most tense and difficult of all the ethnic problems I have encountered in over a decade of writing on the political and ethnic situation in Burma. Firstly, there is a strong element of ethnic communalism, which has resulted in periodic but unpredictable outbreaks of social violence and upheaval; secondly, there are strong religious undercurrents which relate to the situation of all Muslims in Burma at large; and, thirdly, there is an intransigence on the part of many of the main protagonists, which has made the finding of lasting solutions so very difficult.

 In addition, it is important to bear in mind that, after decades of isolation, the whole crisis is overshadowed by a complete absence of reliable anthropological or social field research, which means that different sides continue to circulate – or even invent – very different versions of the same people’s histories.

Well, as the whole world is now aware, all these unresolved issues have once again come to a violent head in the seven years since the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC assumed power in Rangoon – and, sadly, as so often in Burma’s troubled past it is innocent civilians and villagers, caught in the middle, who are the main victims. (more…)

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

[Author’s note: This paper is based on author’s speech at the PENN HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM on “The Rohingyas of Burma and Bangladesh” on Friday, March 31, 2006 in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. The material in this paper came from author’s personal contacts with the Rohingya Diaspora community and information that is available in the reports of various human rights groups, notably the Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch and the Karen Human Rights Group.]  

 Part 1: Nightmare, fiction or a living reality?

Imagine this. You are living in a country that does not recognize you as a citizen in spite of the fact that your forefathers lived there for centuries. If that were not enough of a traumatic experience, consider that other ethnic groups who are fighting the regime for self-determination and human rights consider you as outsiders. It must be your worst kind of nightmare when you realize that half of your people have been forced to take asylum or refuge outside, and you may be the next in line to seek a way out of this living hell.

Your country is run by a military regime that is the most brutal, savage and guilty of committing the worst form of ethnic cleansing of this century. Those of you who dared to still reside in the country face daily intimidation, extortion, abuse and repression. You are forced to such a destitute condition that you dare neither to complain against its innate savagery nor oppose its deep brutality by supporting opposition. That is, the regime follows the textbook case of undermining opposition by directly attacking the civilians who support them, which is more like draining the pond until the fish cannot swim.

One of the tactics of this ruthless regime includes military offensives where hundreds of villages are destroyed and burned so that people are forced to flee to the jungle or cross the border; they cannot return to their homes. [If they do, they face arrest and torture being accused of aiding or joining the rebels during their period of hiding.] The territory is conveniently called ‘cleaned’ of the rebel forces.

Another tactic involves evicting people from their homes. For this, the victims don’t even need to belong to a hostile group or camp that is in armed conflict with the military. They are given an order to vacate their homes within the next few days. No reason is given why and where they will relocate. No compensation is paid either to the victims for such eviction notices.1 A similar tactic involves confiscation of land of farmers. Farmers must now work for free as forced or modern-day slave labors to grow paddy for the military. They must bear all expenses for the production.2 Often times such actions create forced starvation and internal refugee problem. A prosperous farmer, businessman or trader overnight becomes a beggar.

If this be the situation when there is no insurgency against the brutal military thugs, imagine the situation in places where some form of hostility does exist. In those territories, an often-practiced tactic involves forcing military ceasefires that do not tackle any political or human rights issue. Such ceasefires often bring about large-scale forced relocations. Locals are evicted from their homes and forced to hand over their entire rice harvest to the Army and relocate to Army-controlled ‘centers’ (touted as “model villages”) or face being shot on sight. The locals are usually given no more than a week to move, after which they are told that their homes and belongings will be destroyed and they will be shot on sight if seen around their homes. After the relocation deadline the Army usually sends out patrols to destroy the villages, and particularly to hunt out and destroy any food supplies. The villagers are forced to stay away from their fields, and are only allowed to leave the village between dawn and dusk under threat of being shot if they are out after curfew. This disrupts the entire crop cycle, because villagers find that they can no longer produce their own food.

So the country that was once famous for its bumper crops is now famine-stricken with farmers now dying of starvation. They simply cannot afford buying food at the soaring price. Landmines have become an extra threat to villagers, particularly over the past few years replacing the country as the worst landmine hotspot after Afghanistan.

The junta’s strategy includes consolidating control by forcing all villagers and township residents to Army-controlled sites, then using them as forced/slave labor to build access roads into their resettled home areas, then establishing Army camps along the roads, and then re-introducing villagers into what are essentially ‘forced labor villages’ along the roads where they can be easily controlled and are always available to serve the soldiers. No one is allowed to live outside the reach of the Army any longer. They have to bring their own food and building supplies because nothing is given to them. In many cases they even have to hand over their rice to the Army.3 Once in the relocation site, people have no opportunity to return to their fields and must survive by working as local day-labor. At the same time, the Army uses them as a convenient source of unpaid forced/slave labor at local Army camps and along the roads, making it almost impossible for them to support themselves. After a few months, many people find that they have little option but to starve or flee.4

Out of desperation to earn a livelihood, many villagers are now forced to cut wood in deep jungle. But there, too, they are not safe from ‘target’ shooting practices of the ruthless border security forces. Many die or sustain injury from gunshots.5

Villagers and township residents face daily or weekly demands from all of the Army camps and mobile patrols in their area. At any given time, a village has to provide an average of one person per household for a whole range of forced labor: forced porters, guides and human minesweepers for military columns, messengers and sentries for Army camps, building and maintaining Army camp fences, trenches, booby-traps, and barracks, cutting and hauling firewood, cooking and carrying water to soldiers, building and rebuilding military supply roads, clearing shrub along roadsides to minimize the

possibility of ambush, standing sentry along military supply roads, growing crops for the Army on confiscated land, and engaging in profit-making activities for the officers such as brick-baking, rubber planting or digging fishponds, let alone drug-trafficking. Every Army unit demands most of these things from the surrounding villages, and every village is surrounded by three, four or five Army units.

The forced labor is usually demanded on a rotating basis; a specified number of locals must go for a day or a week with all their own food and tools, and they are not released until their replacements arrive for the next shift. Nothing is provided for them, and they often have to work under guard. Conditions for porters are especially brutal; forced to carry loads of rations or ammunition weighing 30 kg or more, they are marched in front of soldiers to detonate mines and kicked or beaten if they are too slow. If they become ill or cannot continue they are killed or left behind, and many porters die either during portering or afterwards, from disease complicated by physical exhaustion and malnutrition.6

To avoid forced labor, the village men leave the village to stay in hiding in their field huts or in the forest while the women, children and the elderly remain behind in the village to protect the house from looting by soldiers and to carry on some semblance of family life. The men only sneak back into the village for food and to visit when Army patrols are not around. This system makes the women particularly vulnerable, because Army patrols arriving at the village often rape them on seeing that the men are not around. Truly, rape is used as a weapon of war to ethnically cleanse the territory.7 In the absence of men, they often take the women as porters, or accuse them of being married to ‘rebel soldiers’ and hold them hostage pending the return of their husbands.8 The crimes similar to Abu Ghraib are routinely practiced on these prisoners.

Nowadays most people know what to expect at the relocation sites, so when they are ordered to move they simply flee into hiding in the forests surrounding their paddy fields. They then try to survive from hidden rice supplies around their villages, planting small patches of crops in several different places and fleeing from place to place whenever Army patrols come around. Tens of thousands of people are presently living this way. They have little food and many are starving, there is no access to medicines and many die of treatable diseases. They live under the constant risk of being captured or shot by passing Army patrols that also seek out and destroy their food supplies and crops in the fields. Many of them have been living this way for two to three years already. Eventually, finding that they can no longer survive this way, many of them try to make their way to the border to become refugees.9

In some localities, out of desperation, villagers have tried to appease the government forces by making their own ‘peace’ agreements. They promise to abide by all demands of the military. These villages are subsequently labeled ‘peace’ villages. But even in these villages the demands for forced labor, money, food and materials usually

become so intense that the village elders cannot keep up with them.10 They are then arrested and tortured for failure to comply, houses are sometimes burned and many villagers flee just as though there had never been any agreement.

With the rapid expansion of the Army in recent years to its current strength of over 400,000 troops, villagers who have never seen fighting now find their villages surrounded by 3 or 4 Army camps within walking distance. The officers in these camps see the civilian population as little more than a convenient pool of forced laborers and a source of profit. Villages receive a constant stream of written and spoken orders demanding their forced labor as Army camp servants, messengers and sentries, cutting and hauling building materials for camp construction, building and maintaining the camp. They are also taken as porters, because Army needs people to haul rations and supplies to Army camps, or from the Battalion bases to faraway outposts.11

The regime also uses villagers as forced labor to construct a new or improve the existing road networks and build infrastructure such as railways and hydro dams. Conditions on such projects can be brutal, with one person per family demanded on rotating one or two week shifts.12

For Army officers, a posting in the countryside is an opportunity to make a great deal of personal profit in a short time. Officers order villagers to cut logs and bamboo, claiming it is for the Army camp but then selling it on the market for personal profit. Other such schemes include forcing villagers as well as rank and file soldiers to bake bricks or dig and maintain fish ponds. All profit goes to the officers, who also confiscate most of the rations intended for their soldiers and approximately half of the soldiers’ pay in the name of various ‘fees’ and ‘contributions’, then sell the rations on the market and tell the soldiers to get their food from the villages. This situation has become even worse since 1998, when the Junta cut back severely on rations to units in the field and ordered them to produce more of their own food or take it from the farmers. The result has been the systematic confiscation of much of the best farmland by Army units. The farmers are not paid any compensation. Worse yet, they are called out for forced labor farming their confiscated land, from planting to harvesting, and the officers then take the entire harvest. Some villages report that they even have to provide the seed for planting these fields.13

In addition to forced labor, villagers face constant demands for cash, food and materials from every Army unit in their area.14 On average, a family must hand over anywhere from large sums of money to the Army in cash as extortion which masquerades under the names of ‘porter fees’, ‘servants’ fees’, ‘development fees’, ‘pagoda fees’, and so on. In theory, this money is supposed to be used to hire people for forced labor or to support projects in the area, but in reality it is pocketed by the officers, and forced laborers are not paid.

Villagers must also pay to avoid forced labor when they are ill or cannot go, at exuberant rates for days of labor missed. Cash is very hard to come by for most

subsistence farmers in rural areas because they do not operate in a cash-based economy, but if they do not pay these fees they are arrested. Every farmer must also hand over a quota of every crop to the authorities for next to nothing. Usually this quota amounts to approximately 30% of the entire crop, but after the farmer deducts the portion of his harvest required for seed stocks, payments in rice for previous loans, use of other villagers’ buffaloes to plough, etc., the quota amounts to 50% or more of what is left. Quotas have been increasing in recent years, and no exceptions are made for bad crop years. The farmers often have no option but to buy rice on the market to fulfill the quota in such years, while the family goes hungry. The price paid for quota is less than half of market price, but corrupt officials take out so many ‘deductions’ for themselves that the farmers usually receive no more than 10-20% of market price for quota rice. Even with little or no rice left to feed their families, the farmers still face regular demands for rice and meat to feed the local Army camps, and armed patrols often enter villages to loot rice, livestock and valuables.15

In some villages the regime sometimes sanctions the construction of a primary or middle school, but usually it is the villagers who must pay the cost of building it as well as the salary of the state-supplied teacher. More remote villages usually cannot afford to do this, so many have opened their own primary-level schools with their own volunteer teachers. Since the beginning of 1999, the authorities have been ordering the closing of many of these village primary schools, telling the villagers that only state-sanctioned schools are allowed. Many villagers cannot afford to send their children to state schools, however, and they also complain that in the state schools the teaching of the native language is strictly forbidden, causing children to grow up illiterate in their mother tongue. As a result, fewer and fewer children in the rural areas have any opportunity for education.

Racism is so pervasive in this country that racist teachers (representing state-sponsored religion) have been known to falsely teach that Muslims were brought in by the colonial regime and have only caused problem. The majority non-Muslim students often exclude Muslim students from sports matches and clubs. Muslim students cannot get to universities and technical colleges because of lack of national identity cards. Many are forced to convert to the religion of the majority if they want to gain access to higher education and better job. Students are expelled from the schools if they refused to learn the religion of the majority people. Muslim elders are arrested for submitting petition requesting that Muslims students be spared from such religious classes. Building of Muslims schools is banned and Muslim religious teachers routinely face torture and execution.16

Even where schools are available, many children are pulled out of school as soon as they are big enough to work because of all of the demands for labor and money which their families have to face. Families sell their valuables to pay the fees and pay to avoid forced labor so that they can work in their fields or do day labor to make money. However, there are so many fees that the money does not last long, and many families send small children to do the forced labor so that the adults can still work in the fields.

Eventually they sell all of their belongings and livestock to pay all of the fees, and when they are still ordered to go for forced labor or pay money they have no option but to flee the village or face arrest, torture and possible summary execution. Trials are not held in rural areas; villagers are simply tied up and taken to Army camps where they are held in mediaeval-style leg stocks or pits in the ground, tortured and interrogated until the Army officer decides what to do with them. They are often held for ransom, held for months under torture without charge, or simply executed without any record existing of their arrest.17 To avoid this, villagers have fled to the towns where they become beggars or cheap labor, to the hills, or to neighboring countries.

The same inhuman rule applies to rural medical clinics. Even in places where the regime has allocated some funds for the establishment of some basic social services, the local military and government authorities use these services as an excuse to extort even more money from the villagers by force, usually amounting to several times the worth of the services being rendered. Most of these social services are denied to Muslims. They are even barred from collecting food aid that is distributed by an international aid agency, e.g., the World Food Program (WFP). Men often face harassment while woman face rape to collect food package.18 Because of the discriminatory policy of the junta, they are routinely denied relief that is sent to them (even by other Muslims) during natural disasters.19 Sometimes the fees associated with permission to move from one location to another makes it prohibitive for them to draw any benefit from relief aid.

In this country, Muslims face religious persecution of the worst kind. Muslim villagers are ordered to worship the god of the majority people. They must also pay obeisance to (worship) monks, failing which they may face torture and death.20 Villagers are pressured to convert to religion of the majority. They are forced to contribute large chunks of money toward donations to monasteries for the dominant religious group. Muslim places of worship are routinely demolished to make room for altars of the dominant group. Muslim homes and shops are destroyed under all kinds of pretexts. Muslims are also ordered to erect shelf altars in their homes. They are ordered to become vegetarians and not to raise cattle. Eating meat may result in heavy fines, including torture and imprisonment.21

How about your involvement in human rights of your people? Forget it. You will rot in jail for decades unless the regime ends your misery with a quick execution. Tactics currently being used on political prisoners include:22

–Severe beatings, often resulting in loss of consciousness and sometimes death

–Electrocution to all parts of the body including genitals

–Rubbing iron rods on shins of prisoners until flesh is ripped off, a tactic known in this country as the “iron road”

–Burning with cigarettes and lighters

–Prolonged restriction of movements, for up to several months, using rope and shackles around the neck and ankles

–Repeatedly striking the same area of a person’s body every second for several hours, a tactic known in this country as “tick-tock torture.”

Nightmare? Fiction? Tales from a distant past when there was nothing called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? No, what I am sharing here is no wild imagination but a reality for most of the people living inside Burma.23 While the situation is simply bleak for all inside Burma except a privileged class within the Burman ethnic group professing Buddhism (who runs the SPDC – State Peace and Development Council – regime), the situation is worse for Muslims and worst yet for the Rohingya Muslims who live in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Burma. Their suffering simply has no parallel in our time because of their Muslim identity and annulment of citizenship rights.

Part 2: Muslims in Burma

Full Story

By Khin Maung Lay                 SOURCE

The Rohingya, a people previously unknown to many, were recently the focus of international media attention  when two groups totaling around 1,000 people landed on the shores of Thailand. For years, mostly during the winter when the ocean is comparatively calm, many Rohingya have boarded poorly equipped boats and embarked on journeys from their homeland in Arakan, a state in the western part of Burma. They cross the Andaman Sea to escape persecution and to search for a better life in Southeast Asia. But in January, the Thais did not greet the Rohingya with wide grins and open arms. Instead, authorities in the “Land of Smiles” forced them back into their boats and returned them to the ocean. Abandoned in open waters, hundreds perished.

The Rohingya have lived in Arakan (also known as Rakhine) for many centuries. They are descendants of different waves of migrants, including Arab merchants, seafarers, large contingents of Muslim armies from Bengal, captive Muslims carried by pirates in the 16th and 17th centuries, the family and retinue of Moghul Prince Sha Shuja, as well as a large number of converts. Mostly Muslim, they have developed an identity, culture and language separate from the largely Buddhist Burmese. Today, of a total of three million Rohingya, an estimated 1.5 million live in Burma while another 1.5 million live in exile. Of the exiles, most live in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, some live in the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Malaysia, and a few live in Europe, Japan and Australia. Many hope they will one day be free to return to a Burma that recognizes and protects their rights.

After Burma gained independence in 1948, the then parliamentary government of  Burma under Prime Minister U Nu recognized the Rohingya people as a separate ethnicity. But they did not enjoy such recognition for long. From the very first day of the military coup on March 2, 1962, which brought the junta to power, human-rights violations against the Rohingya have been escalating. The junta, with its cruel ambition to “Burmanize” Arakan and turn it into a Buddhist state, continues to engage in a variety of human-rights violations and abuses. The “2008 Human Rights Report: Burma,” released last month by the United States Department of State, illustrates the various forms of abuses to which the Rohingya are subjected, including curbs on free movement, stating: “The government tightly controlled the movement of Muslim Rohingya, particularly in Buthidaung, Kyauktaw, Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships along the border with Bangladesh. Muslim youth from Rakhine accepted for admission to universities and medical schools outside the state were unable to enroll due to travel restrictions imposed on them.”

The recent tragedy in Thailand was not the first time the Rohingya have been in the international spotlight. In 1978, large influxes of Rohingya entered Bangladesh from Arakan. This happened again in 1991-92. On both occasions more than 250,000 refugees tried to escape large-scale persecution by Burma’s military regime. To this day—almost 18 years later—everything remains the same or worse, and the brutality of the military regime continues. The February State Department report confirms that the “Rohingya experienced severe legal, economic, and social discrimination.”

After the 1991-92 outflow of Rohingya, the Burmese junta changed its strategy and engineered a new tactic of slowly and steadily pushing the Rohingya from their homeland, using all sorts of physical abuse and economic obstacles. Included among these are restriction of movement, which eventually creates barriers for their daily activities, education and work; forced labor; confiscation of land; obstruction of marriage; and the barring of mosque and graveyard renovations. It is the search for a safer place and economic livelihood that forces the Rohingya to venture from their families and embark on perilous journeys, such as the one that led to the recent deaths.

Campaigns of terror, crimes against humanity and extermination have been perpetrated against the Rohingya in a systematic and planned way. The junta effectively rendered the Rohingya nonnationals by introducing a new citizenship law in 1982 that turned them into a stateless people. Current government policy in Burma states that there are 135 national races in the country—the Rohingya are not on that list. More recently, the government-owned newspaper New Light of Myanmar has said outright that the Rohingya have no claim to statehood. Today, this group is increasingly jobless, homeless, without land of their own and the most illiterate section of Burma’s population.

The restrictions on freedom of movement, marriage and education have dashed any future hope of development for the Rohingya, including forming families, all while they live in subhuman conditions amidst abject poverty. Humiliating restrictions on movement—even on travel from place to place within the same locality—have affected all normal activities in all fields, crippling the Rohingya socially, economically and educationally. For instance, regulations prevent them from pursuing higher education in colleges or universities. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, engaged in research and advocacy on the Rohingya situation, says: “There is 80% illiteracy. There are primary schools in most villages but quality of education is very poor, there are very few secondary schools (only 12 high schools for the whole of North Arakan with more than 800,000 inhabitants) and the travel restriction prevents Rohingya children who finish a secondary education from going to a university in another part of Burma for higher education, even to Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State.”

Restrictions on marriage are severe enough that couples have to wait years for official permission to marry and often have to pay bribes in order for their weddings to take place. Rape of Rohingya women has become a military strategy to depopulate them from their ancestral homeland. In his 2007 report “Caught Between Two Tigers,” Graham Thom, Amnesty International Australia’s refugee coordinator, writes: “In an effort to encourage their departure to Bangladesh, their freedom of religion and movement is restricted; they must apply for permission to marry, their land has been confiscated and they suffer severe economic constraints. The military has murdered fathers and husbands and raped mothers, sisters and daughters. They are routinely subjected to brutal forced labor, arbitrary taxation and constant humiliations.” Additionally, the establishment of a growing number of Buddhist-settler villages has changed the demographic composition in Arakan.

The military regime has rendered the Rohingya a stateless people and has institutionalized a process of extermination through various restrictions and abuses. But, it is hoped that the recent attention given to the Rohingya will pave the way for a solution to the problem. Burma’s government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, has been putting pressure on the military junta to mend its ways. Recently, Bo Hla Tint, NCGUB’s foreign affairs minister stated that “the [Burmese] military regime is not party to most international human-rights treaties. This should not be an excuse by the regime to free itself from the obligation to respect fundamental human rights which, being provided for under customary international law, are binding on all states.”

Most recently, at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, held in Thailand, political leaders from member countries opted to exclude the Rohingya crisis from the official agenda, making it a so-called “sideline” issue. Yet that does not mean the case is closed. In a letter addressed to Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan, Human Rights Watch wrote that it sees the Rohingya issue as “a test case for Asean’s fledgling human-rights body.” However, thanks are due to Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda, who recently sought a more durable solution, and to Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for having the courage to acknowledge past mistakes.

It should be reiterated that the Rohingya problem is not new. Their crisis is a long-standing and deep-rooted political issue that affects the whole region of South and Southeast Asia. It is therefore the international community’s responsibility to put an end to this persecution. The United Nations, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Asean, the European Union and the United States—in consultation with Rohingya leaders—all have key roles to play.

The Rohingya have some reason to be optimistic, given U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s statement during her first trip abroad after taking office. The U.S., she said, “is looking at what steps we might take that might influence the current Burmese government and we’re also looking for ways that we could more effectively help the Burmese people.” For now, the Rohingya are hopeful that President Barack Obama’s slogan of “change” will become a reality beyond American borders.

Khin Maung Lay, more commonly called Ronnie, is a third-generation Rohingya. A graduate in engineering from Assumption University, Bangkok, currently he is volunteering for various Rohingya grass-roots development activities and human-rights campaigns.