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.
