Rohingya: a forgotten people

Often deemed the most persecuted minorities in the world, the 800,000 Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and 200 000 that have fled to neighboring Bangladesh face one of the most prodigious plights of human rights violation in the world. The Rohingya people were once a part of the Arakan state, until it was invaded by the Burmese, who now treat families that have lived in there homes for generations, as foreigners. Massive conflict is erupting between the Muslim Rohingya and the Buddhist Rakhine resulting in the burning of homes and religious sanctuaries as well as the death of countless Rohingya and displacement of over 100 000 people from their homes. The Burmese government refuses to accept the Rohingya as one of their 135 ethnic minorities and the Bangladeshi government considers them illegal immigrants. The refugees that have fled to the Banglashi-Myanmarese border live in “refugee camps”, where they are mostly forgotten. These camps have no electricity, water, and the refugees are not allowed education, health care, and the vast majority of women must prostitute themselves for money.

The Rohingya are a stateless people. The president of Myanmar, Thein Sein, stated that he would not recognize the Rohingya as legitimate members of the country and does not take responsibility for their suffering. He proposed that the only solution would be to send the millions of Rohingya to another country or to have the United Nations care for them. Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for government action and the aegis of Rohingya lives. Even Myanmar’s opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has turned a blind eye to the repression of the Rohingya, siding with Thein Sein that the Rohingya should be refused citizenship.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon spoke out on October 25, 2012 that the Myanmarese government must “take urgent and effective action” to bring an end to the sectarian violence. He is right, but sufficient action has not yet been considered, and I think that the UN must be the actor that instigates recourse for the Rohingya. In my opinion, we must address this issue by uniting nearby member states to supply humanitarian aid to the Rohingya and by limiting the control over this aid by the Bangladeshi and Myanmarese government. There needs to be an aggressive solution by the UN and this will ultimately provide the long term panacea that the world’s most forgotten and abused people desperately need.

Richard Chen, 2013.

The featured image was retrieved from here.