Is Myanmar playing politics with the White Cards?
In early February this year, the Myanmar parliament approved a
proposal by President Thein Sein to allow people with temporary identification
“white cards,” most of whom were Rohingya, to vote on a referendum on
constitutional amendments to the country’s junta-backed constitution, which
could come as early as May. Obviously, as most keen observers would tell you
the government measure was a face-saving one under international pressure and never
meant in intent and purpose.
As it has become almost a routine and comical inMyanmar these days, led by
ultra-racist and bigoted monks, hundreds of Buddhists took to the
streets in Myanmar ’s
commercial capital Yangon on February 11
to protest the government’s decision to allow people without citizenship,
including Rohingya, to take part in the referendum. Such protest
marches are widely suspected of being stage managed and done at the behest of
the policy makers within Thein Sein's government.
As it has become almost a routine and comical in
In the
Arakan (Rakhine) state capital of Sittwe (formerly Akyab), the fascist RNDP
leaders who had hitherto played a major role in recent genocidal campaigns
against the minority Rohingya community were quick to organize protest marches
demanding disenfranchisement of the Rohingya. Copycatting the tactics of
Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA) Brown Shirts, the racist Buddhist crowd - led by hundreds of
Buddhist monks, waved placards reading "Never accept white card" and
shouted "Anyone who allows foreigners to vote is our enemy."
As
expected, Thein Sein government quickly reversed the decision disenfranchising
millions of White Card holders. This oft-practiced tactics allows Thein Sein to
kill two birds with a single stone. It helps to sell his image as a reform
minded moderate ruler to the outside world who is also mindful of public reaction
and support in his own country.
More problematic, however, was the NLD's (the party led by
Suu Kyi) objection to such voting rights of the White Card holders. Through such
objections in the parliament, she and her party, once again proved what an evil
politician she has become and how chauvinist her party is. It is surely no
friend of the disadvantaged and persecuted people inside this den of hatred
called Myanmar .
By the way, with foreign born British children and husband (now dead), she
still has not given up on her dream to become the president of the country, and
is willing to sit in the lap of the military leaders, or so it seems, to please
the ruling regime and dance at its tunes.
White Cards were initially issued beginning in 1993 as a
temporary measure pending a process to verify residents’ claims to citizenship
against criteria set out in Myanmar ’s
1982 Citizenship Law. All the White Card holders, which includes millions of Rohingya
and other ethnic and religious minorities such
as the Kokang and Wa, and people of Chinese and Indian descent are
now being confiscated by (or forced to surrender to) the state. The White cards were accepted by Myanmar ’s
former military junta for the 2010 elections, which saw Thein Sein’s
civilian-military hybrid government take power from the regime. The
Rohingya community currently has five representatives in the national and state
legislatures.
Many of the older citizens who were born
under the British rule of Burma
one time had the National Registration Card bearing their Burmese
citizenship where the Rohingya name was clearly written down. [See the attached
picture of U Kyaw Hla Aung, a lawyer whom the Amnesty International called
a prisoner of conscience, holding his NRC, a document from the 1950s that
proves that he has lived in Myanmar
for a long time. He has been imprisoned multiple times for defending the rights
of his people. He now lives in a bamboo hut in a camp for internally
displaced people near Sittwe.]
But after Ne Win came to power all such
documents were confiscated, and many were only given temporary cards towards
national identification. And now with the White Cards confiscated, and their
homes and neighborhoods already destroyed, and forced to live in concentration
camps, most Rohingyas
are naturally very apprehensive, and so are the human right activists. Many
Rohingya families have lost everything, including documents like the White Cards,
which they possessed in ethnic cleansing drives by the Rakhines in recent
years.
It is unclear whether those who
surrendered their cards would be able to begin the citizenship process, because
they do not or may not have any other form of national identification.
Government reps, however, say that those who give up their white cards
receive a “receipt” to prove that they had a temporary identity card and can
begin the citizenship verification process in June. Previous experiences of
targeted minorities like the Rohingya people have been rather unpleasant, which
adds to their dilemma about surrendering such cards.
A pilot project to verify the
citizenship of Rohingya and other Muslims has foundered on Rakhine objections
and the government's insistence that the Rohingyas identify themselves as
"Bengali." Rohingya reject the term because it suggests they are
illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh , when their tie to
Arakan is older than most Rakhines.
The published reports suggest that in the Arakan state
alone some 10,000 White Cards were confiscated by the authorities or
surrendered by the Rohingyas every day since February, and at this rate, the
government will confiscate all those cards by the end of May.
Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special
rapporteur on Myanmar , said
in a panel discussion at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 18 that the expiration of the
temporary white cards beginning in March 31, 2015 and surrender thereof by May
31, 2015 raised more uncertainties about the status of the Rohingya and further
increased their vulnerability. Lee also warned that Myanmar was backsliding because of
continued discriminatory restrictions on the freedom of movement of Muslim
internally displaced persons, which also infringed on other basic fundamental
rights, the news release said.
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a research and advocacy group that focuses on the northern part of Rakhine state, denounced the citizenship verification process and the cancellation of white cards, because it could lead to a total exclusion of the Rohingya inMyanmar , the
news release said.
She believes that the withdrawal of the white cards goes beyond denial of the right to vote and risks leaving the Rohingya without any legal documentation and the right to reside inMyanmar .
Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a research and advocacy group that focuses on the northern part of Rakhine state, denounced the citizenship verification process and the cancellation of white cards, because it could lead to a total exclusion of the Rohingya in
She believes that the withdrawal of the white cards goes beyond denial of the right to vote and risks leaving the Rohingya without any legal documentation and the right to reside in
Chris Lewa and Yanghee Lee are
not alone in such criticisms of the Myanmar regime. I its October 2014
report, the Brussels-based think tank Crisis Group warned that disenfranchising
white card holders in Rakhine
State could be
"incendiary". "It would be hard for (Rohingya) to avoid the
conclusion that politics had failed them, which could prompt civil disobedience
or even organized violence," said the report.
Only time
would prove whether the Myanmar
government is sincere with the citizenship process for the stateless Rohingya
or the current process is only a smokescreen to ultimately expel them from the
land of their ancestors. I hope that the Myanmar government is smart enough
to reject the second option which is a sure recipe for creating an
international crisis that would threaten the security of the entire region for
decades.
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