International Concern Grows Over Rohingya Exodus From Myanmar


Protests have popped around the world over the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Even the Dalai Lama and South African rights leader Desmond Tutu have weighed in, seeking better treatment for the Muslim minority group.
Protesters rallied Friday in Jakarta, shouting "God is great," while in Tokyo, police had to separate those who support the Rohingya from counterprotesters who call them terrorists.
In Afghanistan's western Herat province, protesters demanded an end to violence against the Rohingya, and in Islamabad, demonstrators stomped on pictures of Myanmar's state leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Protests also were reported in India and Iran.
The United Nations says about 270,000 people have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar's Rakhine state in the past two weeks, after a group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked several police posts.
Rohingya refugees say the military and members of Myanmar's Buddhist majority then attacked their villages, forcing them to flee. There are reports of villages being burned to the ground and the military deliberately targeting civilians, but access to the region is limited, so the reports can't be independently verified.
'Desperate humanitarian state'
The Rohingya are a minority group largely based in Rakhine. Myanmar's government calls them Bengalis and considers them illegal migrants, even though many families have been in the country for generations.
Genocidal violence against the Rohingya by Myanmar's Buddhist majority has flared repeatedly over the past two decades. The latest round is among the worst so far, and on Friday, the United Nations described the refugee camps in Bangladesh as overflowing as more people flooded in.
They are in a desperate, absolutely desperate humanitarian state, without enough to eat. … They are saying that they are living out in the open, without shelter from the tropical sun, without shelter from the rain, with their children, without enough food to eat," IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told VOA.
The crisis has drawn the attention of world figures.
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, urged support for the Rohingya. Those who are harassing them "should remember Buddha," who would "definitely help" the Muslims, he said.
Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak complained Friday of the burden his country bears in caring for many Rohingya.
We will manage it on a humanitarian basis. Malaysia has always been upholding the sanctity of life," he said. "At the same time, we can't be hosting so many people in this country. We do need to solve this problem at the source."
Price 'too steep'
Retired Bishop Tutu issued a letter to Suu Kyi, his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in which he admonished her for not speaking out, despite her own years as a dissident prisoner.
"My dear sister: If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is silence, the price is surely too steep," he wrote.
=====
Aid groups urgently need $77m (£58m) to help Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since violence erupted two weeks ago, the UN says.
About 290,000 Rohingya are said to have fled Rakhine state and sought shelter in Bangladesh since 25 August.
There is a desperate need for food, water and health services for new arrivals in Cox's Bazaar, the UN added.
Aid agencies in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazaar say they are overwhelmed by the numbers fleeing, while reporters at the scene have described seeing thousands of Rohingya waiting at roadsides, begging and chasing food trucks.
An AP reporter saw one man collapsing from hunger while queuing at a food distribution point.
The UN Resident Co-ordinator in Bangladesh, Robert Watkins, said: "With the movement of people showing no signs of stopping, it is vital that agencies working in Cox's Bazaar have the resources they need to provide emergency assistance to incredibly vulnerable people who have been forced to flee their homes and have arrived in Bangladesh with nothing."
"There is now an urgent need for 60,000 new shelters, as well as food, clean water and health services, including specialist mental health services and support for survivors of sexual violence."
Those who have fled northern Rakhine state describe village burnings, beatings and killings at the hands of the security forces and Buddhist youths.
The Myanmar government says it is the Rohingya militants and the Muslim villagers themselves who are burning their own homes and attacking non-Muslims - many of whom have also fled the violence.
But a BBC reporter in Rakhine state on Thursday saw a Muslim village being burned, apparently by a group of Rakhine Buddhists, contradicting the official version of events.
Also on Saturday, rights group Amnesty International accused Myanmar's military of planting landmines at the border with Bangladesh, where many Rohingya are fleeing.
Bangladeshi border guards and villagers have told the BBC that they witnessed more than a hundred Myanmar soldiers walking by and apparently planting landmines at the border.
Bangladeshi officials have said they believe Myanmar government forces are planting the landmines to stop the Rohingya returning to their villages. They have summoned the Myanmar ambassador in Dhaka to protest over the matter.
On Saturday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the Rohingya had received "no mercy" and been "tortured, discriminated, killed and raped". He added that the Myanmar government's lack of response was "disappointing".
Meanwhile, the Pakistani government said it had summoned Myanmar's ambassador in protest at "the ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslims".
==============
I am glad to note that the members of Saskatoon’s Muslim community along with supporters have joined the international outcry over the Rohingya crisis. Nearly 37 years ago I studied at University of Saskatchewan and lived in  the city for 22 months before moving to California to pursue my doctoral works.

Saturday afternoon dozens of people rallied outside city hall, calling for an end to what many are calling the genocide of the Rohingya, a minority group of Muslims in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, one of the invited speakers, declared “we believe this is a genocide.”
Both he and New Democrat MP Sheri Benson pledged to keep the issue at the forefront when Parliament resumes later this month.
Deputy premier Don Morgan also spoke about the need to stop the violence and killing, urging Myanmar to stop the abuses.
The rally’s MC Daniel Kuhlen said he wants Canada’s foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland to ask Russia and China specifically to intervene.
Kuhlen also announced that the local branch of the Islamic Association, which organized the rally, has raised $25,000 to aid the Rohingya.
In a separate interview, an Islamic Association spokesman Mateen Raazi said “first … the loss of life has to stop on all sides.”
Canada can play its part by putting pressure on the Myanmar government, and also providing humanitarian relief, he continued.
“That has to happen first. The question of refugees comes later, and it is something that we should discuss,” Raazi said.
However, another participant is calling on Canada to admit Rohingya refugees.
“They’re really helpless, desperate. And the atrocities are unbelievable that are occurring against them,” Memuna Moolla said in an interview.
Identified as the only Burmese Muslim in Saskatchewan, she travelled from her home in Battleford to speak on her own behalf at the rally.
She arrived with a supply of her memoir of growing up in Burma, “Where Flowers Bloom” which she is selling to raise money for Rohingya refugees. So far she has raised about $1,300. Her goal is $40,000 which she plans to personally bring to the refugees, to cut administrative costs.
----
A west London-based businessman and activist is organising a "peaceful" demonstration to raise awareness of how Rohingya people have been treated by Myanmar's government.
The Rohingya, often described as one of the world's most persecuted people, are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority of about 1.1 million living mostly in the Rakhine state, located in Myanmar, a country in southeast Asia.
Tensions between the Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists have been high for decades - but violence broke out again on August 25 after security forces launched a "clearance operation" in response to an attack by a Rohingya armed group.
Raja Sikander Khan, who has lived in west London for more than 15 years, described the situation in Myanmar as a "total genocide".
He told getwestlondon: "They [Rakhine Buddhists] are killing and torturing innocent women and children - they are trying to wipe them up.
"And where is the United Nations (UN)? Where are the other humanitarian champions?"
On September 5, the Guardian reported the UN had stopped the delivery of supplies , such as food, water and medicine, to the Rakhine state amid security concerns.
Mr Khan, who is originally from Pakistan, was "shocked" by the news - so he decided to take matters into his own hands.
=====
The U.S. State Department has expressed concern over the plight of the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have crossed into Bangladesh since fresh violence erupted in neighboring Burma late last month.
In a statement on September 9, U.S. spokesperson Heather Nauert said: We are very concerned by the United Nations announcement on September 8 that an estimated 270,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh … following allegations of serious human rights abuses in Burma’s Rakhine State, including violent attacks and mass burnings of villages.”

The statement said that the United States continues to coordinate closely with its partners, including several UN agencies, to provide emergency assistance to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Washington has provided nearly $63 million in humanitarian assistance for vulnerable communities displaced in and from Burma throughout the region, the statement added.It also welcomed Bangladesh’s “generosity in responding to this humanitarian crisis.”

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Defining the Biden Doctrine

George Soros at the Davos Forum