The plight of the Rohingya Muslims: a people with no country to call home
At the close of the speeches, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle led a solemn ceremony of remembrance and reflection in the Civic Centre’s Garden of peace and unveiled a Memorial stone to commemorate the thousands of Rohingya men, women and children who have lost their lives
I survived in two worlds:
One where I have lived for generations,
Another where I am merely a refugee.
In both places, I am displaced.
Shanas, 18Rohingya event at Newcastle Civic Centre
To increase awareness of the longstanding history of their persecution, its origins, and their dire situation today, Rohingya Action, North-East (RANE) recently hosted an all-day event at Newcastle Civic Centre. The proceedings began in the Council Chamber with formal presentations from speakers with a wide range of knowledge, expertise, and experience.
In keynote speeches, Rohingya local, national, and youth representatives gave their people a voice through harrowing stories that powerfully revealed the huge scale and horrific forms of violence, killing, and forcible displacement faced by them. since at least the early 1960s when extreme discrimination escalated to persecution by the Buddhist government and armed supporters leading thousands to seek refuge in different countries in the region.
They stressed the critical significance of the controversial Buddhist military national Government’s Citizenship Law of 1982 and resistance to it for the plight of the Rohingya people today. This Law excluded the Rohingya from Myanmar citizenship status severely restricting their rights and access to basic services, the freedom to worship, work, and travel. Its identification of them as indigenous to Bangladesh formalized previous decades of discrimination and effectively made the Rohingya one of the world’s largest stateless populations.
This law legitimised later government definitions of them in 1991 as ‘illegal immigrants’ and a threat to Myanmar national interests. Under this law, repression and violence against the Rohingya continued into 2010-2012 even though there was an official transition of power to a democratically elected government in which Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic political activist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, played a prominent but controversial part.
It also, they emphasised, crucially provided a foundational step in 2016-2017 for brutal large-scale military ‘clearance operations’ targeting Rohingyas in Rakhine State in response to lethal attacks on Rakhine police border posts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The military actions involved mass killings and torture, systematic rape and sexual violence against thousands of women and girls, arbitrary detention, and the destruction of hundreds of villages, razing homes, schools and mosques to the ground.
This led to nearly 800,000 Rohingya men, women and children to make the perilous journey to nearby Bangladesh, joining thousands who fled earlier so creating one of the largest refugee camps in the world in Cox Bazar near the border between the two countries.
Those remaining in Myanmar were subject to a vicious and internationally illegal apartheid regime that stripped them of their human, social and political rights, and vital residency documentation. The extra-judicial killing of thousands and serious physical and mental harm to those who survived has been described by the UN as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing and likely genocide.
In conclusion, the speakers spoke appreciatively of the way Bangladesh from the beginning has taken in thousands of refugees and acknowledged the huge pressures from the cuts to international aid that has diminished its capacity to support the refugees. While welcoming the internal and international censure, including the serious international criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence and inaction, they expressed deep frustration at the limited responses of the great powers in both Asia and the West to the pain and loss of Rohingyas who are without a country to call home.
Only 1% live in freedom
For the Rohingya, on the edge of survival, they said, the condemnations are just hollow words. Of the 2.8 million Rohingya worldwide, only 1% live in freedom. The remaining 99% are in refugee camps in Bangladesh, or ‘stateless’, trapped within a vicious system of apartheid in Myanmar facing the ongoing risk of genocide. Although official bodies have been aware of the persecution for almost three decades, no individual or government has been charged with criminal responsibility or held legally accountable for the atrocities and violations of the Genocide Convention. Moreover, while cases have been brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) to date no hearings have taken place.
Subsequent speakers included the Acting High Commissioner of Bangladesh, politicians, human rights campaigners from Amnesty, Rwanda and Palestine, and scholars on genocide. They all shared the Rohingya speakers disillusion with the failure of the international community to protect the stateless Rohingya people and to hold individuals and the Myanmar government and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, accountable for the violation of their rights and violence against them.
The experts present provided evidence from official analyses, academic studies, and news reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity that demonstrated they met the criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide. They argued for the need to urgently overturn the Nationalist Law still upheld by Myanmar’s military junta. They also insisted on the rightful place of the genocidal intent against the Rohingyas to be in the wider context of past and current genocides such as those of the Jewish, Roma, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Palestine. In doing so, with the Rohingya representatives, they called for legal accountability for the genocide, urging that those responsible for massacres, mass rape, and forced displacement since 2016 be brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Memorial stone
At the close of the speeches, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle led a solemn ceremony of remembrance and reflection in the Civic Centre’s Garden of peace and unveiled a Memorial stone to commemorate the thousands of Rohingya men, women and children who have lost their lives. As he said, it also served to honour the courage, and resilience of the Rohingya people in the face of horrific persecution and determination to preserve their language and culture.
The speeches and the ceremony of reflection and remembrance together underscored the importance of local, national, and internation support for the Rohingya people and the necessity for ongoing action and sustained international attention. The trustees of RANE led by Councillor Habib Rahman were pleased to mark with this event its10 years of advocacy for justice and action in support of the Rohingya people guided by local and national Rohingya representatives in the UK, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Its work has included briefings to local and national politicians, a legal seminar advocating the use of a legal framework of universal jurisdiction to hold those with ‘command responsibility’ and other perpetrators to account. The trustees undertook a study trip to Bangladesh which included visits to refugee camps where children are 60% of the population. This visit was followed by an on-line video conference with key people in the camp and leading to the funding and organisation of a women’s training and counselling centre within it.
The event provided an opportunity to recognize the central role played by Councillor Nigel Todd, a much loved and respected founder member and trustee. His sudden passing in 2021 was a great personal loss but his legacy lives on in the name of the women’s centre in the refugee camp.
For further information on RANE and how to become a member, please contact Habib Rahman h4bib@hotmail.co.uk
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