'Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day in Ottawa

Updated: August 25, 2018 
People hold signs against Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the killing of the Rohingya people during a rally for Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day on Parliament Hill on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018. Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS ShareAdjustCommentPrint
About 50 people gathered on Parliament Hill on Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of Myanmar’s violent military operation pushing Rohingyas out of the country, a sorrowful commemoration they call Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day.
Raiss Tinmaung, a Rohingya living in Ottawa, said people need to give the same attention to the crisis in Myanmar (Burma) as they do to other hot-button political issues and entertainment tabloid fodder.
“There is less awareness about this and not as much as there should be,” Tinmaung said. “We’ve got so much on our agenda, from local matters to Trump’s tweets to celebrity news.”
Nearly one million Muslim Rohingya have been pushed out of northern Myanmar and have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, which is now home to the world’s largest refugee camp. A sprawling network of refugee settlements exploded in size last year after Myanmar’s army launched a wave of anti-Rohingya attacks on Aug. 25, with some 700,000 Rohingya eventually pouring across the border. Thousands were killed in the violence.
Demonstrations happened in other Canadian cities on Saturday to mark the start of the violent crackdown in 2017.

Tinmaung, 36, is sickened by reports that 80 per cent of Rohingya in an area of Rakhine, a state in western Myanmar, have been driven from their homes.
“What are we waiting for? The 20 per cent to be completely eliminated?” Tinmaung said. “People don’t know today that 20 per cent remain and they are on the brink of elimination. What are we going to do? Wake up another morning and read newspaper headlines that read that there was another Rwanda that unfolded?”
People hold signs against Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the killing of the Rohingya people during a rally for Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day on Parliament Hill on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018. Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS
His immediate family is in Canada, but he has relatives in Myanmar who have told him they’re under strict curfews, similar to being on house arrest.
Nazrul Kazi of Ottawa is from Bangladesh and he worries about the well-being of the refugees and their impact on his “overburdened” native country.
Canada should bring in thousands of Rohingya refugees, Kazi said.
“Bring them. We need to take care of them,” Kazi said. “They’re people like us, regardless of their colour or race. They are human beings. Just bring one per cent, if not more.”
People hold signs against Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the killing of the Rohingya people during a rally for Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day on Parliament Hill on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018. Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Fareed Khan, a local volunteer with the Rohingya Human Rights Network, called on Canada and the United Nations to do more to stop the crisis.
“This has been going on for decades and yet neither Canada, its allies, nor the UN has done anything to stop it from happening,” Khan said.
The Canadian government committed $45.9 million last year to help people escaping violence in Myanmar. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Bob Rae as Canada’s special envoy to Myanmar and Rae filed his report on the Rohingya crisis in April.
Tinmaung said he fears that other minorities will be targeted in Myanmar, just like the Rohingya.
“If we don’t speak, we’re going to allow all these other massacres to happen,” Tinmaung said.
— With files from the Associated Press

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