Message from the President of ARNO: Mr. Nurul Islam

ARNO Message
“In The Name of Allah, The most Beneficent, the Most Merciful”

Dear Rohingya brothers and sisters,

Assalamo Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barkatuh!

It is indeed a great privilege and honour for me to send this message of congratulations to all Rohingya brothers and sisters around the world, on this auspicious occasion of the Rohingya National Day on 3rd January 2020.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Rohingya are a people with rich historical heritage and glorious past. They have connections to the high cultures of Bengal, Persia and Arabia and their sublime civilization have had contributed to the peoples of Arakan and Burma. For centuries Arakan prospered, as an independent kingdom, on international trade, brought into its people new ideas and learning, a flourishing civilization with the most cosmopolitan court in modern Burmese history. History testifies that the heyday of Arakan began with the development of Muslim civilization. Yet, today we are not tolerated in the country for our religion, ethnicity and South Asian appearance in contrast to Southeast Asian of dominant Bamar. We are proud of having resemblance with the people of Bengal or the ancient inhabitants of Arakan. We are nevertheless “Rohingya” by history, by culture and by civilization; and a people indigenous to Arakan, therefore, to Burma/Myanmar.  

Dear brothers and sisters,

We have been oppressed and persecuted beyond all measures. Particularly from 1962 military takeover, our people have faced the continuous process of de-legitimization, institutionalized persecution and worsening abuses culminating in genocide. In 2017, the world was appalled by the images of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children fleeing genocide in Burma/Myanmar. We saw houses and villages were burned to the ground, women gang-raped and babies were thrown into the flame. UN Fact-Finding Mission has now called this atrocities “genocide”.  Today, Bangladesh is home to more than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, including those who have been taking refuge over the decades. The Rohingya people are grateful to the people and government of Bangladesh for generously welcoming them, showing solidarity by a bold, merciful and humanitarian gesture despite the economic constraints of this nation.

Dear brothers and sisters,

We Rohingya are victims. We are survivors. Above all, we are innocent people who want to return to our homeland in safety, in dignity, and with justice. Sadly, we have seen no evidence that the Myanmar government is committed to achieving this goal. It has no intention of creating the conditions for a sustainable return, because they have already achieved their goal: eliminating the Rohingya people from Arakan.  

Dear brothers and sisters,

Our villages have been bulldozed to erase any signs of former lives and evidence of crimes against Rohingya, including mass graves all over Northern Arakan. Our lands have been appropriated, declared state ownerships and are being allocated to establish increasing Buddhist settler villages and to transform into so-called economic zones in collaboration with greedy exploiters or economic imperialists. We have lost everything –human dignity, human rights and freedoms. We have no opportunity to earn daily bread, even the opportunity to survive. Everything is taken away.

Dear brothers and sisters,

Genocide is still ongoing in Arakan. Nowhere our people are safe. They do not look upon us as people. They tend to regard us as a separate breed. About 80% of our population was expelled to lead a life of humiliation as refugees and baggers in alien lands. Those who are still at home are confined to ghettos and apartheid-like concentration camps without education, healthcare, enough food and necessities for life. For nearly 8 years from 2012, the IDPs in Sittwe and other southern towns are not allowed to return to their original places to rebuild their lives.

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are now in the abyss of our history. We must rise up from this horrible situation for emancipation. National unity is indispensable for our steady victory. Whether we are in the homeland or the in places of refuge we are one national unit.  The sacrifice that is demanded of us is not greater than the sacrifice many generations have made. The setback we have faced one after another is not permanent. We never, ever lose hope, and we never lose confidence that we will win one day, Insha-Allah. Remember we do not stand alone. We are not isolated. The freedom-loving and justice upholding people of the world are with us.  

Dear brothers and sisters,

The Gambia vs. Myanmar hearings concluded on December 12, 2019 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. We express solidarity with the Republic of Gambia and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and thank them generously for their support of our people. While Rohingya community waits for the decision by the ICJ on provisional measures, we continue to ask the international community to assist by asking for a complete stop to genocide and crimes against humanity against our people and all ethnic minorities within Myanmar. We ask the international community to assist us in returning home in a safe and dignified manner. Specially, we ask for international protection in our return home so that we are safe from perpetrators who still remain at large and face no consequences for their flagrant violations of international law. In addition, we ask agencies who are working with Myanmar to continue to demand that full citizenship be provided to the Rohingya consistent with other ethnic nationalities of the Union of Myanmar.

Dear brothers and sisters,

We want our rights and freedom. We want equal political rights, because without them we will be disabled permanently. We desire nothing else than peace. We want to live peacefully and honorably in Arakan as equals. We cherish the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all peoples live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. The perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing must be brought to justice. We want to solve our crisis peacefully before our patience is at an end. The ball is in the court of Myanmar government. The decision lies in their hand: Give to the Rohingya people their rights and freedom or we will go to fetch them for ourselves.  

Long live Rohingya!