The least one should expect from the US and its allies is that Burma must not be rewarded for its fraudulent democracy as it brutalizes its minorities.
“Nope, nope, nope,” was Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott’s answer to the question whether his country will take in any of the nearly 8,000 Rohingya refugees stranded at sea.
Abbott’s logic is as pitiless as his decision to abandon the world’s most persecuted minority in their darkest hour. “Don’t think that getting on a leaky boat at the behest of a people smuggler is going to do you or your family any good,” he said.
But Abbott is hardly the main party in the ongoing suffering of Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic group living in Myanmar, or Burma. The whole Southeast Asian region is culpable. They have ignored the plight of the Rohingya for years. While tens of thousands of Rohingya are being ethnically cleansed, having their villages torched, forced into concentration camps and some into slavery, Burma is being celebrated by various western and Asian powers as a success story of a military junta-turned democracy.
“After Myanmar moved from dictatorship toward democracy in 2011, newfound freedoms of expression gave voice to Buddhist extremists who spewed hatred against the religious minority and said Muslims were taking over the country,” reported the Associated Press from the Burmese capital, Yangon.
That “newfound freedom of expression” has cost hundreds of people their lives, thousands their properties, and “another 140,000 Rohingya were driven from their homes and are now living under apartheid-like conditions in crowded displacement camps”.
While one may accept that freedom of expression sometimes invites hate speech, the idea that Burma’s supposed democracy has resulted in the victimization of the Rohingya is as far from the truth as it gets. Their endless suffering goes back decades and is considered one of the darkest chapters in Southeast Asia’s modern history. When they were denied citizenship in 1982—despite the fact that it is believed that they descended from Muslim traders who settled in Arakan and other Burmese regions over 1,000 years ago—their persecution became almost an official policy.
Even those who take to the sea to escape hardship in Burma find the coveted salvation hard to achieve. “In Myanmar, they are subjected to forced labor, have no land rights, and are heavily restricted. In Bangladesh many are also desperately poor, with no documents or job prospects,” reported the BBC.
And since many parties are interested in the promotion of the illusion of the rising Burmese democracy—a rare meeting point for the United States, China and ASEAN countries, all seeking economic exploits—few governments care about the Rohingya.
Despite recent grandstanding by Malaysia and Indonesia about the willingness to conditionally host the surviving Rohingya who have been stranded at sea for many days, the region as a whole has been “extremely unwelcoming,” according to Chris Lewa of the Rohingya activist group Arakan Project.
“Unlike European countries—who at least make an effort to stop North African migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean—Myanmar’s neighbors are reluctant to provide any assistance,” he said.
Sure, the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya may have helped expose false democracy idols like Noble Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi—who has been shamelessly silent, if not even complicit in the government racist and violent polices against the Rohingya—but what good will that do?
The stories of those who survive are as harrowing as those that die while floating at sea, with no food or water, or, sometimes even a clear destination. In a documentary aired late last year, Aljazeera reported on some of these stories.
“Muhibullah spent 17 days on a smuggler’s boat where he saw a man thrown overboard. On reaching Thai shores, he was bundled into a truck and delivered to a jungle camp packed with hundreds of refugees and armed men, where his nightmare intensified. Bound to shafts of bamboo, he says he was tortured for two months to extract a $2,000 ransom from his family.
“Despite the regular beatings, he felt worse for women who were dragged into the bush and raped. Some were sold into debt bondage, prostitution and forced marriage.”
Human rights groups report on such horror daily, but much of it fails to make it to media coverage simply because the plight of the Rohingya doesn’t constitute a “pressing matter”. Yes, human rights only matter when they are tied into an issue of significant political or economic weight.
Yet, somehow the Rohingyas seep into our news occasionally as they did in June 2012 and later months, when Rakhine Buddists went into violent rampages, burning villages and setting people ablaze under the watchful eye of the Burmese police. Then Burma was being elevated to a non-pariah state status, with the support and backing of the US and European countries.
It is not easy to sell Burma as a democracy while its people are hunted down like animals, forced into deplorable camps, trapped between the army and the sea where thousands have no other escape but “leaky boats” and the Andaman Sea. Abbott might want to do some research before blaming the Rohingyas for their own misery.
So far, the democracy gambit is working, and many companies are now setting offices in Yangon and preparing for massive profits. This is all while hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and men are being caged like animals in their own country, stranded at sea, or held for ransom in some neighboring jungle.
ASEAN countries must understand that good neighborly relations cannot fully rely on trade, and that human rights violators must be held accountable and punished for their crimes.
No efforts should be spared to help fleeing Rohingyas, and real international pressure must be enforced so that Yangon abandons its infuriating arrogance. Even if we are to accept that Rohingyas are not a distinct minority—as the Burmese government argues—that doesn’t justify the unbearable persecution they have been enduring for years, and the occasional acts of ethnic cleaning and genocide. A minority or not, they are human, deserving of full protection under national and international law.
While one is not asking the US and its allies for war or sanctions, the least one should expect is that Burma must not be rewarded for its fraudulent democracy as it brutalizes its minorities. Failure to do so should compel civil society organizations to stage boycott campaigns of companies that conduct business with the Burmese government.
As for Aung San Suu Kyi, her failure as a moral authority can neither be understood nor forgiven. One thing is sure, she doesn’t deserve her Noble Prize, for her current legacy is at complete odds with the spirit of that award.
The False idol Suu kyi was created by the Marxist
SOROS & company. His money is the open society
Institute which even the minorities of Burma
Have drank from this cup
His support of K st fakester Michelle bohana
The lead wipe for suu kyi in the USA
What is known is this
For 45 plus Years the junta fought the minorities
The world turned a blind eye because the
Karen were Christian now with it being Muslim
We have a new chapter from the peace loving
Phonies in the west
Thank you for exposing this puppet Shi kyi
The only thing that needs exposing here is the evil of islamic jihad which is the very reason why the buddhists are ousting these muslims. Not even Bangaldesh, their country of origin, will accept them. No one wants muslims around them simply because they commit evil crimes against innocent people for the sake of “the god” of the pagan kaaba and black stone.
Are you suggesting that all Muslims are jihadists? Ethnic cleansing is nothing new, and, in that particular region of the world, the population growth is one of the highest, stressing the resources of food, water, shelter, etc. to an extraordinary extent. It’s the human version of “Wild Kingdom”, except the other species are nowhere near as vicious as we are to each other. Tribalism. It makes the rich richer and the poor suffer more and more as the burden of resource stressors expands exponentially. These folks sound like they are in a position not unlike the refugees from Africa trying desperately to escape from the brutality of their oppressors. Jihadists? It is the inequality of situations like this that make jihad attractive. What do they have to lose if they have nothing but oppression making every effort to kill them daily? I thank the author for bringing this situation to light and not swept under the rug, as some commenters might suggest is where it belongs.
Noble prize has lost its meaning
The prize is people like you who write for FPJ
This is a load of bullshit. The buddhists are ousting the muslims from Bangladesh, rohingya being another “made up” term to pretend to territorial claim, because the muslims are waging a rape and marriage jihad on their women and murdering the buddhists. The Buddhists are merely reacting to this muslim religious duty which is nothing other than crimes against humanity. Muslims are doing this wherever you find their communities.
Julie, are you spewing factual or fictional hate?
The UN lives off of misery
Islam spread and breeds misery and the UN is now controlled by the OIC.
— the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya–
Not only in Myanmar but also in other countries of the world religious/racial minorities are treated so brutally and the Indian democracy is no exception. In USA this racism is growing too. The unfortunate plight of the Rohingyas has been well highlighted by the writer.