Al Jazeera Investigates - The Hidden Genocide

Britain must defend Burma's Muslim Rohingyas

The past year has seen impressive progress in Burma – the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of political prisoners, preliminary ceasefires with many ethnic minorities in Burma and the first elections in 20 years which saw pro-democracy candidates elected to parliament.  Alongside this internal progress, international progress is being made with sanctions being suspended and political relationships starting to form, not least with an invitation from Prime Minister David Cameron to Burma’s President Thein Sein to visit the UK later this year.  

Burma’s President Thein Sein has been working hard to convince the world his government is changing.  Yet this story of progress and reform hides a far more complex and troubling truth. Burma is taking some initial, fragile steps towards democratisation, but there is still a very, very long way to go. Several hundred political prisoners remain in jail, a brutal war continues many ethnic minorities including the predominantly Christian Kachin people in northern Burma, and there are still systematic human rights abuses – civilians in Kachin talk of forced labour, torture and extra judicial killings and at least 75,000 people have been forcibly displaced.

And there is the tragedy that is the plight of the Muslim Rohingyas. In June, a devastating cycle of violence spiralled out of control in Arakan State in western Burma. Sparked by the rape and murder of a Buddhist Rakhine woman allegedly by Muslim Rohingyas, decades of racial and religious hatred erupted into several weeks of sectarian violence in which hundreds were killed, dozens of villages torched and at least 90,000 people displaced. Both communities committed violence, but the Rohingyas were the primary victims.

The effects were seen far wider than Arakan State. Throughout Burma, and among Burmese exiled communities abroad, including in the UK, blatant and shocking anti-Muslim racism came to the fore with threats against Rohingyas as well as those who campaign for them and crude comments on social media depicting the Rohingyas as “Bengalis” and “terrorists”.

Back in Burma, as the violence subsided, the security forces began a violent crackdown going house to house arresting Rohingyas who have now seemingly disappeared without charge and without trial. Those who could flee had nowhere to run except the jungle. Those who could not flee faced jail or death. This is a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in the making.

Underlying this entire issue is the question of citizenship. The Rohingyas have lived in Burma for generations, but under the 1982 Citizenship Law they are not recognised as citizens. The Burmese government, and many in Burmese society, describe them as “illegal immigrants”. For years, they have faced severe restrictions on marriage, movement, education and religion in Burma, because they are deemed “foreigners”. They are among the most persecuted, marginalised people in the world.

Bangladesh, however, will not take them either. Although an estimated 200,000 Rohingya refugees have lived in dire conditions along the Bangladesh-Burma border for years, Bangladesh refuses to give sanctuary to any more. Those fleeing the current crisis have been turned back from the border, sent to face an uncertain fate. Those who have escaped from Burma on boats have been turned away from Bangladesh’s shores, often to die in stormy seas or be shot at by Burmese troops.

In early July, President Thein Sein escalated the crisis even further, by reportedly telling the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that his government will not recognise them. On the same day Britain opened a trade office in Naypyidaw and the US lifted sanctions, Thein Sein wanted to hand the entire ethnic group to the UNHCR to look after until they could be resettled in a third country. He described the 800,000 Rohingyas in Burma as “a threat to national security”.

There is an urgent need for international pressure on President Thein Sein, to repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law and introduce a new law that is based on international norms and human rights. No one born in Burma should be denied citizenship. No ethnic group should be written off as “a threat to national security”. Such racial and religious intolerance is unacceptable.

The British government must make this issue a priority. If Burma is to become a truly free nation, with all the responsibilities and benefits that come with that, it must respect human rights for all its people. Britain must push for open access for humanitarian aid and human rights monitors to all areas of Burma, the release of all political prisoners and for an immediate stop to the violence and persecution - including rewriting the Citizenship Law.  Without this, the process of reform and reconciliation in Burma cannot move forward.

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Scant compassion for Muslim Rohingya refugees

Entering the Rohingya camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border is restricted.

Officially they don't even exist, but in reality authorities tolerate their presence. Bangladeshi official say there are about 300,000 unregistered Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in dismal and squalid conditions with no electricity or drinking water and restricted from access to hospitals or schools. Leaving the camps is prohibited, but many find a way out anyway.

Visitors are not welcome, especially ones with cameras. Police informants are placed inside and out to keep an eye on unauthorised visitors. We managed to sneak in during a sudden spell of heavy monsoon downpour. The rains were a blessing; the police informants ran for cover and we walked unnoticed into the camp. As we climbed up the narrow muddy lanes, an eerie silence hung thick in the air. Behind each improvised tent we passed, we could see the eyes of men, women and children peering out. They were all quiet, as if in hiding. Some were shaking. They were scared.

Last month, sectarian violence between the Rohingya Muslim minority and the Buddhist majority left about 80 dead and many more injured in Myanmar's Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh. The violence was taken as a sign of more to come; thousands tried to flee across the border into Bangladesh and they continue to do so.

Authorities in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka do not see these fleeing Rohingyas as refugees but as illegal asylum seekers, and the country's border guards are under strict order to send them back to where they came from. Still, many make it across.

Huddled in a dark makeshift tent made of mud and plastic sheets, I tried to speak to a group of them. It took time to build trust, to get the conversation going. Their silence speaks much louder than words. Some wept. A 14-year-old girl broke the silence.

She said one word.

"Rape".

The others followed suit. They told us the Myanmar army and police go house to house, abducting men and sexually abusing women. One of the elders described what was happening in his homeland as state sponsored sectarian violence. And it is escalating, he said.

For decades, Muslim Rohingyas have suffered extreme discrimination. Their dark skin and religious difference are a source of deep prejudice amongst Myanmar's Buddhist majority.  They are prohibited from owning land, running businesses, practicing their religion or getting married.

Myanmar's move towards democracy last year instilled many Rohingya with a new sense of hope. Most are supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi, but she has remained uncomfortably quiet on their plight.

Roughly 29,000 Rohingya are recognised as refugees by the Bangladeshi government and UNHCR. In the eyes of the Bangladesh authorities the 300,000 others don't exist, so they do not receive any UN aid.  A handful of aid agencies work with them, but none of them want to be filmed or named.

They say if we film these camps, the Bangladeshi authorities could shut their aid programmes down. Authorities have already refused $33m in UN aid money for the Rohingya and local Bangladeshi community in the area, saying that this would make life too comfortable and may risk attracting more refugees to Bangladesh.

As the downpour turned to a drizzle we made our way out of the camp before the informants showed up. The monsoon weather kept us safe, before it stopped we had to move. As we hurried out, a group of Rohingyas hurried in, like us, using the rain as the only source of cover.

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Lobbying The British Government: Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar

Over the past 4 weeks, the Rohingya, a community numbering nearly 1 million in Burma's Arakan state have been under siege by local Rakhine community also living in Arakan.

The UN have described the Rohingya as 'the most persecuted community in the world' and have referenced the Rohingya as the Palestine of Asia. It is reported that the Rohingya have been living in Myanmar from as far back as the 8th Century, yet in 1962, the Burmese military junta began a programme of ethnic cleansing. Starting by denying birth certificates and citizenship to the Rohingya, right now, the community are in a perilous situation where they are being targeted because they are not of the same race and religion of the Buddhist majority Rakhine. Looking darker and closer to the South Asian race as opposed to the more oriental looking majority, and being Muslims as opposed to Buddhist, the Rohingya are being targeted by state sponsored ethnic cleansing.

In recent weeks, villages belonging to the Rohingya have been burnt to the ground, whilst refugees fleeing to other countries have been refused entry left to fend for themselves on board rickety boats on rough seas.
The Myanmerese Government refuse to accept Rohingya as citizens and as such have no rights in a country they call their motherland.

This issue is much larger than a Myanmar only problem, it is fast becoming one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing alongside the likes of Rwanda, Bosnia and even the holocaust of the Second World War.
We urge the international community and in particular the British Government to champion this cause and settle this situation in peaceful, diplomatic and humane means.

Pls contact the UK government HERE