Genocide of the Rohingya people

Khadeeja Thasneem

The Rohingya - who are they?

The Rohingya are an ethnic minority of about one million people in Myanmar. They are Muslim and speak Rohingya, a language related to Bengali.

The origin of the Rohingya in Myanmar is disputed – some say they migrated to Myanmar from Bengal, while others say they are from the Rakhine State in Myanmar.

The Rohingya of Myanmar are effectively stateless. They are denied citizenship, prohibited from attending public high schools, and subjected to forced labour.

They are often described as the most persecuted minority in the world.

Exodus

The Rohingya have been fleeing from Myanmar for decades.

According to Rights Groups, they feel they have no choice but to leave Myanmar, and pay people smugglers to help them.

Their plight grabbed the world’s attention when the government of Thailand recently began a crackdown on human trafficking.

Traditionally, smugglers took Rohingya migrants to camps in southern Thailand and held them to ransom.

Here they were required to pay smugglers up to $2,000 in order to sneak across the border to Malaysia, one of South East Asia’s Muslim and richest countries.

Following the crackdown by the Thai authorities, the smugglers are abandoning the migrants at sea.

After weeks at sea, the Rohingya are not allowed to land when they arrive at shore. Authorities in countries in the region are turning them away, and telling local fishermen not to help them.

On 14 May Malaysian authorities turned back a migrant boat and said measures will be taken to prevent migrant boats from landing.

Similarly, on 12 May the Indonesian navy said that it had provided fuel and supplies and escorted a vessel carrying 500 migrants back to international waters.

International Summit

Representatives from 17 nations are attending a summit on the Asian migrant crisis in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, 29 May 2015.

Myanmar’s representative Foreign Ministry Director-General Htin Lynn assured that his country would co-operate in dealing with human trafficking, but stressed that Myanmar cannot be solely blamed for the illegal migration issue.

Thai Foreign Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn said that the situation had reached alarming levels, and that the root cause that motivated the people to flee must be addressed – a comment possibly directed at Myanmar.

The representatives seemed keen to co-operate to find solutions to the crisis, but the talks ended on Friday with no major breakthroughs. They did agree on one thing though – the need to continue the dialogue.

"The most encouraging result was the general consensus that these discussions need to continue," said International Organization for Migration (IOM) Director-General William Lacy Swing. "It cannot be a one-off."

Genocide

Speaking of Myanmar and human rights violations, where’s Aung San Suu Kyi?

Surprisingly, Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon and Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has been silent on the persecution of an ethnic minority in her own country, and now the migrant crisis in Asia.

On Thursday, the Dalai Lama became the latest to urge Suu Kyi to speak out on this issue.

Suu Kyi became an international hero during her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long ruled Myanmar. She was released in 2010.

Today she is the leader of Myanmar’s main opposition party.

Critics say that defending the Rohingya could cost her support if she runs for president, which some expect she will in 2016.

Washington Post quoted Suu Kyi on the subject in December 2014 as saying, “I am not silent because of political calculation. I am silent because, whoever’s side I stand on, there will be more blood. If I speak up for human rights, they (the Rohingya) will only suffer. There will be more blood.”

If she defends the Rohingya, Suu Kyi and her party could face tremendous backlash from the public. She has also been careful not to provoke the military, which continues to have significant political power in Myanmar.

Nonetheless, some activists argue that such political considerations should not obstruct speaking out in the face of human rights abuses.

In a commentary for The Independent, Law Professor at the University of London and Director of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI), Penny Green wrote, “In a genocide silence is complicity, and so it is with Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s desperate Rohingya community.”

Genocide, Green said, is a process built up over a period of years involving an escalation in the dehumanisation and persecution of the target group.

She claimed that the Rohingya have reached what genocide scholar Daniel Feirestein’s describes as ‘systematic weakening’ - the genocidal stage prior to annihilation.

“If we wait for Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out against this genocide, there will be no Rohingya,” the ISCI Director wrote.