UN urges Burmese government to address rights abuses

26 December 2012
ABC Radio Australia

The UN General Assembly has once again expressed serious concern over the violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Burma.
UN urges Burmese government to address rights abuses | Connect Asia | ABC Radio Australia

UN urges Burmese government to address rights abuses (Credit: ABC) 

The 193 nations approved by concensus, on monday, a non binding resolution calling on the Burmese government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.
Allegations which Naypidaw says are inaccurate and unverified.
Nurul Islam the president of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation based in London says the atrocities against his people are perpetrated not just by some in Burma.
Correspondent: Kanaha Sabapathy
Speaker: Nurul Islam, President, Arakan Rohingya National Organisation, London

ISLAM: We support the resolution but I don't agree on the find that some of the authorities. The government is completely responsible for all that has been happening, because what is happening against the Rohingya people in Arakan is sponsored by the government.

SABAPATHY: So you're not only blaming this on the security forces as such?

ISLAM: Yeah this is police, security forces, the soldiers, they are perpetrating human rights violations and the killings and the rapes and forcing the people out of their homes, all this has been done by them in collaboration with the extremists in Rakhine.

SABAPATHY: Another identical resolution was actually approved last month by the General Assembly's Third Committee. That resolution was accepted by Burma's mission to the United Nations. But interestingly enough the UN representative there objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority. So they say there's no such thing as a Rohingya ethnic group?

ISLAM: Yeah they are lying you know. The Rohingya were recognised as an ethnic group during the parliament and government, which ruled that country from 1948 up to the 1962 military takeover. We are one of the recognised ethnic communities of the country. It means that they want to establish the false allegations against us that they have of us being Bangladeshi immigrants. They want to prove it.

SABAPATHY: But Burmese UN representative there says that the government has not denied the right of citizenship to anyone who is entitled to citizenship under the law of the land. So what is the situation like for the Rohingyas? Do you all have citizenship rights?

ISLAM: No they have completely deprived our citizenship rights, even to the extent that now we have by 1982 citizenship law, which is the most oppressive citizenship law, rendering our people as stateless , of our homeland, and they have not restored our citizenship yet. Although we are very much part of the Burma society, Arakan society they're not going to accept that, only on the grounds that we are Muslims and we are ethnically different from them.

SABAPATHY: So what is the situation like there for the Rohingyas?

ISLAM: We don't have any kinds of rights or freedom in the country, this started right from 1962. For the case of basic freedom has been restricted, like freedom of movement, education and marriage and social and cultural activities, all these have been banned. During the violence start from June, and again October, all this is a plan to exterminate the remaining population of the Rohingyas, completely backed by the government.

SABAPATHY: So what's happened to these people who have been recently displaced from their homes?

ISLAM: The situation is very bad, according to UNHCR you have about 115-thousand people in displacement. But the independent observer estimated to be around 200-thousand. But 95 per cent of these people are the Rohingyas, and about five per cent are Rakhine. But these Rohingyas were forced to live in segregation, that means most of these people have got no shelter, and their houses destroyed, they have been out of a home and still some of the people are living under open skies. And those who have been sheltered in refugee camps, the camp conditions are very squalid, over-crowded, no sanitation, no adequate water, children are vulnerable, no school or education, and no medical facilities. And if you study the camp situation of the Muslim Rohingya and the Rakhine, then you can see what the difference is. The five per cent Rakhine, they have got everything in abundance, it's a complete new apartheid policy they are practising.