Consistent troubles

31 May 2013

NST

Myanmar should restore citizenship of the Rohingya

A TWO-CHILDREN policy, re-invoked, is the latest imposition on the freedoms of the Rohingya community in Myanmar. For an ethnic group that has called Myanmar home since the 8th century, the Rohingya are a much abused people in Myanmar's modern history. In 1962, under the dictator General  Ne Win, they were stripped of their Burmese citizenship. Thus made stateless, they were expelled. An exodus of comparatively massive proportions occurred, given their relatively small numbers to begin with. Today, the Rohingya community, residents of   Rakhine province, number a mere one million, a small part of the country's non-Buddhist population of some 12 per cent. Nevertheless, the intolerance towards the community is irrational and has sparked many  attacks against them by  Rakhine Buddhists.
Some human rights organisations categorise the actions of the Rakhine government and security forces towards the Rohingya as an organised attempt at "ethnic cleansing". And, this latest move is just another in a long list of maltreatments, which includes a massacre in 1942 that decimated half their population. It is difficult to view the hardships inflicted on them as arbitrary, the result of anarchic elements, when the government refuses even to recognise them as one of the more than a hundred ethnic groups that make up the country. Nevertheless, the Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic community of the Arakans, an area once under Muslim rule until its annexation into Burma.
Myanmar's persecution of its Rohingya population and the resultant exodus has caused their substantial presence as refugees in neighbouring Asean countries. While the problem is not officially labelled as religious bigotry -- their discrimination by Ne Win having been described as arbitrary -- the coincidence of identity and harassment is too consistent to ignore. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has shown interest in taking up the issue, but this has yet to gain momentum. The Asean Secretariat is taking a non-sectarian approach and wants the United Nations to resolve the crisis.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has appealed to Myanmar to restore their citizenship. The matter seems to have fallen on deaf ears. This issue is yet to be addressed by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, although she has condemned the "two children" policy. Meanwhile, the Rohingya have taken the route most travelled by the oppressed: violence. Armed Rohingya militants have fought the government for many decades, but they have yet to capture the attention of the international community despite the West's political harassment of Myanmar at the turn of the century focused largely on the demand for Suu Kyi's freedom.