Q&A: “The U.N. Is Too Slow to Respond to Crisis”

June 10, 2013

Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS - As the situation in Myanmar deteriorates, thousands of Rohingyas have fled the country in search of a safe haven. 

Reports continue to emerge depicting inhuman and squalid conditions in the temporary camps where these displaced people live. 

Local officials in the Rakhine state of Myanmar recently called for the strict implementation of a “two-child policy” on Rohingya Muslims. Even though this announcement has been condemned by human rights groups around the world, the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is far from over. 

In an interview with IPS correspondent Sudeshna Chowdhury, Dr. Wakar Uddin, director general of of the Arakan Rohingya Union, a non-governmental organisation incorporated in the United States, urged the international community to stand up for the Rohingyas of Myanmar, also known as Burma. 

While the international community has taken note of the sectarian violence against the community, “it is not enough,” Uddin said. 

Critics of the United Nations often cite examples from history when the world body failed to prevent such tragedies, such as the Rwanda genocide and more recently, the death of civilians in Sri Lanka. 

“How many Rohingyas have to die for the international community to respond to the ongoing crisis?” asks Uddin. 

Excerpts from the interview follow: 

Q: What are the larger implications of a two-child policy on the Rohingya Muslim population? 

A: This two-child policy is a tool employed to reduce as well as control the population of Rohingya Muslims. It is an ethnic cleansing policy filled with hate. The policy is specifically for Rohingya Muslims who are unwanted and hated by the government as well as some extremist Buddhist elements. Some experts would say that it is also a genocide policy. 

The population of Rohingyas in Myanmar has grown like the population of any other ethnic group in any part of the world. It is about three million now globally, including those in Myanmar. 

In fact, this two-child policy was there in Myanmar since 1994. However, it lacked serious enforcement. But surgical and forced operations were prevalent in remote pockets of the country. This is why it wasn’t reported widely. But now local authorities are actually stepping up the implementation of the directive. 

The authorities are trying to eliminate the population by driving them out of the country as well as putting a cap on the birth of Rohingyas. So they are controlling the population growth in both ways. Eventually, there will be no Rohingyas left in the region and then one can easily grab all their land. 

Q: So, this is not just about sectarian violence? 

A: A significant amount of land in the Rakhine state, also known as Arakan state of Myanmar, is owned by Rohingyas. Areas within this region are rich in hydrocarbons, natural gas and other resources. So, the goal is to grab these lands that belong to the Rohingyas. 

The extremist elements are trying to drive Rohingya people out of the country by making false claims. They are saying that the Rohingyas had illegally infiltrated the Arakan State of Myanmar, and that they actually belong to Bangladesh and to the state of West Bengal in India. 

But what is important to understand is the fact that the Rohingya history in the country of Myanmar dates back many centuries. 

Q: Is the violence spreading to other parts of the country as well? 

A: The Burmans are the majority ethnic group in Burma. Therefore, what we are seeing is the “Burmanisation” of the country. 

The aim is to eliminate other minority groups in Myanmar. In places like the Kachin state, people are now asking for autonomy. To begin with, violence was mainly directed against the Rohingya Muslims. But now you see Muslims, who are not even Rohingyas, being targeted by the ruling class. Slowly Hindus and Christians, too, won’t be spared as the violence escalates in the rest of the country. 

Q: What is the current situation of those who are displaced? 

A: The most vulnerable are the women and children. From lack of medicines to malnutrition to squalid conditions - you name it. Monsoons are coming so the situation is going to deteriorate further. The internally displaced persons (IDPs) are therefore at a huge risk. 

What is most disturbing is the emergence of sex slave camps where Rohingya women are raped and used as “sex slaves” by Burmese forces. These women have nowhere to go. The authorities provide them with food and shelter. In return they exploit them. 

While incidences of rape do get reported in the media once in a while, there is no systematic data collection or records that can give us an estimate of how many women have been raped. 

Q: How are the neighbouring countries and the international community dealing with this situation? 

A: Some of these Rohingya Muslims took shelter in neighbouring countries, such as India, Thailand and Bangladesh. But we are talking about 1.5 million people here in Arakan. Absorbing them will not solve the Rohingya issue. The root cause of the problem needs to be addressed here. One has to give them their rights. Proper education and jobs will help solve this crisis. 

As far as the role of international community is concerned, it is only now that people outside Burma are paying some attention to the plight of the Rohingyas. 

As members of the Rohingya diaspora, we have to continuously work towards keeping the discussion alive, and keep reminding people that the Rohingyas are suffering and a permanent solution is important to solve the crisis. 

But the international community, like the United Nations, is very slow in responding to such emergencies. Moreover, it is too bureaucratic in nature. Historically, the international community has been very slow in its response when it comes to intervention during such situations. 

So, those capable of intervening wait until a certain number of people die. Before that they do not take action. 

Also one must understand that until very recently Burma was a closed country. International media did not have much access to the region. It was only after the mass killings last year that the international community, including the media, took notice of the Rohingya crisis.

Rohingyas at Home and Nowhere

This handout taken in June, 2012 and released by leading rights watchdog Human Rights Watch on April 22, 2013 shows what HRW says is ethnic Rakhine with weapons walking away from a village in flames while a soldier stands by in the Myanmar state of Rakhine. (AFP Photo)

May 3, 2013
Inter Press Service

Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau

Bangkok - Rendered the nowhere people in their own homeland, thousands of Rohingya Muslims are fleeing inhuman living conditions, lack of humanitarian aid and rising sectarian tensions in their country.

And the very state that is supposed to protect them now stands accused of “ethnic cleansing.”

The Muslim Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists have had a history of conflict dating back to World War II.

The latest round, however, was ignited in June 2012 when 10 Rohingya Muslims were killed by ethnic Arakanese, following the rape of a 28-year-old Arakanese woman.

It sparked off a cycle of violence in which an estimated 200 non-Rohingya Muslims, Rohingya and ethnic Arakanese have been killed and more than 125,000 displaced.

The horror peaked in October last year when security forces assisted ethnic Arakanese in razing villages in nine of Arakan’s 21 townships. The Rohingyas were disarmed of the sticks they were carrying to defend themselves. At least 70 of them were reportedly killed, including 28 children, nearly half of them under the age of five.

“Since the state-sponsored pogrom against the Rohingya started in June 2012,” says student, activist and Rohingya blogger team member Mohammed Sheikh Anwar, “their living conditions have deteriorated. Access to humanitarian assistance such as food and medicines has been blocked, their properties are looted and vandalized on a daily basis.

“In addition, the internally displaced Rohingya and Kamans have no shelter, clean water or clothing. Many are suffering from pneumonia, diarrhea and other infectious diseases. Women and underaged girls are subjected to rape at the hands of security officials, the men have to face inhuman torture in secret jails.”

This plight of the Rohingyas has become the subject of a 153-page report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch last week. Titled “All You Can Do Is Pray,” it accuses the Myanmar authorities of “ethnic cleansing” by failing to prevent the violence, conducting mass detentions and blocking humanitarian aid.

So desperate is their situation that it has sparked off an exodus where more than 13,000 of them — according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — have fled Myanmar by sea in overcrowded dinghy boats.

They are headed mostly to Thailand, but if they have been hoping for refuge here, the country is not extending it. Instead, in a bid to protect its own shores, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called on Myanmar President Thein Sein to assist in the repatriation of the more than 1,000 detained Rohingya in Thailand.

Confirming Thailand’s unwillingness to take in the Rohingyas, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of HRW told IPS, “Thailand absolutely refuses to let the Rohingya have access to the UNHCR to file a claim for refugee status. In fact, Thailand has a special policy created by the National Security Council, which sees the Rohingya as a national security threat to Thailand.”

“UNHCR and other human rights organizations need to come forward and rescue these individuals fleeing persecution,” says Anwar. “If the Thai authorities send them back to Myanmar, they could be killed or imprisoned.”

There are an estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingya in western Burma’s Arakan state, which borders Bangladesh.

“History tells us that in the early 1950s a few Bengali Muslim intellectuals of the northwestern part of Arakan began to use the term ‘Rohingya’ to identify themselves,” says historian Aye Chan of Kanda University of International Studies in Japan and author of ‘The Development of a Muslim Enclave in Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma.”

“They were, in fact, direct descendants of immigrants from the Chittagong district of East Bengal, who had migrated into Arakan after the province was ceded to British India under the terms of the Treaty of Yandabo. Most of these migrants settled down in the Mayu Frontier Area, near what is now Burma’s border with modern Bangladesh. Actually, they were called ‘Chittagonians’ in British colonial records.”

Arakan saw a great deal of bloodshed during World War II and after 1948, at the beginning of Burma’s independence, Chan goes on to say.

“One of the underlying causes was the zamindari system, under which the British administrators granted Bengali landowners thousands of acres of arable land on 90-year leases. The Arakanese peasants who had fled Burmese rule and returned after British annexation found themselves deprived of their inherited land.”

Things only got worse after the British left. “Some people in the Mayu Frontier, who are now in their 70s and 80s, still remember the atrocities they suffered in 1942-43 during the short period of anarchy between the British evacuation and Japanese occupation of the area,” says Chan.”There was an outburst of ethnic and religious tensions that had been simmering for a century.”

Most Burmese still consider the Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants. A 1974 Emergency Immigration Act, initiated by former dictator General Ne Win, stripped Rohingya of their Burmese nationality. Further, under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, Rohingya are not considered part of the country’s 135 ethnic groups unless they can prove their ancestors lived in Myanmar before independence from Britain in 1948. Although some Rohingya carry temporary registration cards, many lack documentation.

“Rohingyas, as is well known, have been persecuted by different regimes in Myanmar due to their ethnic origin and religion,” says Anwar. “As their situation stands today, it will not be an exaggeration to say that they are one of the most discriminated, oppressed and persecuted people in the world.”