Time running out

[asad71]

Time running out
Saiful Huq Omi

The underlying truth about the border tension between Bangladesh and Myanmar has different aspects; the central one, for sure, is the Rohingya issue. The news about the border tension is framed as if it all started in May 2014 when they opened fire on us, and one of our brave souls, Mizanur Rahman, died in the attack. Except that the tension did not start when Mizanur Rahman was killed. It started years ago, and the issue still remains alive. Rohingyas have remained at the epicentre of the whole tension.
From the research we have done, we know that the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) was much stronger decades ago. RSO and a few other armed militant groups started to regroup after the June violence in 2012. They started to recruit new members. Funding from the Middle East as well as from Turkey is playing a role here.
It seems that the US, UK, EU, UN and human rights organisations have either completely failed to stop the ongoing slow-burning genocide in Myanmar or they have been lax in taking steps against it. Taking up arms is becoming the RSO's only option. It is perhaps not the most logical consequence but an inevitable one, stemming from the decades of injustice to a community, which, according to the UN, is the most persecuted group in the world.
Two years ago, everyone thought Aung San Sui Kyi would have a landslide victory when the elections took place. In my latest visit to Myanmar, I realised that it was getting to an interesting point now. No one can guarantee that NLD, Sui Kyi's party, will win with a landslide. Thein Sein, the leader of the military backed government, wants to capitalise on the situation to win popularity and play the Buddhist card again by bringing up the Rohingya issue to the centre of discussion. Let's not forget, Buddhist votes will decide who wins the election. It is for this same reason that Sui Kyi had decided to remain silent at the beginning. By keeping mute over the issue Suu Kyi thought that she would reassure her communal voters that she was with them, no matter even if they were the prime perpetrator of genocide.
“Create unrest on the borders, generate jingo nationalism within the citizens, unite them with it and make them forget the real issues” -- a typical strategy for an unpopular government. It is not the first time that this strategy has been used to unite voters. Think back to the India-Pakistan border issues -- Kashmir, Kargil and so on -- our own tensions with India; Narendra Modi's flaming rhetoric promising deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. How many more examples do we need? It is a political tool used as leverage to incite communal sentiments during elections.
It is also not just a matter of the refugees. There is rampant drug trade going on at the border. Myanmar's army runs and controls the billion-dollar business. With the ongoing operations against Yaba in Bangladesh, the Myanmar army may become irate. They are losing money and the BGB is leading the operation against the traders. The rise in lawlessness at the border coincides with the use of Rohingyas as 'mules' trafficking drugs across the border.
Let us all accept that we have a problem and stop the blame game. A good way to start would be to have a count of how many Rohingyas are in Bangladesh, since no official census has been taken so far. We have to engage with the international community in such a way that repatriation to Rakhine becomes possible. We must also be proactive in making sure the influx does not happen again, i.e. making sure that crimes against humanity are not being committed. Till then, the Rohingyas seeking refuge in Bangladesh can be given temporary status that will make them feel safer and less vulnerable, so that they do not fall, unwittingly, into the hands of traffickers, criminals, political radicals and so on. Let us deal with a human issue in a humane way. Let's stop portraying them only as criminals when some of our own political leaders are controlling criminal activities in that region of Cox's Bazar. How many more like Mizanur have to die before we realise that we need to act fast? Let's act wisely; let's lend our hands to those who need it the most, let's lend our hand before the outstretched palms are radicalised and used against our interest.


The writer is a photographer and activist.

Published:12:00 am Sunday, June 08, 2014

Time running out

Time is indeed running out. Unless Burma ensures its Arakanese Muslims feel safe and equal in their country, they will keep coming into BD, no matter how much mines are laid on the border.A land-scarce,resource-starved BD will eventually be forced to arm and return them to their homeland.

 

[asad71]

 

[dray]

Time is indeed running out. Unless Burma ensures its Arakanese Muslims feel safe and equal in their country, they will keep coming into BD, no matter how much mines are laid on the border.A land-scarce,resource-starved BD will eventually be forced to arm and return them to their homeland.

Would you say the same for the minorities of Bangladesh?

 

[the just]

Would you say the same for the minorities of Bangladesh?

Minorities of Bangladesh? What about them.Is shoot on sight is carrying out by our government? And nobody knows nothing about? Even the minority communities itself?
Are you suggesting we are ethnic cleansing ?But so secretively that the world hasn't a clue?Not even nose Pocking India?

 

[dray]

Minorities of Bangladesh? What about them.Is shoot on sight is carrying out by our government? And nobody knows nothing about? Even the minority communities itself?
Are you suggesting we are ethnic cleansing ?But so secretively that the world hasn't a clue?Not even nose Pocking India?

Yes, I am suggesting that you are doing ethnic cleansing of minorities of Bangladesh since 1946, by violence, and by discrimination, and Bangladesh is 'successful' in bringing down the percentage of minority population of Bangladesh rapidly, my conservative estimate is that by 2030 Bangladesh will have next to nil minority population barring a few pockets.

So, it is height of hypocrisy when you criticize Myanmar on minority issues.

 

[asad71]

Would you say the same for the minorities of Bangladesh?

Nomo Shdro Hindus are quite happy in their country, BD. The higher cast have almost all shifted to a country they thought is ruled by their kind.

The Rohingya: A history of persecution

The Rohingya: A history of persecution
Ahmad Ibrahim

The UNHCR estimates that at the moment there could be as many as 500,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees inside Bangladesh. This number is in excess to the 25,000 that are registered refugees and are living in two of the camps provided by the UNHCR. What it means is that half a million people are living on Bangladeshi soil without any legal rights or provisions. They exist like ghosts in the wind because the government of Bangladesh does not recognise their presence.
The real problem, though, starts in Myanmar, where Thein Sein's military backed government fails to acknowledge their presence as well, often turning a blind eye to the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine and the crimes against humanity being committed on Myanmar land. On March 29, the Myanmar government banned the word 'Rohingya' and insisted that the Muslim community register as 'Bengalis.' Critics will point to the fact that it is a political ploy to gain Buddhist votes before elections but it is just another move in a series of oppressive ones that can be seen to span across the best part of the last three centuries. Today, the Rohingyas are the most persecuted minority in the world, according to UNHCR reports. Their presence inside Myanmar continues to be widely contentious issue and, for the Myanmar government, mum's the word is the policy that has served them best for the past century.

The topic of debate centres on the belief that the Rohingyas are not people of Myanmar but an ethnicity that migrated into Myanmar from Chittagong. Proponents of this school of thought point to the fact that the Rohingya dialect and the Chittagonian dialect are very similar to each other. The truth is, though, that the Rohingya dialect of the people of Arakan developed sometime during the 8th century with the confluence of Arabic, Persian, Portuguese and Sanskrit. In fact, the ethnicity now referred to as Rohingya existed in Myanmar's land for longer than the last millennium. The free mixing of populations on both sides of the Naf river led to the similarities in dialects of the two regions. It was only in 1785 that the first instance of displacement of the Rohingyas occurred. Burmese king Bodapawpaya's conquest of Arakan led to the mass migration of the Mogh and the Rohingya to Chittagong. The Muslim population of Arakan was tortured indiscriminately and they had no choice but to flee. Fast forward to the three Anglo-Burmese wars stretching from 1824 to 1885 and we can see that the British occupation of Burma led to the reentry of Rohingyas into their homeland after decades in exile. Little were they to know of the nightmare that awaited them in the coming years.
With the rise of ultra nationalist movements throughout Burma, British India was finally separated from Myanmar in 1935, at a time when the Rohingyas fought to break away from the shackles of Imperialism. But this was the time when the communal flames of the Buddhist-Muslim dichotomy started spreading throughout Arakan, now renamed by the Mogh Buddhists as Rakhine. 1938 saw the first serious Buddhist-Muslim riots in Rakhine, and it was only about to get worse. Things came to a head in 1942, when Japanese occupation forces moved into Burma and colluded with Burmese ultra nationalists to massacre the many minorities of Myanmar, including the Rohingyas, who were now termed as Chittagonians, in-line with the anti-India sentiment that made the people of Myanmar averse to anything or anyone that came in contact with British India. The British, however, reoccupied Burma in 1945 and the Rohingyas were again allowed to settle back into Rakhine, albeit in acrimonious circumstances.
In 1948 came the independence of Burma and the implementation of parliamentary democracy. In Aung San's mandate, the Rohingyas were recognised as citizens of independent Myanmar. Even though Aung San was assassinated, his work towards peaceful coexistence was carried forward to some extent by U Nu, under whose rule Rohingyas were allowed to vote and enjoy basic rights. But it was to be the calm before a violent storm as General Ne Win came to power through a military coup and the systematic Rohingya genocide began in earnest from 1962. They were denied the right to vote and lost their status as citizens. That was when the exodus of Rohingyas to Bangladesh started. An estimated 207,172 refugees sought shelter in Bangladesh in 1978. Repatriation occurred in small bursts but another large wave of refugees came to Bangladeshi shores in 1992, this time almost 250,000 of them. The Bangladeshi government stopped registering Rohingya refugees in 1992 but the influx has not abated since then. Repatriation is a thorny topic as movement of the Rohingyas back into Rakhine puts them back into the scene of horrific persecution.
The situation hardly gives any reasons for us to be optimistic. Aung San Suu Kyi remains mysteriously mum on this topic while communal hatred spurs on in Rakhine. The Constitution of Myanmar states that any ethnic group that has lived within Burmese territory before 1823 are natives. It is strange, then, that Rohingyas are not included in this definition. In one of the most blatant instances of genocide in recent history, the government of Myanmar has decided to turn a blind eye to the fate of its people. And what of the hopeless community living in peril on both sides of an increasingly lawless border? They are often left with no choice but to turn to drug trafficking and militancy to gain their place back in their homeland.
The recent rise of militant organisations such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) should hardly be surprising. Reports published in The Myanmar Times say that infiltrators from Bangladesh (presumably RSO) shot and killed four police officers in Myanmar on May 17. It might just have been the tipping point that resulted in the shootout on May 28 that killed Mizanur Rahman. The situation now has become too glaring to ignore. The government of Myanmar can no longer sit and watch as hundreds burn everyday in Rakhine. It's time for them to accept the fact that the Rohingya belong in Myanmar as much as anyone else. It's time for them to step out of the tactic of using religious bigotry for political expediency.

The writer is Editorial Assistant,The Daily Star.

Published:12:00 am Monday, June 09, 2014

 

[the just]

Yes, I am suggesting that you are doing ethnic cleansing of minorities of Bangladesh since 1946, by violence, and by discrimination, and Bangladesh is 'successful' in bringing down the percentage of minority population of Bangladesh rapidly, my conservative estimate is that by 2030 Bangladesh will have next to nil minority population barring a few pockets.

So, it is height of hypocrisy when you criticize Myanmar on minority issues.

Ha ha ha,good one.some one cracks a joke.
If we really wanted to ethnic cleansing, there wouldn't be any left in Bangladesh by now.And that too from 1946? Oh man!!!BD wasn't even born till 1971.( in case you didn't know)
Not a single ethnic groups of Bangladesh has been declined exempt Hindu community. And that too because they migrated to India.Still most of boarder area has Hindu families on both sides.
And I suggest you apply your conservative idea of estimation on data that will establish, how many Muslims in India will get killed in riot,state sponsored violence by 2030.
You are trying to kill a whole generation of Bangladeshi population by cutting off God given right of water from natural resources, and you are being smart *** about our issues of rohingya refugees?
So it is not a hypocrisy for us when we make you see your wrong doing.

 

[khair_ctg]

Bangladesh was ruled by 'minority' Hindus for 200 years until 1947. since Muslim League gained some momentum since start of 20th century and since 1947, even though Muslims were supposed to gain power, the 'minority' Hindus still have ruled the Muslims and still doing so