By Adnan Khan

Arkam was 12 when he watched men beat his father’s head with a brick and slaughter him with a knife. The family had been walking home from the mosque near their village in Rakhine, Myanmar’s westernmost state, when a stone-throwing mob blocked their path. Their Buddhist neighbours had ordered them to stop practicing Islam. The murder was a punishment for clinging to their faith. Now 18 years old, Arkam lives in a shipping container on a building site on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. Rohingyas have often been called the most persecuted minority in the world, unable to claim citizenship in Myanmar or in any other country. Since 2012, 140,000 Rohingyas were forced into squalid refugee camps after the local Buddhists turned on them. For, although unscrupulous traffickers often prey on the boat people, it is the terrible conditions at home in Rakhine that force the Rohingyas out to sea in the first place. Human-rights groups warn that the situation in Rakhine is now so desperate that, in the words of the Simon-Skjodt Centre of America’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, which campaigns to prevent genocide, the Rohingyas are “at grave risk [of] additional mass atrocities and even genocide.”[1]

Burma gained independence in 1948 after Britain gathered all the ethnic groups to arrange the post-colonial government. For most of its independent history, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife and Burma’s myriad ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world’s longest-running ongoing civil wars. From 1962 Burma was ruled by a military junta and it was only 2011 that the Junta gave way to elections. Since 1962 Burma under the junta was one of the world’s most repressive and abusive regimes with abuses against Burma’s many ethnic tribes being far reaching, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killing were widespread. Burma is a poor country with crumbling infrastructure after many years of neglect, however it is rich in natural resources, including oil,[2] gas[3] and precious stones. Due to mismanagement and corruption many of the ethnic groups were forced to fend for themselves often turning on each other.

The military junta and the government who took over after 2011 only recognise national races such as Kachin, Kayah (Karenni), Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine, Shan, Kaman, or Zerbadee. Successive Burmese regimes have refused to acknowledge the Rohingya Muslims as Burmese citizens – despite some of them having lived in Burma for over three generations. The Rohingya have been denied Burmese citizenship since the enactment of a 1982 citizenship law which took place parallel to growing calls for independence and more rights for Muslims in the Arakan State, all which made the army nervous. Successive Burmese regimes have attempted to forcibly expel Rohingya Muslims and bring in non-Rohingyas to replace them.[4] This policy has resulted in the expulsion of approximately half of the 800,000 Rohingya from Burma and has been described as “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.”[5]

[pullquote align=”right” color=”” class=”” cite=”” link=””]The governments in Dhaka made the lives of the Rohingya unbearable, and pushed them into the desperate situation of trying to escape to anyone that would show them mercy. To further strengthen its position against the Rohingya Muslims, the Bangladesh government has banned Bangladeshi nationals from marrying Rohingya Muslims[/pullquote]

Bangladesh borders Burma in the southeast region of the country. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled across the border since 1977 during various instances of violence. Since the 1970’s successive Bangladesh governments, civilian or military, have held the position that the Rohingya Muslims at one point or another must return back to Burma. The governments in Dhaka made the lives of the Rohingya unbearable, and pushed them into the desperate situation of trying to escape to anyone that would show them mercy. To further strengthen its position against the Rohingya Muslims, the Bangladesh government has banned Bangladeshi nationals from marrying Rohingya Muslims.[6] The Bangladesh government also has a policy of “pushing back” where the Bangladesh Border Guards (BGB) forcibly turn away hundreds of boats of Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh’s shores. Sirajul Islam, commander of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Damdamia Border Outpost (BOP) in Cox’s Bazar district, highlighted: “We know they are being persecuted in Myanmar, but we can’t let them in. We need to obey the government policy, and also there are already a huge number of Rohingya people living in Bangladesh.”[7]

The response of the Muslim nations within and beyond the region has been the same as Bangladesh. The world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia told the military to push the Rohingya back into the sea when they first arrived, but when ordinary Muslim fishermen began helping the Rohingya Muslims by pulling in their boats to dry land,[8] and as international news coverage grew, this forced the Indonesian government to give refuge to the refugees. Those Rohingya who make it to Malaysia have been captured by Ruthless people smugglers in conjunction with local police who run these death trap camps for huge profits.[9] The jungles of Malaysia near the Thailand border have now been exposed of having mass graves of Rohingya refugees.[10] Many in these camps are raped, beaten, tortured into sildenafil madrid calling relatives for ransom money. In Malaysia, refugees do not have rights. Refugees are treated as illegal migrants and are open to be abused, detained and tortured.[11] Turkey has given aid and money to help the Rohingya Muslims.[12] It has also sent military ships to the region to help.[13] Whilst Turkey has the second largest army in NATO, it has not used this in Burma. Similarly, Saudi Arabia may have sent its forces into Bahrain and Yemen, but it is not within its national interests in using its advanced military help the Rohingya Muslims.

Despite the atrocities being committed against the Rohingya Muslims the world’s powers, the UN and all the rulers in the Muslim world do not perceive the Rohingya issue as part of their national interests. This is why they have just undertaken actions of condemnation but nothing more. In contrast the Kurds have historically been part of the national interests of the world’s powers, who have used them and delivered on promises of formula quimica del viagra statehood. As the Kurds were needed to achieve other goals, their plight, destitution and history is known by all and projected to highlight them as a persecuted minority. The Rohingya are not in the interests of the world and therefore they turn the other way when they are persecuted.

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21654124-myanmars-muslim-minority-have-been-attacked-impunity-stripped-vote-and-driven

[2] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21599810-companies-will-soon-find-out-how-much-oil-and-gas-there-really-offshore-drilling-dark

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/393763/UKTI_Burma_-_Oil_and_Gas_Report_-_Jan_2015.pdf

[4] Islam, Syed; Islam, Serajul (2007). “Chapter 16, State Terrorism in Arakan”. In Tan, Andrew T. H. A Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in South East Asia. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 342.

[5] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8521280.stm

[6] http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-asia/story/bangladesh-bans-marriages-rohingya-muslim-refugees-20140710

[7] http://www.ucanews.com/news/unregistered-rohingya-refugees-persecuted-by-political-decree/71298

[8] http://www.acehcenter.net/2015/05/aceh-fishermen-saved-800-displaced.html

[9] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/29/us-myanmar-malaysia-rohingya-idUSKBN0L12NF20150129

[10] http://time.com/3895816/malaysia-human-trafficking-graves-rohingya/

[11] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/11/qa-malaysia-refugees-asylum-seekers-2014112083749828814.html

[12] http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2015/05/22/turkey-to-donate-1-million-to-help-rohingya-muslims

[13] http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/turkish-military-ship-joins-efforts-reach-rohingya-muslims