Plight of Rohingya Muslims

25 July 2012

Even as the western world, led by the US, eases sanctions on Myanmar and governments and international corporates plan to invest billions of dollars in the nation, attacks on Muslim Rohingyas in the western part of the country continues.

The plight of the 800,000-odd minority community has been largely ignored by the rest of the world for years, but with Myanmar being seen as a new ‘investment opportunity,’ their future appears to be bleak.

Despite hundreds of Muslims having been killed over the past few weeks in communal violence, and a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region, the international community chooses to ignore the ethnic cleansing that is occurring in Myanmar. The UN has described the Rohingya Muslims as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

There were widespread attacks on the minorities and the government was forced to declare an emergency in June. But the attacks on the Rohingyas continue unabated. Aid agencies, who are being prevented by the government from reaching food and medicines to the Rohingyas, warn of an impending humanitarian catastrophe. But the Myanmarese government, which refuses to accept all of the 800,000 Rohingyas as its nationals, is going ahead with plans to resettle many of them abroad. President Thein Sein has declared that Rohingya Muslims should be expelled from his country and sent to UN refugee camps. But this is being compared to mass deportation and the UN and even Bangladesh, is reluctant to accommodate them. Human Rights Watch has called for a strong international response to Myanmar’s move to evict the Rohingyas.

Though Myanmar may have emerged as a new opportunity for the developed world and even for the emerging economies, the international community should vigorously take up the plight of the Rohingyas with the government, before committing to invest in the country.

Source: Here