Myanmar: The Rohingya Muslims

by: D. Pandian

As the military-controlled regime of Myanmar fumbles to maintain civil order, the harsh policies of the government have been brought to light for the international community to see. While protests by Buddhist monks came in response to dramatic increases in cost of living by the government of Myanmar (GoM), the abusive practices of this state’s government have long been under the radar of human rights monitoring groups and the Western governments who have imposed sanctions against the GoM. Particularly absent from the international concern however has been the plight of the Rohingya Muslim community based mainly in the Arakan province of Myanmar.

Rohingya Muslims have long been an established community in the Arakan province of Myanmar, having settled there as early as the 12^th century. This community lived in general harmony with the local Buddhist population until the end of World War II, when communal riots resulted from the Rohingya’s desire to have a state independent of what was then Burma. As history shows, this movement never achieved its goal and the ruling regimes of Myanmar that followed instituted harsh policies against this community as drastic as removing citizenship from persons of this group. To this day, the GoM does not recognize the Rohingya Muslims, instead choosing to classify them as persons of Bengali descent.

An increased military presence in the Arakan state following the military junta of 1988 leading the formation of the present GoM has been accompanied by an increased trend in human rights abuses and discrimination against this minority. Rohingya Muslims are required to obtain travel authorization to travel outside of their villages, have their land confiscated by the government for use by Buddhist settlers, have their mosques destroyed by the military, are subject to prohibitive taxes, and are routinely forcefully conscripted for labor projects. As half of the Rohingya are poor landless day laborers, being forced to serve on government labor project – for which they receive no compensation – prevents them from earning enough to sustain themselves.

One Rohingya man recounts the following:

"About one and a half years ago [ mid 2002], [the leader of a group of houses reporting to the VPDC] recruited me for forced labour. I was sick and asked him to replace me but he refused because I could not pay him any money [to bribe him]. During the same morning he called me to the VPDC office. The Chairman told me: ‘if you cannot pay, then you must go, even with your fever!’… I went home but the next day the NaSaKa called me to their camp and beat me up severely with their boots and with a stick. They fined me two big chickens for disobeying the Chairman’s order." – excerpted from The Rohingya Minority: Fundamental Rights Denied.

Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar have faced poor reception in countries neighboring Myanmar. In a bid to discourage Rohingya Muslims from entering the country, the government of Bangladesh have allowed refugee camps for Rohingyas to deteriorate to unconscionable levels. Only a very restricted number of international aid workers are allowed to work with this population, lending to the increased desperation of Rohingya refugees. In Malaysia, Rohingya refugee children are denied access to public education and refugees in general are subject to harsh scrutiny by the Malaysian government.

Cites:

Mark Dummett, Burmese exiles in desperate conditions, BBC, Sept. 29 2007, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7019882.stm.

Muslims in Myanmar: A persecuted minority, Khabrien.info, Sept. 28, 2007, available at

http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6802&Itemid=88

.

Petterik Wiggers, 10 Years for the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Past, Present and Future, Médecins Sans Frontières, March 2000, available at http://www.msf.org/source/downloads/2002/rohingya.doc.

Rohingya Refugees from Burma Mistreated in Bangladesh, Thailand Also Forcing Asylum Seekers Back into Burma, Human Rights Watch, Mar. 27, 2007, available at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/27/bangla15571.htm.

The Rohingya Minority: Fundamental Rights Denied, Amnesty International, May 19, 2004, available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA160052004.

Violet Cho, Unsafe Harbor, Irawaddy, Sept. 1, 2007, available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8440.

Why are the Rohingyas refugees in Bangladesh forgotten?, Refugees International, Mar. 15, 2003, available at http://www.refintl.org/content/article/detail/870/.

For more background on the Burmese situation:

Kyi May Kaung, Monks Versus the Military, Foreign Policy in Focus, Sept. 26, 2007, available at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4582.