Texan Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 One of the most persecuted communities in the World that has long been neglected by World leaders. The Arab World that keeps touting about Palestine's problems would do well to highlight the plight of this community instead. Myanmar doesn't even recognize them as citizens. Wikipedia link for more information on this community: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people Here's a recent article on the subject: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/flight-of-the-rohingya/99/ No one knows our story, people visit us, but our story never gets out,†Abdul Ghafoor told me back in November 2012, when I spoke to him at a camp for displaced Rohingyas at the edge of Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine province. In the preceding months, there had been clashes across Rakhine, between the majority Buddhists and the Rohingyas, killing over 100 people and forcing nearly 1,40,000 to flee their homes. Set among paddy fields, lagoons and shrimp farms less than seven kilometres from Sittwe, there was nothing picturesque about the camp. It was part of a chain of Rohingya camps along an embankment teeming with people and a makeshift market. Te Chaung camp, where I spent two hours, had 20,000 people but it felt like twice the number. There were 80 to 100 people in each tent — children, women, old people all squashed together — living in squalid conditions. In Sittwe, at the camps for Rakhines who had also been displaced in the violence, there were rows of prefab housing with about 1,000 people to a camp. Bibi Mariam in Te Chaung related how a mob of 5,000 Rakhines had attacked her village. “They said we must become Buddhists. Through eight hours, they burnt everything.†She saw many people die in the violence in her village. Three years later, the Rohingya tragedy has burst upon the world once again. Thousands of Rohingyas are stranded in the seas off Indonesia, Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia. Victims of a massive human trafficking racket between Thailand and Malaysia, they were abandoned by their mules when the Thai police broke the ring. The people in those “floating coffinsâ€, the UN’s description of the boats, were trying to escape their futureless existence in Myanmar, which refuses to accept them as full citizens and just about tolerates their presence in camps or villages from which they cannot move out in the western Rakhine province. “They don’t think of us as their country people. They call us Bengali,†Abdul Karim, another man at Te Chaung said. “But we call ourselves Rohingya, that’s what our parents and grandparents told us.†The Myanmar government has been determined in its efforts to reject the Rohingya nomenclature internationally. The official name for the 1.2 million people who call themselves Rohingya is, as Abdul Karim said, “Bengaliâ€. The government holds that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In 2014, Myanmar held its first census in 30 years, but did not include the Rohingyas. In December 2014, Myanmar began a pilot project to give some Rohingyas citizenship cards, but abandoned it after opposition from the Rakhine Buddhists and others in Myanmar. The division between Myanmar’s various Buddhist ethnicities and the Rohingyas is almost apartheid-like. The Rohingyas’ movements are restricted to their villages or camps, partly because of their fear of being attacked, and partly by government security “for their own safetyâ€. Before travelling to Sittwe from Yangon, I called a journalist there. “How do you look?†the journalist asked. “What do you mean?†I asked, taken aback. “I mean do you have Indian features? Are you Hindu?†were the next questions. I was told: “If you want to come, wear a Hindu dot for your own safetyâ€. Sittwe turned out to be not as threatening, but only with great difficulty could I find a cab driver to take me to the site of the Rohingya camps. Faced with a humanitarian crisis in their seas, representatives of Southeast Asian countries met in Thailand last Friday and decided to intensify search and rescue operations. There is resentment about being dragged into a problem that is not of their making, and the feeling that Myanmar must be the one to take steps to prevent such a tragedy from recurring, but Asean does not talk about the internal affairs of member states. Internationally, security wonks are concerned that Rohingya camps in Myanmar, close to the border with Bangladesh, are breeding anger and could turn into recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda or its offshoots. India, as the only country in the wider region with a long-standing policy of not turning away refugees, should be interested in Myanmar’s plans for the future of the Rohingyas. After 2012, fleeing Rohingyas arrived at several points of India’s eastern coastline and took refuge in some cities. There is some surprise that China has been silent through the unfolding crisis in a region it considers its sphere of influence, not even offering to join in the search operations in the seas. But what has caused the most surprise is that Aung San Suu Kyi, held up as an icon of democracy and human rights, has said nothing against her country’s treatment of the Rohingyas. The Nobel peace laureate’s silence has disappointed the international community. Last week, the Dalai Lama appealed to her to break her silence, revealing that he had asked her twice before in 2012. In an interview to me in 2012, Suu Kyi was guarded as she spoke about the Rohingyas, stressing that, had the government maintained the “rule of lawâ€, the clashes of that year could have been prevented. She also said that for years, she and her party, the National League of Democracy (NLD), had been pointing out that “something has to be done about the porous border with Bangladesh†or it would lead to “grave problems†for Myanmar. “People talk as though I were some sort of an icon or on a pedestal,†she said, to a question about how easy it was for her to plunge into the give and take of political life, and pointed out that she and her party had been prepared to make political compromises all through. As Myanmar moves towards an election later this year, the first full election in which the NLD will participate since 1990, and with Suu Kyi engaged in a battle with the military to change the constitution so that she becomes eligible to run for president, it is unlikely that the Dalai Lama will get a response to his appeal.
Sachin=GOD Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 Suu Kyi's silence on this issue has been quite surprising.
zen Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 Kisi ko bolo tala khole, Islam ki bahaut saari baatain seekh ni hai
coffee_rules Posted June 4, 2015 Posted June 4, 2015 Migrants collect rainwater at refuge camp in Myanmar. More Editor's Choice photos: http://reut.rs/1G9rXeD
Gollum Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 The fake pictures of the Rohingya crisis More lies, more propaganda, now cry conspiracy and perennial victim hood dear Ummah. Won't be surprised if this whole Rohingya thing is just another mountain from a mole hill. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32979147
jonas10 Posted June 8, 2015 Posted June 8, 2015 Naturally Pakistanis are mum on this. The only 2 muslims they apparently care about are Palestine ones (arab masters) and Guju ones from 15 years ago (failed PR campaign to paint Hindus are religious fanatics).
Gollum Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 Naturally Pakistanis' date=Indian Muslims, AdLibs,Communists,Presstitutes are mum on this. The only 2 muslims they apparently care about are Palestine ones (arab masters) and Guju ones from 15 years ago (failed PR campaign to paint Hindus are religious fanatics). Check the twitter space. The likes of Kavita Krishnan and Rana Ayyub started their rona dhona about Rohingyas and usual lies quite a time back.
Texan Posted June 9, 2015 Author Posted June 9, 2015 The fake pictures of the Rohingya crisis More lies, more propaganda, now cry conspiracy and perennial victim hood dear Ummah. Won't be surprised if this whole Rohingya thing is just another mountain from a mole hill. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32979147 I'm sure there must be many fake pictures circulating, but the crisis there does seem genuine. Here are some real pictures from Time's photographer: http://time.com/3907039/rohingya-james-nachtwey/
Gollum Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 I'm sure there must be many fake pictures circulating, but the crisis there does seem genuine. Here are some real pictures from Time's photographer: http://time.com/3907039/rohingya-james-nachtwey/ You are right, the crisis may be genuine but I have no sympathies. My only question is: why do so many countries in the world have problems with their Muslim population when there is no problem with the rest of the population following other religions? Myanmar,Sri Lanka,India,China,Russia,Caucasian countries, Singapore, Europe, USA, Canada, Nigeria, Kenya all have the same problems with the same community.
Cricket_Hacker Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 they are bangladeshi illegals doing mischief in Burma.....getting a dose of their own medicine
Khalpat Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 I recently added one of my old muslim friend from school time in Facebook. Now I am noticing my feed getting flooded with really sick photos of dead bodies and killing of Rohingya as he along with hundreds of others get tagged in those photos . And the person who tag them asks questions "Is your blood not boiling" "should we not take revenge" kind of stuffs. I asked my friend using chat messenger as to why this sick person tags him and so many others and wants you to take revenge for something which has happened hundreds mile away. He simply answered "You will not understand".
Detonator Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 I recently added one of my old muslim friend from school time in Facebook. Now I am noticing my feed getting flooded with really sick photos of dead bodies and killing of Rohingya as he along with hundreds of others get tagged in those photos . And the person who tag them asks questions "Is your blood not boiling" "should we not take revenge" kind of stuffs. I asked my friend using chat messenger as to why this sick person tags him and so many others and wants you to take revenge for something which has happened hundreds mile away. He simply answered "You will not understand". +100. Same in my wall as well. And lot of idiots are sharing those gruesome pics, so it's hard to hide them.
hhunaeh Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 They were hungry people stranded on a boat in the middle of no where just a few weeks back. It doesn't take much to feel sorry for these people. Moreover it looks like a race conflict with the ones being discriminated against more closer to Indian people than the ones with power. But there is little India can do help these people.
Gollum Posted June 9, 2015 Posted June 9, 2015 I recently added one of my old muslim friend from school time in Facebook. Now I am noticing my feed getting flooded with really sick photos of dead bodies and killing of Rohingya as he along with hundreds of others get tagged in those photos . And the person who tag them asks questions "Is your blood not boiling" "should we not take revenge" kind of stuffs. I asked my friend using chat messenger as to why this sick person tags him and so many others and wants you to take revenge for something which has happened hundreds mile away. He simply answered "You will not understand". Does he/his friends share/get tagged in pics of ISIS brutality, Boko Haram brutality,etc?
Texan Posted June 9, 2015 Author Posted June 9, 2015 They were hungry people stranded on a boat in the middle of no where just a few weeks back. It doesn't take much to feel sorry for these people. Moreover it looks like a race conflict with the ones being discriminated against more closer to Indian people than the ones with power. But there is little India can do help these people. You are right. Myanmar has had a history of anti-Indian protests and riots since the Second World War. Perhaps, ethnicity has played a large part in this conflict.
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