SUFFERING and displacement of Rohingyas have been the root cause of their statelessness, a visiting senior US State Department official said on Wednesday in Dhaka and called for granting Myanmarese citizenship to them. Speaking at a lecture, Anne C Richard, US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, said majority of the Rohingya population in Myanmar remains stateless as “they are not recognised as a distinct ethnic group in the country’s citizenship law.”
The Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) hosted the lecture on “US Policy on Refugee, Migration and Population Dynamics” at its auditorium in the capital’s Eskaton. Richard, who came to Bangladesh for the first time on Tuesday, said the Rohingyas, in fact, deserve the papers to show they are “citizens of Myanmar”. The US, she added, is committed to resettling refugees who cannot return home. “We look forward to expanding our partnership with Bangladesh in the years to come.”
Responding to a question from the audience, the US official said she does not think the US voice is weak on the Myanmar issue. Lots have been done, and there is a realisation that the situation in Rakhine cannot just be ignored, she mentioned. Since 2011, violence in Kachin and Northern Shan states has internally displaced an estimated 100,000 people. Fighting in the Rakhine State between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities has displaced 140,000 since 2012. On unsafe migration, she said every year thousands of journeys begin in desperation and hope, but end in death. About 54,000 fortune seekers ventured across the Bay of Bengal and 540 of them died, added Richard.
It is interesting that the US official says that lots have been done in Myanmar over the Rohingya issue as we can’t see any proof of it yet — Rohingya people continue to be displaced in their thousands and persecuted for the slightest of reasons. They are forced to become refugees from their country and many end up in the hands of slave traffickers in Thailand and other nations. Some are even tortured and raped.
Neither the world nor Myanmar seem at all insistent on helping the Rohingyas — they remain one of the most persecuted people in the world. A people who are persecuted by their own state are living in a horrendous reality — one which must be taken to task. Even Noble Prize winners like Aung San Suu Kyi who have the moral authority to protest against the unjust treatment of the Rohingyas don’t do so — apparently out of fear at inflaming the emotions of their people. This must stop.
Bangladesh cannot bear this burden of one hundred thousand plus Rohingya refugees for countless years as host. The World Community, particularly, the US led West must put effective pressure upon the Myanmar government to stop persecution and atrocities upon the ethnic minority Rohingya inside that country and take the fleeing thousands back home and grant them full citizenship as right to live in their home country.
The Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) hosted the lecture on “US Policy on Refugee, Migration and Population Dynamics” at its auditorium in the capital’s Eskaton. Richard, who came to Bangladesh for the first time on Tuesday, said the Rohingyas, in fact, deserve the papers to show they are “citizens of Myanmar”. The US, she added, is committed to resettling refugees who cannot return home. “We look forward to expanding our partnership with Bangladesh in the years to come.”
Responding to a question from the audience, the US official said she does not think the US voice is weak on the Myanmar issue. Lots have been done, and there is a realisation that the situation in Rakhine cannot just be ignored, she mentioned. Since 2011, violence in Kachin and Northern Shan states has internally displaced an estimated 100,000 people. Fighting in the Rakhine State between ethnic Rakhine and Rohingya communities has displaced 140,000 since 2012. On unsafe migration, she said every year thousands of journeys begin in desperation and hope, but end in death. About 54,000 fortune seekers ventured across the Bay of Bengal and 540 of them died, added Richard.
It is interesting that the US official says that lots have been done in Myanmar over the Rohingya issue as we can’t see any proof of it yet — Rohingya people continue to be displaced in their thousands and persecuted for the slightest of reasons. They are forced to become refugees from their country and many end up in the hands of slave traffickers in Thailand and other nations. Some are even tortured and raped.
Neither the world nor Myanmar seem at all insistent on helping the Rohingyas — they remain one of the most persecuted people in the world. A people who are persecuted by their own state are living in a horrendous reality — one which must be taken to task. Even Noble Prize winners like Aung San Suu Kyi who have the moral authority to protest against the unjust treatment of the Rohingyas don’t do so — apparently out of fear at inflaming the emotions of their people. This must stop.
Bangladesh cannot bear this burden of one hundred thousand plus Rohingya refugees for countless years as host. The World Community, particularly, the US led West must put effective pressure upon the Myanmar government to stop persecution and atrocities upon the ethnic minority Rohingya inside that country and take the fleeing thousands back home and grant them full citizenship as right to live in their home country.
