ROHINGYA refugees are flooding into Bangladesh escaping torture and mass killing by Myanmar military. It has created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis for the government to provide them food and shelter. People are arriving in endless stream as Myanmar military is reportedly torching villages, raping women, beheading children and burning people alive as per accounts by refugees reaching shelter across the border. As per AFP reports over 123,600 refugees entered Bangladesh over the past 11 days and there is no sign of slow down.
People all over the world now witness the genocide of an entire ethnic Muslim population in Rakhine State of Myanmar to become another stateless people like the Palestinians. But Myanmar’s Supreme Leader Nobel laureate Aung Sun Suu Kyi is keeping total silence despite call from the International Community to step in and protect the helpless people.
Bangladesh is already sheltering over 400,000 Rohingyas who escaped from earlier cleansing operations. The new crackdown started from August 25 when Rohingya outfits carried out coordinated attacks on Myanmar police outposts only to invite quick crackdown from Myanmar military.
Latest information suggests Rohingya youths are organizing to fight back and Myanmar military has already blamed them as Islamic State (IS) militants to misinterpret their resistance. We are opposed to emergence of any IS group on Bangladesh border but we are also equally opposed to cruelties which create ground for such intervention. In any case Bangladesh is going to be an unwilling victim to such development that may eventually jeopardize its own security.
The latest situation has sparked global condemnation. The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has criticised Suu Kyi for failing to protect the Rohingya Muslim minority. She called upon her to “step in” and protect the people within her jurisdiction.
Muslim nations in South East Asia and further afield are voicing concern over the plight of the Rohingya, holding protests. On Sunday protest was held in Jakarta and a petrol bomb exploded outside Myanmar embassy there. On Monday Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Ms Retno Marsudi met Myanmar’s military chief to ask him to alleviate the crisis. She was scheduled to meet Ms Suu Kyi later in the day.
Prime Minister Najib Razak hit out at the “dire situation” facing the Rohingya calling upon Myanmar government to end the crisis. Meanwhile Maldives has severed all economic ties with Myanmar until it stops torturing Rohingyas. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply concerned over the growing number of deaths and forced displacement of Rohingya Muslims. But most Arab countries are yet to speak.
The central Asia’s Kyrgyzstan cancelled a football international with Myanmar to protest torture on Rohingyas ahead of the Asian Cup qualifier, Turkey has called for international action to stop genocide.
We must say Bangladesh should open strong diplomatic campaign — that it should have started much earlier to highlight the country’s plight. The response from Muslim countries must be stronger. We must say the ASEAN should speak to save the ethnic minority within the block. Russia and China must join hands with USA and EU nations to protect the people on the run. Their religious identity can’t be a case for becoming homeless.
The Myanmar government can’t push Rohingyas as an easiest way of solving its domestic ethnic crisis. They speak Bengali does not mean they are Bangladeshi nationals. Bangladesh’s protest is going unheeded. The international community must come forward to bring pressure on Myanmar to end the crisis.
