Md Ruhul Amin :
Myanmar, situated in South-East Asia, is a neighboring country of Bangladesh. Though most of the citizens of Myanmar are Buddhists, Rohingya or Rakhaine Muslim community also lives there. Unfortunately the Myanmar government has not recognized them as citizens. Most of the Rohingya Muslims are living in the Arakan state of Myanmar. Geographically Arakan is situated at the border of Bangladesh. Border of Arakan starts from the other side of Naf River between Bangladesh and Myanmar. However, the sufferings of Arakan Muslims have now become a reason of anxiety globally. This was happened basically due to negative view of the Burmese Junta government and Buddhist terrorists of Myanmar.
The United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) along with other countries and leading orgnisations of the world are witnessing the Myanmar government backed demolition and ethnic cleansing in Rakhaine for last couple of decades.
Historically, Rohingya people are known as Arkanian Indians. They are now a stateless Indo Aryan community of Western Myanmar’s Arakan state. From August 2016 to 2017, before demolishing campaign by the Myanmar government, about 1 to 1.3 million Rohingya was living there. Though most of them are followers of Islam, there are also some Hindu people among them. In 2013, UN declared the Rohingya people as the most violated minorities in the world.
In 1982, according to Myanmar citizenship law, they had not been recognized by the government though this minority group was found living there from eight century. Rohingyas are denied any state facility like education or getting government jobs. According to the historians, the Rohongya people have been living in the western state of Myanmar for long and their bloodline is flowing there from pre-colonial period in the Arakan state.
The mindset of the Myanmar government on Rohingya people had changed suddenly and they thought that Rohingya people are illegal migrants entered from Bangladesh. When Myanmar army started violence, torture, killing them during August 2016 to 2017, more than million of Rohingya entered Bangladesh for taking shelter by crossing the border.
The UN and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have defined the torture on the Rohingya people as ethnic cleansing and are suspecting that, there could be evidence of crime like genocide if investigated. About 4000 to 5000 Rohingya died in the clearance operation by Burmese Army on Rohingya in 2017.
Thousands were injured and many houses were torched. Many women were raped by army personnel and Buddhists terrorists.
When global conscious communities have defined the torture as brutal and heinous, the Myanmar authority including its State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laurite, did not pay attention to that. Suu Kyi was awarded with Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Suu Kyi was then kept in-house prison by the Burmese Junta. Three reasons behind awarding Suu Kyi the peace prize are:
a. For non-violent protest for establishing democracy and human rights.
b. A model against torture.
c For being a national peacekeeper through establishing peace and human rights.
But in 2017, the brutal aggression against Rohingya has made Suu Kyi’s contribution for establishing peace questionable. The aggression, brutality, torture, demolition and forced migration of Rohingya people have thrown the humanity, democracy and human rights into dust.
Fearing death, millions of Rohingya left their home, crossed the sea and Naf River for taking safe shelter refugee camps in Teknaf and Ukhia of Bangladesh.
The Nobel award committee should reconsider the Nobel Prize of Aung San Suu Kyi as she backed operation against Rohingya people considered as a dangerous ethnic cleansing incident. Otherwise the Nobel award for establishing global peace will not be evaluated accurately to the global communities.
Secondly, Bangladesh is a small country of 56.000 square kilometer having a population of about 160 million. A small country with such huge population is going to become a middle-income country by 2021 and hopes to be a developed country by 2041 due to the visionary leadership of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Due to such influx of Rohingya, the state of Bangladesh has become unstable.
Only considering the cause of humanity, the Prime Minister has sheltered millions of Rohingyas in Bangladesh. Globally this step has been recognized. Her courage, leadership have been appreciated and directed the motion of global history in positive manner.
There is no other example of humanity in the world of helping minority community. Different countries have sheltered many refugees during war and disaster. But there was no issue lie Rohingya.
Through saving this minority group, humanity, human rights and democracy, Prime Minister Shaeikh Hasina established an example of humanity. She had instructed five points for solving on Rohingya issue in UN assembly in last September.
(The writer is Senior Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Public Administration and UNO, Parashuram Upazilla).
