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7 years ago

Worst ethnic persecution in the new millennium      

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The last vestige of Aung San Suu Kyi's integrity has now fallen apart. She claims rather shamelessly that 'terrorists' are misinforming the world about violence in Rakhine province. Her rhetoric that a 'huge iceberg of misinformation' fed to the world is misleading the world about the real situation prevailing cannot be accepted. There is no such thing as ethnic cleansing by the Burmese army, police and Buddhist goons. She even goes so far as to claim that photographs taken elsewhere and passed as dead Rohingya have been published in order to mislead the world community. She contends that the government 'had already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best possible way'.

 

 

No wonder people have already started raising their voice against Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi. For a long time she maintained an agonising silence which turned out to be atrocious at some point. When she has finally broken her silence, Suu Kyi has not only condoned one of the cruellest of genocides of modern times but also exposed her own inadequacy of human qualities. She knows she is telling white lies.

 

 

In a digital world, her naivety to hide facts gets exposed even more strikingly than it would have otherwise. Backward Rohingya people have no terrorist organisations as strong as Al Qaeda or Islamic State. Suu Kyi has tried to play the proverbial ostrich in order to deny facts. If there was no systematic persecution of Rohingya to the extent of a pogrom, why did 150,000 members of this ethnic people cross the border to seek shelter in Bangladesh within 10 days? This mass exodus has taken place since August 25 when disconsolate militants from the Muslim ethnic group attacked dozens of security posts.

 

 

The blaze and black smoke seen bellowing from across the Bangladesh-Myanmar border are not fake pictures. Land mines exploding in Myanmar territory near the border are not at all imaginary. Such explosions have taken lives of Rohingya fleeing their torched homes. The injured from such explosions are being treated in Bangladesh hospitals.

 

 

Up to a point Bangladesh did not allow the Rohingya to enter its territory when the fresh round of atrocities was launched by the Myanmar security forces. But international organisations such as the United Nations made plea for the favour on humanitarian grounds. That a motley Hindu refugees have also crossed over to the Bangladesh territory is testimony to the ferocity of the indiscriminate persecution. Those who sought refuge in India during the war of liberation in 1971 can easily identify themselves with the Rohingya people fleeing their homes in Rakhine state.  

 

 

However unlike the Bangalees, the Rohingya people have not waged a war of liberation. They are neither politically so conscious, nor have the advantage of a location of 1000 miles' territorial distance. At least the Bangalees were considered second class citizens of Pakistan. The Rohingya are denied of their citizenship. On that count they are a stateless people and also the most persecuted people in the new millennium. It is unthinkable that a civilised people can deprive a community of its basic rights simply because of its adherence to a different faith.

 

 

Goutam Buddha preached peace and tolerance and his followers in Myanmar are now making a mockery of his teachings by unleashing a brutal persecution.

 

 

Myanmar government knows very well that the people in Rakhine state will cross over to Bangladesh in the face of ethnic cleansing. Had Bangladesh government been not been kind to accept the hapless Rohingya people, they would possibly get obliterated from the face of the earth. But for a country with scarce land, sheltering such a large number of refugees for long is an outlandish proposition. The international community has a strong and decisive role to play here.

 

 

There is a gulf of difference between the mass migration of Syrians and other peoples from the regions ravaged by war - at times proxy wars - and controlled by IS. If the ethnic people had better education, they might as well organise terrorist outfits like the IS or al-Qaeda. But they are so oppressed for ages that their backwardness allows them little more than their mere survival. A political solution to their plight is the last option. The United Nations will have to take lead in this regard.

 

 

Suu Kyi's life-long struggle for democracy has suddenly proved meaningless when she faces the first acid test on it. She has disappointed the world. But still without her the process of negotiations on Rohingya repatriation cannot get going. There is need for painstakingly convincing her that already she is suffering from image crisis. All she can do now is to salvage the situation for the sake of Myanmar and her own. Her country must not be branded a rogue nation that has blood of its own people on its hands. She must work for redemption of the situation for yet another strong reason. It is in the interest of regional stability and peace. If the turmoil continues in Rakhine, its fallouts may one day be dangerous for it and its neighbours. It may indeed end up creating terror groups fighting for their slices of the cake.                  

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