Over 125,000 Rohingya Muslims, being described as the world’s most persecuted people, have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh from Myanmar where the Muslim minority is being indiscriminately targeted and subjected to rape, murder and horrific torture amidst criminal silence of the world especially the Muslim rulers.
The victims are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar for decades as they are rejected by the country and unwanted by its neighbours like Bangladesh whereunto the thousands of people migrated in recent months amidst a military crackdown on them in western Rakhine state.
There are horrifying stories of rapes, killings and house burnings in a country being ruled by Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once embodied her country’s fight for democracy.
The media has not been given free access to the conflict area in Myanmar. However, the refugees in Bangladesh reveal the situation was far worse than can be expected. The refugee accounts are supported by media reports as well as satellite and video evidence. They are of the view that the problem of abuse was systemic within the Burmese security forces but that also Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government should bear some of the responsibility.
In the search operation, the Rohingya villagers had to face disastrous attack as they were burned, men were killed, women sexually abused, those complained of rape were accused of lying by the de-facto leader’s office and hounded by vengeful soldiers. The Rohingya are being targeted amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. The campaign was launched after nine border policemen were killed in an attack in October.
Exposing the grave situation, the United Nations Human Rights Council on a resolution brought by the EU and adopted by consensus, decided in March this year to probe the human rights abuses such as gang rapes and mass killings by Myanmar’s army.
As the UN had decided to dispatch urgently an independent international fact-finding mission so as to ensuring full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims, its top official disclosed that crimes against humanity are being committed by the military and police against Rohingya Muslims.
The UN also published a damning report compiled after interviews with more than 200 Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Nearly half of those interviewed by the UN said a family member had been killed. Of 101 women interviewed, 52 said they had been raped or experienced sexual violence from the security forces, as per the report which included accounts of an eight-month old and a five-year-old being slaughtered with knives as their mothers were raped.
After an alleged militant attack triggered by a military crackdown in October, the Muslims from Myanmar fled to Bangladesh as the Burmese security forces shot civilians, and abducted and raped young girls. The treatment of Myanmar Muslims is the biggest challenge being faced by the de-facto leader who is accused by Western critics of not speaking out for a religious minority that has long complained of persecution.
About one million Rohingya, who claim to be the descendants of Arab traders and other groups, are estimated to live in the western Rakhine state, where an outbreak of communal violence in 2012 saw more than 100,000 people displaced. Tens of thousands of Rohingya remain in camps where conditions are poor and travel is restricted. They have been in the region for generations, but Myanmar’s government denies them citizenship and sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
International researchers like Khin Mar Mar Kyi, a Myanmar researcher at Oxford University, say that the Rakhine are the most marginalised minority in Myanmar but ignored by Western media which displays a one-sided humanitarian passion. Nearly 400 people have been killed in northwest Myanmar over the past week in insurgent attacks on security posts and an army crackdown. Aid agencies estimate that over 90,000 victims, since the violence erupted, have fled to neighboring Bangladesh from Myanmar.
Meanwhile, no Muslim ruler other than Turkish, Iranian and Malaysian leaders have pressed world leaders to do more to help the Rohingya Muslims are faced with genocide. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, who has discussed the violence with around 20 world leaders as the head of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, pledged to raise the issue at the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month.
When no other Muslim country except Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, are showing sensitivity towards the massacres happening in Myanmar, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has called on Bangladesh to open its doors to Rohingya Muslims, and said that his country would pay all the expenses to be spent on their settlement in Bangladesh.
Likewise, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in separate phone calls with his Turkish, Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts, urged Muslim countries to take practical measures to end the inhuman crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims. He expressed deep concern about the sad situation of Rohingya Muslims, and expressed Iran’s commitment to help adoption of collective strategies by international organizations and Muslim countries to solve the ongoing crisis.
Nevertheless, the PML-N-led Pakistani government failed to take affective steps against the persisting violence against the Rohingya Muslims nor, like Turkish government, has it called for action to end the genocide of the Muslim.
The global leaders, especially Islamic countries should demand international action.
Though South East Asian countries generally don’t criticise each other about their internal affairs, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak questioned Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel Prize, over her inaction amidst the Muslims’ genocide. His comments followed a call from Malaysia’s youth and sports minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, for Asean to review Myanmar’s membership over the “unacceptable” violence.
Indonesia’s ambassador to London, Rizal Sukma, demanded an investigation with regional participation and said that his country stood ready to participate if any such commission was to be formed. Earlier, a meeting of Asean foreign ministers to discuss the crisis was held on 19 December in Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, but was dismissed as “largely an act of political theatre” by the Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights grouping.
During a meeting of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) council of foreign ministers held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January, 2017, then adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said the Muslim community across the world must “play an active role” to help Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar.
But now when the anti-Muslim mayhem in Myanmar has reached its peak with the victims being made subjected to rape, murder and horrific torture, no solid reaction to the aggravating situation in the Muslim-minority country has appeared on behalf of the world powers and most of the Muslim states including Pakistan.