Burmese
Muslims’ unabated
genocide
By: S M Hali
While the rest of the Islamic world engages in rituals of the Holy
month of Ramazan, fasting, praying and giving alms, the Muslim community of
Rohingya in Burma is being incessantly targeted and slaughtered mercilessly
with nary a voice raised in condemnation. Thousands of Burmese Muslims have
been massacred, while a large number have been forced to flee for their lives
and dwell in squalid conditions. Who are the Rohingya and why are they being
persecuted by the majority Buddhists?
The term “Rohingya” has been derived from the Arabic word “Raham”
meaning sympathy and is used for the Muslims residing in the Arakan State of
Burma (Myanmar); they began settling in the region following the arrival of
Arab traders in the 8th century. Currently, over 800,000 Rohingya subsist in
Burma and have been described by the UN as “one of the world’s most persecuted
minorities”, yet it has never raised a finger in their defence. The root of the
problem is that the repressible Burmese regime does not recognise the Rohingya
Muslims as citizens or grant them the status of an indigenous ethnic group with
full citizenship rights. The Burmese junta considers them as illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh, while the Burmese law enforcement agencies are not ready to
protect them from rioters.
The persecution of the Rohingya continues unabated since General Ne Win
usurped power in 1962 in a coup d’état and stripped the Muslims of their
Burmese citizenship and cracked down on them mercilessly. Thousands were forced
to flee to the neighbouring territories of Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand,
but it was a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire.” They were turned
back callously or forced to suffer more persecution. In February 2009, five
boats with Burmese Rohingya packed as sardines were taken out in the high seas
and abandoned to die. Four of the boats sank in a storm, while one was washed
ashore; the few survivors narrated horrifying accounts of torture by the Thai
authorities before being abandoned at open sea. The Bangladeshis too have been
rather cold-hearted in turning the Rohingya away.
One would have expected greater compassion from the Nobel Peace
Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, but the champion for the oppressed masses, who has
spent decades of incarceration, too has disowned the Rohingya Muslims,
categorically stating that they “should not be considered (Burmese) citizens.”
The Rohingya Muslims have been subjugated and repressed for decades,
but the cause of the immediate carnage is reported to be that last month, three
Muslim boys were accused of raping and killing a Buddhist girl and were
arrested. One of them purportedly committed suicide, while the remaining two
were sentenced to death after a trial of four days.
The Rohingya version differs, claiming that a Muslim boy fell in love
with a Burmese girl and the couple eloped, but were captured and tortured to
death in custody while the other two innocent boys were persecuted.
Resultantly, in retaliation to the Muslim youth’s alleged crime, the local
Buddhist community attacked a bus brutally killing 10 Muslims. The military
moved in after 30 Muslims had been hacked to death, but apparently it only
aided the marauders, since within two days, the death toll for Rohingya Muslims
rose to 680 and continues to this day.
The miserable plight of the 800,000 Rohingya Muslims merits immediate
attention of the world and more importantly, the powerful and oil-rich Islamic
states and the Organisation of Muslim Countries (OIC), who should take up the
cudgels on their behalf. The so-called peace-loving Buddhists have demonstrated
that they can be more violent and gruesome than the worst murderers of history.
Surely, Buddha must be writhing with pain and agony in his grave, as his
disciples are ignoring his lessons of harmony and peaceful coexistence, having
turned to brutish beasts in Burma.
Devoid of even an identity and citizenship, the Rohingya Muslims
patiently await the Grim Reaper to come and make short work of them, ending
their misery because the world remains oblivious to their suffering. Gruesome
images of the tortured and badly mauled carcasses of the Rohingya are pasted on
websites and personal blogs, but they have failed to create a furore either in
the Muslim Ummah or the champions of human rights. Must the Rohingya continue
to perish in one of the worst cases of ethnic cleansing, putting to shame the
concentration camps run by the Nazis to exterminate Jews or the killing sprees
of the Mongol hordes, while the world watches cold-heartedly?
المشاركات
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق