generalspeaking

Inhumane Persecution of Rohingya

"It may not be landmines, but I know there have been isolated cases of Myanmar soldiers planting explosives three to four days ago."
Lt. Col. S.M. Ariful Islam, commanding officer, Bangladesh border guard, Teknaf

"All indications point to the Myanmar security forces deliberately targeting locations that Rohingya refugees use as crossing points."
"This is a cruel and callous way of adding to the misery of people fleeing a systematic campaign of persecution."
Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International official

"ARSA strongly encourages all concerned humanitarian actors to resume their humanitarian assistance to all victims of the humanitarian crisis, irrespective of ethnic or religious background during the ceasefire period."
Statement, Arakan, Rohingya Salvation Army

Nearly 300,000 Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters]

The spiral of violence resulting from the Rohingya minority's Arakan Salvation Army attacking several army posts and killing a fair number of Burmese, leading the Myanmar military to set out on a 'terrorist-cleansing' mission that has turned into a generalized rout of the Rohingya in their traditional towns and villages in Rakhine State, had its genesis in the ongoing desperate plight of the minority Rohingya Muslims living amidst Buddhist Burmese resenting their presence and terrorizing them.

With the military burning down homes in the villages they've vacated of residents by threats and violence, and the Rohingya of all ages now homeless in their hundreds of thousands, desperately attempting to escape death and mutilation, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in desperation for the plight of their people proposed a month-long truce to give some relief to their civilian brethren facing starvation and disease, along with statelessness.

A proposal spurned directly out of hand by the Burmese military while the head of government, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi remains mute in the face of the atrocities visited on a minority lacking champions other than the ARSA. And since a spokesman for her government stated that Myanmar had no intention of negotiating with "terrorists", there is no relief in sight for the men, women and children who continue to flee in fear, risking perilous sea crossings into Bangladesh or alternately stepping on explosives planted on the border by the Myanmar military.


The refugees, traumatized, starving, injured and helpless describe soldiers shooting at them, and committing arson attacks on villages. This, aside from laying anti-personnel landmines to ensure that if any Rohingya that have crossed into Bangladesh plan to return to Myanmar they cannot do so in safety. North Korea, Syria and Myanmar are known to openly use anti-personnel landmines, according to Amnesty International, a weapon outlawed through an international treaty, in 1997.

The "targeted use of landmines" in a narrow stretch of the border between Rakhine State and Bangladesh, representing a crossing area for fleeing Rohingya represents yet another strike in the roster of indications that, as the United Nations claims, Myanmar is guilty of ethnic cleansing, indulging in ridding itself of the presence of a minority group that has lived for generations in Burma, always under duress, despised and violated.

Labels: Conflict, Ethnic Cleansing, Myanmar, Persecution, Rohingya

posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 11, 2017