Can silence be taken as answer to Rohingya issue, asks Ranu Joardar
Countless years have gone into the fight against discrimination and yet it persists. Besides the age-old colour discrimination, new categories have evolved now. In the West while discrimination against colour is rampant, in Asia, Governments discriminate against their own people. In China, the Uighur Muslims, Tamils in Sri lanka and Rohingyas in Myanmar have for years struggled to seek an identity, to be known as their country’s citizens and to get basic facilities that every citizen has. While every day these countries rack their brains to develop its economy and give its citizens all facilities, these ethnic minority communities continue to get sidelined.
The recent news of 139 mass graves being unearthed in forests close to the Thai border by Malaysian authorities sent the media into a frenzy. In early May, Thai police also announced the discovery of five secret human-trafficking camps on their side of the border and dozens of shallow graves that contained 35 bodies.
Though Rohingyas leaving their homeland to save themselves from the hands of Buddhists is an age-old fact, the number escalated after 2012 when there was a push from the Government to force them out. More than one lakh Rohingyas were internally displaced and congregated in temporary shelters where traffickers had easy access.
However, the main crisis began when Thailand cracked down on overland migrant routes, hence forcing the smugglers to use sea routes instead. Thousands of hungry and dehydrated migrants are believed to be stranded at sea in rickety boats, trying to head south to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. However, the recent discovery of mass graves caused several discussions worldwide by Nobel Peace Prize winners, spiritualists and newspaper columnists on the otherwise forgotten Rohingyas. However, the world yet awaits response by a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is often compared to Nelson Mandela — Aung San Suu Kyi.
Rohingya is the self-identity of a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. More than 140,000 of the estimated 800,000 to 1.1 million Rohingyas were pushed to dire displacement camps in 2012 during regional conflicts. An estimated 100,000 Rohingyas have since fled the country to escape violence and persecution. Amid talks for resettlement of the Rohingyas in the US, American officials say resettlement to a third country is not the answer to the swelling tide of ‘boat people’ in Southeast Asia, and asked Myanmar to give citizenship to the ethnic community.
Myanmar’s Government denies Rohingya access to basic public services, education and healthcare. The term ‘Rohingya’ was absent from 2015 Census, and most Rohingyas have been denied citizenship. Recently, the officials refused to let journalists approach the remote island, Thamee Hla Island, at the mouth of Irrawaddy, where more than 700 migrants are said to be held following their rescue. The same refusal of news coverage by journalists was done during the Junta rule when cyclone Nargis devastated the country in 2008.
During the ASEAN Summit held in Myanmar last year, the country’s officials rebuked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama for using the word ‘Rohingya’ as the name of the ethnic group, as the Burmese officials prefer using the term ‘Bengali’. They use it to legitimise the denial of citizenship and rights to the group.
Recently an Asian regional grouping was held to address migrants, chief among them the Rohingyas, who have been fleeing Myanmar by the thousands. Initially the Myanmar officials refused to participate in the meet if the term ‘Rohingya’ was used. Thailand, which has been reluctant to anger its neighbour, agreed to Myanmar’s demands and titled the conference ‘Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean’.
The country, which changed its name from Burma to Myanmar during the Junta governance, lashes out at Governments if they refer to the country as Burma. Ironically it refuses to recognise the name ‘Rohingya’ — the 1.3 million strong ethnic community. It instead calls them Bengalis, hence suggesting that they are migrants of Bangladesh.
Aung San Suu Kyi had once said: “My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace — it really means moving all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So, peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, inequality, and poverty.” Despite this strong belief of Suu Kyi, when the world is eagerly waiting for her support to Rohingyas, she chooses to remain silent (perhaps this definition of peace only applies for the well-being of the Buddhist citizens of her country). During her 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi won admiration across the globe for her fiery speeches and scathing criticism of the military regime that ruled Myanmar, or Burma, at the time. However, on the topic of Rohingyas she comments that “she is a politician and that she never sought to be a human rights champion”.
Many critics say she is carefully choosing her battles, in part because she has presidential ambitions even though she vehemently denies that. In a predominantly Buddhist country of 50 million people, where the 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims are getting the worst treatment, Suu Kyi’s silence has further upheld the belief that she is also amongst the 50 million Buddhists. Her silence has shocked the world.
The Dalai lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, had even said: “It’s very sad. In the Burmese case, I hope Aung San Suu Kyi, as a Nobel laureate, can do something.” He appealed to her to speak out against the horrific violation of human rights rippling outward from her country. “I met her two times, first in london and then the Czech Republic. I mentioned this problem and she told me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated. But in spite of that I feel she can do something,” the spiritual leader added.
To the repeated questions by great leaders in the recent years, Suu Kyi offered various explanations for her reluctance to speak out for the Rohingyas. She reckons that if she supports them, it could further stoke up the fire of radical Buddhists, who have ransacked Rohingya villages, displacing more than 100,000 people. Jonah Fisher, a BBC correspondent in Yangon, tweeted that Suu Kyi’s latest statement on the Rohingyas was that it was the Government’s duty to solve the issue. Her critics say that someone with such an enormous moral authority in Myanmar should take a stronger stance.
During the house arrest, Suu Kyi had said: “The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.” These lines now seem to have lost the essence as the person who once upheld dignity and basic human rights for every human in Burma in the list of demands during the Junta rule has now turned her back.
In one of her interviews, she clearly said: “I am not silent because of political calculations, I am silent because whoever’s side I stand on, there will be more blood. If I speak up for human rights, they (the Rohingyas) will only suffer. There will be more blood.” The situation in Rakhine state and across much of Myanmar is indeed volatile, tense and uncertain. More blood will be spilled whether she speaks out or remains silent. But silence is not the answer. In March, Suu Kyi told journalists that “a politician thinks of the next elections. A statesman thinks of the next generation”.
Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who later became the President of the country, never kept mum on topics other than racism. He, thus, upheld and strongly believed in what he said (unlike Suu Kyi, who despite claiming that she would not stand for Presidential Elections is silent on the topic of giving citizenship to Rohingyas). He indeed served the role of a statesman who always thought of the next generation of all citizens of his country.
Suu Kyi has now found herself under pressure from global human rights activists as well as fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates for her long and studied silence on the plight of Rohingyas. Mandela had once said that “there are times when a leader must move ahead of his flock”. If Suu Kyi doesn’t speak up now, many speculate she may win the elections in the future, but lose her image of being a fiery leader who stood for what was right, in the international arena.