Salaam
some related info :
Ethnic Cleansing of Muslim Minority in Myanmar ?
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
...In 1978 the military launched its ‘King Dragon Operation’ to drive out the Rohingya, prompting over 200,000 to flee the Rakhine State to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they lived in squalid refugee camps for decades.
A similar campaign followed in 1991-1992, forcing over 250,000 to flee as refugees. Persecution has pushed the number of Rohingya living in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Malaysia and Bangladesh to 1.5 million.
The Rohingya last hit international headlines in 2009, when Thai authorities intercepted boatloads of exhausted men in seas close to Thailand’s southwestern coast. Rights groups said at the time that the fate of over 1,000 Rohingya, who were driven back to the seas by the Thai military, remained unknown.
&&&&
..People feel it very acceptable to say that ‘we will work on wiping out all the Rohingyas,’” said Debbie Stothard, an activist with the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma
....The unrest, which has seen more than 1,500 homes charred and thousands of people displaced along Myanmar’s western coast, erupted after a mob dragged 10 Muslims off a bus and killed them in apparent retaliation for the rape and murder last month of a 27-year-old Buddhist woman, allegedly by Muslims.
On Thursday, Rakhine state was reportedly calm. But Rohingyas living there “very much feel like they’re trapped in a box,” said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch. “They’re surrounded by enemies,
***
By Associated Press, AP BANGKOK — They have been called ogres and animals, terrorists and much worse — when their existence is even acknowledged.
Asia’s more than 1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are considered by rights groups to be among the most persecuted people on earth. Most live in a bizarre, 21st-century purgatory without passports, unable to travel freely or call any place home.
......&&&____
...The Muslim Rohingya population of Burma has been consistently persecuted by the Burmese government. In 1982, the Burmese government passed a law which effectively stripped citizenship for the Rohingya. Further, they have very limited freedom of movement, no freedom of religion, and frequently experience land seizure, forced labor and arbitrary arrest. The Rohingya are currently excluded from the resettlement programs for Burmese of other ethnic minorities from the Thailand-Burma border camps. An estimated one million Rohingya have fled Burma by boat, often paying unscrupulous people smugglers, and the refugees now live in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Middle East.
&&&
....
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday Myanmar must clarify citizenship laws underlying ethnic tensions in the country, but declared she was unsure whether Muslim Rohingyas at the center of clashes could be regarded as nationals......
Asked whether the Rohingyas should be regarded as Burmese, she replied "I do not know."
( source : online )
