The scenes last month of hundreds of refugees crowded into small wooden boats in the Andaman Sea after fleeing bloody persecution in Myanmar were frightening and heartbreaking. Emaciated after being adrift at sea for months with little food and rejected by all neighboring countries, the Rohingyas, who are Muslims, looked like skeletons.
The plight of the Rohingyas, which has lasted decades, is well known to anyone who follows events in Myanmar. The severe military junta that ruled the country since the 1960s until recently always repressed them. In 2010 some of the generals exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothes, retiring from their military positions to be candidates for the new Parliament, which already had 25 percent of its seats reserved for the military. This softening of the hard-line military gave hope to the democratic leaders of the country such as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi, who always wanted to be elected president.
Her suffering at the hands of the regime, having to endure house arrest in Rangoon for a total of 15 years, from 1989 to 2010, while her British husband died of cancer in England and she was unable to see him and his two children that she had with him, was shown in the 2011 film about her life, The Lady.
But where is this strong woman, who is honest, reputable and unyielding while struggling for freedom and democracy, but silent when it comes to the plight of the Rohingyas? Unfortunately she proved to be a complete coward and without shame, refusing to defend their right to live peacefully in Myanmar with all the same rights as other citizens. The reason for this is clear: She is keeping an eye on the general elections scheduled for October. She hopes that her party, the National League for Democracy, will win enough seats in Parliament for her to be called to be the leader of the country. But the generals are adamant in not allowing her to be president, insisting that the constitution does not allow a citizen married to a foreigner to hold this position. It should not matter to them that her husband has passed away, but the fact that her two sons are British citizens certainly does not help her case in the final analysis.
Most of Myanmar’s population is Buddhist, with Catholics, Hindus and Muslims forming minorities. This image we have of the Buddhist monks as highly evolved beings, being peaceful and spiritual unfortunately is inaccurate and hides a strong current of nationalist and xenophobic feelings, which until recently had been suppressed by the military dictatorship. The loosening of the repression allowed the worst racist elements in the Buddhist community to bubble quickly to the surface and manifest themselves in tirades of hatred, stirring the masses of the Buddhist public to violent riots in 2012 in Rakhine state where they attacked Rohingya villages. Whole Muslim villages were burned to the ground, and women, children and old men were beaten, speared and shot. It is estimated that 650 Rohingyas were killed, 1,200 disappeared and 140,000 displaced. This led the government to declare martial law in the state and send military troops to create internment camps for refugees in which Muslims were forced to stay. An estimated 1.1 million Rohingyas live in deplorable conditions in Rakhine.
With all this poverty, misery and violence against them, it is unsurprising that the Rohingyas are fleeing en masse to seek shelter and a better life elsewhere in the world. Jeddah has a large community of them, who have been there for decades. Most of Myanmar’s neighbors have been very reluctant to accept these refugees, causing this humanitarian catastrophe, which saw 7,000 refugees at sea in small boats without knowing where they were going to be welcomed. The media spotlight on their plight is what finally forced Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to give temporary refuge to them of up to one year. Qatar donated $50 million to fund the stay of Rohingyas in Indonesia, and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman promised financial assistance to Malaysia to create a humanitarian fund for the refugees.
And what has Suu Kyi said about them? In 2012 she said she “did not know” if the Rohingyas could be citizens, echoing government policy of denying the existence of this group. To date, the government of Myanmar refuses to use the term “Rohingya.” More recently, Suu Kyi said that she could not defend human rights otherwise the Rohingyas would suffer.
The government of Myanmar and Suu Kyi should feel very ashamed to deny the citizenship and rights of the Rohingyas and allow Buddhist extremists to attack this Muslim minority. After all, if Suu Kyi wants to live in a full democracy, it will have to be one for everyone regardless of religion or ethnic origin. This is such a basic concept, that I am amazed that she can keep her mouth shut and hold on to her Nobel Prize in the face of so much violence.
n The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
