Rohingyas Get U.N. Focus

The U.N. refugee chief, in Burma, discusses the fate of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas.

2009.03.10
Rohingya migrants board a prison bus in Ranong, Thailand before being transported to immigration, Jan. 31, 2009.
AFP

BANGKOK—The chief of the United Nations' refugee agency has visited Burma’s northern Rakhine state, home to the Muslim Rohingya minority, a spokeswoman said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres's traveled Tuesday to Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh and is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.

“It is really an opportunity to study what needs to be done to resolve problems in the northern part of Arakan [Rakhine] and the southeastern part of Burma,” a UNHCR official said.

The Rohingyas, who speak a Bengali dialect and number around 800,000 in Burma and Bangladesh, were the subject of a diplomatic frenzy after reports that the Thai military may have set hundreds of them adrift as they tried to flee poverty and hardship in Burma.

Human rights groups say the Rohingyas have been harassed since the junta seized power in 1962. Neither Burma nor Bangladesh recognizes them as citizens.

Voicing concerns

Guterres arrived in Burma on March 7, his first visit there four years after becoming UNHCR chief.

On Monday, he visited the country’s new capital, Naypyidaw, some 240 miles (380 kms) north of the former capital, Rangoon. He met with the junta’s ministers for foreign affairs, home affairs, immigration, and border areas.

The UNHCR has voiced concern over the fate of hundreds of Rohingyas rescued in Thai and Indonesian waters claiming to have fled Burma and to have later been abused by Thai authorities, who they said towed them back out to sea in boats without engines and without enough food or water to survive.

Thailand initially denied the accusations, but the Thai prime minister later said he believe there may have been “some instances” of abuse, according to media reports.

A stateless people

Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch in Bangkok called the plight of the Rohingya “the most brutal example of suppression committed by the Burmese military government [against ethnic minorities in Burma].”

“They are different on all fronts. Ethnically they are different from the Burman, religiously they are also different—they are Muslim—and we have an issue of racial discrimination as well,” Phasuk said in an interview.

“It is clear that they want to wipe out this ethnic minority group,” he said.

In 1992, 250,000 Rohingyas, around one-third of their total population, fled over Burma's border into Bangladesh, citing persecution in Burma.

But Phasuk said the Burmese government still has a legal responsibility to look after and protect people living within its territory.

Willing to risk

Phasuk urged Southeast Asian nations to share responsibility for protecting the Rohingya and called on the international community to contribute financial incentives to make neighboring countries willing to take them in.

He said that the number of Rohingyas fleeing the Burma-Bangladesh border area to seek a better life has increased from the hundreds to the “high thousands” over the last five years.

“The Rohingyas jump into boats, put their lives in the hands of human traffickers, travel a very perilous journey, and face very brutal treatment by the Thai navy and the Malaysian navy. Yet, they are still willing to take that risk,” Phasuk said.

“This means that the situation both in Burma and Bangladesh must have reached a point where they feel like everything can be sacrificed in order to get out of there.”

Original reporting by Kyaw Kyaw Aung for RFA’s Burmese service and in English by Joshua Lipes. Translated by Khin May Zaw. Burmese service director: Nancy Shwe. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

POST A COMMENT

Add your comment by filling out the form below in plain text. Comments are approved by a moderator and can be edited in accordance with RFAs Terms of Use. Comments will not appear in real time. RFA is not responsible for the content of the postings. Please, be respectful of others' point of view and stick to the facts.