The Rohingya are an ethnic group that lives mainly in the northern region of Rakhine State in Myanmar and has been described as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.
They describe themselves as the descendants of Arab traders who settled in the area many generations ago. However, French scholar Jacques Leder said: “The ancestors of the overwhelming majority of Rakhine Muslims migrated from Bengal to Rakhine, and all Muslims were referred to as “Bengalis” until the early 1990s”, also referred to as “Chitagonese” during the British colonial period.
Others like Chris Liwa and Andrew Seleth represent the group as ethnically linked to Bengalis in southern Bangladesh, while anthropologist Christina Fink argued that the Rohingya is not an ethnic identifier but a political identifier.
With all these definitions, it seems that linking the people of Arkan (the Rohingya) with ethnicities is aimed at undermining the geographical and historical authenticity of these oppressed people.
Throughout history, Rohingya are the original inhabitants of this geographical spot.
What is happening there?
The suffering of the Rohingya people is linked to the faith they embrace. Buddhists wage a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing on everyone who was born Muslim in that country. They do not exclude children, women, or elderly people, who get burnt, killed with swords, and tortured to death at the hands of Buddhists.
Rohingyas are deprived of all rights. They do not have IDs, and they have no access to education, religious rituals, and they cannot travel without an official permit. They are also deprived of the rights to housing and health care.
The modern era
The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s, and since then, they have been regularly persecuted by the government and Buddhists.
According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya have suffered human rights abuses under the previous military dictatorship since 1978, and many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh as to escape this.
In 2005, UNHCR worked to repatriate Rohingyas from Bangladesh, but human rights abuses in refugee camps made this effort impossible.
Repercussions and Genocide since 2017
This year is considered the bloodiest ever witnessed by the Rohingya people. The military government helped the Buddhists kill and commit mass genocide against defenseless people.
They killed men, raped women, and kidnapped children, and the bloody genocide continued under the nose of all countries of the world, which never took any action to stop it, except some shy and unfair denunciation attempts which condemned the victim and the perpetrator!!
The United States and Western Europe did not even impose any real sanctions on this country, not to mention the position of China and Russia, who sponsor this racist regime.
What’s Next?
It seems that the final destination of what the military government in Myanmar and the Buddhists are doing is to eliminate th presence of Rohingya Muslims in the country and displace them to neighboring countries.
In the period between 2017-2021, more than 550,000 Rohingya citizens were displaced, which is almost half of their current number, amid international complicity as instead of working to stop the violations of the military regime and protecting victims, they placed them in refugee camps in neighboring countries, especially Bangladesh, in preparation for resettlement operations on some islands and remote areas in this country and elsewhere.
The International Community What is happening in Myanmar is a disgrace to the international community as a whole, which established itself as an international observer and policeman, however, it must deal with balance and wisdom and in a manner consistent with human rights, otherwise, the chaos will affect everyone.
