| by B. Raman
( To be read in continuation of my article titled “The Outsiders” )
( August 05, 2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mr.Tomas
Ojea Quintana, a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, completed on
August 4,2012, a six-day visit to Myanmar to study allegations of
violations of the human rights of its ethnic minorities and Rohingya
Muslims by the military regime that was in power for nearly five
decades. He has called for the establishment of a Truth Commission to
investigate these allegations.
 |
| Rohingya Muslims trying to cross the Naf River into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Burma. Credit: AFP |
2. The Myanmar
Government reportedly allowed him to visit the Rakhine State (
previously called the Arakan State) on the Bangladesh border for a day.
The Rakhine State was recently the scene of violent clashes between its
local Buddhist population and the Rohingya Muslims, in which about 80
persons were killed. A large number of people belonging to both
communities have been driven out of their homes and are living in
refugee camps.
3.The Myanmar Army and civilian
political leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, do not recognise the
Rohingyas as an ethnic group of Myanmar as claimed by the Rohingyas.
They look upon them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who, in the
past, had joined hands with indigenous Arakanese Muslims for the
creation of an independent Arakan State. They are also concerned over
their alleged links with the Bangladesh branch of the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), which had joined the International
Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People
formed by Osama bin Laden in 1998. The HUJI of Bangladesh, identified as
HUJI(B), has many Rohingya and Arakanese Muslim members some of whom
were taken by it to Afghanistan via Pakistan for fighting along with the
Taliban before 9/11.
4.The Myanmar Army and civilian
leaders are not prepared to allow the Rohingyas to settle down in their
territory adjoining Bangladesh. They have been saying they should either
go back to Bangladesh or should be re-settled in the Muslim countries
of South-East Asia. Neither Malaysia nor Indonesia nor Brunei is
prepared to let them in. Bangladesh is not prepared to take them back
lest they pose a threat to its national and economic security.
5. In recent weeks, helicopter
gunships of the Bangladesh Armed Forces have been allegedly bombing
boats carrying Rohingyas fleeing from refugee camps in the Rakhine State
in order to prevent their re-entry into Bangladesh.
6. As a result, small numbers of
Rohingyas are believed to have started sneaking into India. One does
not know how they are coming---by boats or by the land route via Mizoram
or Manipur. If this is not stopped immediately, the trickle might
gather force and momentum adding to our internal security problems and
aggravating communal tension.
7.Next to LET, HUJI (B) has been
quite active in India in the past. If we do not act promptly and
vigorously against the creeping infiltration of illegal Muslims of
Bangladesh origin from Bangladesh and Myanmar into India, our internal
security problems are likely to get worse.
( The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New
Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail:
seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )
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