Talks to return 620 000 Rohingya to Myanmar
YANGON: Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi hopes an agreement with neighbouring Bangladesh this week will lead to the return of some 620 000 minority Rohingya Muslims who fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine State.
Suu Kyi hoped meetings today and tomorrow “would result in an MoU (memorandum of understanding) signed quickly, to start the safe and voluntary return of all of those who’ve gone across the border”.
Myanmar’s de-facto leader made the comments at the end of the twoday Asia-Europe Meeting (Asem) of foreign ministers in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw.
The democracy icon has faced significant international pressure over the widespread allegations of human rights abuses committed by government security forces. The UN has said the actions amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
Asked about these allegations, Suu Kyi said she could not say whether abuses occurred but the government had to make sure they did not happen.
Yesterday, Amnesty International released a report documenting the Myanmar government’s systematic discrimination against the country’s 1.1 million Muslims, saying the actions amounted to “apartheid”, a crime against humanity.
Global efforts were needed to “dismantle” the system, Amnesty International said.
“Myanmar authorities have imposed a systematic and state-sponsored system of segregation and discrimination on Rohingya, with all aspects of their lives severely restricted and their rights being violated daily,” said Anna Neistat, Amnesty International’s senior director for research.
“We have concluded that this system amounts to a crime against humanity (like) apartheid,” Neistat added, citing a two-year investigation involving multiple field trips and interviews with hundreds of people.
The rights watchdog said systematic discrimination was “clearly linked to their ethnic (or racial) identity and therefore legally constituted apartheid. The group also called for the international community to take measures against such discrimination.
“As clearly defined in the Convention against Apartheid, it is a joint responsibility of the international community to address such a situation,” Neistat said.
The measures may include an embargo, targeted financial sanctions and suspension of military relations, the rights group said.
The group’s report, titled “Caged Without A Roof ”, said the Myanmar government has run a “deliberate campaign” to strip Rohingya of what little identification documents they had, making it cumbersome to register newborn babies, and deleting names from official records if people are not home for “population checks”.
Amnesty said the minority Muslim population is denied citizenship under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law – the government refers to them as “Bengalis” to infer they are interlopers from Bangladesh.
Rohingya are regularly denied access to healthcare facilities in Rakhine state, where most of them live, and are subjected to restrictions on movement, including curfews, inhibiting their ability to earn money, visit their families and friends, or practise their religion, the report said.
They have also been subjected to arbitrary arrests, beatings and extrajudicial killings, Amnesty said, warning that these factors make it “virtually impossible” for Rohingya refugees to return to their homes.
The report comes as Myanmar and Bangladesh discuss repatriating thousands of Rohingya Muslims. “They want to go back... with legal status and citizenship rights.”