News

On the 7th November, the Bangkok-based advocacy group Fortify Rights published a briefing that stated that Myanmar authorities were complicit in the trafficking and smuggling of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar's Rakhine state. They described state security forces extracting payments from Rohingya fleeing the persecution of their regime, or from traffickers operating boats offshore in exchange for passage out to sea. There are even reports of Myanmar naval boats escorting Rohingya to human trafficking ships at sea operated by criminal networks. Myanmar police, naval, or army officials can receive sums of between $500 to $600 USD per small boat containing 50-100 asylum seekers. Mathew Smith, director of Fortify Rights commented, "Not only are authorities making life so intolerable for Rohingya that they're forced to flee, but they're also profiting from the exodus.....This is a regional crisis that's worsening while Myanmar authorities are treating it like a perverse payday." The Associated Press also detailed a case where a dozen Myanmar soldiers boarded a boat filled with Rohingya in the Bay of Bengal, bludgeoned the passengers with wooden planks and iron rods, and then extorted money from them before letting them go.

Comment

It is utterly sickening and heartbreaking to not only witness the continuing horrendous scale of persecution faced by our Rohingya brothers and sisters at the hands of the brutal Myanmar regime, but to also know that their suffering, and desperation has become a source of income for their oppressors. In recent weeks, there has been a huge surge in the exodus of Rohingya fleeing from their homes in the Rakhine state. According to the Arakan Project, a group that monitors Rohingya refugees, an average of 900 people a day pile into cargo ships to leave the country, and in the last 3 weeks alone, 14,500 Rohingya have sailed to Thailand with the hope of eventually reaching Malaysia. More than 100,000 Rohingya have left Myanmar by boat since June 2012 to escape the brutality of ethnic Buddhists and the regime. Infact this has been described by human rights activists as one of the largest boat exoduses in Asia since the Vietnam War. Many are detained in conditions of enslavement and exploitation by traffickers, enduring a life of abuse and torture.

The recent increase in the exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar has been attributed in part to a rise in arrests, beatings and arbitrary detentions of these Muslims. The Myanmar government's new resettlement policy, the ‘Rakhine Action Plan' has also been blamed for the increased desperation amongst Rohingya that has forced them to leave their land. This plan, that is part of the regime's ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing Muslims from its shores, requires Rohingya to prove that they and their families have lived in the country for more than 60 years. If they provide adequate proof of residency, they are offered ‘naturalized' citizenship that provides fewer rights than full citizenship - and even this, only if they relinquish their identity as Rohingya and accept to be registered as Bengali. This naturally would imply they were illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, enabling the government to renounce their citizenship and deport them at a future date if so wished. Those unable to provide evidence of their residency or who refuse to be identified as ‘Bengali' could be deported or placed in camps. Human Rights Watch described the plan as "nothing less than a blue print for permanent segregation and statelessness."

All this is happening as world leaders, including President Obama prepare to converge in Myanmar this week for the East Asia Summit, hosted this year by the Burmese government. So as Western governments feign humanitarian concern as part of their justification for their current bombing of Iraq and Syria, they are clearly more than happy to attend a conference hosted by a brutal dictatorship that is terrorising its minorities, engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, and profiteering from the mass exodus of persecuted Muslims. All these Western governments could muster are weak statements of disapproval of the Myanmar regime's actions, clearly unwilling to risk their major financial investments and strategic interests in the country. Infact, throughout this ongoing campaign of persecution against the Rohingya, the US continued to strengthen its economic ties with the country and herald the regime as its foreign policy success story due to its democratic reforms - reforms that brought nothing to the Rohingya other than further repression. This sheer hypocrisy illustrates yet again that such capitalist governments have no genuine regard for the sanctity of human life or dignity, only concern for the sanctity of the dollar. It further confirms that Muslims can never rely on the international community to solve its problems, as Allah (swt) reminds us,

((مَثَلُ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّخَذُواْ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ أَوۡلِيَآءَ كَمَثَلِ ٱلۡعَنڪَبُوتِ ٱتَّخَذَتۡ بَيۡتً۬ا‌ۖ وَإِنَّ أَوۡهَنَ ٱلۡبُيُوتِ لَبَيۡتُ ٱلۡعَنڪَبُوتِ‌ۖ لَوۡ ڪَانُواْ يَعۡلَمُونَ))

"The likeness of those who take as Auliya (protectors or helpers) other than Allah is the likeness of a spider who builds (for itself) a house; but verily, the frailest of houses is the spider's house - if they but knew." [TMQ Al-Ankabut: 41]

Furthermore, this deplorable state of repression suffered by our Rohingya brothers and sisters has not even evoked a whimper of a response from the rulers of the Muslim world who not only refuse to move to their aid but continue to close their borders and deny them safe sanctuary, clearly happy to watch them being terrorised by their oppressors or drown at sea. It is a reminder of the urgent need to remove these heartless regimes; and replace them with the leadership of the Khilafah "Caliphate" that will open its borders to all persecuted Muslims, providing them dignified lives and make their oppressors taste the full military strength of the state.

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir