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The Persecution of the Rohingya

As many as 3,000 Rohingya have been killed according to some reports. 
The survivors, now number around 370,000  men, women and children, some pregnant and all hungry and thirsty, reach the border of Bangladesh and there they run the risk of stepping on a landmine and having their legs are blown off, eyes gouged out and arms mangled. The video footage from the hospitals in Bangladesh is shocking and evidence of cruel atrocities against innocent women and children and civilians.
Those that make it across the border have nowhere to go, but they clear a patch of ground on a hillside and with hundreds of others they stake out a spot to spread a plastic sheet and there they make their resting place. 
If they have money, they have to buy more plastic sheeting to use as a tent to shelter from the rain. Families with children looking out with wide staring eyes from under a sheet of plastic while the rain lashes down.It is human misery and they don’t even have food or water except what kind local Bangladeshi people bring to them. 
Thankfully, some international aid organisations are coming to help. 
The Myanmese, the vast majority of whom are Buddhist, do not recognise these Muslim ethnic people as citizens of Myanmar and have persecuted them for many years. Killings and the burning of houses and villages is not new. It’s been going on for years. Video footage released in recent months showed them being beaten, tortured and abused by the Myanmar police. 
This abuse and persecution has given rise to a resistance movement by some of the Rohingya who have lost everything and whose families have been killed. Poorly armed, they staged attacks on police outposts and the military leading Buddhist young people to savagely attack Rohingya villages, driving out the inhabitants and forcing them to flee or be killed. 
The United Nations (UN) representative for refugees said it is a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. The UN Security Council discussed the issue on September 13 and issued a resolution condemning Myanmar’s actions.
The government of Myanmar, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was herself persecuted and held under house arrest for 15 years by the military government as she stood for human rights and democracy in the country, has remained silent and supportive of the government actions against the Rohingya. 
As a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, she has been admired and praised by millions for her stand against the military government that had ruled Myanmar for decades until her party was elected. She has fallen from grace and has been severely criticised for her inability to speak out and help the Rohingya. 
She was once a great defender of the oppressed. In her acceptance speech receiving the peace prize after 20 years, she said in part: 
Now her silence is broken and she speaks for the government she heads.
We can understand her fragile hold on power where the military still have huge influence. For her to go against them and against the popular national and religions sentiment that is dead and racially set against the Rohingya would be political suicide for her and her party. An angry resentment from the nationalist majority against her would surely rise up and demand she resign. 
Then the military could find it a good excuse to sweep away all the democratic gains made and resume totalitarian power. This is possibly the reason for her silence. All the gains won over 30 years would be swept away if she stood with the Rohingya.
The loss would be too great and what change would her voice make when there is fanatical hatred of the Rohingya among the extremist Buddhists to expel them. This extremely embarrassing and difficult situation is likely to be the reason she is not attending the meeting of the UN General Assembly in mid-September. 
She is internally hurting and suffering from having to ride along with this nationalist sentiment. And sadly, she will be rethinking her own words in a famous book, Freedom From Fear, where she wrote: “It is not power that corrupts but fear, fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.”  Has she become morally corrupt by ignoring the grave injustices suffered by the Rohingya? I don’t think so. She has to survive the military and going against them will be her total downfall.
What we can all do is share this article with your representatives in parliament or congress and demand that they stand with the Rohingya and send aid and support for them. The politicians must be persuaded to raise their voice and work out a political solution through the UN whereby the Rohingya will be recognised as citizens and they be given their full human rights and repatriation in peace with compensation.  

Father Shay Cullen