Hassan 1

Ramisha Hassan

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

1 November 2017

The Hidden Genocide: A Run for the Rohingya

If you heard the word genocide, would you believe that there is one occurring

somewhere in the world right now? The Rohingya Muslims are claimed to be the worlds most

persecuted minority (Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya). In the past decade, more than 500,000

refugees have fled their homeland in majority Buddhist Myanmar to seek asylum from their

oppressive government and military power. In 1982 the military government excluded the

Rohingyas from a list of more than 130 officially recognised ethnic groups in the country,

dismissing them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. That rendered them, in effect, stateless,

and their mistreatment intensified. In 1991, almost 600,000 Rohingyas fled across the border to

escape violent persecution by the army. All other groups in Myanmar are considered citizens and

are treated peacefully except for the minority Muslim group who have been alienated. While the

foundation of the Rohingya crisis rewinds back to the 1950s, it started attracting much more

attention only during the present decade because of the extensive violence and the unprecedented

refugee flows into countries in South Asia. The Rohingya have been living in Myanmar for many

decades just like all of the other ethnic and religious groups. However, their government has

come to them violently without any humanity and has forced them out of the country. The

Rohingya have been considered a stateless race who have unfortunately been denied their right to

education, property, work and land by their oppressive military government.

In less than half a month, over 125,000 innocent Muslims have escaped the uncontrolled

violence in their homeland. Refugees have told stories of what it was like when their entire

village was completely destroyed and how they had to flee to Bangladesh with barely any

clothes, food, sanitation support or protection. Not only did they have to run away from the

violence in their country, but on their run they had to escape arson, rape and murder. The

brutality that has occurred in this under documented genocide is unimaginable (Holmes 2017).

People are starving in their homes but because they do not have their basic human rights, they

cannot leave their homes unless it is to flee the country. Over half of the refugees consist of

children and women who have been raped or seen their family or friends get killed. 13 year old

Win Maw told interviewers that people were tied to poles inside of homes then burnt down and

he was not sure if his parents were alive or dead (Wescott). Aljazeera reported the story of a

young girl named Ayesha who went through a torturous experience in her village. Ayesha

claimed that she was sitting in her home with her four sister in laws when a group of soldiers

forced their way into her home and made all of the women get into a room. They proceeded to

take Ayeshas baby out of her hands and beat him like a toy. The soldiers proceeded to strip all

of the sisters naked and put a knife to Ayeshas throat, then began to rape her. 12 soldiers took

turns raping Ayesha and her sisters for what she believed to be several hours. To end this tragic

story, two of Ayeshas sisters who were raped died from weakness. This is one of the hundreds

of thousands of abusive and inhumane stories that the persecuted minority have gone through.

All of this brutality is continuing to happen today; yet, this ongoing tragedy still has not received

ample attention from the international community.

The Rohingya have been forced out of their homes into neighboring country Bangladesh

who has been welcoming enough to allow them all into their already overpopulated country.
 Hassan 3

Refugees have been pouring into Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh without any means of safety or

protection and Bangladesh has done all they could to support as many people as they can.

Bangladesh is densely populated and does not have the supplies to care for all of its own citizens,

which is why it is necessary that other neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to let

in more refugees. Unfortunately, some countries like Malaysia have seemed to be unwilling and

unable to provide shelter for the Rohingya. These countries explained that they were financially

unable to take care of that many people considering their economic situations.

Although there has not been much international coverage and awareness/aid has been

minimal; some countries and organizations have helped the refugees with basic needs. In

UNICEF Emergency Supplies for Rohingya Refugee Children Arrive in Bangladesh, it states

that Copenhagen has arrived to the capital of Bangladesh with 100 tonnes of supplies,

comprising water purifying tablets, family hygiene kits, sanitary materials, plastic tarpaulins,

recreational kits for children, and other items. While the refugees are desperate for help this

urgent assistance from other countries is exactly what should be done to ensure their safety. The

UN has taken part in helping Bangladesh take care of the refugees and have invested time in the

refugees themselves. Like many of the other humanitarian organizations, they have donated lots

of supplies to aid the victims. They released 7 million dollars from their emergency relief fund to

provide aid to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. Although many people have not

heard of this genocide and it has not taken over news channels; there are humanitarian

organizations that have been working alongside to help aid these refugees to safety and

protection as well. Also, the World Food Program (WFP) urgently requested 75 million dollars

for emergency supplies over the next six months to help the suffering Rohingya Muslims (Bhatia

2017). My point here is, there are evidently some countries and organizations who have been
 Hassan 4

aware and have put forth a lot of time and effort into alleviating the horrors the refugees have

gone through. But this genocide has been happening for too many years for just these few

humanitarian organizations and some other countries to be helping out with. Bangladesh has

done a lot to keep the vulnerable refugees safe and so have many other people. However, this

genocide has been going on for about 25 years and has gotten demonstrating worse with time. It

is an issue that it still has not received much international coverage from the rest of the world,

specifically including the United States

Although the military and government are violent and inhumane, there are some people

in their council who have made change in Myanmar with a little more peace than before. Former

President Thein Sein was the first president in 20 years who held his position in office from 2011

to 2016. He was a former general who may go down in history as the President who led

irreversible change. When Sein was in charge, the government freed hundreds of prisoners and

also made peace deals with minority ethnic groups. He also decreased media censorship and

allowed private newspapers to open and journalists. Besides his efforts, Aung San Suu Kyi

became the State Counselor of Myanmar in 2016. According to the Nobel Prize webpage, she

was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize award in 1991 for her non violent struggle for national

independence in Myanmar and human rights. She became the leader of a democratic opposition

which employs non violent means to withstand an authoritarian government characterized by

cruelty (2017). Civil courage and nonviolent efforts to support the Rohingya have made the

Rakhine State of Myanmar more peaceful than before and these efforts should continue.

What is the reason behind this genocide being considered hidden? The higher

authority of Myanmar has attempted to hide this tragedy from the common eye and has blocked

out journalists from spreading information about their involvement in the crisis to the world.
 Hassan 5

This has caused a lack of international coverage to the public eye. Not only have they tried their

hardest to keep their brutal actions hidden from the world, but people are not aware enough in

general. It is vital that citizens in the United States open their minds up to the possibility of these

things occurring and research and find out what is happening in places besides the U.S.

Is there an effective and efficient solution to the Rohingya crisis? Although most

solutions would call for a large amount of money, there is a starting point to helping fix this

tragedy. Humanitarian assistance must be provided in Myanmar and Bangladesh to be certain

that the Rohingya are safe from violence by security forces. ASEAN is the Association of South

East Asian Nations which is a political and economic organization that works towards promoting

economic growth and stability. The international community of humanitarian organizations who

are looking for solutions have been looking to ASEAN for leadership. Within Myanmar, the

government should execute its commitment to uphold international human rights norms and

cooperate with ASEAN and the international community in ensuring that an independent and

impartial investigation in Rakhine takes place. It should also demonstrate its commitment to

uphold the rule of law by containing the spread of hate speech through social media and

prosecuting those who continue to engage in violent action against Muslim groups throughout

Myanmar (Morada 2017). This means that security forces and government officials should be

getting the same punishment a regular citizen would acquire for their actions.