BANGLADESH’S AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY EVALUATES THE ROHINGYA MUSLIMS SITUATION
Ankara, 8 Ramadhan 1434/16 Juli 2013 (MINA) – Burmese politician Suu Kyi can solve the problems of the Rohingya people if she came to power, Ambassador of Bangladesh Zulfiqur Rahman said.
Ambassador of Bangladesh in Ankara Zulfiqur Rahman on Friday said that Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese opposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma can solve the problems of the Rohingya people if she came to power.
The Ambassador of Bangladesh to Turkey Rahman, who has been serving for the past three years in Ankara, talked to the Anadolu Agency (AA) about the situation of Rohingya Muslims.
Rahman said that Bangladesh had been hosting the Rohingya Muslims for the last 35 years and that they started coming to Bangladesh in 1978. “The government accepted 30,000 registered refugees who are still in the camps. There are another 400,000 people who have never been registered as refugees,” Rahman noted.
He said that these people put a lot of pressure on Bangladesh and that it was not a rich country. Rahman mentioned that the Rohingya people worked at cheap rate, and so the local people were not happy about it.
“Now it’s the responsibility of the international community to come and take care of this people. But the root of the problem is in Myanmar, in Burma not in Bangladesh,” Rahman underlined.
Rahman reminded that the government of Myanmar did not give citizenship to this people, and that they don’t have the right for citizenship and need a permission even for marriage or having children.
“They are slaves in their own country. You have to ensure that this people can live in Myanmar with respect and dignity. To send them to Bangladesh is not a solution. The Western governments should use pressure on the Myanmar government to recognize the Rohingya people,” Rahman highlighted.
Suu Kyi can solve the problems if she wants
Rahman reminded that Aung San Suu Kyi fought always for the people’s right and travelled last year to the UK, when everybody asked her about the situation of the Rohingya people and she did not make any comments on the issue. “Until today, she only said this problem should be resolved and who are the citizens of Myanmar and who are not,” Rahman said regarding Suu Kyi’s position on the issue.
He noted that she said the same things like the military and that she will run in the election next year. “She wants to go to power and will not want to make the military angry. She won’t lose this chance,” Rahman pointed out.
Rahman said that the problem can’t be solved unless the international community put pressure on Myanmar and added, “If she goes to power, maybe or we hope that she change things. She had to do something about it. If she come to power, she can change things, if she wants.”
Rahman reminded that Rohingya people were ministers in the 1960′s government in Myanmar and that they were saying that they are not citizens of Myanmar.
“The problem started in 1982, when they adopted a new citizenship act where they called the ethnic minorities. We can’t ignore them and still hosting them. 430,000 Rohingya people were still in Bangladesh,” Rahman underlined.
The Ambassador of Bangladesh criticized that it’s not the right way to help the Rohingya people with charity and reminded that Turkey did this with charity and food help. “But this don’t solve the problem. This is very temporary. We can feed this people, because we are feeding them for nearly 40 years. This is not the problem, our problem is to find a political solution,” Rahman noted and proposed that Turkey should talk with the government in Myanmar to agree to this solution.
As part of his job he visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh twice, Rahman noted and said that it made him cry to see the situation of this people. He said that the Americans and the Europeans don’t care about this people, only make big speeches and that the military was Buddhist and that they see Muslims as their enemies.
Religious pressure against Muslims in Myanmar has persisted since 1960. Rohingya Muslims are not recognized as citizens in the country that is ruled by the Buddhist majority. Muslims’ rights to education, travel and marriage are limited. Hundreds were killed by Buddhist monks in attacks that began in July 2012. After the public supported the monks, thousands of Muslims have been forced to leave their homes and take refuge in Bangladesh. The ethnic violence and cleansing in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims have been going on for the past one year.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Spokesman Adrian Edwards announced in June that 140 thousand people have been displaced in the ethnic violence in the Muslim Arakan region of Myanmar.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar Ojea Quintana said Rohingya Muslims had been facing systematic violation of human rights. (T/P08/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
