Rohingyas: Abandoned in their own land

Currently world’s most damned and the condemned displaced ethnic minority group of people are the Rohingyas of Arakan State of Myanmar, most of who are Muslims by faith (1.3 million in Myanmar). With the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD)  sweeping  to power in the recent election, held after about more than half a century of military rule, the democracy loving people and international community saw hopes for the condemned Rohingyas. Suu Kyi dreamt that she would be the President of the new government but in Myanmar still the army has the last say and retains considerable amount of power in the government and parliament. They amended the Constitution and incorporated a clause saying whoever is married to a foreigner cannot hold the post of the President of the country. That sealed the fate of Suu Kyi. But Suu Kyi made it clear that whoever sits in that chair will be her proxy and she will run the government from behind the scenes. For many the return to democracy of Myanmar after decades of military rule could either become a proxy military rule or even the entire exercise of democracy may collapse before it takes off. The military still controls most of the important state machinery. However, when Aung San Suu Kyi won the election and her party formed the government the Rohingyas saw hope under the new regime but their hope seems to be fast fading, just within seven months after the democratically held election. Rohingyas have been persecuted since the British left Myanmar in 1948. Recently when US Foreign Minister John Kerry visited Yangon and raised the issue with Suu Kyi she said she needs time to address the issue and at the same time she refused to acknowledge that there are any Rohingyas in Myanmar. She, like most of the Buddhists in Myanmar, sees Rohingyas as illegal settlers from Bangladesh though historical evidence shows that Rohingya Muslims have been living in the Arakan State (according to the Burmese Rakhine State) since 16th century. Many historians have proved that the original settlers of the Muslims in the Arakan were Arabs and over the century due to intermarriage between the settlers and the inhabitants of the adjacent Chittagong district of present day Bangladesh there were cross border migration. Only the Naf River separates the Arakan State from greater Chittagong. (Courtesy of daily-sun.com)