Dr. Abid Bahar Ph.D.
Imagine, if the Hitler of Germany remained alive, his persecution of Jews, Catholics and the Gypsies must have continued and the holocaust must have continued to systematically get rid of his enemies. It was a good for humanity that he committed suicide in fear of facing a nasty trial. While we have the German Hitler dead, there was Russia's Stalin who lived with respect and killed millions. Here we are talking about General Ne Win, the Hitler of Burma, who lived with respect and left behind a tradition of military rulers who devotedly follow Ne Win's policy of racist provocation and the principle of divide and rule to control his people.
Like bigot leaders, Ne Win was not fighting against any external enemy, his enemies were his countrymen, they were the non Burman ethnic minorities. The worst suffers of his oppressive rule were the non Buddhist and racially different people of Burma.
Ne Win was the champion of committing genocide against the Karen Christin, and the Rohingya Muslim. The worst sufferers in his ultra nationalist campaign had been the Rohingya who are a small minority live in the Arakan state. Ne Win began the anti Rohingya propaganda that Rohingya are Bangladeshis illegally living in Burma. But contemporary research proved otherwise. Rohingya have been living in Arakan from the 7th century.
After the disintegration of Pakistan, finding Bangladesh, a newly emerged state, Ne Win's the military regime became active to get rid of the Rohingya from Burma.
In 1978, Burmese government pushed out over 200,000 Rohingya people from Arakan to Bangladesh. Upon verification by the international organizations, they found the Rohingya carrying NRC papers. Finding no excuse, the government accepted them back to Burma. Then in 1982, Ne Win government officially declared the Rohingya people as the Non citizens of Burma. Following this, in 1992-93 it pushed out over 300,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, this time, government made sure that nobody leaves Burma with any official papers.
From the total 300,0000 Rohingya population in Arakan, as of now there are only about 800,00 left in Arakan.To escape from oppressive regime, the Rohingya has been leaving Arakan for Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, Malaysia, Japan and to European and North American countries. Those who still live in Arakan continue to face restriction in movement from one village to another, they are restricted of having children and owning landed property.
After all these sufferings, in 2012 came the worst chapter in the Rohingya history; vigilantes assisted by the government security forces attacked Rohingya villages and burned down their houses, killing the young. Strangely though, instead of catching the culprits that committing the crimes, the government cleared the rabbles from the destroyed houses and took the Rohingya to shelter camps. Instead of resettling the Rohingya on their land, the racist government asked the international community to resettle them in third countries.
These are not naive signs, but are clear indications of government's racist policies against a racial minority. It seems that while Hitler of Germany was dead with his ideas discontinued, Ne Win of Burma however died honorably, and his racist legacy that produced new generation Hitlers in Burma, in the army, among monks and politicians perpetuated.
Then came 2013, more attacks on the Rohingya continued. The latest news that the racist Rakhine militants in cooperation with the police set fire on the the thachet quarters of the Rohingya shelters.
Nodoubt, Burma seem to live in the past. While the attacked continues by the powerful state machinery, as citizens of the world does the Rohingya stateless people deserve any serious initiative from the humanity to stop the terror from the long presence and growth of the local tyrants like Aye Maung, Aye Chan, Thein Sein and many others alike many of whom have been wrongly honored as being the champion of democracy? By the way, in these uncivilized behavior by the military, where is Suu Kui, who is dreaming about becoming the President of Burma? Where is the humanity to stop the Burmese Hitler from committing more horrors in Burma?
SUU KYI AND HER HUMAN RIGHT'S MASK
ReplyDeleteAbid Bahar PhD
I'm not from Burma but I am a researcher on Burma. My specialization is Ethics of leadership. I read Suu Kyi's first biography and other works on her which shows her as more of a demagogue than a democrat.
In her daily discourse, she speaks forcefully using some common adjectives like "surely", "carefully", "without any doubt," or even "the rule of law" My understanding is that soon Burmese people will find out that these are simply empty talks because in reality she is a fanatic political Buddhist, she considers the multi ethnic/ multi racial Burma as a Buddhist Tibeto -Burman nation.
The Musk of the Noble Prize winner began to be unveiled first with Rohingya:
(1) She remained silent when in 2012 hell simply let loose on them. As an opposition leader, and the Noble Prize winner, she needed to be the strongest defender of the Rohingya rights. Her esteemed father Aung San was better then her who had Rohingya MPs and even two Rohingya Ministers serving Burma.
(2) While in power shockingly, Suu Kyi's government instructed foreign embassies not to use the name "Rohingya. This is to deny their existence in Burma. This is outrageously wrong.
(3) Her government is now perusing the policy of demolishing Mosques in Arakan. This is by a noble peace prize winner?
(4) The killings this week and the reports coming from Burma show the evidence of mass graves of Rohingyas done by her police and military working in Maung Daw Rohingya areas.
It appears that she is a Burmese nationalist before anything else. As a nationalist more than a humanist, she seems to have her hidden agendas of not accepting all the citizens as equal. Rather she sees them as unequal and worse of all she seems to belief that she should inherit the presidency of Burma primarily because she is the daughter of Aung San, the founder father of Burma.
With these common characteristics but came to power with great expectations, we are beginning to see in Aung San Suu Kyi the early signs of a fascist, similar to some other leaders not surprisingly had their rise and again fall from grace in the neighbourhood of Burma.
(Dr. Abid Bahar is a playwright and public speaker, teaches in Canada)
Link of Mass Graves:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1854011534827563&set=pcb.1854011734827543&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1854021204826596&set=pcb.1854021354826581&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1755378664723058&set=a.1385529608374634.1073741829.100007528243304&type=3&theater
http://burmacampaign.org.uk/investigate-death-and-alleged-…/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1383773421652496&set=a.469984453031402.122238.100000595557913&type=3&theater
http://rtn-bd.com/bangla/uncategorized/877
ReplyDeleteORIGINS OF THE ROHINGYA PEOPLE AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN BURMA
ndphr.net
Fri 24 May 2013
by Abid Bahar PhD,
Historically speaking, Rohingya people of Burma had heterogeneous origins: They had their origin in the indigenous Chandra people of Arakan, followed by the medieval Persian and Arab soldiers led by Wali Khan and Sind Khan from Gaur who came to help restore Noromikhla, the king of Arakan and settled in the Kaladan valley. The third flow was the decedents of the Mogh captured Bengali slaves settled in the Mrauk U area in Arakan. Among the Rohingyas there are some Rakhine and Portuguese blood as well. Rohingyas are not the British time settlers from India in Rangoon as some xenophobes and anti Rohingya people might think.(1) Despite their origin from different groups, it seems their sense of common suffering in Arakan made them into a people, they call Rohingya. The first trace of them and their language was recorded in 1799 by Francis Buchanon, a British historian visiting Burma, this was long before the British occupation of Burma. (2)
Rohingyas are neither orgies, nor Islamic terrorists, as claimed by certain xenophobes and politically motivated elements. Rohingyas are Burmese people of Arakani origin who happen to be racially different from the mainstream Burmese people.(3) In this border land across from Arakan, in Bangladesh we see the existence of racially different people than Bengalis. There are the Rakhine Mogh, Marma, Chakma, and the Tanchangyas of Bangladesh live in Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts. Rakhine Moghs in Bangladesh happen to be the British time settlers. They all are rightfully Bangladeshi citizens.(3)
Myanmar’s President recent statement that "Rohingya Muslims must be expelled from the country and sent to refugee camps run by the United Nations" is racially motivated and certainly outrageous. (4)Now that Thein Sein, a former General confessed his stand on how to solve the Rohingya issue, the suspected involvement of the government security forces in the June machete massacre is increasing becoming clear. The problem to the international community and the UN is that if this trend of ethnic cleansing in Burma allowed to continue, many other countries will follow this trend to cause huge refugee problems.
Lately, new information has come to the surface that the culprits in the recent racial provocations leading up to this human tragedy was supervised by a Rakhine racist named Aye Chan and the destructions committed by his hoodlums in Arakan. To restore faith in the government reforms, these culprits must be officially identified by the international body and Burmese government should be reminded that human rights for one group of people and not for others is neither about democratic reforms nor a matter of improvement in human rights.
Strangely, Suu Kyi, the Nobel Laureate remained unusually silent in this national tragedy. Many international observers question why Suu Kyi is silent when her father Aung San, and U Nu, the first democratically elected PM recognized Rohingyas as Burmese citizens. Unfortunately, in the recent Rohingya tragedy, to our utter surprise Suu Kyi we believed a democrat at heart didn't react to Thein Sein's recent xenophobic recommendations.(6) Suu Kyi at times even acted more like a Myanmar's opportunist politician than an International human rights leader, ignoring her international responsibility. It is time that she should speak up loud for the Rohingyas so that the international community can hear her continued commitment to the oppressed humanity, so that in her voice Rohingyas find their shelter in the country of their birth.
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(Dr. Abid Bahar, author of Burma's Missing Dots-The Emerging Face of Genocide, Xlibris, 2010. The book deals with Burma's ethnic problems in general and Rohingya issue in particular.)
See more news at; http://www.ndphr.net/…/origins-of-rohingya-people-and-human…