FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Asean can’t keep turning a blind eye to Rakhine

Asean can’t keep turning a blind eye to Rakhine

The Rohingya are suffering genocide, and the regional bloc must tackle this root cause of the crisis

Asean must address the root cause of the Rakhine crisis before a move to repatriate thousands of refugees to the strife-torn state in Myanmar gets underway. 
Last week, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said colleagues from Singapore and Thailand would travel to Myanmar to thrash out a deal for the safe repatriation of the more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Malaysia and Thailand share a concern that unless a sustainable solution for the crisis in Rakhine is found, Rohingya refugees will continue to pour into the two Asean countries.
More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled violence in their home state since August last year, when a militia’s attack on Myanmar security outposts triggered a “clearance operation” by the Myanmar military to eradicate the Muslim Rohingya from the predominantly Buddhist country.
The fleeing Rohingya joined hundreds of thousands who had sought refuge from violence in previous years, taking the number in Bangladesh camps to more than one million. Displaced into miserable temporary shelters in camps rife with disease, they are now desperately seeking better lives either in their homeland or elsewhere.
Resettlement abroad won’t be easy but returning home to the threat of violence is more daunting still.
News of the Rohingyas’ plight gets bleaker by the month. United Nations investigators last week presented a report to the Security Council that detailed an “ongoing genocide” against the Muslim minority in Rakhine.   
There has been some scepticism over whether the Rohingya are being targeted by genocide, but any doubts are dispelled by several detailed reports by the UN and human rights defenders. The UN investigators called for those responsible to face international 
justice.
The genocide in Rakhine state is marked not only by massacre of civilians but also by ostracisation of the Rohingya population, preventing them from having children, and 
interring them in camps, according to Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.
Its 444-page report, first made public last month, called on the council to refer the issue to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or to create an ad hoc tribunal.
Leaders of Asean, of which Myanmar is a member, know very well that many in the country – including the elite – harbour negative attitudes toward the Muslim minority in Rakhine. Calling them Bengali, the country denies them citizenship.
Asean has however turned a blind eye to the deep root of Rakhine genocide, pretending the issue is merely a humanitarian crisis and trying to force the Rohingya back into danger.
While the regional bloc has made several attempts over the past year to mediate the repatriation of Rohingya, the government in Nay Pyi Taw has been reluctant to welcome them 
back.
The negotiating task now falls to Singapore, as the current chair of the Asean, before Thailand takes the rotating chairmanship next year.
The attitude of the powers-that-be in Thailand towards the Rohingya issue is no better than that of their counterparts in Myanmar. Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said last year that the Thais should  call the Muslim minority “Bengali”, 
to show solidarity with Nay Pyi Taw.
It is not difficult to imagine how the Thai government will approach the issue when it chairs Asean next year. Some Rohingya refugees might indeed return to Rakhine, either voluntarily or by force. But that will not be the end of the story.

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