Help the Rohingyas for the sake of the region

Such self-examination is long overdue in Myanmar.

The plight of the Rohingya, described by the UN as among the world’s most persecuted minorities, continues to trouble the conscience. In its tangled history and potential to cause law-and-order problems in contiguous states, the humanitarian quagmire is not unlike that of the Palestinians and the Roma people of Slavic Europe. 

It is clear the tragedy of the Rohingya is twofold: the problem has festered for decades because few people want to know about it, and those with the power to work towards an accommodation continue to be in denial. It is unconscionable to let this persist.

Now that Myanmar is on the path of reform, which presages strengthening the rule of law, President Thein Sein’s government should get to grips with the matter, which generations of military rulers had ignored. It is the decent thing to do, not just because of suggestions that non-action could compromise Myanmar’s reconstruction if investors are unsure about the security of their funds. Regional blocs like Asean and the European Union, which have or are eying deals there, should apply pressure on Nay Pyi Daw, where appropriate, to get some movement going.

It will help clarify matters if the Rohingya issue was acknowledged as one of identity and settlement, and not of inter-generational illegal migration. Citizenship and right of abode could then be approached rationally from the standpoint of constitutional convention. 

But there should be no illusions about the complexity of the undertaking. The Rohingya issue intersects questions of race, religion and sovereignty – the hardest combination imaginable. Bangladesh and India, believed to be the ancestral fount of these people, want no spillover. Asean’s Muslim-majority countries Malaysia and Indonesia can take only token numbers as refugees. Buddhist Thailand will recoil from the very thought of an influx.

Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan was not indulging in hyperbole when he warned against the radicalisation of disaffected people. He has seen how the long-running Muslim insurrection in his native Thailand’s southern region has been a costly distraction. While nobody should imagine that a formulaic solution to give the Rohingya a secure future is anywhere in sight, nations should know of the dangers of doing nothing.