Media Blackout Amid Slow Burning Genocide

Ethnic cleansing isn’t new for Burma (Myanmar), where the long-standing tensions have been happening between the Buddhist majority (Rakhine people) and the Muslim minority including Rohingya Muslims of Bangladeshi decent, Chinese and Arab origin. After a prolonged military rule, the country with Buddhist majority (89%) is on its way to democratization; nevertheless, ethnic cleansing of the 4% minority (Muslims) seems to be the real focus of the Buddhism-extremists.
Sinfully, the Western mainstream media is silent about the ongoing massacre, which shows their strong anti-Muslim bias.
Historically speaking, March 28, 1942 was the day when 5,000 Muslims were massacred in Minbya and Mrohaung Townships by the Rakhine nationalists. Rohingyas, the most persecuted minorities of the world are a Muslim community living in the Arakan region.
The persecution of the Rohingya Muslims dates back to the early World War II when the Japanese forces invaded Burma which was then under the British colonial rule.
According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya Muslims have long suffered from human rights violations and as a result, scores of them left for the neighbouring Bangladesh for better life.

Currently 300,000 Rohingya Muslims live in Bangladesh and 24,000 in Malaysia. Around 111,000 of them live in the Thai-Myanmar border.
Since the Muslims are being massacred by the Buddhist terrorists, the Burmese President Thein Sein wants them to stay in refugee camps or simply leave the country.
Amnesty organisation reports: Muslims in Burma have been victims of ethnic cleansing since 1978.


It’s disappointing as there isn’t any international reaction so far. Because of the State sponsored terrorism, it's the ongoing phenomenon - as more than 20,000 Muslims in Myanmar were killed in less than a month time by the police, army and Buddhist extremists.
Ironically, dismantling the Buddhism statutes in Afghanistan received more media attention, and hype was created to generate public rage against the Afghans for destroying non-human things, but the ongoing massive killing of Burmese Muslims couldn’t persuade the main stream media to open its mouth - meaning no value of human life.

Over loaded with refugee influx, Bangla Desh asks the Myanmar government to adopt measures to take back some 500,000 Rohingya Muslims presently taking refuge in Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh’s request comes at the wrong time - amid the ongoing state-sponsored ethnic cleansing against the minority Muslim group in Myanmar.
It’s disheartening to know that the so-called Myanmar’s democracy icon/peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is not bothered by the atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims. Moreover, she told reporters she didn’t know if Rohingyas were Burmese Muslims.

The UN says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education and public services.

Unfortunately, the international community is doing nothing for the Muslims in Burma. Apparently the United Nations and the other international organisations wouldn’t act unless countries with both money and power do so first. However, Canada maintains its claim to continue to work with allies in the international community, and will continue to support those Burmese working inside and outside Burma, to promote human rights, fundamental freedoms and a transition to genuine democracy.

Recently, the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has launched a major international campaign to put an end to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority in the Arakan state of Myanmar to protect their legitimate rights and is making intense efforts to foster international intervention on the issue. The OIC is in touch with the United Nations, UN Human Rights Council, European Union and other international organizations to defuse the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar; and has strongly condemned the renewed repression of Rohingyas since June 2012, which has resulted in deaths of innocent Muslims, burning of their homes and mosques, and forcing them to leave their homeland. Historical facts show that Rohingyas have been present in the land of Myanmar for centuries before the arrival of the British and before the formation of Burma.
But the government of Myanmar continues to persecute the Rohingyas depriving them of citizenship rights.

The OIC sent a letter to Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi urging her to help end the violence against the Rohingya community.

The authorities describe the community as “illegal immigrants from Bangladesh” due to their ethnicity and religion.
Arbitrary killings, rapes, torture, land confiscation, forced labor, forced relocation, theft, extortion perpetrated by the authorities in cohort with local miscreants and xenophobes, are widespread against the Muslim community.
The late dictator Ne Win enacted a bad citizenship law violating several fundamental principles of international charters and rendered the Rohingyas stateless. Basic rights including freedom of movement, marriage, education, and economic activities are severely restricted. No more construction of new mosques or religious institutes are allowed and even the Muslim relics, monuments and place names have been erased.

Furthermore, a planned increase in Buddhist settler villages has caused serious demographic changes in Rohingya homeland. Their lands have been confiscated, forcing them to become increasingly landless, internally displaced, all aimed at starving them out of the country.

Solution: First of all, an early and effective intervention by the world community can save the Rohingya from further blood bath.
Secondly, the Buddhist leader and Nobel Peace prize winner Dalai Lama who always cry over the atrocities on Tibetan people by China - should raise his voice against the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Buddhist Myanmar.
Thirdly, the international community has to address the root cause of the Rohingya problem for a viable result.
Hopefully, Myanmar government would respond to the concerns of the international community in a positive and constructive manner, so that all its Rohingya Muslims are able to return to their homeland honourably with safety and dignity.

As the great Persian poet Sa'di says, “Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you've no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain!”
Since we are One Human Family, let’s bridge the gaps.