‘Suu Kyi’s anti-Muslims stance shocking’

The silence from Ang San Suu Kyi is deafening as Myanmar’s President Thein Sein, a former junta general said on Thursday that the “only solution” was to send nearly a million Rohingya Muslims – one of the world’s most persecuted minorities — to refugee camps run by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he added. “This is what we are thinking is the solution to the issue.”

The UN refugee agency has snubbed the idea of setting up refugee camps to accommodate the Rohingyas. The UN says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movements and withholding land rights, education and public services.

For the past two years, waves of ethnic Muslims have attempted to flee the country in the face of systematic oppression by the Myanmar government. The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize them claiming the Rohingyas are not native and has classified them as illegal migrants, although they have lived in Myanmar for centuries.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Spokesman, Islamic Human Rights Commission, Raza Kazim from London to further discuss the issue.

The video also offers the opinions of two additional guests: Prof., Shahid Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Ghulam Taqqi Bangash and author and Islamic Studies expert, Kevin Barrett. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We’re looking at about a million and a half roughly of these Muslims that have been ordered by the President of Myanmar to be sent to refugee camps. This is a severe decision by President Thein Sein, isn’t it?

Kazim: It is quite a shocking decision and again I would like to reiterate that the silence from [Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader] Ang San Suu Kyi is quite deafening and quite problematic considering that she’s going around promoting herself and being promoted as the beacon of democracy, that she has been so silent on this particular issue.

It is worrying that what kind of a democracy and what kind of a world Myanmar is going to become. And also with regards to this, I understand that you had the ambassador of Bangladesh to Britain earlier on and he was saying that a lot of these people who are being turned away at the borders of Bangladesh are those that are criminals and terrorists and so on and so forth.

We’ve heard this kind of language before and on the other hand they’re talking about this idea that if they’re taken in to Bangladesh that this will encourage the ethnic cleansing to actually take place.

I think it is shocking that at a time when the attacks on the Rohingyan Muslim community have gone up significantly that this is something that is continuing.
And I would beg to differ slightly with one of your earlier guests – this is something that isn’t new. The attacks have been dated back to the eighteenth century and this kind of tension and this kind of attacks on the Rohingyan Muslims have been going on for some time.

We need to remember that a lot of these people have actually had no kind of arms or any way of resisting the oppression that’s being metered out to them whereas in Palestine for example you have got the situation that people have got a means of resisting with arms against the Israeli occupation and the Israeli barrage. This is something that is not an option that is available to these Rohingyan Muslims and they are, you know, in some senses a sitting duck.

It is shocking that the world has been silent and has been selective in terms of which kind of people they’re prepared to promote in terms of getting rights; but these people who have had this problem metered out to them for such a long time and this situation has escalated in recently years quite considerably, nothing is actually being done about it.

Press TV: There are people being washed ashore dead because they have been trying to cross the border. We are talking about one and a half million Muslims. Does the US think they can just turn the other way as they parade around the globe for what our other guest mentioned as trying to get investment going in this country?

Is this what the US is going to do? There has to be another way for the situation to be dealt with by the US and by the EU not to mention Canada who has entertained Myanmar recently.

Kazim: I think one of the things we need to remember is that three days ago was the anniversary of the Srebrenitsa massacre and at that time this was precisely what was done where the NATO forces actually looked the other way and the Dutch forces sent the men and the boys out to be killed at Srebrenitsa.

And I think it’s something that we need to remember that the Western powers in terms of NATO in terms of what America has done etc, have done this before and it is something that they are quite capable of doing again for their interests as has already been pointed out.

I think we need to remember that there needs to be quite clear cut ideas about how we are actually going to raise the profile of what’s going on so that we’re not just appealing to the conscience of the Muslim countries or the Muslim governments because many Muslim governments are in the pockets of the Americans and so on and what need to look at is to reach beyond that to the Muslim people.

I would actually say that when a case of humanity actually comes out, it isn’t that somehow only the Muslim people need to look at this and think there is a problem here; every person, every human being who has a conscience actually needs to think about how can I allow this, another Srebrenitsa, or this kind of ethnic cleansing to take place.

We know that in 1997 or around ’98 we had a book being published by the name of “In fear of our race disappearing” and this created the climate where this kind of fear had promoted the attacks on the Rohingian Muslims.

We’ve had further statements as has been said by the previous speaker by the president who is again talking about making these people not someone who are from this particular area. So a climate is being created and we need to make sure that people like Ang San Suu Kyi who are supposed to be promoting democracy that actually pressure is being put on her by all human rights organizations by people from all over the world to say your Nobel Peace prize is worth nothing if you don’t do something and speak against what is going on in your country.

It is no good promoting human rights for one group of people at the expense of another group of people in your country who are natives of that country and have been so for centuries. It is criminal and it is something that we really need to keep on saying that how is it that we are going to progress through this.

And a lot of pressure needs to be brought to bear on people within the country, the ambassadors of Myanmar to different countries and saying that this is something that is clearly unacceptable and it is something that needs to be reversed otherwise the sanctions that have been on that country for some time need to continue.

We’ve had in Britain for example David Cameron the prime minister actually talking about reducing… and working with the Myanmar government and trying to move things forward with giving Ang San Suu Kyi the red carpet treatment in its country.

Again we need to think about how we can make sure the pressure builds up in each of our respective countries to make sure that these kinds of things do not go unnoticed and people are prepared to campaign.

And with regards to that I would encourage people to make sure that they are writing and putting the relevant kind of pressure on these countries; on the politicians in their countries; the institutions in their countries to not do business with Myanmar while this kind of thing continues.

SC/VG/JR

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