A new humanitarian catastrophe is looming on the border between Burma and Bangladesh. The United Nations reports that 125,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Burma, and tens of thousands are believed to be on their way. Persecution of the stateless minority could destabilize the region by fueling Islamist movements.
The Rohingyas (now numbering 1.3 million) have lived in Burma for centuries, but since the 1980s the government has stripped them of citizenship, insisting that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This makes it difficult for them to find work, buy property, go to school or even get married. This mistreatment is the source of the present violence.
On Aug. 25, a new militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), attacked police posts and an army base, killing 110. The Burmese Army retaliated with a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Satellite photos show 17 villages burned, and eyewitnesses say soldiers slaughtered men, women and children.
The Burmese government led by Aung San Suu Kyi says these are lies and exaggerations. It has even accused the Rohingyas of torching their own property to gain international attention. But the government’s credibility is minimal after years of similar atrocities against the Rohingyas and other minorities.
After Buddhist mobs attacked Rohingyas in 2012, the government moved about 140,000 of them into camps with appalling conditions. In 2015 that treatment drove tens of thousands to pay human traffickers for journeys on rickety boats to Malaysia and Thailand. Thousands died at sea and in the jungles.
Last October the Arkan Roningya Salvation Army conducted its first attacks against the Burmese government, killing nine police officers. Over the next four months, the Burmese army razed villages and slaughtered civilians in retaliation. About 70,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. A U.N. report found evidence the military committed crimes against humanity, including mass rape.
Ms. Suu Kyi, Burma’s de facto leader whose National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the 2015 election, has failed to end the violence or speak on behalf of the Rohingyas. Last week she used Facebook to accuse foreign aid groups, including the U.N. World Food Program, of supporting Rohingya “terrorists,” and she has refused to grant U.N. investigators visas to enter the country.Ms. Suu Kyi’s moral failure has raised tensions with Bangladesh, which is sheltering more than 200,000 refugees. In Malaysia, home to about 60,000 Rohingya migrants, a local charity organized a protest in Kuala Lumpur last week, and Prime Minister Najib Razak last year accused Burma of genocide. Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, called for Burma to be referred to the International Criminal Court.
Political and religious leaders as well as Ms. Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates have called on her to live up to the lofty ideals she preached as a democracy campaigner, to no avail. U.N. Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee says that the Burmese government “may be trying to expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether.”
Southeast Asia is home to 240 million Muslims, and conservative forms of Islam are growing thanks in part to funding from the Middle East. So far the Rohingya Salvation Army remains small and crudely armed. But if the persecution of the Rohingyas continues, radical groups could use their plight to recruit new members and send them into the fight. That would destabilize neighboring countries with multireligious populations.
Aid donors such as the U.S., Japan and the European Union can use their leverage to ask Ms. Suu Kyi and the Burmese army to restore the Rohingyas’ citizenship rights. But the Association of Southeast Asian Nations can exert the greatest pressure on Burma. They must overcome their reluctance to intervene because they have so much to lose.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/burmese-powder-keg-1504739314
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