Bengalis or Kala(as slurred by Myanmar's peace loving Buddhists or just human beings?
Let's find out what history has to say.
"
BANGKOK
- They have been called ogres and animals, terrorists and much worse — when their existence is even acknowledged. Asia's more than 1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are considered by
rights groups to be among the most persecuted people on earth. Most live
in a bizarre, 21st-century purgatory without passports, unable to
travel freely or call any place home.
In Myanmar, shaken this week by a bloody spasm of violence involving
Rohingyas that left dozens of civilians dead, they are almost
universally despised. The military junta whose half-century of rule
ended only last year cast the group as foreigners for decades — fueling a
profound resentment now reflected in waves of vitriolic hatred that are
being posted online.
"People feel it very acceptable to say that 'we will work on wiping
out all the Rohingyas,'" said Debbie Stothard, an activist with the
Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma, referring to hyperbolic Internet
comments she called "disturbing."
The Myanmar government regards Rohingyas mostly as illegal migrants
from Bangladesh, despite the fact many of their families have lived in
Myanmar for generations. Bangladesh rejects them just as stridently.
"This is the tragedy of being stateless," said Chris Lewa, who runs a
non-governmental organization called the Arakan Project that advocates
for the Rohingya cause worldwide.
"In Burma they're told they're illegals who should go back to
Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, they're told they're Burmese who should go
back home," Lewa said. "Unfortunately, they're just caught in the
middle. They have been persecuted for decades, and it's only getting
worse."
That fact was made painfully clear this week as Bangladeshi coast
guard units turned back boatload after boatload of terrified Rohingya
refugees trying to escape the latest violence in Myanmar's Rakhine
state. Rohingyas have clashed with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, and each
side blames the other for the violence.
The boats were filled with women and children, and Bangladesh has
defied international calls to let them in, saying the impoverished
country's resources are already too strained.
A few have slipped through, however, including a month-old baby found
Wednesday abandoned in a boat after its occupants fled border guards.
Three other Rohingyas have been treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital
in the Bangladeshi town of Chittagong, including one who died.
The unrest, which has seen more than 1,500 homes charred and
thousands of people displaced along Myanmar's western coast, erupted
after a mob dragged 10 Muslims off a bus and killed them in apparent
retaliation for the rape and murder last month of a 27-year-old Buddhist
woman, allegedly by Muslims.
On Thursday, Rakhine state was reportedly calm. But Rohingyas living
there "very much feel like they're trapped in a box," said Phil
Robertson of Human Rights Watch. "They're surrounded by enemies, and
there is an extremely high level of frustration."
The grudges go back far. Bitterness against the Rohingya in Myanmar
has roots in a complex web of issues: the fear that Muslims are
encroaching illegally on scarce land in a predominantly Buddhist
country; the fact that the Rohingya look different than other Burmese;
an effort by the former junta to portray them as foreigners.
Across the border in Bangladesh, civilians — not the government — are
more tolerant. But even there, the Rohingya are largely unwanted
because their presence in the overpopulated country only adds to
competition for scarce resources and jobs.
Myanmar's government has the largest Rohingya population in the
world: 800,000, according to the United Nations. Another 250,000 are in
Bangladesh, and hundreds of thousands more are scattered around other
parts of the world, primarily the Middle East.
Human Rights Watch and other independent advocacy groups say
Rohingyas are routinely discriminated against. In Myanmar, they are
regularly subjected to forced labor by the army, a humiliation not
usually applied to ethnic Rakhine who inhabit the same area, Lewa said.
The Rohingya must get government permission to travel outside their
own villages and even to marry. Apparently concerned about their numbers
growing, authorities have also barred them from having more than two
children.
In 1978, Myanmar's army drove more than 200,000 Rohingyas into
Bangladesh, according to rights groups and the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
Some 10,000 died in squalid conditions, and the rest returned to
Myanmar. The campaign was repeated in 1991-1992, and again a majority
returned.
The Rohingya last garnered world headlines in 2009, when five
boatloads of haggard migrants fleeing Myanmar were intercepted by Thai
authorities. Rights groups allege they were detained and beaten, then
forced back to sea, emaciated and bloodied, in vessels with no engines
and little food or water. Hundreds are believed to have drowned."
Rohingya History :
Rohingya's date back to 8th Century