Rights group slams Burma plan to ‘segregate Rohingya’

A Rohingya girl who was displaced following 2012 sectarian violence carries a baby at Nga Chaung Refugee Camp in Pauktaw, Rakhine state, Burma. Pic: AP.

By Kyle Lawrence Mullin Oct 03, 2014

Critics say the Burmese government’s  “Rakhine State Action Plan”, will further marginalize its Muslim population, forcing members of the minority to adopt a new ethnicity and permanently segregating them to closed camps.

In a statement released today by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the activist NGO said: “A draft government plan would entrench discriminatory policies that deprive Rohingya Muslims in Burma (officially known as Myanmar) of citizenship and lead to the forced resettlement of over 130,000 displaced Rohingya.”

The NGO also took umbrage with the government plan’s phrasing, noting that it’s plan referred to Burmese Rohingya Muslims as “Bengalis”. HRW’s statement went on to call that term “inaccurate and  derogatory,” adding that the moniker is “commonly used by Burmese officials and nationalist Buddhists. Muslims are only mentioned in the plan with reference to religious schools.”

Earlier in the week, The World Bulletin reported on another aspect of the action plan. It quoted Burmese foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin’s announcement to the UN that the plan would grant the Rohingya citizenship, but only if they “change their ethnicity to suggest Bangladeshi origin”. The story added that the government could use such admissions to detain Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and even place them in detention camps- even though the Muslim minority has resided in Burma for centuries.

The “Rakhine State Action Plan” is based on recommendations made last spring by the state’s Investigative Commission. That government body was formed to quell civil unrest between the Rohingya Muslims and Burma’s Buddhist majority, a conflict that climaxed in the summer of 2012 when the former endured violence by the latter that claimed over 50 lives.

Since then, over 100,000 of the surviving Rohingya have fled to government camps in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe. But several human rights groups say those facilities are anything but safe havens, calling their health and safety standards dangerously subpar and criticizing policies that keep the displaced Muslims from relocating to other locales. Activists say the “Rakhine State Action Plan” will worsen the predicament, noting that it aims to relocate the Rohingya once again, from the Sittwe camps to a location that has yet to be disclosed.

Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, wrote in a press release that the plan: “… expands and solidifies the discriminatory and abusive Burmese government policies… It is nothing less than a blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness that appears designed to strip the Rohingya of hope and force them to flee the country.”

HRW’s statement listed alternatives such as granting the Rohingya permission to return to their original homes, noting that the state action plan makes no mention of when or how the displaced Muslims will be able to reintegrate into Burmese society.

Earlier this week Reuters reported on the United Nations’ critique of Burma’s human rights record. During a yearly report to the General Assembly’s Third Committee, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “The deep-seated inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions that have re-emerged around the country have given rise to further violence, loss of life, displacement of populations and destruction of property.”

The Burmese government has dismissed those claims and demanded that it be removed the annual report to the Third Committee (which also highlights human rights issues in Syria and Iran).

Last week, in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Burmese foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin said: “All major concerns related to human rights have been addressed to a larger extent in the new Myanmar. Therefore we are now fully convinced that Myanmar should no longer remain on the agendas of the Human Rights Council and the Third Committee of the General Assembly.”