What about the Plight of Myanmar's Hindu Rohingyas?

by Keya Mukherjee
April 5, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12119/hindu-rohingyas

In its effort to gather evidence against the Burmese government for its ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the international community must not let the dire circumstances of the Hindu Rohingyas go unnoticed.

On March 11, 2018, the UN Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention told the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh that the United Nations is planning to amass evidence of genocide against the Rohingyas in Myanmar (formerly Burma) through a judicial investigation.

The persecution of Muslims in Myanmar has been condemned by Western policymakers, international human rights organizations and the United Nations for the past year. Since August alone, more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape atrocities committed against them by the Burmese army.

During the same period, however, more than 100,000 Hindu Rohingyas have also sought refuge in Bangladesh, but for a different reason: to escape the brutality of the members of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Muslim terrorist outfit fighting against the Myanmar government.

The plight of these Hindus has received little media coverage: the authorities in Bangladesh have been hesitant to report that many of them have refused to be placed in refugee camps with Muslim Rohingyas, some of whom were among the perpetrators of crimes against them back at home in Myanmar's Rakhine State. These crimes include the slaughter of Hindu boys and men, and the mass rape of Hindu girls and women -- brutal practices that are going on to this day in Myanmar.

To compound the tragedy, the human trafficking underworld has been luring female Hindu refugees from Myanmar away from Bangladesh with false promises of sweet jobs in the Middle East and the West. Well-to-do Arabs are reportedly purchasing these girls and women as sex slaves through at least 17 trafficking syndicates.

In its effort to gather evidence against the Burmese government for its ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, the international community must not let the dire circumstances of the Hindu Rohingyas go unnoticed.

Pictured: The Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, which houses Rohingyas who fled Myanmar. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

Keya Mukherjee is a freelance journalist specializing in Asian and global affairs.

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3 Reader Comments

John Lemon • Apr 6, 2018 at 17:08

It seems to me that in the international community there is a blatant hypocrisy when it comes to Muslims. They bend over backwards to protect and rescue Muslims, but when it comes to Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews they are not only hesitant but hostile to the idea that any other religion needs protection. Even when it comes to the Kurds who are Muslims but not the right kind of Muslims, the international community looks the other way when they are being exterminated.

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Bisley • Apr 5, 2018 at 16:32

I see no problem in the Burmese government trying to drive Muslims out of their country. As long as Islam maintains the position that all non-Muslims should be converted, subjugated, or killed, Islam is incompatible with any other sort of culture, and Muslims should be confined to Muslim countries.

The Hindus made a mistake in fleeing to Bangladesh, a Muslim Country is not the place to escape Muslim persecution -- if there is not some part of Burma where they can avoid persecution, India should be a better option.

People who will not tolerate other religions, cultures, or ways of life should live among their own kind. Muslims who believe that Islam is the only acceptable way of life, and that it must be imposed on the world by force, are carriers of a deadly disease, and need to be quarantined and contained, or eradicated.

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Elizabeth Grassworthy • Apr 5, 2018 at 16:25

At last someone is revealing the truth about the Rakhine crisis. Every time the UN and Amnesty International pipe up, I'm convinced that there is another side to the story, and probably a more truthful one at that.

Burma is still under Military control, if not direct rule. The population has only had access to smart phones and the Internet for 4 years. Give them a break and stop harassing the civilian government. There is so much to do, with limited powers. I'm beginning to think that the UN and NGO's actually want to overthrow the elected government so that the military can leach the country dry of resources again.

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