Burmese Language
Rohingya ‘victims of crimes against humanity’
Abuses perpetrated by the Burmese government against the ethnic Rohingya minority in the country’s western region may constitute crimes against humanity, an expert on international human rights law says.
Forced labour, religious persecution and systematic rape by Burmese army officers are widespread against the Rohingya, according to the ‘Crimes Against Humanity in Western Burma‘ report, supervised by Professor William Schabas and released by the Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR). Schabas was part of the team behind Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Schabas said that the minority group had “for decades…endured grave human rights violations in north Arakan state”, which borders Bangladesh. The report added however that their “plight has been overlooked for years and the root causes of their situation still remain under-examined”.
The treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim group that is denied legal status in Burma, “[appears] to satisfy the requirements under international criminal law for the perpetration of crimes against humanity”, it added.
Ireland’s foreign minister, Michael Martin, said at the launch of the report in Dublin that the evidence published by the group was “compelling and credible”. It follows a report to the UN security council by Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN’s special rapporteur to Burma, in which he similarly called for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity against the minority group.
The investigation for the ICHR report was carried out by Nancie Prudhomme and Joseph Powderly, who spent four weeks visiting Thailand, Bangladesh and Burma in 2009. Bangladesh is home to as many as 400,000 Rohingya refugees, while Thailand came under the spotlight in early 2009 after it pushed a boatload of Rohingya out to sea with no food or water, many of whom died.
The predominantly Buddhist Burmese government refuses to recognise the nearly 800,000-strong Rohingya minority as Burmese, and thus denies them legal rights and formal access to education and healthcare in the country. The Paris-based medical aid group Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has described the Rohingya as one of the world populations ‘most in danger of extinction’.
Out of an estimated 400,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh’s eastern Cox’s Bazaar, less than 30,000 are registered by the UN and allowed to live in UN-run camps. Dhaka is believed to have resisted attempts by the UN to register those remaining, claiming that it would trigger an influx of more Rohingya into the country.
Prudhomme and Powderly’s fieldwork in the Bangladeshi camps was assisted by John Ralston, former chief of investigations at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the ICHR said.
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Thitsaphout Than Shwe stands guilty of every human right’s abuses ever committed against all the peoples of Burma, Rohingya, Karen, Burmese and all the rest of the ethnic groups of Burma that Than Shwe has ever violated.
Some people who were murdered after the 2007 uprising either by being buried alive or some being taken to a crematorium to be thrown on a conveyor belt to brunt in the ovens and a lot of those people were alive and they were screaming that they didn’t want to die, but Than Shwe’s thugs showed no mercy and they just stood there and laughed at them as they died.
There must be justice for all the victims of this madman none of his crimes against humanity must ever go unanswered. The voices of the people of Burma must be herd. A military strike against this evil insane monster is something that must happen.
Dear Wade and readers,
The plight of the Rohengyas is indeed pitiful and I never agree with the military regime’s treatments over those unfortunate illegal Bengalis or Chittagonians who took the name of Rohengya in the early 1950′s. How they flooded Arakan state of Myanmar, you should ask unbiased historians and also turn the pages of British colonial government papers, specifically the cencus papers of the region to find the colonial government recorded them as either Bengalis or Chittagonians.
As for the crimes against humanity, the rate of crimes never reach to the level of outstanding such authoritarian and autocratic countries. Don’t forget Rwanda and Bosnia where several thousands of women were raped and heinously murdered by the opponents. Don’t forget Sudan and Sirrea Leone where such rapes were frequent and cruel. Do you know that Bengalis killed and raped ethnic Arakan people when they waged war against Japanese occupational forces? They didn’t fight the Japs, but killed, raped the women, and burnt the many the whole villages to occupy lands and properties in Northern Arakan. In any country where is civil war, a few such crimes of rape, torture, and killings could not be avoided.
I am a Buddhist and I don’t like even one gets killed and raped or tortured. However, when you run a country, you have such risks of crimes committed by both sides. Myanmar regime is unfortunate and not smart enough to solve those problems and it uses force. I have also read some international laws over crimes against humanity and it is not that easy to frame up the Myanmar regime.
Those so-called Rohengyas are not ethnic Myanmar. Ask native Arakans if they would like to share their lands with them. I will give you my head if they say yes. I will side with my Arakan brethren, but not with the unwanted economic migrants. I’d like to assist them to ease their pain in any possible way aside to give them Myanmar ethnicity status. If you don’t know how majority of Myanmar people feel towards this problem and lobbying for them would surely hurt the more than 57 million people.
My main argument is I don’t think the regimes atrocities are systematic and being a State’s policy. All those atrocities take place sporadically and a few cases in each time.
I accept the Rohengya as our co-human, but not as our ethnicity. That’s what all I have to say at this moment.
This is a important step to take action against Malitary Regime,because law is same for all same.Justic can be hidden.Today Burma political judical & justic are no fair for all,specially Rohingya are victam and most suppressed by Regime over so many decades.This kind of unfairness ruling policy toward Rohingya will lead a situation instability region & emerage a revolution if internationally not take enough action or stand with justic, on the criteria standardiztion of UN human right charter. Where is UN huma right organization who are suffering over nearly 5 decade.This is likely that over 60 years of Universal declaration of human right is not conerned for Rohingya.
This issue of Rohighya is internationally ignored over so many decades, still some media are very less attention to Rohingya suffering status, some media are still avoiding to give attention and share to internationally. Thank Dvb and long live DvB which is nonstop giving more positive viewpoint with fairness to Rohingya issue.MEdia should fair and justic to all ethenic issue in Burma.
@Denys Goldthorpe. Just Lob a Missile At Em… Yeah, Ok, If To Prevent A Plan In Progress To Murder More People, That Could Be Necessary, I Wouldn’t Object. But As A Punishment? Cmon… It’s An As Mindless And Ignorant Of A Solution As This Man Himself Comes Up With To Solve His ‘Problem’ With These People… Just Kill Em… Yeah, Sorry, But An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind And Only Serves To Increase The Negativity, To Increase Lame Excuses And Rhetoric For Killing ‘As Punishment’. Yes, This Person And Many Other Persons Have Done Horribly Despicable Things, But Every Person Is Born Pure And Has Positive Purpose In Their Life, Even If They Themselves Fail To Recognize It, And So In This Case This Person’s Purpose Right Now Is To Serve As An Example Of Negativity To Others, Of How Not To Act, How Not To Think, But His Purpose Right Now Is Not “TO BE KILLED”… How Ignorant A Judgment To Make… Rewards And Punishments Should Not Be Parts Of Justice, Or Life For That Matter, By Any Definition! Too Easy!! This Person’s Positive Purpose Is To Provoke The Right ‘Justice’ For Their Own Sincere Ignorance (Cruelty) And Conscientious Stupidity. Bring This Person And His Consorts Into The Victim’s Custody And Have Them Face Themselves And Their Victims In Utter Humility… And Let Them, His Direct Victims, Decide Punishment If They Must (or even better if the victims ask the perpetrators themselves to decide on their own punishments). Let “The voices of the people of Burma” Decide Their Own Justice, Don’t Decide For Them! Just Help Them Stop What’s Happening Without Resorting To The Very Same Kind Of Thinking And Tactics Used Against Them!! But No, That Would Be Difficult, huh? Not Easy Enough. Let’s Just Do Things The Easy Way, the ole’ Dumb-ass Know-It-All Preacher Way… Bang! The Witch (In This Case A Genocidal Maniac) Is Dead… *phew* Don’t Gotta Deal With Her Anymore… *sweeps the mess under the carpet* or rather, *leaves the mess there because hey it’s not our country*
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28) Jesus.
“Love your enemy.”
It doesn’t mean love the person you hate. You can’t do that. Love those who hate you.
“To love our enemy is impossible,
because the moment we love him,
he is no longer our enemy.
When we understand another person,
we understand ourselves better.”
~ Dalai Lama~
“Kindness is a language which the blind can see and the deaf can hear.”
I agree and justice will come but as Aung San Suu Kyi said…”the people of Burma will not be handed their democracy on a plate…no one is comming to help you it is something you must fight for”…all ethnic groups of Burma must unite to take the Generals down…and the Tadmador itself needs a champion General brave enough to act…im Rod Power
I am saddened to find the word “Buddhists”, a misrepresentation, in the article. Buddhists are taught to be humane and kind to the fellow beings, including human beings (the Rohinjas as well). The generals and some of the officers may call themselves Buddhists, but it carries only a cosmatic value.
I mean it is not the Buddhists that mistreat the Rohinjas, but those wearing a Buddhist cloak who do that kind of thging. Just look back how the thugs under military orders beat up, shot, maimed and killed the Buddhist monks, the bamas and other ethnic groups. True Buddhists are religious and committed to the five precepts, to be ashamed and dread to mistreat others. It is a tolerant religion that cultivates a tolerant people. Those who cannot tolerate fellow humans are no Buddhists.
Kindly never again use the word “Buddhists” to address the junta and its lackeys, as it is totally inapplicable.
DoMiNouS Qi in respect there is no suggestion that the invading forces should or could do the same barbaric acts that Thitsaphout Than Shwe has been committing on the Burmese people for decades. If a military invasion occurs then I say let the people decide the punishment for Than Shwe and his thugs. We the people of the world must help our brothers and sisters of Burma and stop the mass genocide that’s been happening to all the ethnic peoples of Burma. Just ignoring it by loving our enemy won’t make things go away Ignoring it won’t stop the murders, rapes, tortures, and child prostitution. General Aung San’s vision for Burma must be realized the people must be allowed to be masters in their own country; Than Shwe must answer for every act of barbarism his illegal regime has ever committed on the Burmese people. Human rights violations are not just an internal matter for the Burmese people to act on but it is an international matter which world must act on to bring this insane monster to justice. With respect DoMiNouS Qi when you have herd and have known the people or should I say the victims of Than Shwe’s cruelty then and only then will you really know about Burma.
Time will come, our Rakhaing people will go into missing in the hands of lower theraveda Burman Buddhists, if we are not united with Rohingya who are also the sons of the soil of Arakan or real sister community of Rakhaing.