THEY may be the world’s most friendless and marginalised minority, but Myanmar’s beleaguered Rohingya have unleashed a geopolitical power game that is as complex as it is callous.
The Rohingya have been fighting for their existence and identity as Muslims, amid a sustained crackdown by a brutal army and a colluding civilian government since 2015. The government has refused to acknowledge them as citizens and, instead, branded them as illegal migrants although their ancestors had lived in Rakhine State for centuries.
A few days ago, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) upwardly revised the number of displaced Rohingya over the last three weeks to almost 500,000, having found refugees on the Bangla- desh-Myanmar border.
Myanmar’s strategic geography is a magnet to international interests and regional superpowers, especially China and India, juxtapositioned as it is between the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea in its western front. It borders Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand in a northern arc stretching from the southeastern enclave of Bangladesh’s Waikhyang region, the Indian states of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Yunan, Loation towns of Xieng Kok and Pak Thia, to Thailand’s Chiang Rai and Lampang regions.
Internationally, the chorus of criticism has been led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, with Ankara pledging to discuss the Rohingyas issue at the UN General Assembly later this month.
Najib, a vociferous campaigner for the rights of Rohingya, at an extraordinary session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Council of Foreign Ministers in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, warned Naypyidaw, “that if the domestic affairs of a country result in instability that affects other countries in the region, they cannot be expected to remain silent, or hope for the best and pray that it does not get worse”.
In London, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), Hugo Swire, said the United Kingdom held that the “deplorable conditions” of the Rohingya are “unacceptable”, and was committed to press the Myanmar government to ensure full humanitarian access, freedom of movement and a pathway to citizenship to them.
“When I last visited Rakhine in July, I, again, saw for myself the deplorable conditions faced by the Rohingya, not least for the 140,000 living in ‘temporary’ and inadequate camps some three years since the violence of 2012. Across the community, basic rights are denied, such as freedom of movement and religion. Many are denied access to basic healthcare or education, and employment, which is unacceptable,” he said in a statement.
Such sentiments have been echoed by senior officials and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the European Union and the United States, and by the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Situation in Myanmar, Professor Yanghee Lee of South Korea. The Dalai Lama has stressed that the Lord Buddha would have helped the Rohingya.
Following the 2015 election, the National League for Democracy, headed by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto ruler of Myanmar, shared power with the military.
This was followed by the lifting of sanctions, attracting international investors, especially the US and other companies, especially in the oil, gas and transport and infrastructure sectors.
In December, the UK-Asean Business Council in London under the aegis of the UK Department for International Trade is organising the Myanmar Trade and Investment Forum, which is expected to attract strong participation.
Asean itself has fallen short of expelling Myanmar despite calls from Putrajaya to consider this if the violence continues. Member countries, such as Indonesia, are too aware of the repercussions from the Muslim man in the street should the crackdown against the Rohingya continues unabated.
Moral leadership in condemning the excesses against the Rohingya has fallen on faith leaders and NGOs, of which Pope Francis and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of Cape Town are shining examples. The tech-savvy Christian leaders could teach their Muslim counterparts a thing or two. The latter have been conspicuous with their old school deafening silence.
In an open letter posted on social media to his fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, Bishop Tutu wrote: “I am elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya. My dear sister: if the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep. A country that is not at peace with itself, that fails to acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people, is not a free country.”
China and India are emerging as Myanmar’s major partners. Indian Premier Narendra Modi visited Myanmar last week where he met Suu Kyi and the military top brass. Myanmar is a “key pillar” of Modi’s Act East Policy that prioritises bilateral relations with India’s East Asian neighbours. These relations have broadened to encompass security, counter-terrorism and defence collaboration, in addition to furthering economic ties, including infrastructure projects like the Kaladan Multimodal Transport Project that seeks to connect Kolkata with Sittwe port in Myanmar.
China has always had a tense border relation with Myanmar, with skirmishes especially in the Kokang region between groups on both sides historically common. Suu Kyi’s state visit to China in August last year when she met President Xi Jinping dispelled some of the past distrust and paved the way for a modern phase in Sino-Myanmar relations.
China is promoting its flagship The One Belt One Road Initiative that focuses on a China-centred trade and development connectivity and cooperation between China and Eurasian countries. This includes financing and developing infrastructure in Myanmar, including a much-needed warm water port in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea.
The despair of the Rohingya must neither be trivialised nor pitied. They command dignity like any other human beings irrespective of creed and ethnicity. This is why the sheer scale of their plight must never be underestimated!
Mushtak Parker is an independent London-based economist and writer