Speak out on Rohingya, Dalai Lama urges Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi
The Asian country’s pro-democracy leader has been mostly silent on the persecuted minority, but “I feel she can do something,” says the Dalai, a fellow Nobel Laureate, warning the world cannot ignore their growing plight.
Ashwini Bhatia / AP
The Dalai Lama at a school in India on Wednesday. He says he has
twiced discussed the plight of Burma's persecuted Rohingya Muslims with
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "She told me she found some
difficulties, that things were not simple but very complicated."
NEW DELHI—The Dalai Lama has urged Aung San
Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon and a fellow Nobel Peace Prize
laureate, to speak out to protect her country’s persecuted Rohingya
Muslims amid a human trafficking crisis, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of
Tibetan Buddhists, told The Australian newspaper that the world cannot
ignore the plight of the more than 3,000 desperate migrants who have
landed on the shores of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in recent
weeks, often abandoned by human traffickers or freed after their
families paid ransoms.
“It’s not sufficient to say: ‘How to help
these people?’” the newspaper quoted him as saying in an interview in
the Indian hill town where he lives in exile. “This is not sufficient.
There’s something wrong with humanity’s way of thinking. Ultimately we
are lacking concern for others’ lives, others’ wellbeing.”
The refugees are a mixture of poor
Bangladeshis in search of work and Rohingya Muslims fleeing widespread
persecution from Myanmar’s Buddhist majority. The Dalai Lama said he had
discussed the Rohingya in earlier meetings with Suu Kyi.
“I mentioned about this problem and she told
me she found some difficulties, that things were not simple but very
complicated,” he was quoted as saying. “But in spite of that I feel she
can do something.”
Suu Kyi became an international hero during
her years of house arrest for speaking out against the generals who long
ruled Myanmar. She entered politics after her 2010 release, when the
junta handed over power to a nominally civilian government.
In a predominantly Buddhist country where
there is much animosity toward the Rohingya Muslims, she has remained
silent about their persecution.
She now says she never sought to be a human
rights champion. Critics say that defending the Rohingya could cost her
support if she runs for president.
*********************************************
Myanmar's
mission to help Muslim Rohingya has stirred outrage among Buddhist
nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in
recent years. — Reuters pic
I Hope the leading lights in the ASEAN REGION would put their creative minds together, working closely with the leaders in MYANMAR, and would be able to map oational attention to this ut an URGENT ACTION PLAN TO ADDRESS THIS CRISIS GROWING MORE DIRE BY EACH PASSING DAY.There is NO ROOM FOR any of the peace-loving peoples of the world TO IGNORE WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A HUMANITARIAN ISSUE BESIEGING NOT JUST MYANMAR ROHINGYA MUSLIMS, but also similar migrants in other parts of the world heading for foreign shores in Europe.
MAY GOD -- however you DEEM HIM to be -- have mercies on these boat people, and guide them to safety. DESi essentially is a "Socialist" by political leaning, so I utilise my writing craft to draw international attention to this huge problem besetting the ROHINGYA MUSLIM people.
Myanmar's
mission to help Muslim Rohingya has stirred outrage among Buddhist
nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in recent
years. — Reuters picYANGON, May 26 — Myanmar Buddhist
nationalists vowed to protest against international pressure on the
country to help boat people, a prominent monk said today, as
humanitarian efforts to rescue desperate migrants stir festering
anti-Muslim animosity.
The rally planned for tomorrow in Yangon is being held in response to calls for Myanmar to provide aid to the migrants and address the root causes of an exodus from its shores as well as neighbouring Bangladesh.
"We will protest against some foreign countries trying to pressure (Myanmar) to accept refugees as if they are from our country although they are boat people from Bangladesh," said Pamaukkha, a Buddhist monk activist who goes by one name and is part of the group organising the protest.
A migrant crisis has gripped Southeast Asia for weeks as more than 3,500 Bangladeshi economic migrants and stateless Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar arrive on Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian soil.
Thousands more are still thought to be stranded in open waters with diminishing supplies of food and water after a crackdown in southern Thailand fractured a vast human trafficking network.
Myanmar's navy found exhausted and hungry men and boys, mainly thought to be from Bangladesh, crammed in the rusting hull of a smugglers' boat in waters off its coast last week.
They have been held in a border region of western Rakhine state, where Muslim Rohingya live in abject conditions after 2012 communal violence that left the region deeply segregated and sparked a deadly wave of anti-Muslim attacks.
But the mission to help the group has stirred outrage among Buddhist nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in recent years.
"We do not want anyone here posing as refugees or Bengalis, trying to swallow the nation or its people. They need to be sent back now," said Pamaukkha.
Myanmar's roughly 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims are largely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and referred to as 'Bengali', despite many tracing their ancestry in the country back for generations.
They have left Rakhine in droves to escape years of restrictions limiting their access to employment, basic services like education and healthcare and even family size.
Deadly bloodshed between local Buddhists and Rohingya in Rakhine three years ago dramatically worsened the situation, leaving around 140,000 homeless and trapped in bleak camps.
The recent boat crisis has done little to soften the stance of hardline nationalists, including several monastic organisations who have championed a raft of legislation seen as targeting women and minority Muslims across the country. — AFP
- See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/myanmar-buddhist-nationalists-plan-anti-boat-migrant-rally#sthash.nLmWGedH.dpuf
Myanmar Buddhist nationalists plan anti-boat migrant rally
Tuesday May 26, 2015
08:18 PM GMT+8
08:18 PM GMT+8
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Myanmar's
mission to help Muslim Rohingya has stirred outrage among Buddhist
nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in
recent years. — Reuters pic
YANGON, May 26 — Myanmar Buddhist nationalists vowed
to protest against international pressure on the country to help boat people, a
prominent monk said today, as humanitarian efforts to rescue desperate migrants
stir festering anti-Muslim animosity.
The rally planned for tomorrow in Yangon is being held in response to
calls for Myanmar to provide
aid to the migrants and address the root causes of an exodus from its shores as
well as neighbouring Bangladesh.
"We will protest against some foreign countries trying to pressure (Myanmar) to accept refugees as if they are from
our country although they are boat people from Bangladesh," said Pamaukkha, a
Buddhist monk activist who goes by one name and is part of the group organising
the protest.
A migrant crisis has gripped Southeast Asia for weeks as more than 3,500
Bangladeshi economic migrants and stateless Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar arrive
on Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian soil.
Thousands more are still thought to be stranded in open waters with
diminishing supplies of food and water after a crackdown in southern Thailand
fractured a vast human trafficking network.
Myanmar's navy found exhausted and hungry men and boys, mainly thought to be from
Bangladesh,
crammed in the rusting hull of a smugglers' boat in waters off its coast last
week.
They have been held in a border region of western Rakhine state, where
Muslim Rohingya live in abject conditions after 2012 communal violence that
left the region deeply segregated and sparked a deadly wave of anti-Muslim
attacks.
But the mission to help the group has stirred outrage among Buddhist
nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in
recent years.
"We do not want anyone here posing as refugees or Bengalis, trying to
swallow the nation or its people. They need to be sent back now," said
Pamaukkha.
Myanmar's roughly 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims are largely seen as illegal
immigrants from Bangladesh
and referred to as 'Bengali', despite many tracing their ancestry in the
country back for generations.
They have left Rakhine in droves to escape years of restrictions limiting
their access to employment, basic services like education and healthcare and
even family size.
Deadly bloodshed between local Buddhists and Rohingya in Rakhine three
years ago dramatically worsened the situation, leaving around 140,000 homeless
and trapped in bleak camps.
The recent boat crisis has done little to soften the stance of hardline
nationalists, including several monastic organisations who have championed a
raft of legislation seen as targeting women and minority Muslims across the
country. — AFP
- See more at:
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/myanmar-buddhist-nationalists-plan-anti-boat-migrant-rally#sthash.nLmWGedH.dpuf
***************************
FROM The Irish TImes Online:~~~
Buddhist
nationalists demonstrate against the UN and the return of Rohingya
Muslims, in Yangon, Burma. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images
***************************
FROM The Irish TImes Online:~~~
Burmese Buddhist nationalists protest over boat people
Demonstration against calls to grant citizenship to Muslim Rohingya minority
Buddhist
nationalists demonstrate against the UN and the return of Rohingya
Muslims, in Yangon, Burma. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images
Some 150 Buddhist nationalists took part in a protest in Rangoon yesterday against international pressure for Burma
(Myanmar) to grant citizenship to the stateless Rohingya minority, as
well as what they claim is pro-Muslim bias in Western news coverage.
A core group of some 70 protesters carried banners
bearing both English- and Burmese-language slogans. They wore T-shirts
that read “Boat people are not Myanmar” and bandanas emblazoned with
“UN” with a line crossed through it.
The protest was organised by hardline groups who
claim the population that identifies as Rohingya, estimated at about a
million, do not have any legitimate historical claim to citizenship in
Burma. The protesters consider Rohingya Muslims to be illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh.
Thousands of Rohinya Muslims have fled what they say
is persecution in Burma, and many remain cast adrift at sea due to an
unwillingness on the part of neighbouring countries to take them in.
While yesterday’s protest was relatively small in size, the groups behind it are not lacking in political clout.
U Parmoukkha, a Buddhist monk and prominent figure in
the Ma Ba Tha movement, delivered an address to the crowd. Ma Ba Tha, a
Burmese acronym for “Committee for the Protection of Nationality and
Religion”, is an influential group that has risen to prominence in the
last two years. It has agitated for a package of legislation including
population control, monogamy and religious conversion laws.
While the country’s most prominent controversial
monk, U Wirathu, was not able to attend the protest due to preaching
commitments, DVDs of his sermons – most of which argue that Burma’s
Theravada Buddhism is under threat of being eclipsed by Islam – were
distributed at the protest site.
“In 2,200 years of Myanmar
history, there is no such thing as the word Rohingya. Rohingyas are a
made-up race”, said Ko Thar Wa, one of the five spokespeople authorised
by organisers to speak to the media at the rally.
The migrant boat crisis playing out off the western coastlines of Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia has thrust the issue to the fore of the regional agenda, with talks set to take place in Bangkok today.
In recent weeks, the discovery of mass graves in the
jungles of Thailand and Malaysia has shed light on the scale of the
region’s people-smuggling and extortion rackets, while the ensuing
crackdown on trafficking rings has seen thousands abandoned at sea.
“As a human and as a Buddhist, I feel sorry for these
people. But as a Myanmar citizen I cannot accept that more than 3,000
people could be let into Myanmar – it’s a huge concern. The
international community is trying to send a lot of people to Myanmar”,
said Ko Thar Wa. “People around the world need to understand these
people are not Myanmar citizens. They are Bangladeshi. It would be too
controversial to accept the non-citizens, for any country.”
While a vast number of those caught up in the boat
crisis are Bangladeshi migrants, those who identify as Rohingya have
resided in Myanmar for gen rations.
The majority of the Rohingya reside in Rakhine State, in the west of Myanmar. aysia borderIn 2012, two waves of violent rioting saw entire villages razed and more than 150 people killed.
DESIDERATA: THE ROHINGYA MUSLIMS issue has grabbed international media headlines the past few days. IT is NOT AN issue to truly understand the "REAl causes" Behind the increasingly life-threatening problem, as the "Migrants/refugees" taking to the high seas risk their lives before they could reach friendly foreign shores. AT the same time, they also could fall victim to HUMAN TRAFFICKERS, AS EVIDENCED by the DEATH CAMPS DISCOVERED in recent days at the Thailand-Malaysia border.
This problem is compounded by the "ECOCOMIC MIGRANTS" from BANGLADESH joining in the exodus of boat people seeking a better life in the THREE ASEAN COUNTRIES, with the problem exerpated by the bastardly HUMAN TRAFFICKERS!
This problem is compounded by the "ECOCOMIC MIGRANTS" from BANGLADESH joining in the exodus of boat people seeking a better life in the THREE ASEAN COUNTRIES, with the problem exerpated by the bastardly HUMAN TRAFFICKERS!
I Hope the leading lights in the ASEAN REGION would put their creative minds together, working closely with the leaders in MYANMAR, and would be able to map oational attention to this ut an URGENT ACTION PLAN TO ADDRESS THIS CRISIS GROWING MORE DIRE BY EACH PASSING DAY.There is NO ROOM FOR any of the peace-loving peoples of the world TO IGNORE WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A HUMANITARIAN ISSUE BESIEGING NOT JUST MYANMAR ROHINGYA MUSLIMS, but also similar migrants in other parts of the world heading for foreign shores in Europe.
MAY GOD -- however you DEEM HIM to be -- have mercies on these boat people, and guide them to safety. DESi essentially is a "Socialist" by political leaning, so I utilise my writing craft to draw international attention to this huge problem besetting the ROHINGYA MUSLIM people.
Tuesday May 26, 2015
08:18 PM GMT+8
08:18 PM GMT+8
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Last hurrah! Xavi to captain Barca in final La Liga appearanceMyanmar's
mission to help Muslim Rohingya has stirred outrage among Buddhist
nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in recent
years. — Reuters picYANGON, May 26 — Myanmar Buddhist
nationalists vowed to protest against international pressure on the
country to help boat people, a prominent monk said today, as
humanitarian efforts to rescue desperate migrants stir festering
anti-Muslim animosity.The rally planned for tomorrow in Yangon is being held in response to calls for Myanmar to provide aid to the migrants and address the root causes of an exodus from its shores as well as neighbouring Bangladesh.
"We will protest against some foreign countries trying to pressure (Myanmar) to accept refugees as if they are from our country although they are boat people from Bangladesh," said Pamaukkha, a Buddhist monk activist who goes by one name and is part of the group organising the protest.
A migrant crisis has gripped Southeast Asia for weeks as more than 3,500 Bangladeshi economic migrants and stateless Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar arrive on Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian soil.
Thousands more are still thought to be stranded in open waters with diminishing supplies of food and water after a crackdown in southern Thailand fractured a vast human trafficking network.
Myanmar's navy found exhausted and hungry men and boys, mainly thought to be from Bangladesh, crammed in the rusting hull of a smugglers' boat in waters off its coast last week.
They have been held in a border region of western Rakhine state, where Muslim Rohingya live in abject conditions after 2012 communal violence that left the region deeply segregated and sparked a deadly wave of anti-Muslim attacks.
But the mission to help the group has stirred outrage among Buddhist nationalists, who have been increasingly prominent in Myanmar in recent years.
"We do not want anyone here posing as refugees or Bengalis, trying to swallow the nation or its people. They need to be sent back now," said Pamaukkha.
Myanmar's roughly 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims are largely seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and referred to as 'Bengali', despite many tracing their ancestry in the country back for generations.
They have left Rakhine in droves to escape years of restrictions limiting their access to employment, basic services like education and healthcare and even family size.
Deadly bloodshed between local Buddhists and Rohingya in Rakhine three years ago dramatically worsened the situation, leaving around 140,000 homeless and trapped in bleak camps.
The recent boat crisis has done little to soften the stance of hardline nationalists, including several monastic organisations who have championed a raft of legislation seen as targeting women and minority Muslims across the country. — AFP
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