Today marks the memory of the last Myanmar military campaign, which three years ago led to the displacement of about 750,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, in which over the past years it was the largest refugee camp in the world, where the number of Rohingya on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma) is estimated at about 1.2 million people. And a similar number in other countries such as India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and other Arab, Asian and European countries, which makes the number of Rohingya in exile greater than those who remained inside their original homeland in the state of Arakan (Rakhine).
The Rohingya Arakan National Organization - one of the oldest Rohingya bodies in the world - says in a statement released today that what happened on August 25, 2017 and what followed that within weeks were the work of the Myanmar army and non-state accomplices of the Rikain Buddhist nation, which participates with the Rohingya History and Geography Centuries ago, there were "widespread killings, rape, systematic burning and destruction of villages and homes."
In the absence of any international investigation agency or media coverage and almost a complete blackout of the Internet from these areas for years, which makes communication difficult with the Rohingya in their countryside, the numbers are conflicting regarding the crimes committed for that period and for weeks, but what the Rohingya Arakan National Organization is talking about indicates "At least 360 villages were burned, 24,843 Rohingya were killed, about 40,000 others were injured by bullets. 18,498 cases of rape of a Rohingya woman and girl were recorded, and about 34,000 people were thrown into fires, and about 115,000 houses were burned."
Several security campaigns and forced displacement have taken place in August 2017, which Rohingyun historians and jurists describe as reaching crimes against humanity and genocide, but the world has not paid attention to many of them, as history has recorded bloody campaigns in Arakan since the military took control of power in Myanmar in the year 1962, and among the most famous of those campaigns occurred in 1978, 1990 and 1991, then 2012 and the subsequent displacement of about 140,000 people to closed camps within Arakan itself, all according to the Arakan Rohingya National Organization and others aiming to "end the Rohingya presence from their land that they are bound to. Since the days of their ancestors historically, psychologically and culturally. "
Nothing has changed
today, and after 3 years - since the events of August 2017 - there has been no change in the human and human rights scene in the reality of the Rohingya, so the conditions of those who remained in Arakan have not changed where the camp prisoners live, nor are those who sought refuge in Bangladesh able to return, and they do not They are safe from repression again, according to the testimonies of those asked about returning to Myanmar.
Aung San Sochi, the leader of the National League for Democracy - who moved from the opposition to the participation of the military in their rule on March 30, 2016 as an advisor to the state - chose not to look at the file of the Rohingya minority or other Muslim or Christian minorities, she says. Arakan Rohingya National Organization, the official position of the military or civilians in power has not changed in the capital Nebido.
Human Rights Watch says in a recent report that "the Myanmar government has been unable to ensure the safe return of nearly a million Rohingya refugees after three years of fleeing the Myanmar army's crimes against humanity and possible genocide."
The human rights organization notes in a statement issued yesterday that the Myanmar government did not respond to international justice procedures and did not allow the United Nations to investigate the internal crimes that occurred or to be investigated by credible teams in the crimes that were committed.
In a ruling last January, the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to take "all measures within its authority to prevent a genocide against the Rohingya minority" or "incitement, collusion or conspiracy to commit acts of genocide," and urged it to cancel any measures of It would deprive the Rohingya minority from having children, and they are the ones who the government considers to be "Bengal" and have no basis for their presence in the country.
In addition, the International Criminal Court launched - with another track last February - an investigation into the forced displacement of the Rohingya from Myanmar and the crimes that were committed in that time and place context, while Myanmar rejected this court’s decision to open an investigation into these incidents in 2017.
Isolation of refugees on an island
In a related matter, Bangladesh is planning, as its government has repeatedly announced, to transfer a percentage of Rohingya refugees after months from their overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar in the southeast of the country to newly built housing, according to its officials on the island of Bashan Char, which is 37 miles from the nearest coast of Bangladesh. .
And the last statements issued in this regard were what the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Masoud bin Mumin said yesterday, as he denied what human rights and environmental organizations expressed about the causes of concern for the lives of the Rohingya refugees on that island, since its location is blown by the storms and hurricanes that the Bay of Bengal is famous for, and is vulnerable Of floods and erosion factors, especially since they were also formed by environmental factors in 2006, and their area does not exceed 40 square kilometers only, and may disappear by drowning under the waters of the Bay of Bengal by environmental factors after years or decades, and nothing is certain about its future.
The Bengali government has been working, as announced by the media, since the beginning of this year to construct 1,440 buildings suitable for an atmosphere facing storms and hurricanes, as official sources say, to re-house about 100,000 Rohingya refugees, as part of what is officially known as the "Ashryan 3" project to house the homeless, especially the Rohingya. They represent less than 10% of those in the southeast of Bangladesh in dozens of overcrowded camps near the border with Myanmar.
The ban on electoral participation
and what is behind all of that and as a result of repeated military and security campaigns during the past eight decades, Yangon's policy has succeeded in emptying the state of Rakhine, which had a Muslim majority, and some independent human rights statistics estimate the number of Rohingya remaining in Arakan, western Myanmar, including Rather than 600-700 thousand Rohingya, they live semi-prisoners in their camps and villages.
As happened in the 2015 elections, on which there were hopes that it would be the beginning of a change in the security, political and economic system, which did not happen especially with regard to minorities, so the Rohingya were deprived of the right to run and vote - especially since most of them had their national cards taken from them or not issued. He - they are again prevented from participating in the upcoming elections scheduled for the 8th of next November.
Rohingya politicians said - in statements to them during the past two days - that the Election Commission rejected their candidacy, including Abdul Rashid (58 years), Zhao Min, head of the Democracy and Human Rights Party, which was founded in 1989, and two of his comrades in his party, under the pretext that or their parents are not original citizens.
Zhao Min is known to be a Rohingya politician who repeatedly tried to represent the Rohingya in representation, and actually won in the historic 1990 elections, whose results were aborted by the military at the time after the opposition's victory, but 4 of his eight party candidates won, and this was considered a historic event by obtaining 1% of the votes at the national level. The candidates are Nour Ahmed, Chet Lewin Ibrahim, Fadhel Ahmed, and Shams Anwar al-Haq.
Following those events, the State Council for the Restoration of Law and Order - which represented the military at the time - banned the party like other nationalist parties for minorities, and exiled its founders. It re-established itself in New York in 2003 and opened branches representing the Rohingya in Europe and Asia, then became active alongside the well-known Myanmar political Aung San Sochi, who was a star of the opposition during the past decades, before the military took part in the government after the 2015 elections, but this did not prevent the recurrence of crimes against the Rohingya a year later.
Like other Rohingya activists, Chu Min fought and imprisoned his wife, and his daughter, Wai Wei No, in 2005, and the family remained in prison for 7 years until they were released in 2012, and Yi Wei, 10 years after that date, became a well-known Rohingya girl activist, and when he tried to run in 2015 Along with 14 of his party comrades, all were banned, just as no other party close to the military or the opposition or even other nationalities parties nominated any Muslim or any of the other nationalities in the 2015 elections, despite the support of those who were allowed to vote from Muslims of other nationalities to Aung San Party. Sochi, hoping to adopt a policy open to nationalities and religious and ethnic minorities.