1st  February 2009

The Rohingya people have the ‘right to exist’ in Arakan, illegitimate SPDC has no authority to decide their fate

It is terrible that State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) again starts making false and concocted propaganda against the Rohingya people’s ‘right to exist’ in Arakan, a clear sign of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The regime is pretending not to hear the Rohingya’s outcry and international reactions to stop systematic persecution of this ethnic Muslim community.

As appeared in the “New Light of Myanmar” dated 30 January, 2009 the SPDC  has admitted to have launched series of operations over the decades against the Rohingyas under the pretext “to scrutinize the Bengali immigrants illegally immigrated into Rakhine region of Myanmar ”.

Under the pretext of scrutinizing so-called illegal immigrants, the regime has already killed, drowned and driven hundreds and thousands of Rohingya over the decades, which are well documented rousing international condemnations calling for actions. An estimated 1.5 million of Rohingya population are in Diaspora particularly in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand and Malaysia. Let there be an independent international investigation team to determine the status of Rohingyas inside and outside the country. Human rights are universal and the SPDC cannot continue to deny us the ‘right to exist’ in our historical homeland. This is crime against humanity, an international crime with international jurisdiction.

31 January 2009

We strongly protest and condemn SPDC for its lie in ‘New Light of Myanmar’ dated 29th January 2009 — “Rohinja is not included in over 100 national races of the Union of Myanmar”. This is an evil design to deny us of our rights, and we rebut as follows:

1.       The Rohingya are a people characterized by objective criteria, such as historical continuity, and subjective factors including self-identification, which need to define an indigenous people. They are a people having supporting history, separate culture, civilization, language and literature, historically settled territory and reasonable size of population and area in Arakan – they consider themselves distinct from other sector of the society.

2.      Arakan was virtually ruled by Muslims from 1430 to 1531. The heyday of Arakan began with the influence and spread of Muslim civilization in Arakan. Coins and medallion were issued inscribing Kalema (the profession of faith in Islam) in Arabic script. Besides, practice of Muslim etiquettes and manners in the court of Arakan, the adoption of Muslim titles by the kings of Arakan and system of governance, the Muslim Quazi courts and literary activities, use of Bengali and Persian as court and official languages,  etc. are the evidences  of Muslim rule in Arakan.
 

3.      The first President of Burma Sao Shwe Theik stated: “Muslims of Arakan certainly belong to one of the indigenous races of Burma….In fact, there is no pure indigenous race in Burma, if they do not belong to indigenous races of Burma, we also cannot be taken as indigenous races of Burma”.