1. We express our serious concern about Dr. Aye Kayw’s paper, “The Rohingya and Rakhaing. Even the right-minded Rakhaings feel concerned about his deep hatred towards Rohingya. His definition of the name “Rohingya” is his own making, which has neither a link with a meaning to Bengali literature nor to Rakhaing language.
2. It is completely outrageous that he is hostile to the Rohingya and their freedom movement. Like SPDC, Dr. Aye Kyaw has attempted to implicate Rohingya leaders to have link with terrorism, simply for being Muslims. He may think that he can justify anti-Muslim activities as a part of ‘the war on terror’ trying ‘to tar the Rohingya group with the same brush’ with intent to create an atmosphere of Islam phobia in the current atmosphere of growing hostility against Muslims. This is an Islam phobic attack to justify ongoing campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing against the peaceful living Rohingyas in Burma, and to further intimidate and terrorize the Muslim population of the country.
3. Dr. Aye Kyaw has further attempted to discredit and complicate the Rohingya freedom movement by deceiving that the Rohingyas are establishing a State called ‘Rohinstan’ in 2008 comprising some land of both Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). Can Dr. Aye Kyaw substantiate his mendacious, concocted and politically motivated statement intending particularly to damage the reputation of the Rohingyas, their leaders, supporters, friends and sympathizers?
4. The Rohingya movement is more than six decades now from 1942 Muslim massacre in Arakan. The present Rohingya movement is the continuation of Rohingya people’s long struggle for democracy, peace, and justice, equality and human rights. We are not part of any other struggle outside our country. We are committed to remain a people within Arakan, and to working with other pro-democracy groups in the country. We are also committed to having peaceful and mutually beneficial relations with Bangladesh and we will never drive out our citizens to create a burden on Bangladesh.
5. Dr. Aye Kyaw is dejected over the growing popularity of the Rohingya movement, what he called, in the shadow of human rights. He seems to have felt charm over the untold sufferings of the Rohingya people. We would remind him that human rights are inherent in our nature and without which we cannot live as human beings. He should accept the universality of human rights. The serious violations of human rights committed against Rohingya, by both military regime and non-state actors, are crimes against humanity, and are arguably genocide, which have ‘international jurisdiction’ with ‘individual responsibility of the perpetrators’.
6. Dr. Aye Kyaw‘s statement that Arakan and its people are synonymous to Buddhism is a perversion of the fact. Arakan never has had existed with one particular religious group or people and culture. 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 copying the imperial court of Delhi, the adoption of Muslim titles by the Buddhist kings 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. Even Buddhist women of those days practiced purda (veil system). History says Arakan was virtually ruled by Muslims from 1430 to 1531. Dr. Aye Kyaw’s statement is an attempt to advance his false dream for “totalitarian domination” of Arakan.
7. Unlike Dr. Aye Kyaw’s explanation of the major differences between Rakhaing and Rohingya, Rakhiaing is a largely Buddhist with a long history whereas Rohingya is a predominantly Muslim with not less long history. They once developed sense of oneness that is “Arakaneseness”, and ruled their sovereign independent country in share and share alike.
8. The name Rohingya comes from the word Rohang, an old name of Arakan, as Dr. Aye Kyaw accepts the name Mag(h) for the Rakhaing was named after the name of Magadah, a place in Bihar, India, where Buddhism flourished.
9. Dr. Aye Kyaw is critical of a Rohingya State in Arakan. He should accept that the Rohingya is a people equal to Rakhaing and they have the right of equal footing in a democratic society. They have the ‘right of self-determination’ to decide their own “self” or fate on par with other nationalities of the country. As declared in “Bangkok Agreement”, on the conclusion of the First Rohingya Consultation held on 2-3 August 2006 in Chulalongkron University, Bangkok, under the auspices of the National Reconciliation Programme (NRP) of the Union of Burma, the Rohingya aspire for an indivisible Arakan to be shared with Rakhaing on the system of parity. If the Rakhaing with think tank like Dr. Aye Kyaw continue to practice their ‘policy of exclusiveness’, the Rohingya, in exercise of their ‘right of self-determination’ will have to opt for a separate Rohingya Autonomous State in their “Traditional Homeland” in North Arakan, under the future federal Union of Burma, in the interest of peace, security and sustainable development. This is a fair, coherent and balanced political stand.
10. People are well aware of the tactic of Ne Win ‘s BSPP dictatorship and Burma military regime how they set one people against another under their ‘divide and rule’ stratagem. Dr. Aye Kyaw’s collaboration with such notorious BSSP regime to define ethnic groups in Burma is not worthy of acceptance. Our definition is: “The Rohingya are indigenous to Arakan. They 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 – they consider themselves distinct from other sector of the society. They are determined to not only preserve and develop their ancestral history and their ethnic identity, but also to transmit to future generations as the basis of their continued existence as people, in accordance with their own cultural pattern, social institution and legal system.”
11. The indigenous people have the right to change and adopt a new name for their racial group. If the Buddhists of Arakan who are known as Magh after the name of Magadha can be Rakhaing and again if the Rakhaing, who claim to have come from Arakan, can be named as “Marma” as an ethnic group in Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, it is nothing wrong with the predominantly Muslim people of Arakan — consisting of peoples from different ethnical background, with a group consciousness of ‘self-identification’ grown over many centuries and are recognized and accepted as such by this population as one of its member (acceptance by the group) — to call themselves “Rohingya” as an ethnic group after the name of Rohang, the old name of Arakan.
Central CommitteeArakan Rohingya National Organisation
Arakan, Burma.
Arakan, Burma.
Dated: 14th August 2007