The Rohingya Crisis: A People Facing Extinction

101 Pages·2018·1.5 MB·English

by  Muhammad Abdul Bari

The Rohingya Crisis. A People Facing Extinction First published in England by
Kube Publishing Ltd
Markfield Conference Centre
Ratby Lane Markfield Leicestershire
LE67 9SY United Kingdom
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Website: www.kubepublishing.com Email: [email protected]
© Muhammad Abdul Bari, 2018 All rights reserved The right of Muhammad Abdul Bari to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988.
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84774-124-0 Paperback
ISBN 978-1-84774-125-7 ebook
All Author proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the education of Rohingya children, wherever they
are.
Map and Image credits
Map 1 Shutterstock; Map 2 Wikimedia – CIA World Factbook, Public Domain; Map 3 Wikimedia –
Rohingya people in Rakhine (Arakan) State in Myanmar; Map 4 ERCC Portal – European Commission;
Map 5 Shwe Gas Movement – Shwe.org; Image 1 Shutterstock; Image 2 Shutterstock Cover image: Joel
Carillet, iStock
Cover Design: S4Carlisle Publishing Services
Typesetting: S4Carlisle Publishing Services
Printed by: IMAK ofset, Turkey
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all people who have suffered from ethnic cleansing and
genocide around the world.
Endorsements
Muhammad Abdul Bari’s book The Rohingya Crisis provides a superb historical
analysis of why Rohingya Muslims have been subject to decades of
discrimination and exclusion. His extremely informative history on the
persecution that the Rohingya have faced will undoubtedly help build awareness
and understanding of the plight of the Rohingya population.
Well-sourced and accessible, this excellent book should be read by anyone
wanting to understand the unbearable suffering currently afflicting the Rohingya.
Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow
Co-Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Burma
We should all feel shame and anger of this terrible betrayal of the Rohingya
people. This carefully written and eloquent short book by Muhammad Abdul
Bari is carefully documented and records facts in a sober way. He makes clear
that there is no question that what has occurred is a genocide.
Peter Oborne, Columnist for the Daily Mail and Middle East Eye
For anyone who wants a concise and readable explanation of the situation of the
Rohingya, this is the book. The August 2017 Burmese military offensive which
drove around 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh did not come out of the blue. It
came after the systematic increase of repression and human rights violations
against the Rohingya Muslim minority by the Burmese government and military.
This book details the history and provides the context to help understand how
and why this crisis happened, including the failure of the international
community to protect one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
Mark Farmaner, Director, Burma Campaign UK
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari’s book about the plight of the Rohingya is both
timely and significant. I congratulate him for bringing to the fore the scale and
barbarity of the sheer pain and suffering inflicted on a people for so long. As
someone who has witnessed genocide and massacres in my beloved Bosnia not
long ago at the hands of the Serbs, we really do feel and understand the suffering
of the Rohingya Muslims. Like in Bosnia, what is striking in Myanmar is that
the Rohingya have been, and continue to, suffer in silence without any credible
international response. The feelings of isolation, helplessness and the lack of
action from neighbours and those who boast freedom, human rights and justice,
is the most difficult to accept.
The Serbian crime against Muslims in Bosnia was the worst in Europe since
World War II, leaving a dark stain on Europe’s human rights record, but the
unending persecution of the Rohingya is a new world low which will affect
generations to come. This book, I hope, will serve as an alarm bell to remind us
all that: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the
silence of our friends.” (Martin Luther King)
Dr Mustafa Cerić, Former Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Muhammad Abdul Bari has written a book that had to be written. While the
world looks away, genocide is being committed by the Myanmar authorities
against the Rohingya Muslims. The plans to erase the Rohingya and any
memory of them cannot succeed. This urgent book bears witness to the
oppression of the Rohingya so that there are no excuses: “that we did not know”.
This book is a reminder that no justice for the Rohingya diminishes us all.
S. Sayyid, Professor of Rhetoric and Decolonial Thought, University of
Leeds
In camps from Calais to Cox’s Bazar, there are hundreds upon thousands of
people who have been forced by violence, disaster and persecution, to flee their
homes. On this often perilous journey, they lose a part of themselves, who they
are, along the way. We often say ‘Never Again’, but every day there continues to
be systematic persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, while in the refugee
camps, children are facing trafficking and malnutrition. The Government of
Bangladesh and British humanitarian agencies are responding to challenges on
the ground, but much more needs to be done to ensure that those responsible for
genocide are brought to justice.
With this short book by Dr Bari, there is now an easily accessible record of
the historical background and the unfolding humanitarian tragedy. It includes an
eloquent personal perspective of the responsibility that now rests on the
shoulders of the UN, the Bangladesh Government and other key players. He
urges that any repatriation of refugees to Myanmar must ensure their full
citizenship status, freedom of movement and removal of the discriminatory laws
of the past. This book is an effort to keep the Rohingya issue alive.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, UK
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 Origins of the Arakanese Muslims
Chapter 2 Arakan’s thriving legacy
Chapter 3 British rule and post-colonial Rohingya
Chapter 4 Myanmar’s scorched-earth campaign against the Rohingya
Chapter 5 A human tragedy with debasement of women and children
Chapter 6 Genocide by all counts
Chapter 7 Geo-political competition
Chapter 8 Other factors impeding justice for the Rohingya
Chapter 9 What is to be done?
Conclusion
Index
Maps and Images
Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Indian Ocean
Myanmar and surrounding countries
Rakhine State
Rakhine and Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar
China's Kunming - Kyauk Phyu oil pipeline
The sprawling refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar
Refugees at Cox’s Bazar