Comment worth noting: Rohingya group accuses UNHCR of creating recent boat men crisis

This (below) is part of a comment (press release) from a group called the Rohingya Boat People Watching Group that we received in response to my angry post on Friday about Time magazine whitewashing the Rohingya story.

I don’t completely understand what is going on, actually maybe I don’t understand it at all!  The group appears to be claiming that rumors about the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) giving out “International Citizenship Cards” is responsible for hundreds (thousands?) of Rohingya risking their lives to get to Malaysia.

The Rohingya Boat People Watching Group is deeply shocked over the involvement of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kuala Lumpur in encouragement of dangerous traveling for the persecuted Rohingyas.

Recently, the UN Refugee Agency has asked Rohingya Information Center (RIC), a separatist group led by Abdul Ghani and Haji Mubarak to enlist undocumented Rohingya refugees in Malaysia which involved in making money to support both UNHCR’ Field Survey Team and Protection Unit.

Following the collection of lists, at least 15 to 20 boats of Rohingya people are ready to jump into the sea to come to Malaysia as most of their relatives and friends have sent information in Arakan State that UNHCR in Malaysia is going give International Citizenship Cards for the Rohingya by late February and early March 2009. Later, the Government of Malaysia will issue Malaysian Citizenship Card together with those who were registered for IMM-13 in August 2006.

The group ends its press release with a demand that UNHCR stop putting Rohingya in danger.

So, we urge upon UNHCR to immediately cease all kinds of ill-motives in pushing people in danger and thus must stop boat traveling of Rohingyas from Arakan State, Burma (Myanmar). It also must register all those undocumented refugees who are passing vulnerable lives. It would also protect all the boat people who are stranded in Indonesia and Thailand without any hesitation.

One of the things that annoyed me so much about the Time article was that it said the Rohingya have no support groups providing publicity.  This strikes me as lazy journalism because we have run across quite a few such groups in the last year.  Maybe he means no groups saying exactly what the refugee pushers want to hear, and a criticism of the UN is not one of those things.

What is the real story here?

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