They say they are trying to get to Australia, the US or Canada, even New Zealand—where they believe they will be “welcomed.” (Sounds like they have already learned the refugee industry lingo!)
Tell me, when you read this story, does this ring true—how does a poor and downtrodden 26-year-old man (who has been on the run for 11 years already) “scrape together $12,000” to hire a people smuggler? Something is fishy here—who is paying the advance guard? Could it be the Saudi Arabia-based OIC? (See yesterday’s post).
Here is the story from The Australian:
TWO years ago the Indonesian office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had fewer than 50 Rohingya asylum-seekers on its books. Today there are more than 800, and nearly all are trying to get to Australia.
“Some of my friends have gone to Australia already and after two or three years they get citizenship,” Feazel Ali tells The Australian. “Finally they can live in peace.”
Ali left Myanmar in 1994 and lived in Malaysia for 13 years before he, his wife and five children took a boat to Sumatra two months ago, hoping somehow to get a passage to Australia.
“Australians have pity for refugees, but actually anywhere that wants to accept us, I wouldn’t mind,” he says.
“I want to work. I want my children to have a high school education.”
Like many other asylum-seekers, he clings to the illusion that Australians would welcome his family, if only they knew his people’s plight. The reality is, as refugee officials say privately, no government wants the Rohingya, who are commonly described as among the most persecuted people in the world. [The media doesn’t tell you that it isn’t because they are poor, it’s because they have a history of violence and connections to Islamic terror groups, aside from the fact that many believe they are simply illegal aliens who went Burma from Bangladesh initially.—ed]
Most of the dark-skinned Shia Muslim asylum-seekers who have reached Indonesiaare in immigration detention at Belawan, North Sumatra, or under UNHCR care in the community in nearby Medan.
Elsewhere in Indonesia they barely attracted notice until March 5, when men in the Belawan centre turned on 11 Burmese Buddhist fishermen and murdered eight of them.
The victims had been arrested for fishing illegally off Aceh last July and were vastly outnumbered by more than 100 Rohingyas. [This is not helping the Rohingya image being crafted by the NGOs!—ed]
Festering camps:
Refused citizenship in their western Burma homeland, Rohingyas have long posed a huge refugee challenge to Bangladesh and Thailand, where more than 400,000 people live in festering border camps.
[…..]
At least 130 Rohingyas have been detained in the past eight days trying to get to Australia – 95 of them in two boats that were also carrying Bangladeshis, Iranians and Iraqis.
Refugee officials say almost all the Rohingyas interviewed in Indonesia are trying to get to Australia, though most would be happy with a visa for Canada, the US or New Zealand – other countries they believe would be welcoming.
Mark my words! Rohingya will be the next Somalis coming to a town near you!
For more, visit our Rohingya Reports category where we have been archiving stories on the growing Rohingya problem for the last five years. We have 140 previous posts on the festering issue and the media campaign to soften-up the West to “welcome” Rohingya.