The other day I told you that I believe that the Trump team doesn’t have a good understanding of where all of the questionable ‘refugees’ might be coming from.
We have been taking tens of thousands of refugees from Burma (Myanmar) over many years. Most have been Christian minorities that the Buddhist government there was forcing out. Now we are stepping up and taking Rohingya Muslims from Burma and Bangladesh.
I told you about it here just the other day. Bangladesh is a Muslim country and so is Malaysia, one of several countries in the region harboring Rohingya boat people.
Why are the Rohingya our problem?
(Obama admitted 13,500 during his term in office.)
I have followed the Rohingya story since I first began writing RRW in 2007 and I can assure you the media has skewed the news to make it appear that the Rohingya are pure as the driven snow. They never mention that the latest round of conflict began when Muslim men raped and murdered a Buddhist girl. I have no time to go back over the 194 previous posts in my Rohingya reports category, you might want to have a look yourself. The writer, below, reports things that I found to be true over the years.
This is a comment we received in response to my post here (I don’t know this person). Emphasis is mine.
Winthan Aung:
Those so-called Refugees “Rohingya” Muslims are “economic” refugee. Basically, they are from Bangladesh. They will claim they are from Myanmar, for getting a refugee status and blame Myanmar government with bias fake stories. Trump must not take them into the US anymore. These people are good for nothing, and but for troubles. In Myanmar, they have caused a lot problem. They are with Mujahideen Terrorists.
The “Rohingya” name pop out not long ago, ridiculously they wanna claim themselves as new ethnic of Myanmar. In fact, The “Rohingya” word is not mentioned in any dating back to Arakan (now Rakhine) Kingdom years, not long before 1950 as well. In fact, there was no historical report about fighting for Burma Independent movement at all. The ‘Rohingya’ was totally unknown to the British administration of Burma.
In WWII, British India region merged Burma/India border, that opened freely Western border of Myanmar. The people who lived Chittagong of Bangladesh and India got opportunities to travel and work in Western of Myanmar.
The Partition of India gave East Chittagong Bangladeshi people ideas that they could take advantage on the Western part of Burma as well. There was 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Urdu-speakers was “Non-Bengalis” that time. That worries for Chittagong Bangladeshi, they wouldn’t be considered as Bangladeshi in Bangladesh.
From 1946 a separatist, the jihadist uprising had gripped Arakan and in support of their political agenda, the ‘Rohingya’ myth was created after.
At Uprising of jihadist Chittagong Bangladesh (now Bengali Muslims) chanted “Pakistan Zindabad” while killing Rakhine Citizen. Mujahideen took advantage and encroached Rakhine land at WWII. There were the mass killing of Rakhine people and hundreds of villages burned down in 1942. On 28 March 1942, Bangladeshi Muslims from Northern Arakan massacred around 20,000 Buddhists in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. At the same period, around 5,000 Muslims in Minbya and Mrauk-U Townships were also killed by the Arakanese Buddhists.
However, Myanmar government intervened the Mujahideen movement by the time of 1962. The Myanmar Government banned all Bangladeshi illegal immigrants who are already in Rakhine state (Western Part of Myanmar) not to travel all states of Myanmar. The economic illegal immigrants stuck in Rakhine state, mostly Maungdaw township, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships of Northern Rakhine State.
Due to the poverty of Bangladesh, the economic immigrants from Bangladesh never stop coming to the Western part of Burma. More than 26 million live under the poverty line in Bangladesh, they live on less than $1.25 a day. the Government is not willing to do anything for them.
On the other hands, Myanmar Government was totally corrupted and the Junta was notoriously threatening to all ethnic groups in Myanmar. The Shan, Kachin, Kaya, Kayin, Chin, Rakhine ethnic groups suffered and they become refugees in Thailand and Malaysia. Real ethnic groups of Myanmar got opportunities to settle down in third countries after suffering.
When UNHCR focuses on Myanmar for ethnic crisis, Bangladeshi fake refugees approached and got aids by UNHCR as well, the people who didn’t make $1.25 a day got the opportunity to live with UN aids in Burma is their fortune, as long as they fabricated with fake stories to convince UNHCR staffs of their so-called people beaten up by Junta and harsh treatment of Myanmar Government. In order to convince UNHCR, they had pretended they were one of ethnic, “Rohingya”, which never existed in History of Burma.
When refugees crisis is the focus by internationals. They take advantages of getting resettlement. fake media will promote for their rating. Their advocates gain access to so many political, social and academic platforms to promote their sole agenda. Meanwhile, Myanmar government unethically approached them as well, issue “White card” as temporary identity card and forced them to vote for their Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) at Election. On the other hand, Global Muslims (grassroots to imams) gang up on the people of Myanmar (all over internet and media). Speaking of “Rohingya”, there is no ethnic name in Myanmar, If you have ethnic, you must have own language, they don’t have Rohingya language, they speak only as Chittagong Bengali, breath as Chittagong Bengali, they are only recognized as Bengali in Myanmar, nothing more than that. They are not really stateless, their motherland is Bangladesh.
By staying in the refugees camp in Bangladesh or getting aids from UNHCR office in Myanmar couldn’t make them satisfied. In Myanmar, they cannot travel only in Rakhine state. They later learned about resettlement program of UNHCR. But UNHCR in Myanmar didn’t have any resettlement program for them. However, UNHCR at Malaysia and Thailand provides the refugee to resettlement in third countries.
Getting into Myanmar is easy, bribery helps them to get inside of Myanmar easily. Or just cross over the river where there is no border guard. However, getting to Malaysia is hard for them. Smugglers convinced Bangladeshi how they could earn $1000 in a month in Malaysia. Indeed the Bangladeshi who made to Malaysia could get a better living. Thus, Bangladeshi are deliberately paying smugglers about US$200 to $250 to travel to Malaysia to become economic Refugees. The people who move in this route, bet with their lives at risk. But this is the only way they could effort to travel. If they got lucky, they will get a chance to get resettlement in third countries instantly.
Any Refugees coming to Malaysia/Thailand are usually sent to countries like Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States for resettlement. However, Thailand route has long wait time to get to third countries. Their best destination is the Malaysia. There is already 42,230 Rohingya under UNHCR protection in Malaysia. That is the main motivation for them to get to there, and it is the cheapest way for traveling to Malaysia if they are not very lucky, they usually end up in Thailand, wait for more years to get the resettlement or travel again to Malaysia.
After arriving in Malaysia, they filed asylum (application) at UNHCR for refugee status, UNHCR aid these refugees, and provides monthly allowances for them until they get the settlement in third countries. Anyhow, they could easily go back without problems if they don’t get refugee status (but they are not willing to go back, even without refugee card, they could earn money) or if they have money, they usually buy refugee status in Malaysia. Some smuggler applied UNHCR card for selling the Refugees status in Malaysia. They usually pay Malaysia RM-3,500 for the card. UNHCR aware about those fraudulent activities, but they kept on silences.
The economic refugees are traveling again and again to Malaysia until international leaders push pressure to Bangladesh. Sooner or later, you will see another boat come out from Bangladesh, and claims they are from Myanmar since the topic is hot. In that case, Myanmar government is easy to blame. They have kept doing for the decade. This time they got caught by authorities (Thai, Malaysia, Indonesia) who got enough of their problems (too many crimes cases with Rohingya in Thai, Malaysia), and push back to sea.
The people are sneaking into other countries without papers by boats, they left the Bangladesh, they have only 2 points in this immigration – firstly try to get UNHCR status or get a chance to work in any country, because they don’t get enough to make living in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been overcrowded you can view the Dhaka video – https://www.facebook.com/Rmbds/videos/1245958078756125/, they cannot make up living at there, some of Bangladeshi in that country even sell their organs just little as $5000 well.
If you call these fake people a “Refugees”, then we fail to support real refugees who really need for. We must save cards for real one, not these fakes.
This post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting’ category here, and in our Rohingya Reports category, here.