I’ve selected certain sections of this Foreign Policy Journal story on the Burmese Muslims—the Rohingya—an ethnic group seeking resettlement in the West, that add to our knowledge of the situation.  For new readers, we have a Rohingya reports category that goes back 3 years which now contains 92 posts for your review.

I had a lot of interest in writing about Rohingya during a period when our State Department was trying to figure out if we were going to resettle these “swashbuckling” and “not so cuddly” refugees.  Those are words used by, Antonio Graceffo,* the author of this report in describing the Rohingya, but now we are taking Rohingya refugees to the US—  so are Canada, Australia and some European countries.  The door has been opened.

Graceffo suggests that the Rohingya are basically forgotten by the humanitarian crowd at the UN and elsewhere, but that is not true.  They have well-organized advocacy groups around the world helping them push their story of persecution and suffering.  We know, we have heard from some. Even some federal refugee contractors are pushing for Rohingya resettlement, see USCRI here. And, they are increasingly successful in resettling Rohingya in the West as I just said.

So here are the things I’ve highlighted from this report.  Persecution is across the board.

They (Rohingya the author met)  made comments like, the Buddhists did this to us, the Buddhists did that to us. But I know from my own experience, the Burmese government hates all of the ethnic minorities. They do horrible things to them equally. They persecute Christians and other Buddhists alike. It’s not because of religion, but because of race. In Arakan State, the area where these men come from, there are basically only two types of people, Rohingyas and the government/military people. And the government/military people just happen to be Buddhists. So the only experience these people ever had with Buddhists was of being mistreated and repressed by the Burmese government.

Malaysia is a Muslim country so the Rohingya can stay while other Burmese religious groups cannot.

The Rohingyas are not the only refugees from Burma, who have sought asylum in Malaysia. The Rohingyas told me that Buddhists could get resettled in third countries but Muslims couldn’t. This was a half truth. The Muslims have the distinct advantage that they can remain in Malaysia, legally, and eventually obtain the right to work. And a lucky few will be given citizenship. That option is not open to other ethnic groups from Burma.

Rohingya are pirates and that plays against them in resettlement decisions.

Another issue that plagues the Rohingyas is that they are not cuddly or cute. The Straits of Malacca are the second highest piracy area in the world, and most of the piracy is done by Rohingyas. In southern Thailand, armed Rohingya groups have been encountered who were working as mercenaries in the conflict there. And of course, right now, a lot of countries are not as welcoming to young Muslim men, of foreign origin, between the ages of 16 and 29. In general, refugee status and resettlement is easier for Buddhists or Christians.

Maybe it’s easier for Buddhists and Christians, but we are bringing Rohingya nevertheless.  They don’t get along with other Burmese ethnic groups here either and its causing some additional tension in some resettlement locations.

*Martial artist and TV host is the expert:

Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is the author of the book, “The Monk from Brooklyn” and the host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries.

I’ve been following the issue of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Myanmar (formerly Burma) since January 2008.   If you scroll all the way back through our entire Rohingya Reports category to the beginning you will find this post in which I wrote about how Time magazine and the Hudson Institute both linked Rohingya “refugees” to Islamic radicalism.  Now over two years later the drumbeat to resettle the Rohingya is reaching a crescendo.

This is how it works, there is a deliberate media campaign that we have chronicled throughout 90 posts on the subject.   Now the pressure is really building.

Just in the last couple of days I see that Change.org is telling its activists to lobby the UN and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to resettle the Rohingya:

Demand action from the UNHCR and the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement* to prioritize the resettlement of the Rohingya refugees and offer them the protection they deserve.

* They should be lobbying the US State Department, but I am sure ORR will be happy to forward their demands to the federal department that makes the decisions on who gets into the US (with direction from the UN of course!).

I have just learned that American Muslim activist groups are pushing Rohingya resettlement too.  Here we have a report in which, surprise-surprise, they are also criticizing Muslim Bangladesh about its treatment of the Rohingya flowing into that country.   But, of course reading down the article the idea of resettling Rohingya to the wide open spaces of North America is presented.

Last week, the American Muslim Taskforce (AMT), an umbrella organization that includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), amongst other Muslim organizations in the USA, hosted a press conference in the National Press Club, Washington D.C. to discuss human rights abuses in Bangladesh. In his inaugural statement, Mr. Wright Mahdi Bray of the AMT brought up the squalid living conditions of the Rohingya refugees inside Bangladesh. In the last few years we have raised the Rohingya issue a few times with Bangladesh government, but have failed to improve the deplorable condition.

[…..]

Should the refugees choose to leave Bangladesh for a third country the government should not hinder that process either. It must also make all diplomatic efforts to find shelters for these stranded refugees in sparsely populated and prosperous countries of Europe and North America, and the Gulf states.

This is the second time in recent weeks I have seen this reference to “sparsely populated” North America.  I wonder if Change.org ever has any conflicts between its environmental activists who want to preserve American vistas and open space (not to mention, wanting clean air and water) and the activists pushing for higher populations through immigration.  I hate to break it to you, but you can’t have both especially with such high birth rates among Muslim immigrants.

Also, I’ve told you several times recently about how Rohingya refugees who have gone to Saudi Arabia have been imprisoned there, well this article from the Asian Tribune tells us more of the details of how that happened.  So much for Muslim charity!

To round out the troika this  morning.  I see that Christiane Amanpour has posted a CNN report entitled, “The forgotten people:  Rohingya refugees.”  I didn’t watch it, but I’m sure its the same old drumbeat.

We are already resettling Rohingya

Quietly and with no fanfare the US State Department has already begun resettling Rohingya Muslims to your cities, so has Canada and many European countries including the UK and Ireland. 

Tensions between Burmese Karen Christians, another persecuted minority from Burma, and the Muslim Burmese Rohingya continue to mount in resettlment cities although this goes unreported by the mainstream media that is still stuck in the American melting pot myth.

If I lived in a resettlement city, especially one with a large Burmese population, I would be asking the resettlement agencies if more Rohingya are on the way.  Those agencies have a tendency to gloss over concerns and play up the Burmese Christian refugee angle.