Category: Rohingya Reports

No Muslim charity for Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in what is now Myanmar (although officials there call them illegal aliens) and no Muslim country will help them.  In recent months the number of Muslim boatmen seeking work and flooding into neighboring countries have caused a political firestorm in Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia.    See our Rohingya reports category for the background.

An Associated Press story yesterday makes the point of telling us that a rich Muslim country, Saudi Arabia, won’t help them either.

But unlike the Kurds or the Palestinians, no one has championed the cause of the Rohingya. Most countries, from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia, see them as little more than a source of cheap labor for the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.

For years, the Rohingya traveled to the Middle East for work, with nearly a half million ending up in Saudi Arabia.

[…..]

But in recent years — partly because of bureaucratic hurdles faced by Muslims following 9/11 — many now try to go instead by boat to Thailand and then overland to Malaysia, another Islamic nation.

I don’t know what hurdles 9/11 placed on the Saudis.  Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.

Zakat, giving charity, is one of the five pillars of Islam, I guess Saudi Arabia and other rich Muslim countries aren’t willing to help their Rohingya Muslim brethren.  The UN won’t say a word about it.  Instead western countries, Christian countries, will be called upon to do so—-what else is new?

Burmese official: Rohingya “ugly as ogres”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Oh boy,  this will be really helpful in the debate on how to deal with the Rohingya Muslims flowing out of Myanamar (Burma).   Guess these guys didn’t get the political correctness memo!    From AFP:

HONG KONG (AFP) — Myanmar’s senior official in Hong Kong has described the Rohingya people as “ugly as ogres” in a letter sent to media and foreign officials after a high-profile refugee case highlighted their plight.

The country’s Consul General Ye Myint Aung told heads of foreign missions in Hong Kong and local newspapers members of the Muslim ethnic group should not be described as being from Myanmar.

“In reality, Rohingya are neither Myanmar people nor Myanmar’s ethnic group,” he wrote, in a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday.

The envoy contrasted the “dark brown” Rohingya complexion with the “fair and soft” skin of people from Myanmar, which he said was “good looking as well”.

The leaders of the Burmese government maintain that the Rohingya are not an ethnic minority in Burma but are illegal aliens from Bangladesh. 

New readers should know that this controversy that seems so far away may affect us at some point because pressure is mounting for the Rohingya to be resettled in the West.   See our category ‘Rohingya Reports’ to catch up on the story.

Angelina Jolie visits refugee camp in Thailand, gets it wrong on Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The last time we wrote about Angelina Jolie it was to praise her good sense. She had visited Iraq and Iraqi refugees, and she spoke to the Council of Foreign Relations. (See our several posts on Jolie here.)  Way back in April, when almost everybody was convinced that all the Iraqi refugees had to be resettled in third countries, she said this:

“This population we’re talking about is the future of Iraq,” said Jolie, who has traveled twice to Iraq over the past year, as well as to Syria to visit Iraqi refugees. “So to reach them now, to help deal with their trauma and refocus their minds on a possible future should absolutely be one of our top priorities. We need these kids. . . . We need them to rebuild their country, to stabilize their country and eventually lead their country.”

Now the conventional wisdom has caught up to her. But Jolie is not as wise in her current refugee venture. The Associated Press reports:

BANGKOK (AP) — Angelina Jolie, a Hollywood star deeply involved in the plight of refugees, has called on the Thai government to respect the human rights of Myanmar’s Rohinyga boat people whom Thai authorities have pushed out to sea in recent weeks, a U.N. spokeswoman said Friday.

Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, are on a visit to Thailand, where on Wednesday they toured one of several camps along the Thai-Myanmar border sheltering refugees from Myanmar’s military regime.

We’re not against respecting human rights, but Jolie needs to get some perspective on the Rohingya. Ann has written 62 posts on this group. Jolie needs to know that they are Muslim, some of them are trained as jihadists, they do not get along with other groups, they are highly aggressive and intimidate other people, and many other facts before she passes judgment. The article notes:

Thailand recognizes most at the border camps as refugees with legitimate fear of returning to their homeland, but does not accord the Muslim Rohingyas the same status, and seeks to send them away.

“Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores,” Jolie said.

Angelina Jolie is a bright woman. She should think over what she has learned and ask some Thais why it is that their country has been hospitable to these other refugees (many of whom are Christian) while turning away the Rohingya.

Update February 12, 2009: It looks like the Thai government didn’t like Jolie’s comments either. Thailand’s national news source, The Nation (no connection to the radical U.S. magazine of that name), headlines an article: Thai govt warns Jolie and UNHCR over comments on Rohingyas. The Foreign Ministry’s permanent secretary said:

“The UNHCR should not have brought Jolie, its goodwill ambassador, to one of the nine refugee camps stringing the border which are run by Thailand’s interior ministry.”

 “The Thai government will issue a reprimand letter to UNHCR, asking why it allowed Angelina Jolie to visit the refugee camps,” Virasakdi told reporters.

Good for the Thai government, which recognizes that it, not the UN, is in charge of its own sovereignty and its own policies.

Rohingya: Not as important as the Palestinians?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Whoa!  This article from the Jakarta Globe earlier this week was stunningly frank.  By the way, I am behind on my updates on the Rohingya situation; there are a dozen or more stories every day, and it’s hard to keep up.

Here is where we are:   more Rohingya boatmen are coming ashore in Thailand and Indonesia and the clamoring is growing louder from their advocacy groups and from international human rights groups for them to be treated as asylum seekers and not illegal aliens.    Asylum seekers can ask for refugee status from the United Nations and then possibly end up in the west (in your town!).

Now to the story that says a whole lot about the Palestinian issue and makes my point that Muslims don’t take care of fellow Muslims generally (except when they can make Israel the bad guy).   Christians and Jews are guilt-tripped into doing the caring.

From the Jakarta Globe:

Indonesian Muslim hard-liners have adopted a cautious tone in their reactions to the plight of 193 Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to Sabang Island in Aceh Province after being persecuted in their home country of Burma.

Their measured approach stands in sharp contrast to their hard-hitting outcry in defense of their Muslim peers in Palestine during the three-week Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in January. At the time, many groups were quite vocal in their condemnations of the Israeli attacks and in announcing their intentions to send fighters to the region.

Irfan Awwas, chairman of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, or MMI, said on Monday that his organization was strongly committed to defending any Muslims who suffered mistreatment.

“However,” he continued, “our attention has been focused and our energy has been exhausted on the Palestinian issue.”

Irfan said that his organization would investigate what manner of persecution the Burmese government had exacted on the Rohingyas.

Taking care of Muslims is the government’s job, not our job!

Irfan stressed that providing for the refugees’ welfare was first and foremost the government’s responsibility, and not just the duty of fellow Muslims.

I will remind readers that wealthy Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia are NOT taking in Muslim refugees anywhere that I know of.   There will be much hollering that European countries, the US, and Australia take care of and resettle these Rohingya Muslim boatmen.

Human rights groups say there are hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims but I guess there is no political gain for the Islamists to criticize Burma.

Chep (Chep Hernawan, head of the Islamic Reform Movement) denied that his organization was treating the Rohingyas differently than their Muslim brethren in Palestine, saying that the emergency faced by Gazans was greater than the Rohingyas’.

Hey, Chep, I would argue that these Rohingya are in a much worse predicament then the Palestinians in Gaza who have an entire UN agency feeding them and taking care of their every need.   These guys are hungry and desperate.  I don’t see the Gazans getting in boats to try to find work and a place to live.

Then there is this!  Can you imagine the western politically correct mainstream media making this point:

But Muslim scholar Anis Baswedan said Muslim hard-liners had to be careful in their advocacy to avoid appearing discriminatory, otherwise the public would wonder whether their primary concern was the welfare of Muslims or the welfare of Palestine.

Right on Anis!

Catch up on the Rohingya issue in our special category here.

Editorial calls for Obama to halt military operations with Thailand over Rohingya incident

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A major international incident is developing over the alleged inhumane treatment by the Thai military of Burmese Rohingya Muslims attempting to enter Thailand illegally.  It is a terribly long story now, so if you are a new reader, see our Rohingya Reports category to catch up.

An extremely critical editorial in The Economist last week, suggests the Obama Administration cancel military war games long planned and desired by Thailand to punish the Thai military for the alleged abuse of the illegal aliens.   This regular military exercise was a reward to Thailand for its staunch support of the US in the cold war.

…..next month America is due to hold annual war games with regional allies in Thailand, a source of prestige for Thai generals. But the cold war is long over. President Barack Obama should threaten to move the games elsewhere until the Thai army is tamed. That would hurt the generals in their soft spot—their self-esteem—while doing little damage to America’s interests or Thailand’s people.

Yes, but Thailand could come back and say, ‘well, US, you take the Rohingyas then!’  And, that is just what lobbying groups like Refugees International want!

Afterall, thanks to the work of Ambassador Malta Molly in turning illegals into refugees, we have been taking Malta’s Muslim illegal alien boat people, so what’s a few more from Thailand.