Rights group wants ASEAN countries to act on Rohingya plight
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This image shows a Rohingya asylum-seeker at a location in Indonesia, where some refugees from Myanmar are gathered. (By Reuters)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged countries from the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) to make strong efforts at an emergency meeting of the group to resolve the ongoing Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.
According to Press TV, ASEAN’s upcoming meeting is scheduled for Monday in Myanmar’s Yangon.
Phil Robertson, the Deputy Director of the Asia Division at the HRW, said the international rights group as wells as other members of the global community is “hoping that this will be the beginning of an ongoing campaign by some of the ASEAN states to demand answers from Burma (Myanmar), and to expect better treatment of the Rohingya.”
Robertson emphasized that ASEAN nations have the necessary power to exert influence on Myanmar’s government in regard to the Rohingya crisis.
“ASEAN does have efficacy to be able to force Myanmar to answer questions,” he said.
Robertson said the solution to the crisis is to integrate the Muslims, who having been living in Myanmar for generations.
“Ultimately, these governments need to press Burma to allow the Rohingya to stay and to have citizenship and be accepted as full participants in the Burmese state. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to have these occasional pogroms against the Rohingyas,” he said, referring to the instances of murder against the ethnic Muslims in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine State.
International pressure has been mounting on the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, over a military crackdown against the Rohingyas in Rakhine, where the Muslims are concentrated and have been besieged by army forces.
World bodies, including the United Nations (UN), have called on Suu Kyi to fulfill her responsibility in the crisis, visit the state, and take measures to protect the Rohingya Muslim minority there against ongoing atrocities at the hands of the military.
Suu Kyi has done little to address the issue. A task force that she ordered to investigate the situation in Rakhine came out saying that military soldiers there were acting according to law.
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