ARU Director General to World Community of Nations: Work in Concert to Find a Permanent Solution to Rohingya Issues

KUALA LUMPUR: The international community, including Malaysia, must put pressure on the Myanmar government to cease the abuse of the Rohingya ethnic minority and recognise them as citizens of Myanmar.

Prof. Dr. Wakar Uddin, Directpor General of Arakan Rohingya Union anda
Chairman of the Burmese Rohingya Association of North America

Arakan Rohingya Union director-general Professor Dr Wakar Uddin cautioned that the Myanmar government was arrogant and would not respond to scattered messages from a few organisations.

"Countries need to come together and put concerted pressure on the Myanmar government to stop their systematic and persistent genocide of the Rohingya people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.

"We need a multi-track approach. Not only must the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) speak up, but the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and the United Nations (UN) should come in to condemn the violence towards the Rohingya Muslims," Wakar urged at the one-day international conference "Plight of the Rohingya: Solutions?" at the Islamic Arts Museum here yesterday.

He urged for a concerted international intervention effort to improve the plight of the Rohingya people and that it should be continued and sustained until the problem is solved.

"Being redundant can be good. It does not hurt the international community to repeat the same message again and again to the Myanmar government as this will drive the message home."

Panelists at the conference pointed out that the discrimination against the Rohingya people was a direct result of the Myanmar government's decision to strip them of their citizenship under the 1982 citizenship law and all agreed that the law be repealed.

"Once the Rohingya have citizenship, we have the basis to fight for the other violations of their human rights."
He said that the international media and monitoring teams also needed to be in the region to report the situation in Rakhine.

Wakar also proposed the international community ensure that Rakhine's current police force, which had allegedly participated in the abuse of Rohingya, is disbanded and replaced with a force that includes the Rohingya to keep the violence towards the community in check.

The Rohingya people have been described as "among the world's least wanted" and "one of the world's most persecuted minorities."