Cologne Conference demands accountability of the Myanmar Government
By Habib
Siddiqui
The Rohingyas are victims of a
‘slow-burning genocide’ that is perpetrated as a national project in Buddhist Myanmar
(formerly Burma). Some 700,000 Rohingyas have been forced out of their
ancestral homes in western Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state since September 2017
to seek refuge inside Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of
Rohingyas have also been living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside the
Apartheid Myanmar since 2012. The International Rescue Committee (Nov. 15,
2017) estimated that there were 75,000 victims of gender-based violence
(meaning rape), and that 45% of the
Rohingya women attending safe spaces in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh had reported
such attacks. Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
has estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of
the crackdown alone. Credible
estimates suggest that tens of thousands of Rohingyas may have been killed by Tatmadaw
(Myanmar security forces that are more commonly known as the ‘rapist army’) and
their civilian partners-in-crime within the mostly Rakhine Buddhist population.
According to satellite
imagery (March 2018), more than 360 Rohingya villages had been
partially or completely destroyed by Buddhist forces since August, with at
least 55 villages completely bulldozed, removing all traces of buildings, wells
and vegetation.
An international conference on “Rohingya Crisis and Solution” was convened
on May 2, 2018 in Cologne, Germany. It was hosted by the Hasene IGMG (a not-for-profit organization of
Turkish people working in Germany) and
attended by some 500 participants from all over the globe and comprised
representatives from the diplomatic corps, international organisations, human
rights groups, academia, civil society, non-governmental organisations and
media, as well as leaders of the Rohingya organisations.
Muhammad Turhan, Mesud
Gulbahar and Kemal Ergun from Hasene IGMG welcomed the attendees to Cologne, which
is the fourth most populated city in Germany. The keynote speech for the morning session was delivered by Philip
Ruddock, ex-MP (1973-2016) who had served as a cabinet minister during the
Howard Government and then as the Attorney General. He highlighted the
importance of holding the murderous Myanmar regime accountable for its
genocidal crimes. The speakers and panelists included Professor Abid Bahar (from
Montreal, Canada), Prof. Michael Charney (University of London, School of
Oriental and African Studies), Jacob Sterken (from Canada) who is the co-founder
of the Euro-Burma Office, and Nurul Islam, Chairman of ARNO (Arakan Rohingya
National Organization). They discussed various aspects of history of Arakan
showing the indigenous root of the Rohingya people there.
Mr. Islam thanked Bangladesh
government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for letting the fleeing Rohingya refugees
to take shelter inside Bangladesh and for bringing their plight to the
international community, including the UN. He and other speakers urged the Government
of Bangladesh not to forcibly resettle the refugees inside Myanmar until and unless
they are truly secured with equal rights as citizens of Myanmar.
The keynote speaker for the second session
was Tansri Dr. Syed Hamid Albar who had held multiple ministerial positions in
Malaysia, including the foreign ministry. He discussed how the government of
Myanmar had abused the openness shown by the ASEAN that did not want to
interfere in internal affairs of a fellow block member. The speakers and
panelists included (besides myself) Dr. Maung Zarni (from the UK) – a fellow
human rights activist and Burmese dissident, Imam Dr. Abdul Malik Mujahid (Chairman,
Burma Task Force, USA) and Mehmet Ozturk of Anadolu Agency.
The theme of the second panel discussion
was around genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. We stated categorically
that genocide is a process that goes through several stages; it does not happen
by accident but is a deliberate act with warning signs. We also reiterated that
Myanmar had committed four out of the five acts of genocide as spelled out by the 1948
Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, while
just one of those acts is sufficient to incriminate a group or state for such
crimes.
We urged the
international community to punish the criminals – state and non-state actors –
including those (e.g., fascist academics like Dr. Aye Chan and bigoted monks
like Wirathu) who provoked (and continue to provoke) genocidal crimes against
the Rohingya people. Dr. Mujahid shared the opposition routinely faced by Burma
Task Force – an advocacy group for human rights in Burma - from the lobby
groups representing India, Indonesia and the Jewelry merchant group in the U.S.
State Department. He also shared information that the Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch – two of the major human rights groups - are opposed to any comprehensive sanction
imposed on Myanmar, thus, making the task of changing the policy in Washington
D.C. an arduous one, if not a zero-sum activity.
We, the
speakers, highlighted the fact that genocide against Rohingya has continued
this long because of ignoring early warning signs since at least the early
1990s when some 270,000 Rohingyas were forced to take shelter inside Bangladesh
when Pyi Thaya operation was launched by the Myanmar security forces. It was
the second such massive operation in 14 years when Naga Min (King Dragon)
operation in 1978-79 forced the exodus of nearly 300,000 Rohingyas to
Bangladesh. Even the 2012 genocidal pogroms that led to internal displacement
of nearly 150,000 Rohingyas were not taken seriously by the international
community, including the next-door Bangladesh government, despite serious
urging from human rights activists and genocide experts/scholars.
The keynote
speaker for the third session was Professor David Scheffer who is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law, and Director, Center for
International Human Rights at the Northwestern University, Chicago, USA. He
joined via Skype and discussed issues surrounding genocidal and war crimes. The
speakers and panelists included Dhaka University (Bangladesh) professors of
International Relations: Drs. Chowdhury R. Abrar and Imtiaz Ahmed. The other
speakers included Harn Yawnghwe who is the Executive Director of Euro-Burma
Office (and son of Burma’s fist president – Sao Shwe Thaike) and Amir Ahmic,
Liaison Officer at International Criminal Tribunal (Bosnia).
The speakers shared their experiences in dealing with genocidal
crimes perpetrated against the Rohingyas and Bosnians (in former Yugoslavia).
They called for ‘Protected Return to Protected Homeland’ for the Rohingya
people. They highlighted the importance of providing formal education to the
Rohingya children in refugee camps. They also raised the issues surrounding
raped victims, their pregnancy and children, and that more international
funding is necessary to address such issues immediately. The speakers also discussed
the ‘Suu Kyi’ factor and how democracy went backward rather than moving forward
under her de-factor leadership in Myanmar. She is a complicit to the genocidal
crimes perpetrated by her security forces. They also urged concerned global
citizens, esp. lawyers and legal experts, to file cases implicating members of
the Myanmar government and military for their genocidal crimes against the
Rohingya people. They also urged all to boycott Made-in-Myanmar products to
create pressure on the criminal government of Myanmar to change its course so
that the Rohingyas are integrated as equal citizens with all their rights
preserved inside their ancestral homeland of Arakan.
The last session of the day
was chaired by Dr. Graham Thom who has worked as Amnesty International
Australia’s Refugee Coordinator since May 2000. Regina Paulose, J.D., an
attorney specializing on International Criminal Law and Razia Sultana, a
Rohingya lawyer who grew up as a refugee inside Bangladesh, and is the founder
of Rohingya Women Welfare, joined via Skype, sharing their views on
international law as these pertain to Myanmar’s genocidal crimes against the
Rohingya people, esp. females.
Munira Subasic who had lost 22
family members in Srebrenica in July 1995 to Serbian genocidal criminals and
was a primary eye-witness at The Hague International Court shared her insights
about dealing with the pains of being a survivor to genocide, esp. the fact
that while the Bosnian genocide stopped some two decades ago the Serbian criminals
that killed her family members and raped so many women (and little girls) are
still alive and continue to work and roam around unscathed within the Serbian territory of the
new republic. She urged resoluteness in dealing with the Rohingya genocide
and never to give up in demanding and to seeing justice carried out against the perpetrators of a
genocide.
Beini Ye who works as the
Legal Officer of Open Society Justice Initiative in the UK shared her expertise
in legal matters dealing with the Rohingya genocide. She said that the Myanmar’s
rapist military have been using rape as a weapon of war to terrorize the
Rohingya community permanently. The ‘rapist’ military has had used similar
tactics in its war against ethnic rebels in the border territories.
The conference ended with a
note of solidarity with the Rohingya people and called upon the international
community to stop the Rohingya genocide and to prosecute the criminals for perpetrating
and/or inciting genocidal crimes against them.
The speakers and attendees thanked Hasene International and its organizers for their generosity in hosting this much-needed international conference in Germany.
The speakers and attendees thanked Hasene International and its organizers for their generosity in hosting this much-needed international conference in Germany.
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