Silence in the face of injustice is in complicity with the oppressor, if you have chosen neutrality to an injustice done, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. The 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly kicked off a few days ago and the theme was "Focusing on People: Striving for Peace and a Decent Life for All on a Sustainable Planet" i.e. equal rights and justice to mankind, to say the least. One would wonder if heads of various forms of governments and superpowers of this world understands the true meaning of injustice or have simply decided to turn a blind eye to crimes committed against humanity in respect to race, religion and ethnicity. It is somewhat, if not prodigiously dehumanizing for a group of people to be maltreated and rendered stateless in today's 21st century world of ours.
A good citation is the statelessness and inhumane treatment of the Rohingya people or the Arakanese Indians with a language of the Indo-Aryan sub-branch of the greater Indo-European language family, having an ancestral history traceable as far back as the 8th century AD and being the descendants of the precolonial Arakan and colonial Arakan residing in the northernmost township of Arakan, bordering Bangladesh where they form 70-80% of the population, predominantly Sunni-Muslims in today's nation of Republic of the Union of Myanmar also known as Burma. It is as well located in the Southeast Asian continent which is bordered by several notable Asian countries like India, China and Thailand. The Rohingyas have faced series of atrocities of genocide, extra-judicial killings, torture, forced-labour and enforced disappearances since the conceptualization of the Myanmar State some donkey years ago. They have turned vagabonds, rejected in the land they call home and rendered stateless.
The Myanmar military armed forces recently launched a vicious military crackdown purported "clearance operation" that led to death of about 4000 innocent Rohingyas, properties subjected to arson, many more raped, tortured and displaced owing to the murder of 12 security personnel by the rohingyal rebels which actually took formation from these ill treatment of the government. Ever since the world seemed to have been oblivious of the harsh realities bedeviled upon the Rohingya people. Aside that, the government restricts their educational opportunities, health care, reproduction on reaching adulthood, freedom of movement, civil service jobs etc. On March 29 2014 the Myanmar's government banned the word "Rohingya" and instructed to register minorities as "Bengalis" which of course is alien to them. They have refused to use the name. In the 2014 national census, the Myanmar government forced the Rohingyas to identify themselves as "Bengali" which many of the Rohingyas see the denial of their ancestral names similar to denying their basic rights. If the United Nations and other relevant human rights groups on tackling the menace of crimes against humanity in our world of today is anything to go by, the time is now with more actions rather than the lip services being paid over the years on it. The United Nations International Children's Fund (UINCEF) under the United Nations (UN), United States of America, The European Union (EU) and other stake holders should come together in one voice to put an end to these dastardly acts of crimes against humanity perpetuated on the Rohinhya people by the Myanmar's government or face stiff sanctions and isolation by the world governing bodies. To whom much is given much is expected.
