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‘Apartheid’ regime imposed in Rakhine state: Amnesty

London-based rights group Amnesty International (AI) accuses Myanmar of subjecting the Rohingya minority to systemic discrimination amounting to apartheid, in a new study launched globally on Tuesday

Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, November 22, 2017

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‘Apartheid’ regime imposed in Rakhine state: Amnesty

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ondon-based rights group Amnesty International (AI) accuses Myanmar of subjecting the Rohingya minority to systemic discrimination amounting to apartheid, in a new study launched globally on Tuesday.

The rights watchdog said in the five years since violence swept across Rakhine in 2012, Naypyidaw’s policy has been one of institutionalized discrimination and segregation of the Rohingya and other Muslim communities from the rest of Rakhine society.

The two-year investigation reveals how authorities severely restrict all aspects of Rohingya people’s lives in Rakhine, including freedom of movement and access to healthcare, education and livelihoods.

On the restriction of movement, the study shows that Rohingya have essentially been confined to their own villages and that any attempt to travel is impeded either by strict curfews or the requirement to obtain official permission.

Furthermore, these restrictions have spillover effects involving access to food, livelihoods and even healthcare services, which also remain highly segregated in parts of Rakhine, the report states.

In some cases, the Rohingya’s access to education has been restricted on account of their lack of citizenship status. However, the watchdog acknowledges that other factors like poverty and distance to schools also limit access to education for all communities in Rakhine. AI Myanmar campaigner Elise Tillet concluded on Tuesday that such discriminatory practices “constitute a systematic attack on the civilian population” that amounts to a crime against humanity.

“More specifically, because of the racial basis of these discriminatory laws and policies [...] they constitute a crime against humanity of apartheid,” Tillet said during the study’s release in Jakarta. “Dismantling this system of apartheid is going to be essential for the 600,000 Rohingya refugees who are now in Bangladesh [and] the hundreds of thousands who are still living in Rakhine.”

Rights groups like Amnesty and organizations like the United Nations have estimated that more than half of the total 1.2 million Rohingya in Rakhine have crossed into Bangladesh in the past three months.

However, Myanmar is currently in talks with Bangladesh to finalize an agreement for their repatriation, with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi saying that both sides may come to a consensus this week.

“We hope this would result in an MoU [memorandum of understanding] signed quickly, which would enable us to start the safe and voluntary return of all of those who have gone across the border,” Suu Kyi said in Naypyidaw as quoted by Reuters.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who was in Naypyidaw to attend the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), confirmed to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday after talks with Dhaka that both sides are aiming to finalize the MoU this week.

However, Suu Kyi was unwilling to acknowledge that human rights violations have occurred in Rakhine.

“We can’t say whether it has happened or not. As a responsibility of the government, we have to make sure that it won’t happen,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

In Jakarta, the chairman of the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Myanmar, Marzuki Darusman, made a subtle swipe at Naypyidaw’s position.

“We can be assured that the facts are already there and they cannot be [reversed]. The Myanmar government knows it, the international community knows it and [...] they know that we know it,” Marzuki told reporters at the Amnesty report’s release.

“We are all heading toward a final reckoning on what is happening [in Rakhine] and that will happen next September. So there is an opportunity for the Myanmar government to color our report. Otherwise we will move forward with the facts and the grave allegations.”

The UN fact finding mission led by Marzuki is currently in Jakarta to exchange information with the Indonesian government, which has been at the forefront of supporting Myanmar in ending the crisis.

Marzuki said his team would file its report with the UN secretary-general in September 2018 after concluding detailed observations that would be corroborated and fact-checked.

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