It Is All Happening on Our Watch

“As the world is finding out about the daily atrocities of the Rohingya people, it is our role as citizens to keep the pressure up to expose this ethnic cleansing by Myanmar’s military junta.

“Ms Suu Kyi, who is still new in office, does not control the army.  Whatever her flaws, she is still seen as Myanmar’s best hope at the present.  Ms Suu Kyi is under pressure from abroad to set up a commission to investigate the abuses by the army on the Rohingya people.  This report is headed by a former general and is widely expected to be a whitewash.

“Pope Francis has delivered a keynote speech in Myanmar demanding respect for each ethnic group, but without referring specifically to its Muslim Rohingya community.  He has been criticised by the Catholic Church in Myanmar, who told him it could cause difficulties for the Catholics there.

“Myanmar has been accused of ethnic cleansing.  Some 620,000 Rohingya people fleeing to Bangladesh, who do not want them. The plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people is said to be the world’s faster growing refugee crisis.

“The UN has described the military offensive in Rakhine, province in Myanmar, as a text book example of ethnic cleansing.  The Rohingya people have their own language and culture.  They are descended from Arab traders.  They have been in the region for generations.

“The Government of Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country, denies Rohingya citizenship and have excluded them from the 2014 census.  They are not recognised as a people.

“Constant proof is coming out by whatever means of this ethnic cleansing.  It is time the world took action and supported these people.

“It is the constant traits of dictatorships around the world, that feel they have the right to kill, maim and abuse people they do not recognise as being one of them.  We citizens of the world must stand together and not accept these atrocities.  We call on global Governments to do their bit to save people.

“We simply cannot walk across the road and turn a blind eye to what is happening on a daily basis.  Are we human or just shellfish regarding our own comforts and because it is not happening on our doorstep?

“It is however happening on our watch!”

Jenny Ayers

Wednesday, 29^th November 2017