First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak out about the current human rights situation of the Rohingya in Myanmar. So far the honourable speakers before me covered what is going on in today's Burma. As a researcher myself, I'd say I'm an ancient researcher. I have been researching on the Rohingya people from 1978 and my thesis, done from Canada, was on what was going on in those times.
I am testifying here in the capacity of a researcher, and this has been going on for 40 years. I've been involved with them for the past 40 years. I want to take you to what happened in those days, because the things that we see today are not things that happened only in the past few years. They have been going on for many years. It is important to know a little bit of background to this. I'll not go into details.
In 1978, when I was teaching at the University of Chittagong, we heard the news that about 200,000 Rohingya refugees had come to take shelter in southern Chittagong, which is adjacent to Burma. It was quite big news, both locally in Bangladesh and in the neighbouring countries. Also, it became international news, so I decided to visit the place with some of my students. We went to a camp called Ukiah Camp. I saw a sea of tents accommodating refugees, so I interviewed some of the refugees. There were a lot of people around us, and again that was in 1978.
I asked some refugees why the Burmese government had evicted them to Bangladesh. They said we are illegals, they think, but we have documents that show we are Burmese citizens. I asked them to show us the documents, which are called NRCs, and little children and adults went to their tents and brought us documents, a lot of them. They showed that they were Burmese citizens.
After that, I came to Canada and I did my master's thesis on the Rohingya, but in the meantime, in 1982, the Government of Burma passed a constitutional act and it confirmed that Rohingya people in general are illegals in Burma. In 1993, they sent out about 300,000 people. This time they made sure that they didn't carry any NRC cards. This continues. It has been happening.
I encountered a lot of Rohingya people—leaders, some local people, farmers, and all kinds of people—and I saw the frustration in them because it had been going on for such a long time. The Burmese military, starting from U Ne Win, were destroying their houses and killing people. One Rohingya told me that he was told by Burmese military personnel that “We are not going to kill all of you; we are killing only a few to scare you so that you will leave our country, because you don't belong to Burma.”
The reason the Rohingyas were targeted is that in Burma most people are Buddhist, and Rohingyas are Muslims. A small minority of people are Hindus, a very small minority. I met some of them in Quebec City.
It's big trouble for those with that mentality in Burma to tolerate the Rohingya, because they are different. Karens are Christians and some of them are not tolerated, but for the Rohingya, it's double trouble. This is the scenario.
I will cover some key issues to put the issues in context.
First, you have to understand it's a racial fault line. For the Rohingyas in Arakan on the border of southeast Asia, there's a racial divide. In Bangladesh, after the independence of these two countries from the British Empire, it became a racial fault line, which means that on this side it's mostly Hindu Samiti people who live in Bangladesh, and on the other side it's Mongoloid and Buddhists, so the whole thing should be understood not just as a religious problem, but both religious and racial. It's a racial problem.
Before I began my research, most people said it was a religious problem between Muslims and Buddhists, but it is a racial problem, a race relations problem.
The second point is that Arakan's interethnic relations are characterized by a triangle. The local Rohingya in Rakhine are in Arakan, and then you have the Burmans controlling from the mainland. That is another issue that complicates the entire situation.
We might think what is going on here is a new phenomenon. The Rakhines and Rohingyas lived together in peace for centuries, but an event took place a long time ago when the Mughal prince was given shelter in Arakan. At that time, Arakan was an independent kingdom. The Mughal prince, Shah Suja, and his entire family were brutally killed in Arakan. The Muslims and the Buddhists living there started to face problems. That was the beginning of the end of the fraternity between Muslims and Buddhists. Ever since, Muslims have been pushed out of Arakan. A lot of trouble was going on, and we had no information about it.
In addition to what is happening today, as a researcher, I want to testify that the problem has deep roots, and they have to be understood. We cannot solve this without understanding what happened in the past.
Education is very important and has to be done in Burma so that human rights education can be integrated into Burmese society. They have to understand that in a multicultural, multi-ethnic country, minorities have to be respected. They have to be given their rights. Aung San Suu Kyi should also understand that it is a necessity. It is a precondition to a democratic society.
Thank you very much.