- Stars (0)
Republic of The Union of Myanmar’s Actions on Handling The Rohingya
Hendry Samuel Pangaribuan — Business Development Analyst at Shopee (Catholic University) Jakarta, Indonesia.
National interest has a big impact to the implementation of some particular actions of a nation state. A nation state might jeopardize another very important aspect of the existence of humankind, such as the human rights. The government of Myanmar has not been able to solve the case of one of the most prosecuted group of people, which is the Rohingya. Arguing on behalf of the lack of citizenship of the Rohingya until to the inability of the government which caused a more severe situation. Somehow, within this implementation of action, there are also a massive human right abuses and the actions of ethnic cleansing are detected. Whether the Rohingya is justified as a citizen or not, it is still wrong for the government of Myanmar to not pay attention to the human right abuses.
Forced migration which produced refugee is a problem of humanitarian condition that is usual in the eyes of common society. The forced movement nowadays is not caused by the government any more, the unstable conditions of a country also could be a factor of a group of people to move out from their home country. A lot of aspects are being harmed under this condition of migration crisis, such as starvation, sanitary and health issue, absence of educational system for the youth, and human right abuses to the very far extent of example.
The world has been facing refugee crisis since a long time ago, yet somehow the problem cannot be tackled-down even up until right now. This is because the actions and policies that applied by both the world as a whole and by the encountering state are not suitable or even cause another new problem instead. The reason on why the problematic country cannot handle this refugee crisis is due to the sovereign government that is not capable in handling the issues of placement, funding, development, and protection. Narrowing the focus on to refugee crisis in South East Asia region, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Myanmar are facing a massive increasing flow of refugee, especially for Bangladesh and Myanmar. Rohingya, a group of refugees which is seeking for home yet they are being rejected by Bangladesh and Myanmar, under the reason of incapability of both countries.
The process of handling the Rohingya have impounded public attention, because the actions of human right abuses are found to be experienced by the group, such as sexual harassment, killing, and another physical abuses. This group of people is lacking the attention not only from the surrounding countries, but also from the international assembly. The government of Myanmar should not have done this action to handle the group under any possible reasons, but analyzing the reasons behind Myanmar’s established such actions and policies that produced the actions of human right abuses, there are a big possibility of the government is trying to achieve their national interest.
The Rohingya have been thrown away from some countries which they were seeking for place to live on, including Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.The fact that Rohingya consisted of people from different ages, going to a country and another back and forth was not a proper activity to do, especially for some youth and elder. Hundreds even thousands of Rohingya died on the way of their migration (or illegal migration), the major causes were the lack of food and get sunk under the sea. The rejecting countries made it hard for Rohinya to, at least, anchor by the bay at one of the countries. Also, saying that even though they have stopped or anchored on one of the bay, they were not given any food, because the anchored country did not want them to feel provided with any needs and had the feeling to stay (beside of being rapped).
As a unique country in term of ethnicity, Myanmar should have had tolerance regarding the taken action toward the Rohingya. State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) said that Myanmar would act as how it is expected not to violate the human rights, as SLORC once stated:
Myanmar is well-known for its unique culture, the hall-marks of which are tolerance and compassion. This cultural environment underpins respect for human rights. These rights are guaranteed not only by law but are encouraged and practiced as a matter of tradition. There is no discrimination in Myanmar whatsoever on grounds of race, religion or sex.
Some researchers say that Rohingya is an ethnic group, but the other some argued that it is a political group. Base on the research for this paper, the writer found that Rohingya is in the middle of both ethnic and political group. Rohingya was actually come from the Arkanese. Arkanese is divided into two kinds based on the religion. Arkanese Buddhist and Arkanese Muslim, the Arkanese Muslim then under the cause of political purpose while at the era of colonization became what called as the Rohingya, which sought refuge in a newer identity.
Hence, the debate about which country should have had the responsibility to handle this group, is still on the table. Because of so, Myanmar’s government could not apply suitable actions or policies on the group, yet even though if the issue was right on the lackness of identity, any country’s government including Myanmar should have not took any careless actions and policies on facing this refugee crisis.
