S.O.S. Save Our Souls! Is There No One There???

"I last spoke with the boat's captain on December 18 and he told me that at least 17 people on board had died due to a lack of food and water."

"They have only been able to drink water when it rains."

"Please tell me, I just want to know if my family is alive or dead. We all want to see our families, that is all we request from the world. Just help us."

Sham Shur Alom, Rohingya refugee in Malaysia

"Several reports indicate dozens of people have already died during this ordeal, while survivors are hungry and thirsty without access to food and water and suffering from sickness."

United Nations' refugee agency 

"Father, please send a boat or I will jump into the ocean. I can't tolerate the pain and struggle anymore. There is no food or water to drink. People are drinking salt water. People are close to dying and mental breakdown. They're going to bite each other."

"Baba. I don't know why I am here. My teeth are dry from the lack of drinking water. Please do whatever is humanly possible for you."

Mosharrof Ullha, to his father Ata Ullha, Rohingya, Cox's Bazar Refugee Camp, Bangladesh

"We urge the Government of India to urgently coordinate and cooperate with other regional governments on the search and rescue operations of Rohingya refugees who are currently stranded in Indian waters with no medical support, food and water"    Amnesty India

The world of the unwanted homeless is ever on the move, hoping to find surcease from their stateless status, their unwanted presence, their suffering and their timeless dilemma. They aspire to live, to have a future, they are not economic migrants but refugees. As it happens, refugees who are Muslim, whom the Myanmar military expunged violently from the country where they were living. Originally from Bangladesh, the Rohingya lived for generations in Myanmar. But Buddhism and Islam oppose one another.

 

Living for years since their expulsion from Myanmar on the border in Bangladesh in an immense squalid refugee camp teeming with refugees whom no one wants responsibility for, there are those who dream of escape, of finding a new life and opportunity elsewhere in the world where they will be accepted, where human aspirations to belong and to succeed in life can be found. And in following that dream they sacrifice themselves to chance and fortune, and sometimes lose.

A boat stranded for close to three weeks in the Indian Ocean is desperate for rescue. So far a dozen of the Rohingya refugees populating the wooden craft open to the air, directionless, have died. With no humanitarian intervention from nearby nations fears are that more people will die in the next few days. And the unthinkable, that the  hopeful refugees on board will all perish from neglect by those who could mount a rescue. Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population globally has seen fit not to respond.

Predictably, India, with the world's third largest minority population of Muslims has no wish to acquire more people of the faith its own majority Hindu population is hostile to. Late November saw the open wooden boat set off from Bangladesh for Malaysia, yet another majority Muslim population, with over 150 asylum seekers aboard. On December 4 its engine failed, leaving the vessel to drift at sea, its food and water supplies steadily diminishing.

Most of the people on the ship had set out to meet family in Malaysia, anxious to flee the sprawling Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh with its hundreds of thousands of hopeless people languishing there for the past five years. The boat captain refused to allow those who have managed to make contact with the boat by satellite phone, to speak with their relatives. Open to the elements, conditions on the boat are unspeakably urgent.

The Indian navy and coast guard say no information about the adrift ship has reached them; wide-spread media coverage of the crisis aside. "We have no information about the issue",  a spokesperson for the Indian navy responded, to a query. To the present, it is believed that approximately two thousand Rohingya refugees have opted to risk a sea voyage in 2022 as conditions in the refugee camps both in Myanmar and Bangladesh continue to deteriorate.

Although Sri Lanka's navy rescued a boat of 104 Rohingya a week ago, other nations have no wish to encourage the mass flow of people by intervening to offer support. Bangladesh, the Muslim country from which the Rohingya originated has not seen fit to integrate them back into its society as a Muslim-to-Muslim responsibility. Nor have Indonesia or Malaysia recognized their religious responsibility to embrace fellow Muslims.

Rohingya refugees sit on a wooden boat as Indonesian officials conduct evacuation at the Krueng Geukueh port in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia, on December 31, 2021.

Fachrul Reza / Xinhua via Getty Images

"Many more will die soon if they are not rescued, due to dehydration."

"We have approached the Indian coast guard and the Thai and Indonesian governments."

"None of them responded."

Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, Rohingya refugee, Cox's Bazar

"Noble Intentions" -- Inconvenient Consequences

"We used a laundry detergent box with a wire attached to make it look like a bomb. We did not bring any [real] weapons because we had absolutely no intention of harming anyone."
"In the eyes of the authorities, I am not a pro-democracy exile but simply just a former hijacker or a terrorist."
"Our country was closed to the outside world. Terrible things were being done to our people by the government in power. Life in the jungle was difficult, brutal and dangerous."
"I became desperate and came up with a plan that was dramatic, yet without harming anyone. I rejected violence. I approached the pilot and told him we were students and that we wanted the plane diverted to Bangkok."
"I am a peace-loving person. I lived under a regime that was barbaric. They were exterminating ethnic groups. They were murdering those who opposed them. I had to act."
"I recognize the danger of our actions. Even though our intentions were noble, the means we chose were wrong."
Than Soe, 48, Asylum seeker

Than Soe, left, is fighting to stay in Canada as a human rights activist rather than be deported back to Myanmar. Supplied

"I do not believe he [Than Soe] had any intentions of harming anyone on that plane."
"I believe the students were just inexperienced boys who wanted to make a political statement and were neither dangerous nor threatening."
Tienchai Sirisampan, deputy prime minister, Thailand

"This matter has been proceeding since 2004 and I can find no evidence in the record to suggest that the applicant poses any kind of risk or threat to national security or public safety."
"[The Canadian Minister of Public Safety's logic is] unintelligible and unreasonable".
Justice James Russell, Federal Court of Appeals

Mr. Soe lives in Canada with his family. He arrived in Canada in 2003 and immediately claimed political asylum, a man from Burma who had rejected the military administration of his country of birth and who had become a political activist attempting to overturn the military. In the process he became an admirer and adherent of a more famous political activist, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, advocating for free elections. A woman whose courage had earned her admiration and honourary Canadian citizenship.

After Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military government ruling Myanmar, Than Soe, then 19 years of age, along with two other young activists sought a way to alert the world to the plight of his country. They decided to hijack a plane and have it fly where their own government had no control, and there they would deliver their message. They obtained two seats aboard a flight heading to Rangoon, with 79 passengers and four crew.

The laundry detergent boxes they claimed were bombs convinced the pilot to land at a Thai military airbase where Than Soe and his colleagues meant to read a three-page statement along wth seven demands, written in English, stamped with bloody thumbprints. The demands? Release of Suu Kyi and all political prisoners; an end to the civil war against ethnic groups; and guarantees for freedom of expression.

It was Thailand's deputy prime minister who was delegated to negotiate the release of the passengers and crew with the hijackers. An eight-hour deliberation ensued during which time passengers were released. The negotiator, Tienchai Sirisampan, handed the hijackers two Thai newspapers reporting on the hijacking on their front page, along with the contents of the document and the demands. At which point Than Soe and his colleagues surrendered.

He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, but eventually pardoned and released after serving two-and-a-half years. The court was given a letter from the deputy prime minister that went a long way toward exonerating the young men of criminal intent. Released in 1990, Mr. Soe remained in Thailand until winning a scholarship to an American university in 1996. He had been enrolled in engineering studies from the age of 16 in Rangoon.

That was where his pro-democracy and humanitarian values were developed as a result of witnessing military abuses. It was when, on August 8, 1988 he attended student protests, identified later as the 8888 Uprising. These were protests that unleashed increasing violence by the military, with the army opening live fire on student demonstrators. An estimate of thousands were said to have died in the crackdown.

In the United States he earned an economic degree and began work on an engineering degree in 2001. And that's when U.S. immigration officials caught up with his history, arresting him. He was released after an American judge agreed that he did not represent a threat, and that if he were to be returned to Myanmar his life would likely be forfeit. When he left the U.S. it was for Canada, crossing illegally and applying for asylum as a refugee in 2003, in Kitchener, Ontario.

The Immigration and Refugee Board found him inadmissible, citing his history of engaging in an 'act of terrorism'. Appeals to the Federal Court and re-hearings and new appeals followed. The current minister of public safety cited him as a security threat last year, just as his predecessor had in 2006.
The Federal Court sent the case back to the Immigration and Refugee Board for reconsideration.

Working as a technician for a large Canadian company, Than Soe has lived a law-abiding life as a valuable citizen-in-waiting, hoping to be granted permanent residence status. In interviews he points out the atrocities committed by the current government of Myanmar against the Rohingya, formally acknowledged as a genocide by Canada and other Western democracies. Surely the government that declared its readiness to offer haven to Rohingya, can also embrace one who defended their human rights.

A government, furthermore, that has limitless patience for hordes of economic migrants illegally crossing into Canada, declaring themselves refugees and taking advantage of a long backlog of claims that stretch into years before each can be assessed. In the meantime, establishing themselves as residents, taking advantage of Canada's generous social welfare, becoming a drain on the health and welfare system, crowding homeless Canadians out of shelters by their very numbers.

Last year, Ralph Goodale, minister of public safety, denied Soe’s request to remain in Canada. Supplied

Virtuously Despicable Canada

"We shared [Bob Rae's] report [assigned  as special envoy to Burma by the Trudeau government] with many people here [at the annual Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 5, 6], and we plan to translate it both into Bengali and Rohingya so that people in Bangladesh and the Rohingya can read it in their own languages."
"A number of [recommendations] we are already implementing, and my trip here ... is one example of acting on Bob's recommendation that Canada should be taking a leadership role."
"The most valuable part of this trip is being able to talk to people who are being persecuted who are at the heart of this crisis."
Chrystia Freeland, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Canada

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland meets with Médecins Sans Frontières volunteers at a Rohingya refugee camp at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on May 4, 2018. (Chrystia Freeland/Twitter)

The foreign ministers of 57 Muslim majority countries met for their annual conference taking place this year in Dakha, Bangladesh, primarily to discuss the plight of the Rohingya Muslims who in their tens of thousands were violently persecuted in Buddhist-majority Burma, the Burmese military and citizens alike threatening, killing, raping, burning their villages, causing them to flee the carnage and make the dangerous river crossing from Burma (Myanmar) into Bangladesh. Three-quarters of a million Rohingya now live in refugee camps, crowded and miserable.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has a distinct purpose; to come to the aid of persecuted Muslims globally. This is their sole interest and mandate. Among the OIC countries there are those represented in the possession of immense wealth at their disposal. Indonesia and Malaysia, two large Muslim-majority southeast Asian countries could absorb Rohingya refugees; the Gulf States have sufficient riches to fund the transfer, rescue and support required to absorb the Rohingya in Muslim countries.

Yet Canada, out of the goodness of its non-Muslim soul, has intervened, its Minister of Foreign Affairs a special guest at the conference, to address those gathered, for the purpose of affirming Canada's dedication to human rights and to aid in the rescue of these miserable cast-outs whose condition is truly pathetic. Canada's portrayal as a champion of human rights and specifically of the Rohingya is a wretched sham; yet another instance of Justin Trudeau extending Canada's resources in a virtuous bid to demonstrate how selfless Canada is prepared to sacrifice on behalf of the downtrodden.

But the Rohingya have many champions, they were all present at the conference, expressing their anger at the Buddhist Myanmar enemies of Islam. How many among them stood to affirm their nation's intention to come to the rescue of the Rohingya in their time of need? Canada alone? If Canada's Liberal government was sincerely given to aiding those in need, they had ample opportunity to recognize the friendless Yazidis, an ancient ethnic Middle East group with an exotic religion scorned by Islam, their people a target for mass murder and enslavement of women and children.

Many of the Yazidi children suffer from malnutrition and diseases. They live in hovels built from stones and rubble. Photo: Christian Werner

The Yazidis have few champions other than the Kurds to whom they are distantly related ethnically and perhaps culturally. Their plight is truly desperate. Yet it has been ignored. They are persecuted by Islam and were very much so by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant which still holds many women and girls captive, and still remain a threat to the Yazidis who they have driven from their ancestral homes. The Canadian Liberal government's virtue-signalling on behalf of Muslims is a capricious and truly stellar hypocrisy.

To champion the Yazidis and come to their rescue requires a resolve and dedication to a kind of altruistic move that will bear no advantage to the Liberals; Muslims in Canada represent a huge voting bloc; the Muslim community represented by the OIC in the United Nations are another choice voting bloc bringing the non-aligned nations with them to lift Canada into its coveted United Nations Security Council seat.

The sanctimony of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is infuriatingly unrepresentative of decency and honesty. And certainly unreflective of most Canadians' values and wishes.

Some Yazidis have managed to reach the province of Dahuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region

Terrorists and False News

"Stop the violence. Today we have seen pictures of small children killed by Burma's security forces. Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment."
"I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting."
Malala Yousafzal, Pakistani Nobel Peace Laureate

State security forces have been killing men, women and children. They have been slitting throats, there have been beheadings."
"Soldiers have opened fire on groups of people and then set the bodies on fire, including children."
Matthew Smith, chief executive, Fortify Rights humanitarian group

"[The situation in Rakhine is] really grave [marking time for Suu Kyi to] step in."
"The de facto leader needs to step in -- that is what we would expect from any government, to protect everybody within their own jurisdiction."
Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar

AFP/Getty Images:  Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said tensions were being fanned by fake news

Under Myanmar's military junta rule it seemed to the outside world to represent a sad and sorry situation that the Rohingya were persecuted, but it was fully anticipated once the military stepped back and a democratic election resulted bringing the world-famed human-rights campaigner Aun San Suu Kyi to the executive administration of the nation, steps would be taken to protect this religious and ethnic minority. Instead, they continued to be viewed as despised interlopers with no legal status.

Rohingya families have lived in Rakhine for generations, yet they remain, in the view of the Buddhist majority and the government, illegal migrants whose presence is unwanted. Without citizenship rights in Myanmar the 1.1-million Rohingya require permission to travel outside their established villages, as well as needing to acquire official permission to even marry among themselves.

The most recent outbreak of violence, caused by an armed Rohingya group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, that attacked a military base resulted in the army invading villages and burning down the homes of the Rohingya living there, forcing them to move on to avoid being killed. Pushed out of their traditional towns and villages, Rohingya, fleeing death have crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Photo: More than 120,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh due to the violence. (AP: Bernat Armangue)

All they possessed is gone, they are famished and have no resources to maintain life. Smugglers were paid for passage across the Naf river between Myanmar and Bangladesh, leaving the refugees with nothing to support themselves with. The new government of Suu Kyi could have restored the Rohingya with the citizenship that the military junta had stripped them of, but did not.

Myanmar's National League for Democracy appears to support freedom and democracy for Buddhist Burmese, but sees it being of little value to Muslim Rohingya. They are thus stateless, with close to 400,000 searching for haven in Bangladesh now living in squalid refugee camps. The "clearance operations" to flush out insurgents from Rohingya villages has flushed out innocent civilians with nowhere to go, no resources to sustain them.

Photos of a Rohingya man holding mines on the Myanmar side of the border were sent to CNN by activists and examined by a mine expert, who confirmed that the two objects are PMN1 antipersonnel devices

The government of Myanmar insists it was the insurgents themselves who set fire to their own houses and took to slaughtering Buddhists in the western state of Rakhine, while the starving refugees speak of targeted shootings by Myanmar troops who warned them to leave, if they valued life. In their desperation to flee they faced danger crossing the border into Bangladesh as well, thanks to the explosives the Burmese military has planted there.

But this is all, of course, 'fake news'.

Source: CNN  

Rohingya Muslims flee violence in Myanmar