DAMMAM: SIRAJ WAHAB
Sunday 12 August 2012
The ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is one of the key
issues to be discussed at the Islamic solidarity summit convened by
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in Makkah on Aug. 14-15.
With just two days to go for the conclave of the world’s most important
Muslim leaders in the most holy city, pressure is mounting on Myanmar’s
military junta to allow international and Islamic relief agencies
access to the besieged Muslim population of the Arakan province.
Two important delegations to Myanmar — one led by Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the other by the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation — this week have revealed signs of panic and desperation
among the junta’s top leadership.
“They have been caught out and have now realized that what they have
done to Rohingya Muslims constitutes a war crime,” one of the diplomats
at the Jeddah-based OIC told Arab News.
“There is no doubt that the state was and possibly still is involved in
the planned pogrom of Arakan Muslims, and they are now trying to reach
out to the Muslim world to lessen the impact of the expected robust and
unified Muslim response at the Makkah summit,” he said.
Besides Davutoglu, the Turkish delegation included Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s wife Emine and daughter Sumeyye. The delegation called
on Myanmar President U Thein Sein and Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin
and visited Rohingya Muslims staying in the Banduba refugee camp where
more than 8,500 Rohingya Muslims have taken shelter.
The delegates received a first-hand account of what exactly happened to
the Rohingya Muslims. They talked to a number of victims, and at one
point, according to reports in the Turkish media, the prime minister’s
wife was reduced to tears while listening an account being recounted by
an affected Rohingya Muslim woman.
Davutoglu later told journalists that he would present his findings to
the Muslim leaders at the Makkah summit. His findings will hold the key
to the future course of action from the Muslim world at the summit.
According to a top Jeddah-based diplomat, there are a number of measures that the Muslim world can think of against Myanmar.
“We can haul the country’s top military leadership, including President
Thein Sein and the Arakan provincial head, to the International Court
of Justice in The Hague and try them like Solobodan Milosevic and other
Serbian leadership,” he said. “Among the other viable options are that
of approaching the UN Security Council and UN Human Rights Council.”
The diplomat also hinted at pressurizing and persuading the world’s
leading powers to constitute an international peace-keeping force to
save the Rohingya Muslims from being obliterated and uprooted from their
historic homeland.
The OIC delegation to Myanmar was headed by former Indonesian Vice
President Jusuf Kalla. Among others, it included OIC Assistant Secretary
General for Humanitarian Affairs Atta Manan Bakhiet and presidents of
the Qatari Red Crescent and Kuwaiti International Humanitarian
Commission.
The OIC delegates conveyed to President Thein Sein of the outrage in
the Muslim world at the deplorable humanitarian conditions in the Arakan
province of Myanmar.
The delegation asked for access to Muslim humanitarian organizations to
provide emergency aid to inhabitants of the worst-hit Arakan province
“without any religious discrimination.”
According to a press note issued by the OIC yesterday, Myanmar
president welcomed the OIC delegation and stated that that what had
happened was not a direct result of religious differences. Instead, he
blamed the massacre on what he called as “social problems between
various ethnicities in the province.”
Thein Sein pointed out to the OIC delegates that the international
media distorted the events and presented wrong information and
exaggerated the killings.
“President Thein Sein stressed his eagerness for the Muslim world in
particular to know the truth about what occurred in Arakan, and he
mentioned that he had sent an invitation to OIC Secretary-General
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu recently to visit Myanmar to observe the real
situation in the affected province,” said the OIC press note.
The president welcomed the OIC humanitarian delegation to Arakan and
agreed to allow the OIC and its partner organizations to provide
humanitarian aid to the province in an urgent manner and to open an
office in the region in coordination with the central government in
Yangon and the local authorities in the province.
He instructed the relevant ministries to sign an agreement with the OIC to complete the arrangements.
No comments:
Post a Comment