Protests Erupt in Arakan Against allowing Rohingya Title

Once Burma accepts the community as Rohingya from the southeast Asian country, the government would have to take responsibility of the people and also their misdeeds.

Courtesy: Burma Times

(SITTWE, Arakan Burma Times) - The Arakanese staged their protest rallies in various places like Kyauk Phyu, Mra Oo, Maypon, Min Pyar, Rambray, Kyauk Taw, Punna Kyun, Rathetaung, Buthetaung, Maung daw and also the State capital city of Sittwe.

Thousands joined in the demonstrations shouting slogans meaning ‘Pro Rohingya – our enemy !’, ‘Rohhingya lobbyist – betrayer!’, ‘We have no Rohingya along the history of Arakan State!’, ‘Liars on history –get out!’, ‘In censes – no Rohingya !’, ‘President Thein Sein – be sensible of us!’ ‘Don’t touch our territory!’, ‘We dare to die for Peace!’, ‘Peace destroyers are our enemy!’ etc.

U Than Tun, a resident of Sittwe, argued that the problem (of identifying Bengali Muslims as Rohingya in the national census) would be more complicated in the future if we can not solve it today. So the Arakanese have come to the streets asking a timely solution to it.

The demonstrators primarily focused on the code number 914 to title Rohingya instead of Bengali names in the census.

“If we allow it to happen, they (read Bengali Muslims) would soon ask for ethnic right. After that they would advocate for a separate autonomous State or even a country out of Burma. This would be a real danger to our future generation. If we allow the Rohingya in the list, we would have face a very difficult problem in future,” added U Than Tun.

The Burma President Thein Sein and his cabinet have already proclaimed that there is no community called Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar). The people from Bangladesh are known as Rohingya in Burma. Some cunning elements are raising voices for allowing the word Rohingya as the title of the Bengali Muslims in the Burma census. Those elements are also trying to get supports from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Middle East.

Once Burma accepts the community as Rohingya from the southeast Asian country, the government would have to take responsibility of the people and also their misdeeds. So that would be really dangerous for our country, claimed the outspoken Sittwe resident.

“We will continue our demonstrations on the issue and the next phase will be organized from March 30 to April 10,” informed U San Shwe Kyaw, a leader from Punna Kyun locality.

He also asserted that if the Burma government ignores the voice of demonstrators, the Rakhine people as a whole would boycott the national censes in Arakan.

In fact, the Rohingya community is the indigenous people of Arakan who settled themselves there since before 7th century AD according to the inscription of Ananda Chandra (8th century). After the final invasion of Arakan by the Burmese invaders led by King Maung Wei in the year 1784, the Rohingya have been deprived of their fundamental rights by the successive Burmese repressive rulers. After 18980s, Rohingya were eliminated from Burma national census by the 1982 citizenship law drafted by Dictator Ne Win.

source:bnionline

http://burmatimes.net/protests-erupt-in-arakan-against-allowing-rohingya-title/