The Rohingya people of Myanmar are in a hopeless situation. They are a Muslim ethnic minority of roughly one million people, and their mother tongue is Rohingya, an Indo-European language with roots in the Bengali language. They reside primarily in northern Rakhine State in western Myanmar, a coastal region of roughly three million residents near the country's border with Bangladesh. However, countless Rohingya have been internally displaced and live in refugee camps, following conflicts with Rakhine State's Buddhist majority population. The Rohingya have been termed by a UN report as the most persecuted religious community in the world. Under a highly questionable law passed in 1982 by the military government, they were summarily deprived of their nationality unless they could prove that their forefathers had lived in the country in 1832, which is one of the most oppressive laws found anywhere in the world. Since last June, they have been attacked, their villages have been burned and they have been forced to live in refugee camps in their own country or to flee to Bangladesh which already has a large number of Rohingyas who fled during the past few decades due to acute persecution and oppression. As a result of this exodus, there are now large groups of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia. In 1982, their citizenship was revoked under a new constitution that was established and left them stateless and vulnerable. They were accused of being "darkies who had been brought into Burma (now called Myanmar) as slaves." With their identity status and legal rights revoked, severe restrictions were imposed on the Rohingyas. Their movements and freedom to move about their districts or even between their villages were strictly monitored. They were asked to submit lists to local police authorities of the names of guests or relatives in their homes. Their land rights were confiscated. Rohingya children were not allowed to pursue higher education. Today, an estimated one million Rohingya live in Myanmar but they are officially stateless. The government continues to deny them citizenship and Buddhist vigilantes target them with violence. More than 300,000 have been left homeless as their property has been stolen and plundered while the government has refused to act. Many innocent lives have been lost by this act of ethnic cleansing. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate from Myanmar who had been praised for her "indomitable courage" for her struggles against the ruling military junta of yesteryear, has disappointed many as the current leader of the opposition party by her continuous silence and ambivalent attitude toward her Rohingya compatriots. Although she did call on the Myanmar government to deploy more troops to the state of Rakhine to stop the bloody purge by Buddhists against Muslims, many felt it was not good enough. Proclaiming that “everyone is responsible for respecting human rights, without discriminating between majority and minority, ethnicity and religion” is a call that is lukewarm at best in the face of mounting violence. The Nobel Laureate was criticized for not specifically condemning the violence against the Rohingyas in Myanmar, which left over 200 people dead and more than 110,000 people displaced last year. Some attribute her reluctance to stick her neck out to the fear of losing favor among the Buddhist majority, as elections are coming up later this year and she has submitted her candidacy to run for the presidency. Meanwhile the purge and the killings continue. Perhaps if she were to dig deep within her conscience, she would rediscover the strength that led her to stand against the formidable ruling military regime in defense of the oppressed which eventually helped garner her the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, none are more oppressed in Myanmar than the Rohingyas, and it is Aung San Suu Kyi's turn to work for their salvation.
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