- Conference
- 2016 National Black Members' Conference
- Date
- 24 September 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, many people will not have heard of the Rohingya people, yet as
the Economist noted these are some of the most persecuted minorities of people. The Rohingya people are Muslims from the Rakhine state in Burma and speak the Rohingya language. As far back as 1982 the Burmese government has denied the Rohingya citizenship, so even though these people have lived in the Rakhine state for 100’s of years, in fact they can be traced back to arriving in the 16th century, they cannot call themselves Burmese. That is 1.3 million people today who are stateless, unable to vote, unable to get married legally, get a job, access health services, get an education, denied the freedom to practice their faith.
There are 5 stages of genocide as defined by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI), these are (1) stigmatisation, (2) harassment, (3) isolation, (4) systemic weakening which included the removal of identity cards and refusing to allow voting (5) Mass annihilation. Thus far Professor Green from the ISCI believes that the Rohingya have been through the first 4 stages as they have been denied an identity and voting rights, all that remains is mass annihilation. Yet the world remains silent at the plight of Rohingya.
In 2012 alone, 125,000 Rohingya were displaced or moved into squalid camps. In November 2012 when President Obama visited Burma he heaped praise on Burma and its desire to have political reform, but he only mentioned the violence against the Rohingya once, as a footnote to his speech. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a woman honoured in the same way as Mandela by this union has remained silent on the suffering of the Rohingya. In May 2015, the Dalai Lama in an article for The Australian newspaper called upon her to act on the crisis – he also went onto say that since 2012 he had personally asked twice before to speak for the Rohingyas. Later in the same month at the Oslo Conference to end Myanmar’s Persecution of the Rohingya, no less than 7 Nobel laureates stated that “what Rohingyas are facing is a textbook case of genocide in which an entire indigenous community is being systematically wiped out by the Burmese government.” Yet there is only silence from Aung San Suu Kyi.
The extremist group 969 led by monk, Ashin Wirathu is making the situation much worse by spreading hateful propaganda about the Rohingyas. Ashin refers to himself proudly as the Burmese Bin Laden. He has appeared on the front of Time magazine as the face of Buddhist Terror, he tells his followers that the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims is their duty. His followers have destroyed businesses belonging to Muslims, set fire to mosques, kidnapped children and engaged in activities amounting to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya from Burma.
In 2015, to escape the systematic abuse and violence Rohingya Muslims took to boats to try and reach the shores of other countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand and Australia. In the first quarter of the year 25,000 people took to boats to escape. Few people will have missed the harrowing sight of overcrowded boats of people with dwindling food supplies and water being turned away by Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia, left to die at sea.
We cannot remain silent as a group of people is systematically wiped out. As Black people many of us will have first-hand experience of racism, discrimination and Islamophobia – yet these people are suffering in a way that is unimaginable to most of us.
We therefore call upon the National Black Members Committee to:
1)Raise awareness of the plight of the Rohingya people via UNISON’s International Committee internally and a Black Action Article at the earliest opportunity
2)Work with the International Committee to write to Aung San Suu Kyi raising the plight of the Rohingya and asking her to speak up for them
3)Encourage Black UNISON members to raise the issue of the Rohingya with their MPs/MSPs
4)Work with Labour Link, and relevant self-organised groups in UNISON to raise the profile of human and labour rights‘ issues in Burma with British MPs and policy makers
5)Reaffirm our commitment to the plight of the Rohingya people and work with the Intentional Committee to produce a sustainable campaign against the Rohingya persecution.