Why the conflict in Myanmar has again come to the fore
The conflict in Myanmar between Muslim Rohingya and government forces has split the international community, forcing the global players to occupy the diametrically opposite side in relation to the conflict. Better to distance itself from the conflict, experts say. “Газеты.Ru” find out why lasting several decades, the conflict again took to the front pages of the world Newspapers.
The cause of an outbreak of long-standing conflict in Myanmar began a violent actions of government forces against Muslim ethnic minorities living on the territory of the state Rakhi on the border with Bangladesh.
As a result of actions of the government troops, many residents were forced to leave their homes. According to the UN special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yangi If, as a result of the conflict killed over a thousand people is twice of the numbers, which officially voiced the government.
According to the UN, more than 270 thousand of the people of the Rohingya over the past two weeks have left the country and moved to Bangladesh. All in all, Myanmar is home to about 1 million members of this ethnic group.
Human rights activists accuse the army units in brutal actions against Muslims and burning their homes.
The government, in turn, said that conducting operation against terrorist groups operating on the territory of the state and enjoys the support from abroad.
The de facto leader of Myanmar — former dissident Aung San Suu Kyi — blamed the unrest on “terrorists”. This caused outrage on the part of authoritative representatives of the human rights movement, which urged to revoke her Nobel peace prize.
Give the right
The conflict between the government of Myanmar, populated mainly by Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya has dragged on for many years. His main reason is that the Myanmar authorities do not want to recognize this population as citizens of the country, many of them do not have on hand any documents. Most of them descendants of Muslim Bengalis who were brought here in the nineteenth century, when Myanmar was a British colony.
The situation around the status of Muslim Rohingya have long been the center of attention of the international community, but on the front pages of the world media, the conflict came shortly after the publication of the report of the independent Commission, headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In a report published at the end of August 2017, experts under his leadership came to the conclusion that one of the main problems is the lack of local residents not only citizenship, but in General any was not the right status. This prevents them to work, send children to school and to use health services.
The economic situation in the state very difficult, poverty-ridden 78% of the population, which is two times more common level in the country. The main measure, which is offered by the experts, is a change in the law in 1982, which does not recognize Muslim Rohingya as an ethnic group.
Experts said that if the government are not taken to improve the situation, and it threatens to “radicalization” and the growth of extremism:
“If legitimate grievances of the local population are ignored, they become more vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremists”, the report says.