The Vatican has just recognized the State of Palestine; who knows how, if at all, such recognition might tip the balance for the Palestinian people?
Posted: Monday, May 18, 2015 8:57 am | The Daily Progress
The Vatican has just recognized the State of Palestine; who knows how, if at all, such recognition might tip the balance for the Palestinian people?
But while that bit of news has focused attention afresh on one “stateless” population, a similar group is under pressure thousands of miles away.
The authoritarian regime of Myanmar is forcing thousands of minority Rohingya Muslims to flee the country.
Some Rohingya are trusting to smugglers to see them “safely” out of the country, by land and by sea.
Neighboring Thailand, which has been a center of human trafficking for many years, recently cracked down on the trade out of Myanmar after finding the bodies of 30 murdered Rohingya at a smuggler’s camp. Politically, Thailand doesn’t want any part of the crisis.
The crackdown frightened the smugglers and prompted them to abandon boatloads of people they had promised to guide into other countries, thus escalating the crisis.
Illegal immigration by boat people already had reached such major proportions that Malaysia had started pushing the boats back to sea. It said it would provide assistance only if the boats actually were sinking. Otherwise, said that country, the crisis was others’ responsibility to solve.
Myanmar, of course, says the problem is not of its making.
Yet Myanmar, which is primarily Buddhist, will not recognize the Muslim Rohingya. The Rohingya emigrated from Bangladesh several generations ago, and have been living in Myanmar without citizenship.
They have limited access to health care and cannot freely practice their religion. Recently, persecution against them seems to have worsened.
Bangladesh, by the way, says it doesn’t want the Rohingya, either.
President Obama recently said he would retain his authority to maintain sanctions against Myanmar for another year.
The United States also last year blacklisted both Thailand and Malaysia for failing to meet basic requirements for fighting human trafficking.
The United Nations also has urged Southeast Asia to work toward a solution, although it has no enforcement power toward such a goal.
Some Southeast Asian nations began meeting Sunday to try to find a way out of the turmoil.
The answer starts with religious tolerance. It is based on human rights.
Those values are not high on the list for many countries involved — beginning with Myanmar.
That leaves political and economic pressure from outside influencers, such as the U.S., to compel Southeast Asia to solve the problem that is costing not just human dignity, but human lives.
