After her husband was killed, Ayesha begged for a ride on a small boat fleeing to Bangladesh. Once the group of Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh, the government refused to let them in. Ayesha was pushed back in the sea.
Stripped of legal documents by the Burmese government, she had nowhere to return. No one knows where Ayesha is.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya die like this in their wooden dingys at sea. Three-hundred masajid were destroyed, and those that remain are barren as Muslims are not allowed to enter them for Ramadan or Jumuah prayers. There used to be 5 million Rohingya. Now only 3 million are left. This is genocide.
On May 14, 2016, Muslim leaders in the DC Metro gathered at the Hyatt in Sterling for a leadership briefing about the situation in Burma. Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, the Chairman of the Burma Task Force spoke about the a devastating impact of Islamophobia on Muslims in Burma and the Central African Republic (CAR). As in Burma, almost all the CAR mosques have been wiped out. Dr Wakar Uddin, a Rohingya American, spoke as well, as well the Uighur representatives from East Turkistan.
And in Burma, after putting the Rohingya Muslims in concentration camps, the newly elected Minister wants Buddhists to be citizens and Muslims to be a lesser form of associate citizens.
Imam Mujahid informed the leadership that the genocide didn't start yesterday and will not be over in a few weeks. It will require a sustained effort by professionals and volunteers to stop it.
He relayed that last month a boat carrying Rohingya traveling from their camp for internally displaced people to the Rakhine the state capital of Sittwe capsized, resulting in the deaths of 22 people. In response to the tragedy, the US embassy released a statement extending "condolences" to the Rohingya victims of the disaster. The embassy statement also noted " Restrictions on access to markets, livelihoods, and other basic services in Rakhine State can lead to communities unnecessarily risking their lives in an attempt to improve their quality of life."
The extremist Buddhist monk organization, the MaBaTha, its supporters, including the youth group, Myanmar National Network organized a 500 strong protest in front of the US embassy in response to the statement, demanding that they not use the name "Rohingya." Protesters held placards and wore bandanas and T-shirts with the emblazoned message, "No Rohingya"; denial of identity is one of the signs of genocide.
Burma Task Force and its supporters contacted the US embassy in Yangon and the State Department, emphasizing that they must continue to use the name Rohingya and defy the extremists and bigots who wish to deny that the Rohingya Muslims are an indigenous people living in their ancestral lands". Since then, matters have worsened: Aung San Suu Kyi, long fawned over as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, human rights and democracy advocate has caved to the hate message of extremist Buddhist protesters, siad Mujahid.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Foreign Ministry, headed by Suu Kyi, released a directive to all foreign embassies that they not use "Rohingya" to describe the persecuted minority.
"'We have never accepted this term,' Kyaw Zay Ya, a deputy director general of the ministry, said in an interview Thursday, confirming it had sent an advisory to diplomats. Ultimately it is 'up to them' whether to follow the recommendation, he added."
The new ambassador of the United States to Myanmar, Scot Marciel, said he would keep using the term Rohingya for the persecuted Muslim minority.
To learn how your community can help the Rohingya join the Burma Task Force www.burmaMuslims.org
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