Saga of unwanted Rohingyas

In my previous post Rohingyas unwanted even by Bangladesh I discussed briefly their history (as East Bengali Muslims) of migration to Myanmar under encouragement from a British colonial government in India who won a war against the Burmese or Myanmarese. Mind, there were already East Bengali settlements even prior to that.

Today the Rohingyas face extreme and very violent pressure from Myanmarese to leave Rakhine State (called Arakan under the British colonial government) but also discover no other country wants them, not even their Motherland of Bangladesh or what used to be called (Eastern past of) Bengal and then, following independence from Britain, East Pakistan.

The Myanmarese hate them so much that even some Buddhist monks were reported to have protested in Yangon in front of the Malaysian Enbassy against PM Najib's participation in a demonstartion for the Rohingyas in KL.

This was flabbergasting because Buddhist monks who have taken vows of forsaking personal (including family), material and earthly issues should not participate in such political, national or whatever protests.

That those Myanmarese monks had done so, including an earlier reported incident of a Myanmarese monk unbelievably urging the killing of Rohingyas (an unmitigated shame in the shocked eyes of millions of Buddhists around the world) is an indication of the unlikelihood of any reconciliation ever between Myanmarese and Rohingyas - my earlier post Rohingyas unwanted even by Bangladesh explains the factors behind centuries of hatred between the two races.

The Rohingyas are thus forced to seek sanctuary in other countries. But countries not wanting "refugees" is now a universal trend, with the (possibly) sole exception of Germany's government (possibly only under Angela Merkel) which continues to accept refugees from the Middle-East - even the German public don't want them.

It could be said that Brexit, the British referendum on exit of Britain from the EU, had been motivated by British intent to close the door to the ever increasing wave of "refugees" especially from the Middle-East and to a smaller extent, East Europe.

Not all so-called "refugees" have been compelled by wars, persecutions, genocides or famines to run away from their places of domicile as would be the genuine refugee cases for the Khmers from genocide under the Pol Pot regime, southern Vietnamese from political persecution by North Vietnam after the Americans cabut-ed with their tails between their hind legs, Hazaras from religious and ethnic persecution under the majority Pashtuns in Afghanistan.

For example, in Australia today, many have been questioning why the Sri Lankan Tamils, claiming to be "war refugees" running away from Sinhalese persecution, would prefer to sail 7,000 km across a dangerous ocean and some equally dangerous seas with possible encounters from 'pirates' and other perils on their way to Australia when their original Motherland of Tamil Nadu lies a mere 50 km across the Palk Straits, the narrow water body between Sri Lanka and the nearest Indian coastline.

The Tamil refugees had come up with preposterous excuses that the Sri Lankan Navy prevents them from sailing to India when the reality was/is the Sri Lankan Navy would be more than happy to facilitate any Tamil intention to sail out of Sri Lanka, whether across the Palk Straits or across the Indian Ocean to wherever.

Today they are called"economic refugees", migrants who are NOT refugees from war, who either don't qualify to enter Australia in the first place or who may qualify but want to jump the migration queue rather than wait for around 3 to 5 years (USA is 10 years) in their search for better economic lifestyle in Western nations like Australia, NZ, USA, Canada and Britain.

Malcolm Turnbull, PM of Australia, was reported to have announced plans to stop asylum seekers who have tried to come to Australia by boat - even those found to be refugees - from ever gaining entry into the country.

He said: "The door to Australia is closed to those who seek to come here by boat with a people smuggler - it is closed", and while he didn't mention it, he meant forevermore.

"Economic refugees" have been one of the principal causes for many nations slamming their doors shut to such so-called "refugees" seeking sanctuary. Australia

Other issues are the enormous cost to the host country, difficult social problems (as in African "refugees" in Australia allegedly taking to crimes, and alleged self-imposed ethnic ghetto-rization especially by some Muslim communities) and the threat to national security (allegedly by and from a small group of Muslims fanned by religious warmongering by a few ulamas, even in a liberal country like Australia - begs the question why they want to come to Australia if they want to live like Saudis or Iranians).

While Malaysia and indeed Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand should offer humanitarian aid, we cannot afford to keep offering perpetual sanctuary as we already have more than 50,000 Rohingya "refugees" among more than 135,475 Myanmarese refugees and asylum seekers.

UNHCR figures at end of October 2016 indicate there are some 150,669 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the UN body in Malaysia. These are:

• 135,475 are from Myanmar, comprising some 54,856 Rohingyas, 41,420 Chins (note: not China, wakakaka), 10,928 Myanmar Muslims, 5,221 Rakhines & Arakanese, and other ethnicities from Myanmar.

• 15,194 refugees and asylum-seekers from other countries, including some 2,859 Sri Lankans, 2,692 Pakistanis, 1,809 Yemenis, 1,600 Somalis, 1,525 Syrians, 1,323 Iraqis, 841 Afghans, 633 Palestinians, and others from other countries.

Australia realizes this problem as (especially) Sri Lankan Tamils keep attempting a dangerous sea trek to the Promise Land Downunder, under the excuse of being war refugees. The issue of accepting Syrian refugees has also deeply worried the majority of Australians because of fear of possible infiltration by Islamist militants, thus the government has only accepted an intake limited to 2,000.

ethnic Syrians at a rally in support of refugees and asylum seekers in Sydney

Anyway, the issue of Rohingyas should rightfully be resolved among Bangladesh (where they best fit in socio-ethnically, but alas Bangladesh does not want them), Myanmar (which definitely does not want them and doesn't care what thw world thinks) and Britain who was the original promoter of East Bengali Muslim migration into Rakhine (previously called Arakan) and who could and should finance some sort of deal with Bangladesh and Myanmar for migration back to and settlement in Bangladesh.