planet earth looks blue

 Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar have found a not so bright light at the end of the tunnel.  In Myanmar the Rohingya are forced from their homes into hard labour.  Many claim that the military junta running the country are undergoing an ethnic cleansing of their Muslim ethnic minority, and have stated they would rather die then return.   There are at least 230,000 refugees living in Bangladesh, while others have escaped to Thailand.  But what they have found in Thailand is not such a pretty picture.  Hundreds have been beaten, then gathered into boats with no food, water, or motors, and dragged miles out to sea to be left, presumably to die.  

Indonesian authorities rescued some of the Rohingya refugees yesterday, starting a wave of international attention, prompting the Thai authorities to investigate.  In the Thai news they are reporting that the Rohingya were tricked by human traffickers, who brought them to Thailand, and intended on sending them to a third country.  The Thai government puts the responsibility on the UN, saying they should go into Myanmar and alleviate their situation in the first place.  

So who are the Rohingya?  Their history goes back to the 7th century, when Muslim Arab merchants and traders settled in Southeast Asia.  Their descendants lived in the Arakan State, which was independent until 1784 when a Burmese king invaded Arakan.  Since then they have been living in a state of severe persecution in what was once Burma, and is now Myanmar.  

Myanmar claims that the Rohingya could not possibly have come from their soil because they don’t recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group.  Denying their existence doesn’t sound very promising on the ethnic cleansing issue.  But with few people even aware of who the Rohingya are, they have little hope of an international effort to stand up to the Myanmar government.