Rohingya Life

By Mr. Aman Ullah On November 1993, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) singed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Rangoon with SLORC to repatriate more than 250,000 Muslims Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. However it was not publicly available. The following was issued by the Information Section of the UNHCR on 5 November 1993. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Union of Myanmar and UNHCR was signed on 5 November 1993, in Yangon.  The Director General of the Department of Immigration and Manpower, U Maung Aung singed the MOU on behalf of the Government and Mr. W. Blatter, Director, Regional Bureau for Asia and Oceania, NHCR, Geneva, on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  The signing of the MOU marks a milestone in the voluntary repatriation programme from Bangladesh.  It is the result of an agreement reached during the visit to Myanmar of Mrs. Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in Jul

Bernama Tatkala umat Islam teruja menanti ketibaan Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Ziaur Rahman, 25, seorang etnik Islam Rohingya, hanya mampu termenung sedih mengenangkan keluarga dan kampung halamannya. Merupakan antara lebih 60,000 etnik Islam Rohingya yang berlindung di Malaysia, beliau berkata ini tahun ketiganya beraya di negara ini. "Saya tidak merasai nikmat sebenar berhari raya apabila terkenangkan nasib ibu dan keluarga di Wilayah Rakhine, Myanmar dan kem pelarian di Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh yang hidup dalam kesusahan, kedaifan dan ketakutan. "Apalah makna Aidilfitri tanpa kehadiran keluarga dan sekadar hidup di muka bumi ini sebagai pemegang kad Suruhanjaya Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu Bagi Pelarian (UNHCR)," kata  Ziaur Rahman  kepada Bernama. Apapun, beliau memuji rakyat Malaysia kerana kaumnya mendapat pembelaan di negara ini. Sementara itu, Abdul Ghani Abdul Rahman, 48, yang telah lima kali menyambut 1 Syawal di negara ini, ber

By MAUNG ZARNI If I were a Rohingya  I'd convey to the whole wide world Amartya Sen's incisive reading of  our history: "Burma (as a post-independence nation-state created only  in 1947) came to the Rohingya" (not the other way around).  If I were a Rohingya  I'd tell the world that We Rohingyas were pre-colonial & pre-Union of  Burma natives of Araccan or Arakan and that our brother/sister  Buddhist Rakhines whom we call Mogh and we Rohingya Muslims shared the  land as our common birthplace. They call us Hkaw Taw Kular and we call  them Mogh. Neither was more "indigenous" between us.  If I were a Rohingya  I'd tell the world that we have our own respective and respectable  self-identified group names, Rohingyas and Rakhine.  If I were a Rohingya, notwithstanding our racist slurs - Khaw Taw  Kular and Mogh - we have been co-residents of Araccan or Arakan  (Rakhine) before the Bama colonzers came in