Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst the reform process continues in Burma and there are positive aspects, on the other hand Human Rights Watch speaks of an uneven reform process and laws being enforced inconsistently. Nevertheless, the manifest main problem facing this country at the moment is the situation of the Rohingya in Rakhine state. I think it is very important that we have a voice on this issue because we have a situation where even those people we associate with the call for democracy and human rights in Burma—whether it is the first NLD delegation to come to this country, come to the dining room and discuss the issue with us, Aung San Suu Kyi's performance at the Sydney Opera House or a group of democracy 88 activists who came here in the last parliamentary sitting—have been found somewhat wanting on this issue. There has clearly been reluctance by the reform forces in Burma to confront the issue because of the controversy and unpopularity of the situation.

I am pleased that we do join with the US Congress, through the intervention of James P McGovern—a Democrat from Massachusetts—who, on 4 May, resolved to call for the end of the persecution of the Rohingya people and spoke of the need to recognise them as an ethnic group. He said:

The situation is dire and rapidly deteriorating.

It is particularly important that those people who have been seeking to diminish the authority of the government in Burma over a long period of time, and who are still campaigning for constitutional change, and at the same time reiterate that they are absolutely dissatisfied with the situation of the Rohingya. It is not only what is happening to those people in Burma; it is, as some speakers indicated earlier, what is happening to them once they are expelled. There was a situation where Thai authorities, at one stage, drove boats into the sea and refugee claimants were forced to be drowned in their own waters. We have got a situation where refugee claimants, and others in Thailand, are being hugely exploited in the prawn industry and the broader aquaculture industry. We have got a situation in Bangladesh where their religious confrères condemn them to very third-rate conditions. There are no proper camps and people are basically exploited in Bangladesh once expelled from Burma. Indisputably, this question of their definition and their rights in the country is a concern.

On 30 March 2014, The Hindu quoted government spokesman, Ye Htut, as saying:

If a household wants to identify themselves as 'Rohingya', we will not register it.

People do not have the right to self-define, as we do in Australia. They are basically being told that they are Bengalis, full-stop, or they are not counted. MP Aung Mya Kyaw went on to say:

They will only write down 'Bengali' because Rohingya doesn’t exist.

The previous speaker made it clear that there has been a Muslim presence, not only the Rohingya but also others groups as well, in the country for 1,000 years. Yes, there might have been some flow of Muslims into Burma in recent decades because of overpopulation, despite the historic efforts of the Bangladesh government on birth control, but indisputably there has been a strong presence. It has only been since the 1970s that we have seen this very strong, Buddhist, chauvinistic move going very strongly against them. We heard earlier today of restrictions with regard to marriage and the number of children they can have, and now a contrived attempt in respect of conversions to further restrict them.

We had a situation in 2012 where we received various estimates about how many people were displaced. Let us, for the sake of argument, accept the government's position of 50,000. That was accompanied by uncounted, wide variations of death estimates, the destruction of houses and the destruction of shops, and that has continued through 2013. There was violence in Meiktila in March 2013—there was knowledge of that and the information was suppressed. In August there was the burning of houses and shops. In October last, at least seven people were murdered and another 50 in March of 2014. It is a very sad tale of a lack of intervention by the government to protect these people and, in some cases, collusion of police in their suppression.

In giving foreign aid to the country, it is important that Australia is out there campaigning, that Medecins Sans Frontieres are allowed back into the area. One of the criticisms is, from Human Rights Watch and others, that we cannot get information—the government is suppressing this information. It is important that Australia does exercise its influence on the matter.

See this speech in context