Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday I attended a rally in Melbourne in support of the Rohingya Muslim people, calling on the international community and Australia to act in bringing an end to the persecution, attacks and killings of the Rohingya by the Myanmar security forces. The rally was supported by the Islamic Council of Victoria and was attended by all the Rohingya refugees living in Melbourne and, of course, members of the broader community.

In the last two weeks we have seen a catastrophe unfold in Myanmar, in the northern Rakhine state, where the Myanmar military have waged an assault on the Rohingya Muslims, with reports suggesting that an estimated 3,000 Rohingyas have already been killed. Brutal killings of women and children have taken place. There has been burning of villages. This is a humanitarian disaster, with reports of starvation as the distribution of aid has been blocked by Myanmar security forces. Since the most recent outbreak of violence against the Rohingya people on 25 August 2017, the United Nations has estimated that over 300,000 Rohingyas have been forced to flee to Bangladesh, with at least another 20,000 detained at the border. According to Human Rights Watch, multiple Rohingya villages have been burnt and destroyed. There are currently 1.1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state. They have been there for hundreds of years, yet the Rohingya Muslims are not formally recognised as an ethnic group in Myanmar. They are a stateless people, deemed to be illegal immigrants, who have been denied citizenship and most government services.

Australia is one of the four major donors of economic development aid to Myanmar. We have a historically good relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi and thus have the capacity to call on her to speak out against these crimes, which are being referred to by many as ethnic cleansing. I support calls by Human Rights Watch Australia and others in urging the Australian government's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence and Australia's Defence Force chief to call Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar armed forces and press for an immediate end to these atrocities. Further, they should press for unfettered access to Rakhine state for humanitarian agencies, as well as access for independent international monitors, including the fact-finding mission established by the UN Human Rights Council, which is currently blocked from entering Myanmar.

This recent large influx of Rohingya to the refugees camps in Bangladesh has caused significant strain on the country's resources. There is no shelter, clean water or proper sanitation, and people are starving. The conditions are squalid and crowded and Bangladesh is struggling to cope. Its Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has urged Myanmar to take back some of the 370,000 refugees, stating that no words were enough to express her condemnation of Myanmar, while top UN human rights official Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says this looks like 'a textbook example of ethnic cleansing'.