Senate debates

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

Adjournment

Myanmar: Rohingya People

8:33 pm

Photo of Deborah O'NeillDeborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

As we approach the Christmas season, I always give myself the opportunity to speak as a Christian into this space. I feel very privileged to be a person of faith in the Labor Party who is here and has this opportunity to speak to matters that emerge from my sense of my own faithfulness. I note that in the gospel many questions are asked by Jesus and his followers as to, 'Who is my brother? Who is my neighbour? When should I help people?' And there are many answers there, and that is about acknowledging the deep humanity of every person.

So as a person of faith I speak today to the reality that is the lived experience of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. This is a matter of international consequence, and the people there are our brothers and sisters. There was the recent coup by the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military. They've taken over the news, and another major crime of Myanmar's military has slowly slipped from the headlines. I want to speak today in this chamber on the continued persecution of the Rohingya people and of Muslims all over Myanmar and ask all here to turn their minds and their attention to the plight of these people, our brothers and sisters in this region.

The plight of the Rohingya is now one of the world's most blatant and overlooked cases of religious and ethnic prosecution. To date, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are crammed into refugee camps with little to no economic prospect or services. The Rohingya are a mostly Muslim minority population within Myanmar, principally in the Rakhine state on the border with Bangladesh. The Rohingya have lived in Rakhine and its predecessor state, Arakan, since the eighth century and are a mixture of diverse ethnic groups, including Arabs, Mongols and Bengals.

Conflict between the Rohingya and the majority Buddhist population has been ongoing throughout the 20th century since Myanmar received independence from the British in the 1940s. In 1982 the Rohingya were denied citizenship under the new nationality law, which precluded them from basic freedoms, such as movement, public education, the right to vote and access to employment. In 1989 the junta changed the name of the state from Arakan, a name used for centuries, to Rakhine to privilege the Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group, who also form a significant minority population in the region.

When the 1990 election saw the election of four Rohingya MPs the junta dissolved the parliament, arrested, jailed and tortured MPs. I stand here before you as an MP and think about the way we think about service in our country. I know that around the world MPs suffer this kind of attack. We should never take freedom for granted. We should never take the privileges of this place for granted. We should be standing up for people who are oppressed and people who are hunted down.

Over the last decade tensions have risen between the Rohingya and the increasingly powerful ultranationalist Buddhist sect, who were empowered during the decades of military rule. The ruling military spread fears that the tiny Muslim population of Myanmar, which currently stands at just five per cent of the population, will rise and 'outbreed' the current Buddhist majority. Extremists, such as the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, have spread hate and vile lies. They make general assertions such as Muslims are all rapists and Muslims are determined to integrate Buddhist women into their religion and culture. The Buddhist monk Wirathu has also spread ludicrous claims that the halal way of killing cattle allows familiarity with blood and could escalate to the level where it threatens world peace. Wirathu frequently posts fake news online about supposed crimes committed by Muslims. These lies are then propagated to tens of thousands of people via Facebook and YouTube and by the 2,500 monks that he oversees. This vile religious bigotry is straight out of the Fascist textbook, but instead of being stamped out it has infected all aspects of Myanmar society.

In 2014 anti-Muslim riots broke out in Mandalay, Myanmar's former royal capital, leaving two people dead. Muslims across Myanmar are now being forced to register as foreigners rather than as citizens of Myanmar. Of course, this leads to further discrimination and alienation. However, the simmering conflict did not come to a head until 2017 when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, ARSA for short, attacked the government outposts. ARSA was then declared a terrorist group and the Tatmadaw deployed 70 battalions to Rakhine state. The soldiers responded with disproportionate and indiscriminate violence, including random murders, widespread sexual assault, torture and mass detention. The Tatmadaw ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homeland and forced them across the border into Bangladesh, into what is now arguably the world's largest refugee camp, Cox's Bazar. These atrocities were completely disproportionate to the provocation and fit into a decades-long pattern of discrimination and dehumanisation of the Rohingya minority.

The Rohingya people languish to this day in squalor in these camps, eking out an existence on the fringes of Bangladesh society and abandoned by their homeland and supposed protectors. I note there has been some international action on this issue. US President Biden has sanctioned Myanmar's generals in relation to these war crimes. New Zealand has suspended all high-level contact with Myanmar and imposed travel bans on its military leaders. Australia has provided $89 million in humanitarian assistance and targeted sanctions on the military leaders responsible. But the humanitarian crisis remains. There are 860,000 Rohingya who are still stateless and displaced. They're living in refugee camps and in poverty. The COVID-19 pandemic has only made this awful situation that much worse. A December 2020 UNHCR report noted that food insecurity had risen, household income had dropped, 10 per cent of camp residents had reported that their health had deteriorated, and education was severely disrupted in the refugee camps due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic and multiple other complicating factors.

Colleagues, we must do more to act. The actions of the Tatmadaw against the Rohingya are acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. Any semblance of democracy has been shrugged off by this year's military coup. I urge that strong action be taken by Australia in order to protect the vulnerable Rohingya populations and ensure that their human rights are upheld and protected. The ability to manifest your faith and your cultural identity should never be curtailed by any government or military junta. The coup will only make things worse for the Rohingya people. Australia needs to stand against genocide in our region now and forever. Australia has done great work together with good people in the Asia-Pacific. We can and we should play a very significant role with our regional allies to make Rakhine safer for the Rohingya. We should call out and sanction the military leaders responsible for crimes against humanity.

As I speak this, again I think of the excitement that we all have as we come off the end of the COVID crisis here in Australia and as people look to Christmas with hope. Friends of mine have already told me that they've put their Christmas trees up early this year because they just want to have some beacon on the horizon. While we are looking to Christmas with that hope, we know that for the Rohingya the situation is getting worse and worse under a military junta and exacerbated by the pandemic. I urge all those here in the chamber and leaders amongst our parties to really do whatever we can to support the human rights of the Rohingya and I urge the government, with our regional partners, to show leadership now and not later—now, as people are suffering—in order to do more to halt the military junta and its genocidal campaign. My Christmas prayer is that we act in a way that provides some hope to the Rohingya people so that they know they do not suffer alone, that their brothers and sisters of many faiths around the world are not ignoring their plight.