Arakan News Agency
Barack Obama says Burma needs to end discrimination against the Rohingya if it is to succeed in its transition to a democracy…
Burma has said the persecution of its Rohingya Muslim population is not the cause of south-east Asia’s migrant crisis, a day after the United States called on the country to give full rights to the minority to help end the exodus.
The US president, Barack Obama, said this week Burma needed to end discrimination against the Rohingya if it was to succeed in its transition to a democracy, as Washington put further pressure on the country to tackle what it sees as one of the root causes of a migration the region has struggled to cope with.
Burma does not recognise its 1.1 million Rohingya as citizens, rendering them effectively stateless. Almost 140,000 were displaced in deadly clashes with Buddhists in the country’s western Rakhine state in 2012.
It had been portrayed that discrimination and persecution were causing people to leave Rakhine state, Burma’s foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, told diplomats and international agencies in Yangon, but that was “not true”.
He pointed to the number of Bangladeshis on board a migrant boat that landed in May as proof the influx of “boat people” was a regional problem linked to human trafficking.
“This incident … has shown to the region as well as the international community this is not the root cause,” he said.
The boat he referred to was intercepted by Burma’s navy in May. Burma has said 200 of the 208 people aboard were economic migrants from Bangladesh.
Source : theguardian
