Arakan News Agency
Targeted and partial sanctions will not stop Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, the head of a prominent Rohingya Muslim organization said on Monday.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, the head of the US Burma Task Force, said Myanmar’s army would not end its ongoing attacks on Rohingya Muslims unless the United States and the United Nations impose full sanctions against Myanmar.
“We have asked the United States, the Senate and the Congress to pass a bill imposing full sanctions on Myanmar and they must use all available means,” he said. “Myanmar will only listen if full economic sanctions are imposed.”
Shukhat Ali, director of the Rohingya Association of America, strongly criticized the recent November agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar to send Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, saying they failed to properly address basic civil rights issues, such as citizenship and ethnic rights.
“The only thing mentioned in the agreement is the Myanmar resident. “This means they are temporary residents, they [Rohingya] are not part of Myanmar, nor belong to Myanmar. [Under the agreement] are just visitors. ”
“The Myanmar government accepts these people to avoid international pressure.”
“What we are trying to do here in Washington is to help educate all lawmakers in the US Congress and the Senate about what is going on in Arakan,” said Adam Marrow, director of communication at the Burma Task Force of the Anadolu agency.
Marrow described the group’s work as “very successful,” saying there was a lot of interest in the status of Rohingya Muslims, especially in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A number of prominent American Muslim groups launched in 2013 the Burma Non-Governmental Task Force, with the declared goal of stopping the perceived ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and educating Americans about the atrocities faced by the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State.
