CHICAGO, May 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-iReach/ --
Oslo Conference on Myanmar's Systematic Persecution of
Rohingyas
Tuesday,
May 26, 2015
(To be webcast
LIVE)
The Norwegian Nobel Institute
&
Voksenaasen Conference Center in
Oslo
The conference will push for an end to
Myanmar's "slow genocide" in the
Western commercial, diplomatic and military engagement with the SE
Asian country.
Oslo,
Norway: Over the last 10 days,
the world has watched with horror and disbelief the news reports
about mostly Rohingyas from Myanmar drifting in over-crowded vessels in
the Andaman Sea, half-starved, disease-stricken and
dying.
On 26 May, a high-profile international conference
will be held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen to
bring the Norwegian and EU publics closer to the reality of the
Rohingyas. This Muslim minority in Myanmar (Burma) has been so systematically persecuted
that they would rather risk lives – including those of their
infants and children - than die a slow, collective
death.
George Soros, the
iconic billionaire and philanthropist, is among the international
figures who will offer solidarity and compassion for the Rohingyas.
He will join the call for an immediate end to Myanmar's official policy of discrimination,
persecution and destruction of over one million Rohingyas an ethnic
group in Western Myanmar. In his
pre-recorded address prepared for the conference, Soros states that
he too was a Rohingya. "In January, when I visited Burma for the 4th time, I made a short visit
to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State in order to see for myself
the situation on the ground… a section of Sittwe called Aung
Mingalar, a part of the city that can only be called a ghetto.
(There) I heard the echoes of my childhood. You see, in 1944, as a
Jew in Budapest, I too was a
Rohingya. Much like the Jewish ghettos set up by Nazis around
Eastern Europe during World War
II, Aung Mingalar has become the involuntary home to thousands of
families who once had access to health care, education, and
employment. Now, they are forced to remain segregated in a state of
abject deprivation. The parallels to the Nazi genocide are
alarming," Soros says.
At the conference, a team of researchers from the
International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University of
London will be presenting their
latest findings. In a recent article in The Independent (20
May), the lead researcher Penny
Green writes: "The Rohingya have now faced what genocide
scholar Daniel Feirestein describes as 'systematic weakening', the
genocidal stage prior to annihilation. Those who do not flee suffer
destitution, malnutrition and starvation, severe physical and
mental illness, restrictions on movement, education, marriage,
childbirth, livelihood and the ever present threat of violence and
corruption."
Such acts compelled former UN Special Rapporteur on
Myanmar (2008-14), the Argentine
legal expert Tomas Ojea Quintana, to
observe at the London School of
Economics a year ago that in the case of the Rohingyas,
"genocidal acts" have been committed by Myanmar. Quintana will be sharing his
perspectives in Oslo.
Nobel Peace Laureate, the Archbishop Emeritus
Desmond M. Tutu of South Africa, will also address the
Oslo conference.
He places the responsibility for the Rohingyas' plight
squarely on the Myanmar
government. While the government has
characterized this as sectarian or communal violence and sought to
absolve itself of responsibility, Tutu says there is evidence that
anti-Rohingya sentiment has been carefully cultivated by the
government itself. "I would be more inclined to heed the warnings
of eminent scholars and researchers including Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics,
who say this is a deliberately false narrative to camouflage the
slow genocide being committed against the Rohingya people," Tutu
says.
Bishop Tutu will make an impassioned call in
Oslo: "As lovers of peace … we
have a responsibility to persuade our international and regional
aid and grant-making institutions, including the European Union, to
adopt a common position making funding the development of
Myanmar conditional on the
restoration of citizenship, nationality, and basic human rights to
the Rohingya."
The 3-day conference is sponsored by the
Oxford University Poverty and Human
Development Initiative (OPHI), the Harvard
University Global Equality Initiative, Parliament of the
World's Religions, Burma Task Force USA, Justice for All, Refugees International,
and the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary
University of London.
Among the Norwegian participants are former Prime
Minister of Norway Kjell Magne Bondevik and Morten Høglund, The
State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway.
The Oslo conference
is the culmination of a series of conferences – the two previous
ones were held at the London School of
Economics and Harvard University
in 2014 - designed to call attention to the plight of Rohingyas and
their decades-long persecution by successive governments in
Myanmar.
"As a Buddhist and an ethnic Burmese, I am
devastated and ashamed that my own country of birth has been
committing mass atrocities that can only be described as a
genocide, as spelled out by the 1948 Geneva Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," says Dr
Maung Zarni, exiled scholar and
activist. "The UN and Western democratic governments failed
Cambodians, Rwandans, Bosnian Serbs and Tamils previously. They are
now failing the Rohingyas. Once again, these entities are ignoring
an unfolding genocide. It is outrageous that they are mis-framing
the Rohingya issue as a "migration" problem, a "communal conflict"
or a "humanitarian crisis". This is because calling Myanmar's genocide a genocide will disrupt
their "business as usual" approach with the Burmese military and
ex-military leaders," he observed.
"As hate, anger and fear is rising around the world,
it is important that people of compassion feel the pain of peaceful
Rohingyas who have become stateless and homeless in their own
ancestral land", said Imam Malik Mujahid, Co-Chair of the
Conference and chair of the Parliament of the World's
Religions.
Press Contact: Dr Maung
Zarni
UK Mobile: +44 (0)771 047
3322
Email:
fanon2005@gmail.com
INFO FOR THE LIVE WEBCAST
from 0900 – 1730 hr (Norway time) (GMT
+2):
Check the following sites for the
web address for to watch the live webcast:
http://www.burmamuslims.org/
http://burmese.rohingyablogger.com/
http://www.maungzarni.net/
Media Contact: Maung
Zarni, London School of
Economics, (+44 77) 1047-3322, fanon2005@gmail.com
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SOURCE London School of
Economics