Amjad Bashir: World looks away as Rohingya suffer

In responding to the plight of the persecuted Rohingya minority, our national leaders and international institutions have been big on condemnation, light on action, and invisible in terms of real intervention.

A genocide is playing out unchecked as thousands are murdered and hundreds of thousands driven out in state-condoned violence.

We saw the same lumbering impotence before in Rwanda and Srebrenica and hoped we would never let it happen again. Yet that is what is happening.

Last year I visited the makeshift camps in Bangladesh where hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled for their lives.

Last week I went to Myanmar, hoping to see the other half of the jigsaw.

I went as part of a delegation from the European Parliament’s subcommittee on Human Rights, joined by MEPs from both the Trade and Foreign Affairs Committees.

We met civic organisations and religious leaders, who confirmed that the process of democratic transition in Myanmar was facing difficulties.

I also met parliamentarians including the Minister of Defence.

However, the most telling thing was where our delegation was not allowed
to go and the people we could not question.

Our request to visit the region of Rakhine was declined. This is where the Rohingya population is concentrated and where there is clear evidence of ethic cleansing, rape, infanticide and a whole litany of brutality.

Our request to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, was also refused.

We considered cancelling the delegation in objection to these restrictions, but in balance decided to go ahead to see what we could learn in spite of them.

Contrast this, though, with the carte blanche on travel and contacts which we were granted in visiting Bangladesh, and the help we received from a state as poor this to explore fully the scale of the Rohingya crisis.

I have long had concerns about the human rights situation in Myanmar and this five-day visit has only served to see these concerns heightened.