Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army declares ceasefire

After the increasing attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar since August 25 when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked several Myanmar police posts on the Bangladesh Myanmar border killing twenty Myanmar guards and subsequent lynching of 90 Rohingyas’ the ARSA has finally declared a ceasefire urging Myanmar police to lay down their arms and urging humanitarian organisations to resume relief work in the Rakhine province.

The Rohingya Muslim and Buddhist crisis have assumed gigantic proportion with about three lakh Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar since August 25th with 40 thousand migrating to India, (UN figures). Bangladesh is today the worst affected country with more than two lakhs Rohingya Muslim refugees having migrated here, the nation already reeling under an acute financial crisis.

During the last week’s visit of the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, India has extended tremendous financial package and signed number of other agreements for construction of roads, hospitals and institutions in Rakhine province and Myanmar with the aim to improve the socio economic lot of the affected people. Over 11 lakh Rohingya Muslims are living in Rakhine province of Myanmar in extremely shabby conditions primarily in the coastal areas bereft of civic facilities in ghettos.

The conflict between the Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims dates back to 1982 since when the Muslims have been barred/ devoid of the Myanmar citizenship and subsequent eruption of ethnic conflict. They are considered as the most persecuted community in the world and the UN has also declared them as a friendless community not being trusted upon an in isolation.

Prime minister Narendra Modi who just returned from his three-day visit to Myanmar had urged for  a solution of the current Rohingya Muslim and Myanmar Buddhist impasse based on mutual respect for peace, communal harmony, justice, dignity and democratic values. Bangladesh which is the worst sufferer in terms of receiving more than two lakh Rohingya Muslim refugees in just fifteen days on its land after the latter’s’ having been flushed out from Myanmar due the on going blood bath in Rakhine and other parts of Myanmar has said that the Bangladesh government was providing shelter to these refugees out of humanitarian considerations but was putting lot of pressure on the government and its already overburdened fiscal deficit economy.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the Myanmar border police has laid landmines in the border areas to resist the refugees coming back to Myanmar after they are being pushed back at the Bangladesh border. Sources say that thousands of terror stricken refugees are still thronging Bangladesh border to seek refuge in this country. Reports about the burning of the villages of the Rohingya Muslims by local Buddhists in Rakhine province are still pouring in while the Buddhists are denying the allegations saying that they are not the Buddhists who are burning the Muslim villages but the Rohingyas’ themselves are doing so to defame them.

SUNIL NEGI