Anniversary Brings Welcome Attention to Rohingya, But Some Allies Are Targeted

Last week’s fifth anniversary of the genocidal mass displacement of Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority included a number of events, such as our August 23 panel on Rohingya Children’s education and our August 24 collaboration with US Campaign for Burma, featuring UN Special Rapporteur to Burma Tom Andrews. We will also examine employment rights of Rohingya and other refugees on September 1. At the same time, Rohingya living in the camps have also organized their own protests. Their voices must be heard.

To mark the anniversary, former US Ambassador to Burma Scot Marciel has made a number of very good recommendations linked here; he is saying what we have been saying since the coup last year, but it will help convince policymakers that these ideas come from his mouth.

First the good news: the UK Government took this occasion to join on to the Rohingya Genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Unfortunately on the same day, the Burmese military government arrested the former UK Ambassador Vicky Bowman, who is married to a Burmese national and in recent years directed the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business. The official complaint alleges minor infractions of her visa, usually not grounds for detaining a diplomat.

Several months ago Burma Task Force staff met with Ambassador Bowman and participated in a webinar she was part of. We deplore her arrest as a form of hostage taking designed to pressure and punish the British Government and call for her immediate release.