The heart of the problem is to find a reasonable policy balance between the phobia, either it is actually believed or indoctrinated to believe, that the Rohingya or to use the government-military accepted label Bangali would overwhelm the rest of the 50 million population with Islamization, and logical, pragmatic undertaking. This phobia and hatred laced thinking is hardly a logical approach that should be entertained.

In a nutshell, reviewing the 1982 citizenship law to be in tune with the international norms would be the way to go, if Burma or Myanmar is to become a respectable, fully fledged member of the international community again. After all, this citizenship law is written by military dictatorship regime and not with the consent of the people and the organizations that represent them. This is the hard fact.

While debates and arguments on when and how the Rohingya or Bengali have entered the country could be carried out academically at a leisurely pace, the pressing problem is on how to handle the present problem of a million population, which Burma and Bangladesh don’t recognize as their citizens. A humane solution based on universal human rights is the only way to resolve this problematic. And the UN and international community are ready to help overcome this humanitarian catastrophe.

Link to the story: The Rakhine crisis and the government’s options