Will Obama use the R-word on his Myanmar trip? Many observers wonder if the US president will utter the taboo term and argue for Rohingya rights US President Barack Obama looks upwards at the the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit plenary session at the International Convention Center, Yanqi, on Tuesday in Beijing (AFP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool) US President Barack Obama looks upwards at the the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit plenary session at the International Convention Center, Yanqi, on Tuesday in Beijing (AFP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Pool) Simon Lewis, Yangon Myanmar November 11, 2014 Facebook Print Mail Share When US President Barack Obama enters Myanmar’s highest level ASEAN summit Wednesday, observers will be waiting eagerly for a single word: Rohingya. Since 2012, when deadly inter-communal violence broke out in Rakhine state, Muslims in western Myanmar and their supporters have rallied around the term. But as much as it is an ethnic identity, the word itself — rejected by the Buddhist-dominated government — is a minefield. In the western state of Rakhine, the mostly Buddhist majority ethnic group has helped turn the term into a dangerous taboo avoided even by some of the world’s biggest humanitarian groups. It is into this highly charged linguistic standoff that Obama walks. Already, he is being lobbied to employ the word at the international summit in Naypyidaw, and — in doing so — to speak up for the Rohingya, thousands of whom are currently fleeing the country on boats, feeding a regional human trafficking and refugee crisis. International non-government organizations (INGOs) and branches of the United Nations working in Rakhine state have long skirted controversy by simply omitting the name — which is off limits in discussions with the government and has come to be referred to as “the R-word”. Some see this as undermining the Rohingya’s right to self-identify, but aid workers say they favor a pragmatic approach to the issue given the sensitivity of foreign aid and its necessity. According to the UN, more than 300,000 people in Rakhine state are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including almost 140,000 people living in temporary camps — the majority of them Rohingya. A belief among the Rakhine that aid agencies are biased in favor of the Rohingya led to the banishment of major healthcare provider Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland (MSF) from the state in March, and riots that targeted international organizations’ offices in the state capital Sittwe the same month. Since then, all aid projects in Rakhine state have been subject to approval by an emergency coordination committee. The incident has led to a humanitarian crisis. In June, the UN children’s fund, Unicef, was forced to “clarify” an incident where its staff reportedly apologized to Rakhine officials in a meeting for using the term in a presentation. The use of the term was “an oversight, as Unicef had no intention of engaging in a discussion on the sensitive issue of ethnicity at that forum,” the clarification said. Pierre Peron, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yangon, declined to comment on what the UN’s policy on the word Rohingya was, other than to say by email that: We follow the principle that any minority group has the right to self-identify and must be able to call themselves whatever they want.” But in reality, while the UN secretary general and the UN’s human rights envoy to Myanmar continue to use the term Rohingya in statements issued from New York and Geneva, it is absent from public statements issued locally by UN agencies.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 11:15:11 +0000
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