The Stateless Rohingya Blog

PARINYAPORN PAJEE  October 6, 2011 10:21 am A Thai documentary maker turns her attention to the Rohingya Like many Thais, Thananuch Sanguansak saw CNN's report in early 2009 that the Thai military had been systematically towing boat-loads of Rohingya refugees far out to sea and setting them adrift. Her curiosity was aroused and the director and editor of the Nation Channel's documentary section decided to explore further with a documentary of her own. "That was really the first time I'd heard about the Rohingya. They are part of our daily lives but we don't really notice them," says Thananuch, who set about tracing the Rohingya in Thailand from Ranong to Samut Sakhon - the provinces that are home to the largest concentrations of Burmese immigrant labour. "I asked Burmese labourers where I could find Rohingya people and the answer was ‘any roti vendor'. I was surprised because I'd always thought that the roti vendors came from India or Bangladesh.

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) strongly condemned the recent two almost identical interviews of U Tin Oo, the Vice-President of National League for Democracy (NLD) with RFA and Burmese Immigration Minister U Khin Yi with BBC respectively on 2 October and 24 September calling the Muslim Rohingya illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The oppressed and persecuted Rohingya people are not surprised at the false accusation of U Khin Yi. But we are grieved and disappointed over the statement of U Tin Oo which indicates good sense does not prevail yet in the mind of the former general even after he has held the office of highest public trust as a Vice-President of National League for Democracy (NLD) headed by democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on whom the Rohingya people, nay, the whole people of Burma repose faith. It sounds that U Tin Oo is following the footstep of his former boss Gen. Ne Win, while endorsing xenophobic and anti-Muslim policy of the new government of U Thein