President Thein Sein during interview with VOA Burmese Service chief Than Lwin Htun, Naypyitaw, August 13, 2012.
Burmese President Thein Sein says his government will open schools to improve the education of minority Rohingya Muslims who accuse the majority Buddhist state of persecuting them.
In an exclusive interview with VOA Burmese Service chief Than Lwin Htun in Naypyidaw, Thein Sein also said he believes it is necessary to modify the country's 1982 Citizenship Law, which grants Burmese nationality to third-generation immigrants. He did not elaborate.
The Burmese government refuses to recognize the country's estimated 800,000 Rohingya Muslims as an ethnic group and denies them citizenship. Many Burmese consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Rohingya Muslims, who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape religious violence, sit in a boat after being intercepted crossing the Naf River by Bangladeshi border authorities in Taknaf, Bangladesh, June 13, 2012.
Thein Sein called education an important tool to help different communities live in harmony and respect human rights.
He said Bengalis - his term for the Rohingya - have only religious schools and lack what he called "proper education."
"So we will open schools for them and give them modern education," he said. "And once they become educated, they will be more thoughtful and can decide what is right and what is wrong."
Mabrur Ahmed, the cofounder and director of Restless Beings, a Britain-based rights group following the Rohingya situation, welcomed the president’s school pledge but warned of segregation.
“I don’t think it’s productive for a community where there’s going to be two ethnicities living side by side and they have separate schools for each set of children," he said. "But at the same time, at the moment, the Rohingya children are not receiving any education, or very limited education up to age seven, so to have access to more education is obviously a good thing."
Without citizenship, Ahmed said, the Rohingya and other unrecognized ethnic minority groups are not able to own land, get married or have children without state permission.
“Generally, the whole law needs to be [reviewed] where everyone has equal rights and there isn’t this separation of ‘pure breed’ Burmese and ethnic-minority Burmese and hereditary Burmese,” he said.
Ahmed said Burma’s transition from a military-led to a semi-democratic civilian-led government is a “good, positive” step. He said the president’s interview is a sign of further change, but that it needs to be followed by actions.
"How can we be sure this ethnic cleansing, or at least this persecution towards the ethnicity of the Rohingya doesn’t happen in the future? How are we asking for that? For it to be written in the rule of law," Ahmed said.
"How can we be sure this ethnic cleansing, or at least this persecution towards the ethnicity of the Rohingya doesn’t happen in the future? How are we asking for that? For it to be written in the rule of law," Ahmed said.
Monday's interview is the first to be granted to VOA by a Burmese head of state. Burma's previous military-led administration, in which Thein Sein served as prime minister, banned VOA and accused it of spreading lies.
He also reiterated Burma's opposition to any foreign investigation of recent deadly sectarian violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in the western state of Rakhine. The Saudi-based Organization for Islamic Cooperation has called for such an investigation of the violence, which its members view as a case of religious persecution against the Rohingya.
Thein Sein said the government is giving assistance to the victims and has asked an "independent" Burmese Human Rights Commission to investigate the unrest, which erupted in May and killed 77 people from the Rohingya and Buddhist communities. He said there is "no need" for a foreign commission to investigate the violence as an international issue.
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