December 30, 2013
The United States is complicit in the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community in Myanmar for easing sanctions against the Asian country, a political analyst tells Press TV.
“As far as who is responsible for this, I think we have to assign some responsibility not only to the government in Myanmar and to the Noble Laureate Aung San Suu kyi, … but also, we have to blame the American government and world community,” Kevin Barrett, a political commentator from Madison said in a Monday interview with Press TV.
The analyst noted that the US has been rewarding the Myanmar regime with ever-closer political and economic ties despite the genocide of the minority Rohingya Muslims.
“Now, if we look back at when this latest wave of extreme persecution and genocide started, it was May of 2012 and less than two months later the US rewarded the Myanmar government for its genocide by sending its first ambassador in decades to Myanmar and opening up relations and less than a month after that, I believe August 2012, Myanmar’s government was rewarded for the genocide by an opening up US trade with Myanmar and pouring investments in the oil industry,” he added.
Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar account for about five percent of the country’s population of nearly 60 million. They have been persecuted and faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country's independence in 1948.
The Buddhist-majority government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas and classifies them as illegal migrants, although the Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.
Comments