The hypocrisy of Najib Razak
Illustration by Jared Downing / Frontier
If the Malaysian PM is serious about protecting the rights of Rakhine State’s Muslim community, there are plenty of places he could start far closer to home.
JUST WHEN the divisions over Rakhine State appeared insurmountable,
an event occurred that momentarily managed to bridge the gaping chasm.
Those who have called for independent investigations into abuse
allegations in Maungdaw and those placing their trust in military and
government denials now have something they can all get fired up about:
the naked opportunism of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
His remarks at a December 4 rally – “Enough is enough”, “I refuse to
shut my eyes and my mouth,” “We will continue to fight until the
Rohingya are safe,” and so on – have rightly been denounced as a piece
of political theatre. You don’t need to be a scholar of Malaysian
politics to see Najib is desperate to shore up his waning popularity
among conservative Muslims. It’s clear all the way from Yangon.
It’s not as if the issues Najib raised are unimportant, Frontier continues
to call on the Myanmar government to conduct a transparent and credible
investigation into allegations of abuses in Rakhine State, and the
granting of access to aid workers and independent journalists to the
affected area.
But if Najib was sincere, he would have raised his concerns through
diplomatic channels. In the case that they needed to be expressed
publicly, he would have done so in moderate language that would not
inflame tensions further, rather than use the politicised and contested
term “genocide”.
Instead, he’s put his own political future ahead of bilateral
relations (granted, he’s not the first politician to do that) and made
any genuine international efforts to improve the situation in Rakhine
more difficult. Najib’s comments will only further harden local opinion
against the international community. That’s going to make the situation
worse for Rakhine State’s Muslims. Thanks for nothing, Najib.
Another issue is that Najib has tried to take the moral high ground
when he’s hardly in a position to do so. As some Malay commentators have
pointed out, there are plenty of human rights abuses being perpetrated
by his own government that he could address first.
A great place to start would be respecting the rights of those
Muslims from Rakhine State who have sought asylum in his own country. As
of the end of October, there were almost 55,000 refugees in Malaysia
who identify as Rohingya, according to the United Nations Refugee
Agency, as well as many more who are not recognised (some estimate there
may be up to 150,000).
Malaysia should be commended for offering de facto protection to
these populations, including allowing asylum seeker boats to land on its
territory after they have been pushed back by the Thai navy, something
that has reportedly been happening since 2012.
But because Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee
Convention, even recognised refugees face significant difficulties in
Malaysia. They are unable to study or even send their children to
school, which means that many are illiterate.
They have no access to healthcare, and children born in Malaysia are
unregistered. Unable to work legally, but with no other means of
supporting themselves, they are vulnerable to exploitation by
unscrupulous employers.
As Faisal Islam Muhammad Kassim, president of the Rohingya Society in
Malaysia, noted in an interview after Myanmar stopped sending migrant
workers to Malaysia last week, there are 90,000 Rohingya already in
Malaysia ready and willing to fill any empty positions.
It’s not like any of this is a secret. One of the more in-depth studies, Equal Only in Name,
which was published in 2014 by the Equal Rights Trust in partnership
with Thailand’s Mahidol University, found that “the situation for
refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia remains extremely precarious and
they face constant risk of arrest, detention, financial penalties and
judicially imposed caning”.
The rights abuses suffered by Rakhine State’s Muslims in Malaysia
extend past the simple denial of basic human rights. It should not be
forgotten that people smugglers operated death camps for several years
along the border between Thailand and Malaysia.
On this issue, Malaysia has certainly dragged its feet. The camps on
the Malaysian side of the border were only uncovered after Thailand
launched its own crackdown, triggering the migrant crisis in mid-2015.
While Thailand has made some prosecutions since the camps were
uncovered, Malaysia has instead blamed the trafficking solely on the
Rohingya. If any serious investigation was ever undertaken into the
camps, it appears to have been kept under wraps.
So if Najib is serious about protecting the rights of Rakhine State’s
Muslim community, there are plenty of places he could start far closer
to home.
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