From Pakistan’s Daily Times, an often over-looked aspect of the recently much discussed relationship between Burma and China:
The Muslim Rohingya is one of seven ethnic minority states which were formed under the Myanmar constitution of 1974, but human rights groups including Amnesty International have documented a catalogue of abuses by the junta…
Nick Cheesman, a south Asia expert at the Asia Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, said: “They have not been given the same rights as other minority citizens in Burma, and their situation is very bad.” In Ruili, a town that for years has boomed on the back of illicit trade in drugs, timber and drugs, Islam lives in relative peace with a growing community of about 10,000 Myanmar traders, most of them Muslims.
Myanmar traders have moved to this side of the border and China has tolerated their presence as trade has flourished, even though the flow of illicit goods, border guards said, was difficult to control. Sitting at the mosque in Ruili that was built in 1993 to accommodate the growing number of immigrants, one trader said living in China was much safer. [Full text]
