Thursday, May 12, 2016

US sticking with calling Myanmar minority 'Rohingya'

US sticking with calling Myanmar minority 'Rohingya': "YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar and the United States appeared to agree to disagree Tuesday on what to call the Southeast Asian nation's beleaguered Muslim minority that Washington and most of the world know as Rohingya.

Many Buddhists inside Myanmar prefer to call them "Bengalis," arguing that the 1 million or so members of the minority are mostly illegal immigrants and not a native ethnic group. In fact, the families of many Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations.

U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel said the U.S. calls communities by the name they themselves prefer.

"The normal U.S. practice and the normal international practice is that communities anywhere have the right, or have the ability to decide what they are going to be called. And normally when that happens, we would call them what they asked to be called. It's not a political decision, it's just a normal practice."

Because Myanmar does not officially recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, it denies most of them citizenship and basic rights. Conflict over land and resources in the western state of Rakhine, where most of the estimated 1 million Rohingya live, caused deadly violence between Buddhists and Muslims which later spread to other parts of the country. More than 100,000 Rohingya were forced to flee their homes and now live in poor conditions in decrepit camps."



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