The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is calling for a full investigation into the crackdown against Rohingya in Arakan State, Myanmar. But it is grandstanding about the extrajudicial killings & arbitrary arrests of Rohingya & the torching of Rohingya homes by the Myanmar military.
The OIC is a coalition of 57 countries, 56 of which belong to the UN, with large, not necessarily majority, Muslim populations. Some of the member states are under military siege–like Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia. Palestine, under Israeli occupation, is more bantustate than nation-state. Several of the members are part of the problem: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Bahrain, Turkey. There isn’t one that could be called a bastion of freedom.
But when it comes to Rohingya, the OIC ought to hang its damn head in shame. Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia are all members of the OIC but in May 2015, whilst an estimated 25,000 Rohingya were adrift in the Andaman Sea without water or food, all three of those countries refused to search & rescue & admitted only several thousand after fishermen brought the boats to land.
Many OIC member states are landlocked & may not have navies but what stopped them from chartering rescue operations, offering search & other logistical help, & from taking in refugees? There is still no accounting of what happened to most of the 25,000 Rohingya. Were they just allowed to drown or starve to death? Has the OIC used its massive resources to find out what happened to them? Or do their lives not matter?
The OIC intended to present a resolution condemning the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar at the September 2016 UN General Assembly but then pulled back after the vague blitherings of Aung San Suu Kyi that Kofi Annan would look into things in Arakan State. None of those countries would be so rich if they were so damn stupid in negotiations as to take her word.
Rohingya deserve international solidarity in their struggle against genocide but it won’t come from the OIC. It will come from working people around the world.
End the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar.