PERAK Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah today urged world powers and Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbours to have “courage” in putting an end to the Rohingya crisis that has displaced half a million refugees.

In his speech at a fundraiser in Kuala Lumpur tonight, Sultan Nazrin said while the world would never learn from past atrocities against humanity, world leaders had a responsibility to stop acts of violence.

“We cannot allow fears of upsetting our neighbours; or fear of being accused of interference; or fears of affecting our regional trade and commerce, to prevent us from voicing out our anxieties and alarm at what is happening in Rakhine state,” he said.

Myanmar is a member of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian nations, a regional grouping known for its non-interference policy, which has come under criticism lately for its inaction over the crisis.

Last week, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman criticised Asean chairman Alan Peter Cayetano from the Philippines for failing to condemn the Myanmar government over the crisis, and for a “misrepresentation of the reality of the situation”.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has responded by accusing Malaysia of violating the Asean charter of non-interference and exploiting the crisis “to promote a certain political agenda.” 

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for “swift action” to prevent further instability and find a durable solution.

“The situation has spiralled into the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency and a humanitarian and human rights nightmare,” Guterres said last Thursday at a Security Council meeting.

Following the deaths of a dozen Myanmar security personnel in the hands of the militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on August 25, government military retaliation has led to thousands of civilian deaths and the exodus of about 500,000 Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh. 

Sultan Nazrin cited other “crimes against humanity” in the past, such as the killing of millions by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, as examples of how important it was for the world community to have courage in responding to acts of atrocities.

“Do we not all sometimes wonder whether we could have done anything to prevent that genocide, or whether we did anything to ease the sufferings of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians or Vietnamese boat people who fled their countries and lived in over-crowded refugee camps in countries across the region, including in Sungai Besi and Pulau Bedong in our own country?

“Today, another humanitarian crisis has flared up, again, barely two hours by flight from where we sit. More than 400,000 Rohingya, or almost a third of their total population of 1.5 million in Rakhine State in Myanmar, have been displaced and live in squalor in makeshift refugee camps.

“Thousands more have been murdered and dumped in rivers and shallow mass graves. Every day, dozens, if not hundreds of them die due to lack of food and medical supplies or drown when their boats sink.

“Hundreds of thousands more are stateless, living in fear, without much hope for a future, in camps in our own country, in Thailand, in Bangladesh, in Nepal and in India. A large number of them fall prey to evil human traffickers who sell them as slave labour, like commodities in the marketplace.”

Tonight’s fundraiser, held at the St. Regis Hotel was organised by the Edge Media Group,led by its publisher Ho Kay Tat and co-promoted by ECM Libra Financial Group Bhd non-executive chairman Kalimullah Hassan and UPP Holdings Ltd executive chairman and CEO Tong Kooi Ong. 

More than RM1.2 million was raised through the sale of 15 paintings. The largest contributor was Sultan Nazrin who bought Latif Mohideen’s “Exodus”, painted especially for the fundraiser. – October 3, 2017.