Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the deteriorating humanitarian crisis that has ensued between the Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State and Rohingya Muslims, since 25 August 2017;

(2) notes with grave concern, evidence from Human Rights Watch of a series of brutal crackdowns carried out by security forces against ethnic Rohingya Muslims, including:

(a) extrajudicial killing;

(b) the torture and suffering of Rohingya women, men and children;

(c) the forced displacement of more than 600,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh;

(d) the destruction, arson and takeover of more than 300 villages by the Myanmar military; and

(e) endemic rape and sexual violence;

(3) further notes:

(a) that Myanmar was home to an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims;

(b) the long history and persecution of the Rohingya population, including the denial of citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law and the denial of most basic government services;

(c) the poor living conditions and widespread inequality facing Rohingya Muslims isolated in Rakhine State and those now living in Bangladesh, including limited access to food, water, shelter, medical treatment and humanitarian assistance; and

(d) that the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have described the situation in Rakhine State as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing;

(4) urges the government of Myanmar to:

(a) recommit to the pursuit of peace and national reconciliation;

(b) allow unfettered humanitarian access to all parts of Rakhine State; and

(c) unconditionally release the two Reuters reporters currently detained in Myanmar; and

(5) echoes the voices of the international community and calls on Australia to:

(a) consider providing additional humanitarian assistance in response to the Rohingya crisis, particularly to assist Bangladesh in responding to the unprecedented levels of Rohingya refugees that have moved across its border;

(b) ensure that the development assistance that Australia provides to Myanmar is appropriately targeted to those most in need, and does not risk contributing to the further suffering of minority groups in Myanmar such as the Rohingya;

(c) exert maximum pressure on the Myanmar authorities to allow independent examination of claims of human rights abuses in Rakhine State, and to hold those responsible for abuses to account; and

(d) continue condemnation of the human rights abuses against the Rohingya.

In moving this motion, so I seek to draw attention to the deteriorating humanitarian situation that has occurred in Rakhine State and principally at the hands of the Myanmar security forces. This has been occurring ever since August 2017. The situation in Myanmar is not merely just violence, abuse or outright neglect but one of atrocities, a human rights crisis of catastrophic proportions that has resulted in the displacement now of over 600,000 Rohingya refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh. The situation has been described by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Elaine Pearson, the director of Human Rights Watch, and Richard Weir, the Burma researcher for that organisation. They gave me a horrific account of the treatment that has been afforded to the Rohingya. Their account was most chilling. It was a graphic depiction of the worst of humanity: children being beaten to death, ruthless killings and rapes, all being perpetrated by members of the Myanmar security forces. Based on the interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch and detailed satellite imagery, they have concluded that the military has destroyed, burned and taken over more than 300 villages. Clearly, there have been atrocities committed against the Rohingya, now including evidence of massacres.

It is important to note that discrimination of the Rohingya in Burma does have a long history. Now the government of Myanmar continues to deny the Rohingyas' citizenship along with the provision of basic government services such as health and education. It is this abhorrent denial of basic human rights that has incrementally led to the treatment of the Rohingya more recently. This escalation is now much more than discrimination; it is a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Bangladesh is not a rich country by any means and is not well equipped to deal with such an influx of refugees given the limited resources and lack of appropriate infrastructure. This makes the Rohingya in Bangladesh completely reliant on humanitarian assistance for basic services. The risk is markedly higher at this time of year with the fast approaching monsoonal season. I acknowledge the hard work of agencies such as Save the Children, UNICEF, Oxfam and many others who are working tirelessly to cater for the basic humanitarian needs of those refugees.

I'm also proud that Australia is playing a crucial part in progressing further diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in Myanmar. However, if we have learnt anything from the past, it must be that much more needs to be done. The task before the Australian government and the United Nations is urgent and requires immediate attention. I call on the government to take a stronger stance with the Myanmar authorities. I call on the government to support the unimpeded humanitarian access to all parts of Rakhine State and refugee camps in Bangladesh. We must work closely with our regional partners to ensure that the government of Myanmar commits to a peaceful resolution and a national reconciliation.

I understand that, given some of the cultural practices, the resettlement of the Rohingya refugees in countries such as Australia would not be without difficulty. This is why we should be placing stronger pressure on the authorities in Myanmar to change their behaviour and hold those responsible to account. In saying this, I call on the government to consider suspending all military training in Myanmar, and to consider targeted sanctions on members of the military implicated in human rights abuses, as applied by other Commonwealth jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and Canada.

Two decades ago the international community watched in horror as Rwanda was pulled apart by a brutal genocide. Collectively it said, 'Never again.' But today we are seeing these lessons unfold once again. We cannot merely be bystanders. I ask the House to note the words of the social justice advocate and former South African Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, who said, 'If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have just chosen the side of the oppressor.'

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. It is a great privilege to speak following the member for Fowler, who has spent so much time in his parliamentary career advocating for issues like this one. What we are speaking about today is one of the most extraordinary human rights abuses that we have seen in recent decades in South-East Asia. The member for Fowler and I share a mutual passion for the subject. We have big Cambodian and Vietnamese communities, and we have growing Rohingyan communities. That's why it's a real pleasure to be able to express their incredibly strong feelings about the matter that we talking about today.

The escalating human rights crisis in Rakhine state, perpetrated by members of the Myanmar security forces, has been ongoing since August 2017. I have the great privilege of representing somewhere around 1,000 Rohingya people in my electorate of Hotham. I meet with them regularly, and I try to do the things that we do as local members of parliament. I connect them into community organisations, I support them getting active, getting involved and getting organised in their local area. But when I ask them what the most important thing is that I can help them with as a member of parliament, it is doing the thing I am doing right now—providing them with a voice. What they are desperately concerned about is the family and friends, the communities, the villages, that are being devastated by violence, by ruthless extermination of people who are doing nothing else but being of a particular ethnic origin that these security forces don't like. It is gut-wrenching to sit down with these people as they will literally cry tears of pain and talk about the things that are happening and what's going on back home. They want us to speak up as parliamentarians, because this sort of violence is unacceptable. It's unacceptable here; it's unacceptable anywhere in the world. We need to make sure we speak with one voice and make that clear.

The torture and the suffering of Rohingyan men, women and children is still continuing to date. We know that at least 300 villages have been completely destroyed by the military presence there. There is endemic rape and sexual violence against women. In one week 3,000 people were killed and more than 52 villages were burned and destroyed. As you would know, Deputy Speaker, the United Nations tries to speak without making too much fuss, law I suppose you could say, in what it says about issues like this, but it has described the situation in Rakhine state as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. These are extremely strong words to be used by the United Nations. We know that almost 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017, and they're in refugee camps now. There are 200,000 Rohingya who are languishing in these camps, some of whom are living in absolutely intolerable conditions. They have limited access to food, water, shelter, medical treatment and humanitarian assistance. Deputy Speaker, something that I know strikes you in the heart, as it does me, is that a very large majority of the people living in these camps are women and children. They face threats, including that of being human-trafficked and of sexual abuse.

It is a massive humanitarian crisis. Even though we are very well aware of what's going on from our standpoint in Australia, the limited response from the Australian government has been very disappointing. I think $5 million was offered initially for the emergency relief effort. Seven hundred thousand people have been displaced by this crisis, so I think we can agree that $5 million is not going to go too far. In October 2017 the government committed a further $10 million. But it is so clear to me, and so clear to the people who I represent, that we can and we must do more to help with this crisis. This is the fastest-growing refugee and humanitarian crisis in the world right now.

On 13 September last year, the UN Security Council agreed on a pretty strongly-worded statement on Myanmar, condemning the violence in the Rakhine region. It was the first time they'd done so in nine years. The United Nations Association of Australia has called on the Australian government to intensify our diplomatic efforts to try to help resolve this, and I want to join in those calls. As Australians, we have an important, respected voice in this region. We can't stand by while people who are our neighbours in South-East Asia are treated in this way. There are people there who are being treated in ways worse than anything, really, that we could imagine. I think we need to be doing a lot more to speak up, and I do so today on behalf of my Rohingyan residents.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to acknowledge and thank the member for Fowler for bringing this heartfelt motion before the chamber. Can I say to the member for Fowler that more recently, when a delegation from this place attended Vietnam for the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, the issue was debated rigorously there by our Asian neighbours. It was only just at that stage that I got a sense of the magnitude of the issue that's before us. Without being coy or disrespectful, I would suggest that if I were to walk up the main street of most of the small regional communities in my electorate and ask them to give me an overview of what's going on with the Rohingyan community, they would be blind to the atrocities that the member for Fowler shared with the House so eloquently. So on behalf of the government I want to stand and acknowledge the contribution that he has made in raising this as an issue in the House.

It is an issue that I do not profess to be a specialist in. Rather, I would speak openly to suggest that there would be very few in this place who would not have compassion, as Australians, for that community being persecuted. From a more affirmative perspective, the Bangladeshi community—a poor community within its own capacity— are doing an amazing job to be housing these people on their border. It can bring a sense of embarrassment to a country full of riches.

In closing, I'd just like to acknowledge the member for Fowler for bringing this to the attention of the House.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to support the motion moved by the member for Fowler, which really discusses an issue that we should be discussing in this place. Some would describe it as the genocide of a people.

This motion notes, with appropriate and grave concern, evidence from Human Rights Watch about a series of brutal crackdowns carried out by security forces against ethnic Rohingya Muslims, including, as has been mentioned: extrajudicial killing; the torture and suffering of Rohingya men, women and children; the forced displacement of more than 688,000 Rohingyan Muslims into Bangladesh; the destruction, arson and takeover of more than 300 villages by the Myanmar military; and endemic rape and sexual violence.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar. Myanmar was home to an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims. There has been a long history of persecution of the Rohingya population, including the denial of citizenship under a 1982 citizenship law and the denial of the most basic government services. According to Human Rights Watch, the current military government denies that the Rohingya are an ethnic group and claims that Muslims in Arakan Province are Bengalis whose arrival is fairly recent. It takes the view that the migration that took place during the period of British colonial rule was illegal, and it is on this basis that it refuses citizenship to the majority of the Rohingya. In reality, the Rohingya have had a well-established presence in what is now Burma since at least the 12th century. Rohingya political leaders claim that the Rohingya are an ethnically distinct group, descendants of the first Muslims who began migrating to northern Arakan in the eighth century. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have described the situation in the Rakhine state, over recent years—and I would endorse this—as a 'textbook example of ethnic cleansing', which has led to thousands of Rohingya Muslims having to flee as refugees.

One of the things that I note—and I think the member for Wright was talking about this in relation to people in his part of the world—is that quite a substantial population of the Muslim faith live in my constituency. When I ask them about issues that concern them, the persecution of these people without the world taking action is something that disturbs them greatly. It is hard to describe, just as we struggled to describe the massacres in Africa, particularly in Rwanda.

One of the things that always concerns me—and I support this motion wholeheartedly—is that a concept was advocated by my very distinguished predecessor, Gareth Evans, when he was foreign affairs minister and afterwards, which is the concept that was used in Libya of the right to protect a civilian population of a country when genocide is being committed against its own people. That was invoked as part of the reason for taking military action in Libya, which then led to the overthrow of Gaddafi. My question is—and I would put this question to the same situation in Syria, when its ethnic population of 300,000 people were killed by their own government—why is the international community watching large-scale ethnic cleansing in Asia? It is unacceptable to me that this action is being taken while the world watches on, virtually powerless. We should call what is occurring in that place what it is: genocide. It is genocide in a country which is not far away from us and with which we have historic connections. Thus, as international citizens, as a middle power, we have an obligation to take action.

My view is—and I put this forward not as a Labor Party policy but as an individual watching this genocide, with a growing sense of horror and dismay—that there should be some United Nations action invoked under the right to protect that population, because that is not occurring. I would urge the government, in a respectful way, in a bipartisan way, to take that action. It would show real leadership, which we should be showing in this region. We can't allow this sort of inhumanity to continue, particularly in this region but anywhere in the world. So, in supporting the member's motion, I would urge the government to take action under the provisions of the right to protect, to advocate for that, so that these people can no longer be wiped from the face of the planet, as they are now.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Fowler for bringing this motion forward, and the members for Hotham and Holt for speaking on it and also, in anticipation, the member for Cowan. But I particularly commend the member for Wright, who I think we'd all agree has a big heart and great compassion. I commend him for supporting this motion—without trying to curry favour of the chair, of course, Deputy Speaker.

This is a serious matter, as we know. The world has watched in horror as nearly 700,000 Rohingyas have fled their persecutors in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar over the last nine months or more. Nearly 700,000 refugees have sought a safe haven across the Bangladeshi border in Cox's Bazar, a community that was already under stress before they arrived exhausted and traumatised. More than half of the Rohingya refugees are women and children. Hundreds of children have been separated from their families and are particularly vulnerable. The suffering we are witnessing is on a catastrophic scale. It's the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.

The Rohingyas are an ethnic minority in Myanmar. The United Nations has described the military offences in Rakhine as a 'textbook example of ethnic cleansing'. The Rohingya refugees have reported house-by-house killings, women and children being raped, homes and villages burnt to the ground. To say that Cox's Bazar is overcrowded is an understatement—almost 100,000 refugees have been treated for malnutrition. They are in desperate need of food, shelter, health care and water. This is a humanitarian crisis on a grand scale.

Many people in my electorate of Moreton are concerned about the Rohingya people. In fact, last year I met with members of the Bangladeshi community who live in my electorate of Moreton and also the neighbouring electorate of Rankin: Adjunct Professor Adil Khan, Professor Reza Monem, Mr Azharul Karim, Dr Asad Khan, Adjunct Professor Iyanatul Islam and Dr Mazhar Hague, to name a few who were present. They presented me with a petition calling on this House to do all it can to persuade the Myanmar government: to establish a UN led or independent investigation into these allegations of genocide and human rights violations, to immediately stop the genocide and killing of innocent people, and to ensure that the rights of the Rohingya minority are respected. The atrocities committed against the Rohingya community in Rakhine state are almost beyond comprehension. These human rights abuses are unforgivable, and I hope that the perpetrators are brought to account. It may take time, but we should be relentless in pursuing those responsible for the atrocities.

Sadly, these refugees, having fled extreme violence, are now highly vulnerable to a new danger: disease from a lack of basic services in the camps. They are reliant on humanitarian assistance, and it is crucial that there is unimpeded humanitarian access to the camps in Bangladesh and that regional partners, including Australia, work together in response to this crisis to ensure that the Rohingya population has a safe and secure place to live in peace.

Labor has made formal representations to the Prime Minister and the foreign minister to do everything in the Turnbull government's power to respond to this escalating humanitarian crisis that is taking place in our backyard. We must speak up to set an example to the rest—not only to ASEAN countries, but to those in our backyard. So I make this request again to the Turnbull government to turn their gaze to the Rohingya crisis.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to thank the member for Fowler for moving this motion today, but also to acknowledge the speakers on both sides who have spoken before me on this motion. Last week, my husband and I watched the Dateline special that exposed what is happening among the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. Being in this place, you do have a sense of it—being on some of the committees in which we received briefings about what is going on there—but I have to say that the images we saw on the television that night were really unexpected and, actually, quite harrowing. They showed the extent and the magnitude of the situation—the killings, the rapes and the arson. It is a situation that can only be described as systemic genocide.

The member for Wright gave such a heartfelt speech just a few minutes ago, and said that most Australians wouldn't know about what's going on in Myanmar. I would have to agree with that. I think the Rohingya are at risk of being the forgotten people in our region, the people who we don't talk about, the people who are unseen, the people who are being persecuted and the people who are suffering from a genocide against them, but the people who the world has turned a blind eye to. Human rights organisations and the media are denied access to accurately report on the situation and what is going on there. There is denial of the atrocities by the Myanmar leadership, and this is particularly disheartening considering the history of Myanmar and the fight for human rights and democracy by the leadership there.

On ending this, I should also make a point on how social media has been used by the state of Myanmar to distribute propaganda against the Rohingya in the Rakhine state. This is something that has been brought up by several media outlets. It stands as a stark warning to all of us that we need to look beyond propaganda and see the humanity in each other—it doesn't matter where you come from, what religion you are or what ethnicity you are.

I hope that today's motion, and the number of members who have spoken on this motion, will go some way to giving some kind of reassurance to people in Rakhine state that we are listening. We are here, we are listening, we see you and we will continue to speak on your behalf to make sure that the military and government of Myanmar are held accountable for what the people are going through.

Debate adjourned.