The 800,000 strong Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma are in potential danger of being physically exterminated. Already described as the most persecuted minority in the world, they have been periodically subjected to systematic harassment and pogroms at the hands of the majority Buddhist people who do not want to see them in their midst.

What has been going on in that military ruled country for a number of years is a thinly veiled but systematic genocide of Rohingya Muslims, abetted by the government leaders.

The President of Burma, Thein Sein, has openly declared that the Rohingya Muslims are not Myanmar citizens and they should be expelled from the country or put in camps. In other words, he does not want to see them in the country and wants to banish them forthwith. Burma, or Myanmar, as it is now called, has already expelled hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas, a large number of whom have been living in camps in Bangladesh.

The poor and harassed Rohingyas have been fleeing the country in big and small groups in all directions to save their lives; they have been trying to find some place to live in the neighboring countries. Bangladesh, with which Burma has common border, has refused to take in any more of them. Now they have been trying to seek asylum in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia or in other neighboring countries. They have been even risking going to Australia in small boats. There have been quite a few mishaps; hundreds of them have been rescued from high sea when their boats ran out of fuel or were caught in storms. It is feared many perished at sea while fleeing, unknown to anybody.

The Burmese government however seems determined to expel them or finish them off through pogroms, which they call 'communal riots'. The so called riots are unprovoked attacks by armed bands of the majority Buddhists on the poor unarmed Rohingyas in which the police connive with the attackers instead of coming to the help of the aggrieved party. Some fake ground is created to justify the mob attacks on Rohingyas' houses, shops and mosques. Hundreds of homes, shops and now even mosques have been set on fire by the Buddhist gangs to uproot the poor helpless Muslims from their old abodes.

The repeated rounds of violence against the Rohingyas have left little doubts amongst neutral observers about the direct involvement of the government leaders and the connivance of the police with the majority.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar (Burma) Tomas Ojea Quintana has said that he had received reports of "state involvement" in the recent violence in Meikhtila. He said "soldiers and police sometimes stood by while atrocities have been committed before their eyes, including by well organized ultra-nationalist Buddhist mobs...this may indicate direct involvement by some sections of the state or implicit collusion and support for such actions."

Recently, when the Buddhist mobs led by monks attacked Muslims in a place called Sit Kwin, they described it as 'revenge for the destruction by the Taliban of Buddhist statues in Bamiyan province of Afghanistan in 2001.'

There have been numerous other examples to prove that these are not communal riots but part of a deliberate and sinister plan of those sitting in authority in the state to wipe out the helpless Muslim minority in Burma. Nothing short of direct intervention by the United Nations can save the Rohingya Muslims from genocide.

The Muslim world should not sit like silent spectators to this carnage of their brethren in faith. It is high time that the OIC or the Muslims states move the UN Security Council in the matter without wasting any more time to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

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