The military of Myanmar has been carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. This hour we talk with a Connecticut delegation who just returned from a humanitarian mission to a refugee camp in neighboring Bangladesh and a political science researcher studying the crisis. What is the role of the U.S. as this massive humanitarian disaster unfolds?
GUESTS:
- Dr. Saud Anwar - Mayor of South Windsor, Connecticut, and lung specialist (@saudanwar)
- Rabbi Jeffrey Glickman - Rabbi at Temple Beth Hillel in South Windsor and town council member
- Mayesha Alam - Author of the book Women and Transitional Justice. She is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Yale University, and recently returned from research fieldwork in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh
READING LIST:
The Atlantic Misunderstood roots of Rohingya crisis - “Tensions between the Bengali-speaking Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state have existed for decades—some would say centuries—but the most significant inflection point came in 1982 when Burma’s junta passed a law that identified eight ethnicities entitled to citizenship.”
NPR Kites, Prayers, A Snake Show: Reporting From The Rohingya Camps- “One key difference is that the Rohingya are a stateless people.”
CNN International “Violence Against Women” [Video] Part 1, Part 2
Washington Post How the Rohingya crisis is affecting Bangladesh — and why it matters – “That is straining Bangladesh, which has absorbed a remarkable number of people in just six months, leading to desperately cramped conditions in the camps.”
Chion Wolf and Carlos Mejia contributed to this show.