Azeem Ibrahim on Rohingya Ethnic Cleansing

This week on CounterSpin: A human rights nightmare continues to unfold in Myanmar, as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya flee what a new UN report calls “coordinated and systemic” attacks by security forces and Buddhist-majority mobs, only to arrive—if they arrive—to horrific conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh. What human rights groups have the called “ethnic cleansing” of the religious and linguistic minority, the Myanmar government of Aung San Suu Kyi calls “clearance operations,” aimed solely at ousting militants. Though the Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient’s government maintains they are simply illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, where, as in Myanmar, Rohingya are denied citizenship.

You may have seen or read some of what the UN calls “bone-chilling” accounts of attacks on Rohingya people. What’s the history behind those accounts? Azeem Ibrahim is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy and author of The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide. He’ll join us for an extended conversation about the roots of the current crisis and where we go from here.

Plus a quick look back at recent coverage of the continuing Puerto Rican disaster.

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