Rohingya: Does the name kill? - New Straits Times Online
I FIRST heard the word “Rohingya” at the Sedona Hotel in Yangon during my first visit to Burma way back in November 1997. I had left the judiciary a year before. On an invitation by a university, I was placed as a member of the First Asean Business Mission to Myanmar. The English name was Burma but the SLORC, or The State Law and Order Restoration Council, changed it to Myanmar in 1989. The mission was organised by the Asean Business Forum. The mission leader was Datuk (now Tan Sri) Ajit Singh, the then secretary-general of Asean. While I was standing in the lobby of the hotel, a dark-skinned man approached me. He immediately told me he was a Muslim and a “Rohingya” from a village in Myanmar. But before I could respond, a Chinese-looking man, clad in Burmese sarong (known as “longyi”) and white shirt, came forward and sort of manhandled the villager. The Chinese-looking man, who identified himself as a security officer, explained to me that the villager had been causing ruckus in town and was of unsound mind. And I knew much less of the killings of Muslims in Myanmar, particularly in Rakhine state. I visited Myanmar several times since then and on each occasion, it was to meet friends who were either lawyers or bankers doing business in Yangon or a doctor friend. Source: www.nst.com.my
