Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Home Unlabelled GEAROID'S TEAM- INDIGENOUS RIGHTS SUPPORTER- AMT: HELPING - 2018 RAKHINE/ARAKAN, MYANMAR

GEAROID'S TEAM- INDIGENOUS RIGHTS SUPPORTER- AMT: HELPING - 2018 RAKHINE/ARAKAN, MYANMAR

Interviewing the local Rakhine young leaders- in Sittway, Rakhine state in 2018

When Gearóid Ó Colmáin's Documentary Film Team comprising three people visited Myanmar in 2017, I accompanied and supported them. To help them in their needs was akin to helping my own people at the time. No other international volunteer team was doing this. Gearóid Ó Colmáin is an Irish journalist and political analyst, who is based in Paris. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. Learn more about him here at http://www.gearoidocolmain.org/

We tried to meet victims, especially among the Hindu refugees, as well as local government leaders, local historical authors and national-level civil servants and leaders of Ethnic Armed Organisations in different parts of Myanmar. The reason I stepped up to help them is that they are the one and only Documentary Film Team willing to let the people of Rakhine speak out the truth about the conflict raging in Rakhine State. These indigenous people have much first-hand experience and knowledge on what has really been going on in Rakhine State, but the international organisations ready to hear them out have been particularly scarce.

It is essential that international organisations work fairly on the subject of the issues of Rakhine State, since only one side of the story is readily available in international media. As a matter of fact, there are still many indigenous people in Rakhine State who are still hiding in the forest, suffering from fear and anguish.

Lots of international voices don't agree with Gearóid. I chose to help him not just because his fight is the right fight, but because we really need the international community and people in general to stand up for the indigenous people of Rakhine State. We truly need international organisations to be fair in their treatment of Myanmar, since otherwise the world will not hear of what is truly going on in Myanmar. The world only hears about the issue of the « Rohingyas » concerning Myanmar, but there are so many other things of which they are unaware, while they are ignorant of the truth regarding the Rohingya, truth only known by a small number of people. This truth ought to be on air, on TV, on the Radio. Where is the voice of our indigenous people, in international media ?

So when this team came to visit us, we were so happy we cried. The people working in this Documentary Film Team endeavoured to meet local stakeholders as well as national ones. Such an approach is very rare for us here, which explains why we were so happy that they did what they did. We need more people like them, fair organisations and fair people to work on the resolution of the conflict in Rakhine State.

Posted on 28-June-2018

Aung Myint Thu - Rakhine
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