European Rohingya Council has participated in two expert panel discussions, organized by ISCI and Waging peace on the Genocide happening in Sudan and in Burma against Rohingya minority. The first panel discussion was held in Parliament at the House of Lords on Thursday 14th April and second one was on Monday 18th April 2016 at the Queen Marry University of London.
The idea of these panels is to focus on the failures of the international community in Sudan and Myanmar, and the lessons that could potentially be learned to go forward. ISCI researchers recently travelled to Myanmar, and produced a report which agrees that the Rohingya are now facing the final stages of a genocidal process. And as the situation in Darfur again deteriorates, many are concerned that genocide is still in its 13th year. Therefore the question of the international response to both situations needs to be brought into more serious attention.
The participants of these panels were Dr. Richard Cockett (Chair); journalist of The Economist, Professor Mukesh Kapila; CBE, Professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at Manchester University, and former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Professor Penny Green; Professor of Law and Globalisation, and Director of the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI), based at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, Ahmed Hussain Adam, Visiting Fellow at the Cornell University’s Institute for African Development and also a prominent Sudanese political and human rights activist for Darfur, Alicia de la Cour Venning; PhD candidate at the school of Law Queen Marry Univeristy of London, Dr. Louise Wise; PhD from the War Studies Department Kings College London and Dr. Ambia Perveen, MD, consultant pediatrician at Sankt Marien Hospital in Dueren, Germany.
Dr. Perveen is a longstanding Rohingya activist, and secretariat of the Advocacy group at the European Rohingya Council. She has brought attention to the publications available on ongoing Rohingya Genocide. That includes deterioration of public health among Rohingyas and how the successive Burmese regimes have been systematically denying healthcares to Rohingyas as a State sponsored Genocide against Rohingyas.
Both panel sessions were quite different and raised their own particular issues and questions. Bringing both Sudanese and Rohingya communities was a great start. They are keen to work together and more communications are needed in future as Prof. Penny Green stated. Whereas Prof. Mukesh Capila requested to remain optimistic as Genocide has never succeeded completely though no Genocide could be prevented.