by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday, 11th March 1992:
Myanmar should invite a United Nations peacekeeping force into Arakan state to verify Myanmar claim that the Rohingya Muslims are riot oppressed and persecuted.
Malaysians must be shocked by the repeated denials by the Myanmar military junta and its embassy officials in Malaysia about the oppression and persecution of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
At a time when 175,000 Rohingya Muslims had fled the western Myanmar state of Arakan into the Bangladesh refugee camps, and reports that in the past two weeks, Myanmar soldiers had killed hundreds of Muslims and detained thousands in Arakan, it is shocking that the Myanmar embassy in Malaysia could claim that the official figure of Myanmar Muslims who had become refugees in Bangladesh was only a little over 4,000.
It is equally shocking that the Myanmar Ambassador to Malaysia, U Ko, also claimed that the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan were never Myanmar nationals and had been illegal immigrants.
The Bangladesh High Commissioner to Malaysia, Major-General Muzammel Hussain, had rebutted this Myanmar claim, by pointing out that the Rohingya Muslims had become Myanmar nationals for many genera¬tions, and that in 1979, the Government of Burma (as it was known then) had admitted that the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan state were Burmese nationals.
DAP calls on Foreign Minister to summon Myanmar Ambassa¬dor to Wismaputra for a second time.
DAP calls on the Malaysian Foreign Minister, Daiuk Abdullah Badawi, to summon the Myanmar Ambassador to Malaysia, U Ko, to Wisma¬putra for a second time to ask him for his position on the revelations by the Bangladesh High Commissioner.
If Myanmar miltiary regime expects International respect and a place in the International comity of nations, then the Myanmar military junta must be prepared to invite a United Nations peace¬keeping force into the Arakan state to verify the claims of the Myan¬mar military junta that there is no oppression and persecution of the Rohingya Musiims.
DAP proposes that Malaysia take the initiative to approach the other ASEAN nations to propose as ASEAN initiative in the United Nations the sending of a United Nations observer mission to Arakan.