Who will save the Rohingya?

The Rohingya Muslim minority is an inconvenient ethnic group for the new government of Myanmar. Burma (Myanmar) has a long history of conflict among its ethnic minorities propagated by an oppressive military junta. While many of the country's 135 ethnic minorities have been subjected to discrimination and human rights violations, only the Rohingya, the Muslim population of Burma's western Rakhine state that borders Bangladesh, have been stripped of all rights including citizenship (1982). They are stateless refugees, now living in IDP camps at the mercy of intolerant Buddhists. While the country's historic turn towards democracy should be encouraging, the plight of the Rohingya is far from over and on the ground the prospects for this traumatized minority look rather grim.