-
Essay / Minority Rights in Indonesia
IntroductionMinority rights are the normal individual rights applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities; but also the collective rights granted to minority groups. Every country in the world has people belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, thereby enriching the diversity of their societies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Although there are a wide variety of minority situations, what they have in common is that, too often, minorities face multiple forms of discrimination leading to marginalization. and exclusion. Civilians from ethnic minority groups face violations and abuses, including war crimes, by the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups in the country's northern Kachin and Shan states. These Minorities Suffer: Conflict, Displacement and Abuse in Northern Myanmar details how Myanmar Armed Forces soldiers inflict torture and extrajudicial killings, bomb civilian villages indiscriminately, and impose punitive restrictions on movement and humanitarian access. Meanwhile, some ethnic armed groups sometimes kidnap civilians. appear to support an opposing party, forcibly recruit men, women and children into their fighting forces and impose “taxes” on poor villagers caught in the conflict. More than 98,000 civilians are currently displaced in northern Myanmar amid heavy fighting between the Myanmar armed forces and various ethnic armed groups in the region, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Ta'ang National Liberation (TNLA) and the Arakan Army. (AA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). The Myanmar government has exacerbated the plight of many displaced people by restricting humanitarian access to some affected areas, particularly those controlled by armed groups. Humanitarian officials said this undermined their ability to respond quickly to emergencies and provide necessary humanitarian assistance such as shelter, access to water and sanitation facilities. Nearly 100,000 people have been uprooted from their homes and farms due to conflict and human rights violations in northern Myanmar. All parties must protect civilians amid the conflict and Myanmar authorities must immediately end restrictions on humanitarian access that have further harmed this already vulnerable population. (Matthew Wells)Indonesia country relationship with subjectThe Republic of Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago of nearly 14,000 islands, which is divided into two tiers. The main islands of the southern part, the most populated, include Sumatra, Java, Bali and Timor. The northern tier includes Kalimantan (most of Borneo), Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and Papua (the western half of New Guinea). Sumatra lies to the west and south of the Malaysian Peninsula and Singapore, across the narrow Strait of Malacca. Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, is bordered to the north by Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei. To the north of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi lies the Celebes Sea and beyond that the Philippines. Indonesia's geographic position has made it a gateway for human migration throughout history. Humans may have inhabited parts of present-day Indonesia between 2 million and 500,000 years ago, but most Indonesians today are of Austronesian stock whose ancestors.