ROHINGYA GENOCIDE

(World Least Wanted people)

Submitted by: Urooj Anwar Khan

Submitted to: DR.Asma Rashid

Roll Number: 239FSS/BSPS/F-18

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the genocide against the Rohingya

Muslims in Myanmar. For decades, the Rohingya in
Myanmar has been the victim of the extensive violation of
human rights. Recently the Rohingya, Karen, San, Chin, and
other ethnic groups are facing ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.
Of them, the Rohingya is the mostly dehumanized and
persecuted ethnic minority group. The Rohingya is stateless
and exile in its own country. The Government of Myanmar
(GoM) has taken attempts for establishing one nation, one
language, and one religious policy in the country. Since 2012
the persecution upon the Rohingya in Myanmar falls in the
genocide. In 1917, the Rohingya faced the final stages of
genocide. Genocide is considered as one of the worst moral
crimes a Government can commit against its citizens.

INTRODUCTION:

The controversy surrounding Myanmar’s Rohingya people is

evident in conflicting stories about the ethnic group’s origin.
The Burmese government and Burmese historians argue that
the Rohingya are actually Bengali Muslims, refusing to
recognize the term “Rohingya.” They claim that the
Rohingya migrated to Rakhine state in Myanmar from
Bengal during and after the British colonial era of 1824-
1948. However, most experts outside of Myanmar agree that
the Rohingya have been living in Rakhine state since at least
the 15th century, and possibly as early as the 7th century.
Claims that the Rohingya are recent immigrants from
Bangladesh are simply untrue. WHO ARE THE
ROHINGYA? While the government has played a
significant role in the oppression of the Rohingya, it has not
been without the help of Burmese citizens. There is
widespread dislike and even hatred toward the Rohingya in
Myanmar. The Burmese government has ingrained this
disdain into it’s citizens, using dislike for the Rohingya as a
way to mobilize support. Leading up to November 2015
elections, President Thein Sein has pointed to the passage of
numerous discriminatory laws as evidence that he is a strong
leader and should be elected for another term. His campaign
is fueled, at least in part, by anti-Muslim rhetoric. The
Rohingya are a stateless people, hated in their own country
and forced to live in appalling living conditions. 1. For the
sake of clarity, the term “Myanmar” will be used throughout
the report except when referring to the country before 1989,
when it’s name was still “Burma.” There are between
800,000 and 1,100,000 Rohingya in Myanmar today, 80% of
whom live in Rakhine state. The Rohingya primarily reside
in the two northern townships in Rakhine state--Maungdaw
and Buthidaung--along the border with Bangladesh. Rakhine
Buddhists are the major population group residing in
Rakhine state. Tensions leading to violence between these
two groups is a regular occurrence.
While the government has played a significant role in the
oppression of the Rohingya, it has not been without the help
of Burmese citizens. There is widespread dislike and even
hatred toward the Rohingya in Myanmar. The Burmese
government has ingrained this disdain into it’s citizens, using
dislike for the Rohingya as a way to mobilize support.
Leading up to November 2015 elections, President Thein
Sein has pointed to the passage of numerous discriminatory
laws as evidence that he is a strong leader and should be
elected for another term. His campaign is fueled, at least in
part, by anti-Muslim rhetoric. The Rohingya are a stateless
people, hated in their own country and forced to live in
appalling living conditions.

Who are Rohingya?

Described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as
"one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world",
the Rohingya are one of Myanmar's many ethnic minorities.
The Rohingya, who numbered around one million in
Myanmar at the start of 2017, are one of the many ethnic
minorities in the country. Rohingya Muslims represent the
largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar, with the
majority living in Rakhine state.
They have their own language and culture and say they are
descendants of Arab traders and other groups who have been
in the region for generations.

Literature Review :

According to researchers, the mass killing of civilians during

war is a military strategy to defeat a well-organized guerrilla
army supported by powerful mass-based civilians. Civilian
support for guerrilla insurgents frustrates regimes because
guerrillas are not easily found. Therefore, the regime targets
the guerrillas’ mass base of support (Valentino, Huth, &
Balch-Lindsay, 2004). A reflection on the mass killing of
Rohingyas in Myanmar would explain that the assumptions
of “a well-organized guerrilla army” and “powerful mass-
based civilian support for guerrilla insurgents” are
problematic. The Myanmar government accused the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group, of
being responsible for violent attacks on border security
officers in 2017. Compared with ARSA, the Karen National
Union (KNU) is “the most significant of Burma’s ethnic and
political insurgent groups,” and Karen has the longest history
of conflict with the central government (South, 2011).
Although the Myanmar government has repressed the KNU
and many Karen civilians, unlike the intent to destroy all
Rohingya civilians, all Karen civilians were not targeted. In
addition, ARSA does not have mass-based Rohingya support
(International Crisis Group, 2016).

In his historical analysis, Kiernan emphasizes the role of

ideology in the origin of genocide. He explains how the
English conquest of Ireland, North America, Australia, and
the United States and European colonial power committed
genocides in many parts of the world. Kiernan also analyzes
genocides in Maoist China and during Japanese imperialism.
He identifies racism, territorial expansionism, fetishes for
agrarianism, and a desire to restore purity and an idealistic
cult of antiquity. Kiernan (2007) argues that obsessions and
preoccupations of one or a combination of these four
ideologies, along with other ideologies, have led to genocide
in the past. Kiernan overemphasizes the role of ideologies
and downplays the role of specific political and regional
forces in genocide. Kiernan’s “focus is on genocidal
ideology, which Kiernan explains as a nostalgic reaction to
the changes wrought by early modernity” (Moses, 2008).

Hagan and Rymond-Richmond demonstrate how the

Sudanese government used racial ideology and mobilized
local Arab Janjaweed militia that led to the genocide of non-
Arab Black Africans in Darfur. They argue that the racial
ideology was socially constructed and had an important role
in transforming individual motivation into the “collectively
organized dehumanization” of Black Africans (Hagan &
Rymond-Richmond, 2009, p. 876). Black Africans were
victimized not because they were Black, but because the
Sudanese government and the militia successfully
constructed them as racially inferior to local Arabs through
the persistent use of racial epithets. Hagan and Rymond-
Richmond overemphasize racial language as the main factor
of genocide and ignore the political dynamics of the Darfur
conflict (Shaw, 2009). In Myanmar, the ideology of
Rohingya as illegal immigrants has been extensively used by
the government. However, this has been just one genocidal
ideology that has led to the atrocities. We must consider the
political processes by which the identity of Rohingya as a
non-Burman Muslim minority group in Myanmar has been
constructed and the illegal immigrant ideology in which it
has been represented.

History :
Myanmar is a majority-Buddhist state, but the Rohingya
people are primarily Muslim, though a small number are
Hindu. The ethnic minority is considered “the most
persecuted minority in the world” by the United Nations.

The story of that persecution has its roots in Britain’s

colonization of Burma, and modern-day Myanmar’s refusal
to recognize the existence of a people who have existed for
thousands of years.
Coming to Burma

Muslim settlers came to Arakan State, an independent

coastal kingdom in what is now Myanmar, starting in the
1430s, and a small Muslim population lived in Arakan State
when it was conquered by the Burmese Empire in 1784.
Burma in turn was conquered by Britain in 1824, and until
1948 Britain ruled Burma as part of British India. During
that time, other Muslims from Bengal entered Burma as
migrant workers, tripling the country’s Muslim
population over a 40-year period. But though Muslims had
lived in Burma for centuries, and though Britain promised
the Rohingya an autonomous state in exchange for their
help in WWII, it never followed through, and the Burmese
people resented what they saw as an incursion of uninvited
workers.

Myanmar gained its independence from Britain in 1948.

The government didn’t provide for a Muslim state, either.
Nor did it acknowledge the Rohingya—a name adopted by a
group of the descendants of both Arakan State Muslims and
later migrants to Burma. Instead Myanmar worked to cast
out the Rohingya people, excluding them from its
constitution. In 1982, Myanmar passed a citizenship
law that denied the Rohingya people citizenship, too.

Current Situation :

The Rohingya’s lack of citizenship has lead to a lack of

representation, rights, and freedoms. The Rohingya are
currently: Forced to live in camps and ghettos Prevented
from accessing basic human services such as education and
healthcare Banned from government jobs, running for office,
and voting Coerced into working hard labor by the
government Unable to marry without government
permissions which is rarely granted Limited in the number of
children they can have Worsening these difficult conditions
is the Burmese government’s restrictions on aid for the
Rohingya. The UN does serve about 25,000 Rohingya who
live in official UN camps. But the majority of Rohingya live
in unofficial camps or ghettos where they receive no help.
The Rohingya situation is strikingly reminiscent of Jews in
Nazi Germany or apartheid-era South Africa. The Rohingya
are in a very difficult situation. They are trapped with no
rights and nowhere to go. Their response is born of
desperation. Since the violence in 2012, over 87,000
Rohingya have fled the country in rickety boats, putting their
lives in jeopardy on a dangerous sea passage at the hands of
human traffickers. Over 800,000 remain in harsh conditions
in Myanmar, while over 300,000 live in Bangladesh where
conditions are not much better. Others have escaped to
Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia where they face significant
challenges in living and working. The Burmese government
has shown little interest in improving its treatment of the
Rohingya. Even Aung San Suu Kyi, famed leader of the
democratic opposition and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize,
has failed to publicly address the plight of the Rohingya.
Human rights groups, international media, and Western
government have all spoken out about the oppression of the
Rohingya. However, it is clear that a solution can only come
when the Burmese government decides to address this issue
and restore rights and citizenship to the Rohingya.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES

Other Southeast Asian countries, especially Thailand,

Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, have been impacted
by the influx of Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar. Each of these
countries has, willingly or unwillingly, received Rohingya
refugees. For the most part, they have been hesitant to allow
the Rohingya into their country, working to discourage them
from entering or actively preventing their entry. Many
Rohingya choose to cross the border from Rakhine state into
Bangladesh, where they live in conditions little better than
the ones they left behind in Myanmar. Around 30,000
Rohingya live in registered camps in Bangladesh where they
can receive assistance from the UN and other humanitarian
groups. At least 200,000 Rohingya live in unofficial camps
or nearby villages where they receive no assistance and are
at risk of deportation back to Myanmar at any time.
Bangladesh has also become a secondary point of exit for
Rohingya, where they find passage by boat to other countries
in the region.

“We have treated [migrants] humanely but they cannot

be flooding our shores like this... They are not welcome
here.”

Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jafaar

Thailand has played a particularly prominent role in the

Rohingya crisis. As a global hub for human trafficking,
numerous abuses have been committed against the Rohingya
and others in Thailand. Rohingya are smuggled into
Thailand and then trafficked to other places around the
world. A recent crackdown on human trafficking and
smuggling in Thailand actually exacerbated the crisis.
Smugglers feared arrest by the Thai government, so they
began abandoning boats full of refugees in the ocean or on
islands near the coast. Most were abandoned without
sufficient food or water. Thai authorities have also been
accused of conspiring with smugglers and turning a blind
eye to “transit camps” along the Thai-Malaysian border.
These camps are run by smugglers, where migrants are held
under terrible conditions until their families agree to pay a
bribe. Concealed graves have recently been found in
abandoned transit camps in Thailand. ASEAN, a regional
grouping of ten countries in Southeast Asia, has spoken out
about the Rohingya situation, but done very little to actually
pressure Myanmar to make changes. Critics have pointed to
this lack of action as evidence of ASEAN’s overall
ineffectiveness. As the crisis continues, however, and
ASEAN-member states have to deal with the influx of
refugees, they may be forced to implement more concrete
actions on behalf of the Rohingya. Because the Rohingya
migrant crisis has increased so drastically in 2015, the
international community began pressuring nearby countries
to be more humane and proactive in their treatment of the
Rohingya. Indonesia and Malaysia began offering temporary
shelter to migrants. Malaysia began rescuing stranded boats
of migrants. Thailand agreed to stop towing boats of
migrants into international water. Myanmar’s navy even
began rescue missions. While these efforts are a good start to
addressing the Rohingya crisis, more must be done both in
Myanmar and in neighboring countries to preserve the lives
and rights of the Rohingya.

WESTERN COUNTRIES

Since the political and economic reforms of 2010,

Myanmar’s relations with the West have been much
improved. Sanctions were lifted and diplomatic relations
were renewed. However, the United States and European
Union, in particular, have tried to exert pressure on
Myanmar’s government to improve its treatment of the
Rohingya. US President Barack Obama visited Myanmar in
2012. During his time there, he spoke specifically about the
Rohingya and encouraged the country to implement human
rights reforms. While Myanmar’s government has agreed to
some reforms, they have not followed through with these
promises.
INTERNATIONAL LAWS

The treatment of the Rohingya people by the Burmese

government intersects with international humanitarian law at
a variety of places.

 According to the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights, everyone has the right to a nationality. The
Convention on the Rights of the Child (which
Myanmar is a signatory of) also states that, from
birth, every child has the right to a nationality. As
we have discussed above, the Rohingya are being
prevented from claiming a Burmese citizenship,
leaving them without a nationality.
 Without citizenship, the Rohingya do not have many
of the basic rights laid out in international law,
including the ability to vote and be elected, own
land, move freely, and access public goods like
healthcare and education.

Conclusion

Thus, the policies adopted by Myanmar government with

regard to Rohingya ethnic group show that, they are
systematically purging out them from the country. Whereas
the interviews and historical narratives both show that
Rohingya are living in the country for generations [59,60].
Moreover, it is also a fact that they are from Myanmar rather
than India or Bangladesh. However, despite the fact they are
denied from the right of citizenships as well as the other
basic needs of life. Although after independence for some
years Rohingya were declared as citizens of the country but
later on, there hard days begun, chiefly when government
under the leadership of Ne Win started came to power
[61,62]. Since then, the government and other counter parts
adopted an exclusionary approach towards the said ethnic
group. While operation Dragon king was in fact the first
practical step taken by the state towards them, what we call
it ethnic cleansing. Furthermore, with the passage of time
several other military escalations against Rohingya have
been taken place such as Operation Clean and beautiful
country and the recent one which started in 2017 is called
Operation Clearance. The primary aim of all these operations
is to punish them to a larger level because in each operation
thousands of Rohingya migrated from the country and
assumed the status of Refugee. While at present huge
number of Rohingya refugee are living in the camps of
Bangladesh’s Cox bazar. Besides the punitive approach of
states military towards Rohingya the political parties are also
having contribution in the conflict. It is because none of the
party consider the ongoing persecution as an issue even they
had demanded from the government not to allow them in the
census. Apart from this, they consider Rohingya as migrants
from Bangladesh. While Aung San Suu Kyi, who is consider
as the champion as well as the icon of democracy is also
silent over the long disagreement. She has not so far taken
effective steps for the solution or normalization of the tense
relations between Rohingya and Buddhist community
[63,64]. It is believing that her silence over the issue is
because of vote bank and ethnic composition of the country.
While on other hand in 2014 Rohingya were not allowed to
participate in the nationwide census, it was again blow to
their rights. Later on, in the next year election was in
Myanmar again the said group was not allowed to cast their
vote. So, this shows that state with other actors are punishing
Rohingya and their primary aim by doing so is to expel them
out of the country. Therefore, preventing them from
participating in voting process, scapegoating them for any ill
and then launching military crackdowns against them is the
signs that state is pursuing special tactics to get rid of these
populations. Besides this the persecution such as arson, mob
killing, torture, rape of Rohingya by the hands of Buddhists
and other groups is unexplainable. Thus, these tactics by
which, they are denied of their rights are directly compelling
them to flee from the country is academically known as
ethnic cleansing.

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