Myanmar – The Rohingya


 

Image courtesy of The World Factbook 2021 (Central Intelligence Agency) is unmodified and located in the public domain.

From 1962 until 2011 Myanmar (then Burma) was under the rule of an oppressive military junta.[1] In this majority Buddhist nation, the regime was responsible for major human rights abuses against ethnic and religious minority groups, including the Rohingya Muslims and the Christian Karen. The government was transferred to civilian control in 2011, but the military maintains significant power and human rights abuses continue.[2]

Two-thirds of the population identify as Bamar, but there are over 135 ethnic minority groups.[3] The Burman majority controls the government and military. Many minorities have been pushed to the outer areas of the country where natural resources are scarce, access to education and social programs is restricted, and the ability to participate in the democratic process is nonexistent.

The Myanmar government has been responsible for the perpetration of mass atrocities against the Rohingya and Karen people, including summary execution, severe torture and rape, forced labor, extortion, and displacement.[4]

Recent violence directed at the Rohingya has produced a refugee crisis in the region. In just three months in 2017, over 675,000 Rohingya fled the country for safety in neighboring Bangladesh.[5] Almost one million Rohingya refugees have since been registered in Bangladesh alone.[6] In April of 2020, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister declared that the country would no longer accept more Rohingya refugees.[7]

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Myanmar is the second largest country in mainland Southeast Asia. The country is bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. The country was known as Burma until 1989, when the name was changed to Myanmar. This article uses ‘Burma’ to refer to the country before 1989 and ‘Myanmar’ after that date.

 

The Pro-Democracy Movement

Remise du Prix Sakharov à Aung San Suu Kyi Strasbourg 22 octobre 2013-18.jpg

Image of Aung San Suu Kyi is courtesy of Claude TRUONG-NGOC, is unmodified, and licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

 

In 1962, Myanmar’s post-colonial democracy was overthrown in a military coup. Since then, the military has kept tight control over any pro-democracy movements. The military has engaged in a brutal campaign aimed at denying food, funding, information, and recruits to the rebels.[8]

During widespread pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988, security forces arrested thousands of demonstrators, tortured detainees, and reduced political space for opposition.

In May 1990, the government held the first free elections in almost thirty years. The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 out of a total of 489 seats. These election results were later annulled by the Burmese government.[9]

Aung San Suu Kyi was placed on house arrest in 2000 and spent the next decade in and out of military confinement. On November 9, 2010, Myanmar’s ruling junta stated that they had won the country’s first elections in 20 years with 80 percent of the votes. The NLD refused to register for the election without Suu Kyi, who was then released from house arrest four days after the election. Pro-democracy groups allege that the military regime engaged in rampant fraud to achieve its result, and the election is regarded as a sham.[10] Thein Sein was sworn in as president the next year, marking the transition from military rule to a façade of civilian democracy.

In 2015, the NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the election and in 2016, the democracy movement took power; however, the military retains a tight hold on all legislative and executive operations.[11]

 

The Karen Ethnic Minority

During World War II, the Karen (pronounced ka-REN) fought alongside the British against the invading Japanese, who were aided by the Burmese-led government. The Allied forces recaptured Burma in 1945. The Karen thought that aiding

Mae La refugee camp.jpg

Karen refugees at Mae La refugee camp in Thailand. Image courtesy of Mikhail Esteves is unmodified and licensed under  CC BY 2.0.

the British would earn them an independent state, but this never happened, and the Karen have been fighting for independence ever since.[12]

In a struggle to maintain power, the ruling military junta tried to negotiate agreements with all ethnic state armed forces. The Karen state did not give in to the junta; in retaliation, the government launched a systematic offensive against the Karen in January 1990.

A million Karen became displaced due to violence during the next decade. Nearly 250 villages were destroyed in 2007.

Reports from February 2010 showed that the Myanmar government was burning Karen villages, carrying out indiscriminate shelling, abusive sweeps, and forced labor in attempts to terrorize civilians.[13] The government signed a ceasefire with Karen rebels in 2012.[14] Despite this, the Karen minority’s autonomy continues to be blocked, including through media and press

suppression.[15]

The Rohingya Muslims

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist country. There were approximately 1.1 million Rohingya in Myanmar in 2017

(about 4% of the population).[16]

File:Kutupalong Refugee Camp (John Owens-VOA).jpg

A Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. Image courtesy of John Owens (VOA) is unmodified and located in the public domain.

In 1978, the Burmese military carried out killings, rape, and arson against the Rohingya, forcing 200,000 to flee. Four years later, the government enacted the Myanmar Citizenship Law and officially stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship. The Rohingya were left stateless, subject to restrictions on freedom of movement and property ownership, denied access to education, and unable to hold public office.[17]

In 2012, violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists turned into a targeted campaign to remove or relocate the state’s Muslims. Political party officials, senior Buddhist monks, and state security forces carried out mass killings and destroyed Rohingan villages. Nearly 5,000 homes and buildings were demolished. The violence left 150,000 Rohingya homeless and caused over 100,000 to flee to Malaysia by boat.[18]

Recently, two Burmese journalists were imprisoned for seven years for investigating the killing of Rohingya men whose bodies were discovered in a mass grave in Rakhine. The journalists’ sentences were harsh, and it was common knowledge that the trial was a farce. Suu Kyi has turned a blind eye to the issue and has been quoted as calling the journalists “traitors” in private.[19] Suu Kyi has also denied visas to United Nations human rights teams investigating the crisis and has prevented international organizations from delivering aid.[20]

 

Government denial:

Aung San Suu Kyi has said that the violence must be blamed on “terrorist activities, which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis.”[22] She has been widely criticized for her failure to speak out against these tragedies.

Several organizations have revoked awards given to Aung San Suu Kyi because of her inaction on the persecution of the Rohingya. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum withdrew the Elie Wiesel Award that was presented to Suu Kyi in 2012, citing her refusal to stop or condemn the mass killings of the Rohingya.[23] In 2018, the Canadian House of Commons declared the crisis to be genocide and unanimously agreed to strip Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship.[24] She has been formally stripped of the Freedom of the City of Oxford Award, Freedom of Dublin Award, and Freedom of Glasgow Award. A global campaign with over 400,000 signatories called on the Nobel Committee to rescind Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace Prize, but it was not possible to retract the award.[25]

Generals and other officials in Myanmar maintain complete denial as well. Suu Kyi’s stance denying genocide and persecution has been largely supported by the majority population in Myanmar.[26]

 

Myanmar has made itself the target of many international sanctions.[27] Australia, the UK, the EU and the US are among those who have imposed financial sanctions against both the Myanmar government and individual known perpetrators, due to ongoing human rights abuses.[28] China, however, continues to support and invest in Myanmar and its economy, with its Belt and Road Initiative being one of the primary driving factors in China’s ongoing support. Myanmar is key for China’s access to major seaports that affect Chinese trade routes throughout the region.[29]

In October 2017, the US announced the withdrawal of military assistance to Myanmar after considering the Rohingya crisis,[30] and the following month Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that the violence against the Rohingya constitutes ethnic cleansing.[31]

A UN report based on nearly a thousand interviews and satellite imagery of the scorched-earth tactics was released on August 25, 2018. The report urges an international court to bring Myanmar’s army commander and five other top generals to trial for the crime of genocide against the Rohingya.[32]

Aung San Suu Kyi receiving the Sakharov Prize award in 2013. Image courtesy of Claude TRUONG-NGOC is unmodified and licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In November of 2019, the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared that it would be investigating crimes against humanity charges for the violence perpetrated against the Rohingya population in Myanmar.[33]

In November 2019, Gambia officially filed a case against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide against the Rohingya. During a 3-day hearing, Aung San Suu Kyi vehemently denied any and all genocide charges occurring in Myanmar, despite the mountain of contrary evidence.[34] In January 2020, the ICJ issued a ruling approving provisional measures.[35] This means that Myanmar has been ordered to “take all measures within its p

ower” to protect the remaining 600,000 Rohingya Muslims in the country from genocide. However, it is important to note that while this ruling is binding, there is no way to ensure that it will actually be enforced.[36] Under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, the federal courts of Argentina have also opened a case of genocide against the leaders of Myanmar.

This crisis is currently ongoing. Rohingya are seeking civil damages against Facebook in international courts for their part in platforming hate speech and enabling this violence.[37] For more on the role of social media and the culpability of Facebook read here.

 

Updated: Lindsay Hagen, October 2023.

 

References:

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12990563

[2] http://scalar.usc.edu/works/current-issues-in-refugee-education/military

[3] http://www.oxfordburmaalliance.org/ethnic-groups.html

[4] https://borgenproject.org/recent-genocides-in-sudan-and-myanmar-highlight-ongoing-issue/

[5] https://www.hrw.org/tag/rohingya-crisis

[6] https://www.unocha.org/rohingya-refugee-crisis

[7] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/25/bangladesh-rohingya-refugees-stranded-sea

[8] http://time.com/5360637/myanmar-8888-uprising-30-anniversary-democracy/

[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977

[10] http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/09/myanmar.elections/index.html

[11] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33547036

[12] http://karennationalunion.net/index.php/burma/about-the-knu/knu-history

[13] https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/burma-army-attacks-displace-hundreds-thousands

[14] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16523691

[15] https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/karen-human-rights-group-s-statement-covid-19-and-blocking-ethnic-news-websites-enmy

[16] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/rohingya-muslims-170831065142812.html

[17] https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims

[18] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-malaysia/malaysia-ready-to-provide-temporary-shelter-for-rohingya-fleeing-violence-idUSKCN1BJ0G7?il=0

[19] https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/09/08/suu-kyi-keeps-quiet-as-reporters-are-jailed-on-trumped-up-charges

[20] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/02/what-happened-to-myanmars-human-rights-icon

[22] “Generals Escape Consequences a Year after Rohingya Massacres,” New York Times, Sunday, August 26, 2018, p. 9.

[23] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/07/aung-san-suu-kyi-holocaust-museum-award

[24] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-house-of-commons-unanimously-passes-motion-to-strip-aung-san-suu-kyis/

[25] https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/29/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-nobel-prize-intl/index.html

[26] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/15/aung-san-suu-kyi-must-be-held-account/

[27] https://www.state.gov/burma-sanctions/

[28] https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en-us/knowledge/publications/ac28ff93/new-sanctions-and-export-restrictions-imposed-targeting-burma

[29] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/burma

[30] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41731108

[31] https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/22/tillerson-finally-brands-myanmar-crisis-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims-war-crimes-genocide-state-department-asia-refugees/

[32] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-genocide.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

[33] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/25/bangladesh-rohingya-refugees-stranded-sea

[34] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/14/myanmar-genocide-hearings-victims-fury

[35] https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/24/issue/2/what-does-icj-decision-gambia-v-myanmar-mean

[36] https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/27/international-court-justice-orders-burmese-authorities-protect-rohingya-muslims

[37] https://thenextweb.com/news/myanmar-rohingya-meta-court-disinformation