Farjana Afruj Khan Alin :
Though Rohingyas the ethnic Muslim community have been living in Rakhine State of Myanmar for time-immemorial, efforts to deprive Rohingya from citizenship began shortly after Myanmar’s independence.
The 1948 Union Citizenship Act defined Myanmar citizenship and identified specific ethnicities-the “indigenous races of Burma”-that were allowed to gain citizenship. The list did not include Rohingya. After the military coup in 1962, the government began giving documentation to fewer and fewer Rohingya children, refusing to recognize fully new generations of the Rohingya population. Violence against the Rohingya continues, with continued military involvement and the government denial to protection of Rohingya.
Deliberate actions and denial of every human rights by the Myanmar authorities and soldiers starve, abduct and rob Rohingya, as ethnic cleansing continues.
Direct violence against Rohingya women, men, and children occurred between late August and late September 2017, the security forces’ ongoing actions appear designed toward the same goal: to make northern Rakhine State unlivable for the Rohingya population.
Ethnic cleansing: The term “ethnic cleansing” describes the situation suffered by particular ethnic groups during conflicts that erupted after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing has been defined as the attempt to get rid of (through deportation, displacement or even mass killing) members of an unwanted ethnic group in order to establish an ethnically homogenous geographic area. The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.
The international legal instrument which refers in defining the ethnic cleansing are the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the Bosnian Genocide Case that draw a distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The ICC has linked ethnic cleansing more specifically to genocide, “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes,” stating that ethnic cleansing could constitute all three of those other offenses. In this way, despite controversy over its exact definition, ethnic cleansing is now clearly covered under international law, though efforts to prevent and punish acts of ethnic cleansing are still in development.
Rohingya crisis: Since August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have entered in Bangladesh crossing the border of Myanmar where the armed forces have launched cleansing operation against the Rohingya at Rakhine State which led one million people to flee from their homeland.
The Tatmadaw along with local vigilantes have committed crime against humanity by conducting mass killings and rape Rohingya women. The allegations label against armed forces that they burned down the villages of the Rohingyas and set signboard as Muslim free village. The situation cannot yet be assessed fully and independently as Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators. Satellite imagery showing burned villages confirms the situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
The recent wave of violence started in 1962 when General Ne Win came into power by a Coup.
They promoted fierce nationalism based on the country’s Buddhist identity and when they needed a common enemy to help unite the population. The Rohingyas were singled out as a threat. Tensions between the Burmese Buddhist population and the Rohingyas go back to the World War II, when Rohingya sided with the British colonialists who ruled the country and the Buddhists mostly sided with the Japanese invaders, hoping they would help end the British rule.
After the war Rohingyas are being a targeted persecution although their lineage can be traced back to 15th century, Burma has been forcing them out claiming their illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The government enacted the Citizenship Act in 1982 recognising 135 ethnic groups except Rohingyas. Due to the discriminatory law Rohingyas became a stateless community. Since 1978 to 2017 the Tatmadaw launched many operations that forced to flee hundreds of thousands people to neighboring country Bangladesh.
The persecution in 2017 has crossed all the previous records as it forced to flee 687,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh so far. The 2017 military crackdown has led to 6,700 deaths and the mass exodus. Since the August attack, 210 villages have been burned to the ground. The violent campaign has triggered the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in recent years but Myanmar’s de facto leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has barely acknowledged the attacks.
Moreover, in 2017 the military has planted landmines along the Bangladesh border to prevent the Rohingya from returning. Myanmar. The government has systematically driven the revenge’ out of the country over the last five decades.
Amnesty International has documented in detail serious human rights violations by the Myanmar authorities, perpetrated knowingly within widespread and systematic attacks on the Rohingya civilian population. These constitute crimes against humanity under international law.
Myanmar’s security forces are building on entrenched patterns of abuse to silently squeeze out of the country as many of the remaining Rohingya as possible. Without more effective international action, this ethnic cleansing campaign will continue its disastrous march. In the context of the ongoing attack against the Rohingya population, also amount to crimes against humanity, including of apartheid.
Role of world community: Using the definition given in the national and international legal instruments, UN, EU and US consider the aggressive displacement of Rohingya communities by the Myanmar government is ethnic cleansing. In mid-October 2017, the European Union Council of Foreign Ministers annulled ties and incorporated travel bans for the Myanmar military, as did the US. Both also began reviewing the possibility of further formal sanctions. Meanwhile the Pope’s late-November visit to Myanmar to denounce the violence must have hit home to the Rohingya just how helpless the West had become.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been mostly silent and has not taken a stand on the plight of the Rohingya and on the growing numbers of asylum seekers in member countries, largely because of its principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. ASEAN’s only response to the crisis so far has been a bland statement and expressing “concern” about the situation and failing to even mention the word “Rohingya”. Amnesty International has criticized the organization alleging it has “failed” the refugees over the issue of Rohingyas.
India stated, “We stand by Myanmar, we strongly condemn the terrorist attack on August 24-25 and condole the death of policemen and soldiers”, even going by commercial interests.
China has been advocating resolution through bilateral efforts between Bangladesh and Myanmar and has offered to negotiate. Beijing and Moscow questioned UNSC’s jurisdiction to take any measure and contended that any interference would worsen the situation. Hence, world’s largest democracy, biggest communist state, and a powerful Eurasian country, all have lined up with Myanmar turning a blind eye to the “text book case of ethnic cleansing” as aptly stated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Bangladesh is taking the burden of all one million Rohingya refugees with its limited capacity.
The Rohingya has been designated one of the most persecuted groups by the UN and the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, a wing of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, has warned that the Rohingyas are facing genocide. Yet there has been a lacklustre response by the International community, and from within Myanmar itself.
(This writers is a Ph.D candidate, University of Malaya, Department of Law , Malaysia ).
Though Rohingyas the ethnic Muslim community have been living in Rakhine State of Myanmar for time-immemorial, efforts to deprive Rohingya from citizenship began shortly after Myanmar’s independence.
The 1948 Union Citizenship Act defined Myanmar citizenship and identified specific ethnicities-the “indigenous races of Burma”-that were allowed to gain citizenship. The list did not include Rohingya. After the military coup in 1962, the government began giving documentation to fewer and fewer Rohingya children, refusing to recognize fully new generations of the Rohingya population. Violence against the Rohingya continues, with continued military involvement and the government denial to protection of Rohingya.
Deliberate actions and denial of every human rights by the Myanmar authorities and soldiers starve, abduct and rob Rohingya, as ethnic cleansing continues.
Direct violence against Rohingya women, men, and children occurred between late August and late September 2017, the security forces’ ongoing actions appear designed toward the same goal: to make northern Rakhine State unlivable for the Rohingya population.
Ethnic cleansing: The term “ethnic cleansing” describes the situation suffered by particular ethnic groups during conflicts that erupted after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing has been defined as the attempt to get rid of (through deportation, displacement or even mass killing) members of an unwanted ethnic group in order to establish an ethnically homogenous geographic area. The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.
The international legal instrument which refers in defining the ethnic cleansing are the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the Bosnian Genocide Case that draw a distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide.
The ICC has linked ethnic cleansing more specifically to genocide, “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes,” stating that ethnic cleansing could constitute all three of those other offenses. In this way, despite controversy over its exact definition, ethnic cleansing is now clearly covered under international law, though efforts to prevent and punish acts of ethnic cleansing are still in development.
Rohingya crisis: Since August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have entered in Bangladesh crossing the border of Myanmar where the armed forces have launched cleansing operation against the Rohingya at Rakhine State which led one million people to flee from their homeland.
The Tatmadaw along with local vigilantes have committed crime against humanity by conducting mass killings and rape Rohingya women. The allegations label against armed forces that they burned down the villages of the Rohingyas and set signboard as Muslim free village. The situation cannot yet be assessed fully and independently as Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators. Satellite imagery showing burned villages confirms the situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
The recent wave of violence started in 1962 when General Ne Win came into power by a Coup.
They promoted fierce nationalism based on the country’s Buddhist identity and when they needed a common enemy to help unite the population. The Rohingyas were singled out as a threat. Tensions between the Burmese Buddhist population and the Rohingyas go back to the World War II, when Rohingya sided with the British colonialists who ruled the country and the Buddhists mostly sided with the Japanese invaders, hoping they would help end the British rule.
After the war Rohingyas are being a targeted persecution although their lineage can be traced back to 15th century, Burma has been forcing them out claiming their illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The government enacted the Citizenship Act in 1982 recognising 135 ethnic groups except Rohingyas. Due to the discriminatory law Rohingyas became a stateless community. Since 1978 to 2017 the Tatmadaw launched many operations that forced to flee hundreds of thousands people to neighboring country Bangladesh.
The persecution in 2017 has crossed all the previous records as it forced to flee 687,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh so far. The 2017 military crackdown has led to 6,700 deaths and the mass exodus. Since the August attack, 210 villages have been burned to the ground. The violent campaign has triggered the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in recent years but Myanmar’s de facto leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has barely acknowledged the attacks.
Moreover, in 2017 the military has planted landmines along the Bangladesh border to prevent the Rohingya from returning. Myanmar. The government has systematically driven the revenge’ out of the country over the last five decades.
Amnesty International has documented in detail serious human rights violations by the Myanmar authorities, perpetrated knowingly within widespread and systematic attacks on the Rohingya civilian population. These constitute crimes against humanity under international law.
Myanmar’s security forces are building on entrenched patterns of abuse to silently squeeze out of the country as many of the remaining Rohingya as possible. Without more effective international action, this ethnic cleansing campaign will continue its disastrous march. In the context of the ongoing attack against the Rohingya population, also amount to crimes against humanity, including of apartheid.
Role of world community: Using the definition given in the national and international legal instruments, UN, EU and US consider the aggressive displacement of Rohingya communities by the Myanmar government is ethnic cleansing. In mid-October 2017, the European Union Council of Foreign Ministers annulled ties and incorporated travel bans for the Myanmar military, as did the US. Both also began reviewing the possibility of further formal sanctions. Meanwhile the Pope’s late-November visit to Myanmar to denounce the violence must have hit home to the Rohingya just how helpless the West had become.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been mostly silent and has not taken a stand on the plight of the Rohingya and on the growing numbers of asylum seekers in member countries, largely because of its principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. ASEAN’s only response to the crisis so far has been a bland statement and expressing “concern” about the situation and failing to even mention the word “Rohingya”. Amnesty International has criticized the organization alleging it has “failed” the refugees over the issue of Rohingyas.
India stated, “We stand by Myanmar, we strongly condemn the terrorist attack on August 24-25 and condole the death of policemen and soldiers”, even going by commercial interests.
China has been advocating resolution through bilateral efforts between Bangladesh and Myanmar and has offered to negotiate. Beijing and Moscow questioned UNSC’s jurisdiction to take any measure and contended that any interference would worsen the situation. Hence, world’s largest democracy, biggest communist state, and a powerful Eurasian country, all have lined up with Myanmar turning a blind eye to the “text book case of ethnic cleansing” as aptly stated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Bangladesh is taking the burden of all one million Rohingya refugees with its limited capacity.
The Rohingya has been designated one of the most persecuted groups by the UN and the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, a wing of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, has warned that the Rohingyas are facing genocide. Yet there has been a lacklustre response by the International community, and from within Myanmar itself.
(This writers is a Ph.D candidate, University of Malaya, Department of Law , Malaysia ).
