The Untold Story of a Modern Genocide: Inside the Mass Exodus of Myanmar’s Rohingya
Thousands of Rohingya minority men, women, and children are fleeing across the Bangladeshi border every day to evade violent military persecution in Rakhine, their native state in Myanmar. Thousands are dead, and thousands more are projected to die in the midst of this crisis. But who are the Rohingya? How did we get here? And, perhaps most alarmingly, is the world standing by as a new age genocide unfolds?
Who Are The Rohingya?
The Rohingya are an ethnic group with a population of approximately 1,400,000 in the south-east Asian nation of Myanmar, once known as Burma. From the 8th to the 17th century, the Rohingya lived as an independent people in the ancient kingdom of Arakan. In 1784, the Burman King Bodawpaya conquered the kingdom, leading thousands to flee what became modern-day Rakhine state. Still, the majority stayed, creating what is essentially a Muslim enclave in a majority Buddhist country.
This ethnic difference has caused internal tension since the fusion of the two nations, though a predominant pattern of discrimination against the Islamic group only truly emerged following the second World War. The Muslims and Buddhists overwhelmingly supported opposing sides — the Rohingya backing Britain, who had invaded the nation and made it a province of British India in 1824, whereas the general population sided with Japanese invaders in hopes that they would end colonial rule.
Japan ultimately pushed out the British, and as they retreated, Burmese nationalists attacked Muslim communities who they thought had benefited from colonization. Tensions further increased as a new Buddhist government was installed after the war, with some Rohingyan insurgency groups called Mujahideens rising to oppose the government. They eventually died down, allowing a twelve year standstill between the two parties.
But the Buddhists did not forget what had happened, and this peace ended abruptly in 1962.
General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party seized power in a coup, eliminated the nation’s constitution, and formed a military junta with a heavily nationalist presence surrounding the Buddhist identity. And, as is the case in many dictatorships, Ne Win wanted a common enemy to unite the population against — so he singled out the Muslim Rohingya as a threat, and mobilized the Burmese population against them.
Ne Win and the BSPP spent the next fifteen years targeting Rohingyan people with their rhetoric and political attacks, seemingly all in preparation for the launch of Operation Nagamin — or “Dragon King” — in 1977. Under the guise of “screening the population for foreigners”, the Burmese army raided Rakhine communities, targeting Muslim women and children with violence and rape. The attack sent families into a panic, and 200,000 citizens fled across the Bangladeshi border in desperate search for refuge.
Not able to cope with the number of new immigrants, Bangladesh struck a UN-brokered repatriation deal with Burma under which 170,000 ultimately returned. But, amid allegations of abuse, the army denied wrongdoing and ultimately evaded penalty.
Four years later, in 1982, Ne Win’s government passed the Citizenship Act, which outlined the 135 ethnic groups that were to be recognized as Burmese citizens. Despite having a population of over one million in the country at the time, the Rohingya were not recognized on this list, under accusation that they could not meet the criteria of conclusively proving residence prior to British rule in 1824.
This accusation was false. There is an abundance of historical evidence clearly verifying centuries of Rohingya presence in Rakhine state, but redefining the Rohingya as illegal immigrants gave the Burmese government the moral authority they needed to begin more aggressively controlling and eradicating the group. The new law made every Rohingyan man, woman, and child legally stateless, and without rightful citizenship, hardline controls were enacted on where they could live, who they could marry, and what jobs they could be hired for.
In 1991 the newly-named Myanmar military launched a second campaign directed at the Rohingya, literally titled “Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation”. More than 250,000 Rohingya refugees fled what they described as forced labor, rape and religious persecution at the hands of the Myanmar army. Again, the army claimed that it was simply trying to bring order and peace to Rakhine, and used the junta’s power to evade any penalty.
230,000 Rohingya returned to Rakhine throughout the nineties, but by now, the damage was done.
Tensions remained high but steady until 2012, when the newest wave of violence began to unfold. Brutal Myanmarese protests broke out when four Muslim men were accused of raping and killing a Buddhist woman in Rakhine. The government declared a state of emergency, and swiftly cracked down on the violence. Buddhist nationalists backed by security forces invaded in mass, attacking Muslim neighbourhoods, burning homes, and displacing 150,000 Rohingya — in addition to killing 200.
At this juncture the Rohingya were persecuted, disenfranchised, stateless, and homeless. They had no aid, and there was none on the horizon. Myanmar does nothing.
In 2014, Human Rights Watch deems the situation an ethnic cleansing campaign. Myanmar conducts its first census in more than three decades, excluding the Rohingya as hundreds of thousands flee the country.
In 2015, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, reports that the recent persecution of the Rohingya group “could amount to crimes against humanity.” Myanmar holds its first election since the 1960s, barring the Rohingya from participating as candidates or voters.
Over the past 50 years, Myanmar’s government has purposefully bred nationwide hatred towards the Rohingyan people through carefully targeted, state-manufactured nationalism and a consistent, unrelenting campaign of villainization. Ne Win wanted to turn the Muslim population into a state-manufactured enemy, and that is what they have become. For today, modern day Myanmar continues to execute his plan of minority eradication, with no motivation apart from religious prejudice.
The Crisis Today
On August 26, 2016, 300 Muslim men from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a Muslim militant group, executed small scale attacks on border police stations in an act of retribution against their disenfranchisement. This reinvigorated Myanmar’s military extermination efforts, and triggered a brutal retaliation and self-entitled “clearance operations” by state security forces. These actions have led to the mass exodus of nearly one million Rohingya since. This is the current situation.
Following the attacks, military troops began conducting so-called “targeted sweeps,” wherein thousands of villagers were forcibly expelled from their homes. First-hand reports of mass rapings and killings are coming out of Rakhine, with escaped locals saying that militia are entering Rohingya towns and brutally excavating their occupants. State soldiers have reputedly been killing residents through random gunfire, use of grenades, stabbings, and beatings, while conducting helicopter air strikes on larger towns.
But perhaps most alarming are the satellite images that Human Rights Watch has collected of Rakhine towns, which contain visible evidence consistent with mass arson, including large burn scars and destroyed tree cover. Current evidence and internal reports suggest that at least 210 communities have been burned down over the past year, by both uncontained Buddhist protesters and Myanmar’s own military. The government continues to deny these atrocities, insisting that it is simply targeting terrorists, like those responsible for the August 2016 attack.
This has led the Rohingya to flee in greater numbers than ever before, with thousands of refugees entering across Bangladesh’s border every day. They are starving and exhausted, most having begun the weeks-long journey to the border malnourished before being forced to hike through monsoon rains. Others trekked to the Naf River before sailing up the coast in rickety, overcrowded fishing boats, and risked joining the twenty-eight vessels that have capsized thus far, whereupon all onboard were killed.
Many are traumatized from what they have witnessed in Rakhine, most pull elderly relatives or children in tow. All have stories that are, to put it frankly, heartbreaking.
Like that of Mabia Khatun, who was carried in a blanket across the Whaikhyang border and to safety by her two sons. They crossed around the time of her 76th birthday.
Or that of Abu Tabel, who arrived in Bangladesh with baskets of salvaged belongings and a caged chicken as his only companion after he lost his family in Rakhine.
Or that of Rasida, a mother who was ultimately forced to give birth on a Bangladeshi roadside on route to a refugee camp.
All of this has put tremendous pressure on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or the UNHCR, who has been tasked with responding to this unprecedented crisis. When the influx began they desperately called for “life-saving assistance”, as refugee camps surged past capacity in matters of days. The international community put up $344 million to more efficiently deliver the critical humanitarian aid, which provided access to water and latrines to over 100,000 people, and medical attention to nearly 60,000. But, as the outflow continues, monetary demands have faltered and the UNHCR is scrounging for resources as they struggle to cope with ever-increasing demands.
That’s not to mention the crisis’s impact on the developing nation of Bangladesh, which has an HDI of just 0.579. Dhaka was not prepared for the influx, but pledged to open their borders anyways, as little else could be done to stop the Rohingya from being brutally killed in their home state. Today there are more Rohingya in Bangladesh than in their native Myanmar, and though citizens have come out in mass to help the refugees, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed concern about the burden that a million malnourished and displaced persons place on her country — especially as foreign aid depletes and international help fails to arrive.
The only plan currently in place is that to build a “mega-refugee camp” on a Bangladeshi island prone to flooding. It would accommodate 800,000 Rohingya, making it the largest such settlement in the world. This proposal is far from ideal, but there are simply no resources with which to put a proper long term plan in place.
An National Cover Up Campaign
That said, whose responsibility is this crisis? Who has allowed such a disaster to play out? Many are pointing to Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has remained complacent and complicit in the face of this disaster. Suu Kyi’s party won in the 2015 election, wherein the Rohingya could not run nor vote, and many international observers are baffled by her lacklustre reaction to the “fastest growing humanitarian crisis in recent history” — especially considering her history as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. She has continuously minimized the attacks, famously saying in response to a question about mass arson that “More than 50% of the villages of Muslims are intact. More than 50% are as they were before the attacks took place.”
Her failure to denounce alleged atrocities has led Amnesty International to describe her rhetoric has a “mix of untruths and victim blaming.” Though, notably, many argue that it’s unfair to blame Suu Kyi as the primary perpetrator. She holds a tenuous power sharing relationship with what is still a military state, and some observers have proposed that she is simply agreeing to avoid being ousted and allowing the nation to return to unilateral military rule.
That said, it’s the military who can ultimately be pinned with responsibility. But she is also at fault, having folded under the pressure of state leaders, and publicly perpetuated the militaristic notion that the entire situation is simply a terrorist eradication campaign. The notion that has led thousands of Myanmar Buddhists to demonize the Rohingya, and support their eradication.
More, Suu Kyi’s government has participated in an extensive cover up campaign to deter international intervention. Following accusations of mass atrocities, she aided in appointing a special government committee to investigate the ongoing violence in Rakhine. Critical observers did not have high hopes for the credibility or independence of such an investigation, as it was led by former general and current Vice-President Myint Swe, who has strong ties to both the elected and military branches of government. Unsurprisingly, a January interim report by the committee stated that, “no evidence to support claims of genocide against the Rohingya, nor to back up widespread rape allegations had been found”.
The lack of effective government reporting is made more dire by the fact that UN agencies and investigative reporters alike have been barred from entering Myanmar, so no international party has been able to evaluate the severity of the situation. Despite UN demands for unimpeded access, Myanmar has blocked any entry to Rakhine, and cracked down on any foreigners attempting to sneak in.
Reuters reporters Oo Maung and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in December, and detained for “obtaining state secrets” — as they were carrying maps of the region. The Myanmar military has filed charges against the journalists under the Official Secrets Act, meaning the two face up to 14 years in prison.
A Bleak Future
All of that said, the future seems bleak. Myanmar’s military — using Suu Kyi as a mouthpiece — has blocked any internal or external oversight as the body count grows.
Medecins Sans Frontieres have been speaking to those at refugee camps in a attempt to collect data on the death toll. “Extrapolating, essentially we can say that our most conservative estimate is that between 9,000 and 13,700 people died,” MSF Australia Director Paul McPhun told ABC six months ago, noting that this is likely an underestimation, and that at least 1,000 children under the age of five were among the casualties. He added approximately 71% had died violent deaths, meaning that, “they were shot, they were burnt to death and clearly you know this was the result of the military campaign during that period”.
Other international observers have put the numbers higher, as may be evidenced by the satellite images of mass arson. In the Maungdaw township, a region close to the Bangladesh border that was burned for months, thousands alone may have died. This factor, in addition to the 43,700 children who have reported losing a parent, has led some to estimate the deaths of over 50,000.
Myanmar’s government has claimed a death toll of “just 400 terrorists,” which Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia Director for Human Rights Watch, has called “a bad joke, and an excuse to continue their practice of using their own ‘investigations’ as cover-ups. To rebut the need for more independent investigations into the atrocities.”
Myanmar’s most recent reports have also claimed that only 530,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh — that being half of the internationally accepted estimate. So far, they have agreed to take back just 374 Rohingya refugees of the over 8000 seeking to return, claiming that the rest were never residents of Rakhine in the first place. Additionally, recent reports by government sources in Dhaka state that Myanmar’s government is secretly laying landmines near the Bangladeshi border to target those trying to reenter the country.
Over the past five centuries Myanmar’s government has systematically driven the Rohingya out of the country — stripped their citizenship, destroyed their homes, and terrorized their communities. Now, through underestimating how many Rohingya have left and placing landmines on high-traffic border crossing areas, they are trying to stop them from ever returning home.
Outrage and Outcry
But where is the firm, unilateral, international response that the Rohingya so desperately need? Activists and politicians around the globe have condemned the atrocities, and called for a United Nations reaction. Those speaking out include Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel laureates Malala Yousafzai, Desmond Tutu, and even Buddhist Dalai Laama, who has called on the nation to end the violence. Saying, “Those people who are…harassing some Muslims, they should remember Buddha. Buddha would definitely give help to those poor Muslims. So still I feel that. So very sad.”
And, though ASEAN member nations don’t typically criticize one another about internal affairs, even Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak questioned the inaction. “The world cannot sit by and watch genocide taking place,” he told thousands at a rally in Kuala Lumpur in support of the Rohingya. “The world cannot just say ‘look, it is not our problem’. It is our problem.”
And that’s where that word comes in; a word that bears tremendous historical, political, and emotional weight: Genocide.
The Question of Genocide
During the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment in 1948, under Article 2, the UN defined genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
- Killing members of the group.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
- And/or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide is a charged, legally specific term, understood by most to be the gravest crime against humanity, and Myanmar’s government seems to be meeting at least A-C of the Convention criteria.
The evidence is clear — crystal. So why the sustained UN reluctance to call the mass killings and forced deportations a genocide?
Well, in a recent statement, the UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein stated that — “Considering Rohingyas’ self-identify as a distinct ethnic group with their own language and culture — and [that they] are also deemed by the perpetrators themselves as belonging to a different ethnic, national, racial or religious group — given all of this, can anyone rule out that elements of genocide may be present?”
Still, al-Hussein stopped short of outright calling the situation a genocide. He did, however, say that the “situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” which the UN recognizes as “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group.”
But this distinction is vital, as it is where semantics come into play. Language is important, because genocide is a legally specific criminal term that carries tremendous ramifications for the perpetrating nation. Ethnic cleansing, on the other hand, is not recognised as an independent crime under international law. Thus, as long as the UN is classifying the actions in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing, they will face no form of punishment.
International Bystanders
Though, if that’s the case, why hasn’t the UN simply changed their categorization in response to compounding evidence of a legally classifiable genocide? To answer that question, we must look to Article I of the same 1948 convention. It says: “The contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”
That’s why the word isn’t being used. Defining this crisis as a genocide requires the 147 nations that signed the convention to stop it — by force if necessary.
Hence, the Security Council (which would be responsible for declaring a genocide) has not deigned to even address the issue. Though party nations, like the US, have expressed concern regarding the situation, none are anxious to intervene in the internal conflict of a minor nation — despite how many lives may be on the line.
Maung Zarni, a Buddhist native of Myanmar, genocide scholar and human rights activist, put it best when he said that “If there is a genocide happening, member states have the obligation to use force to end it, but because there is no political will within the security council who can make the decision, senior officials are not prepared to call it genocide.”
This holdup is exacerbated by Russia and China, both permanent members of the council with histories of suppressing their own Muslim minority populations — the Chechens and Uighurs, respectively. The two nations have hence demonstrated active diplomatic collaboration with the Myanmar government. Suu Kyi’s representatives are working with them to prevent criticism by the council, so they would likely block a declaration even if it was proposed. A Chinese representative saying that, “[the international community] should support the efforts of Myanmar in safeguarding the stability of its national development.”
Hence, UN members are knowingly buying into the narrative that the nation is simply defending itself against a rebellious population. Rather than the reality, wherein an oppressive regime that has burdened and depreciated a religious minority population for half a century manifested an insurgent uprising from the oppressed — via a desperate, albeit violent, cry for help.
That said, the global community should also hold a tremendous segment of the responsibility for allowing this crisis, this genocide, to unfold. Countries around the globe — from the US, to Russia, to China, to Canada — have allowed bureaucracy, nationalism, and anti-interventionism politics to make them bystanders to one of the greatest migration crises and eradicationist atrocities that the world has ever seen. As much as this has been executed by Myanmar’s military, it has been allowed by our politicians — and, in so, the cataclysmic suffering of one million people has been normalized. And they should understand that their refusal to accept the political or militaristic burden of intervention should be replaced by the moral burden of accepting that tragedy in silence.
From Crisis, A Historic Opportunity
But it’s not like we haven’t seen this before. Throughout history, we can see examples of countries around the world maintaining an arm’s-length distance from prosecuted populations in need of aid to avoid sending their own troops. It’s why back in 1994, for example, the US State Department was swiftly gagged by its own lawyers in the midst of the Rwandan genocide. Legal analysts pointed out that if America accepted the mass murder of nearly one million Tutsis as a state-sponsored, ethnically-based genocide, it would be obligated to invade. Instead, the US, UK, and every other nation that could have made a difference turned a blind eye, until the slaughter had ended and it was too late to save them.
“Myanmar’s government has imposed conditions that have been designed to make life unsustainable, intentionally,” said Maung Zarni. “The UN is sitting on its hands. And by the time the UN comes out and says this is genocide, there will be not one Rohingya left in the country.”
Because, he says, “The UN has been a failure since the end of the Second World War. In every case of genocide, the UN has failed.”
We should be forced to reckon with the long term moral consequences of our failure to help the Rohingya. Unless we do something now.
We are still early enough in this crisis to intervene, to reset course, and to try to make things right, which is what makes our attention at this juncture so vital. At this moment, the international community has the opportunity to set historical precedent by taking action on a genocide before it is able to fully manifest, for the first time since the Holocaust. We still have the chance to save the Rohingya, rather than abandoning them as we have abandoned all others in need of our help.
Action would surely take a tremendous, collaborative, global effort. But, if we truly believe these people to be worth fighting for, we cannot let that opportunity slip through the cracks.