The Escalating Genocide in Myanmar
The Muslim minority of Myanmar has long been subject to persecution and discriminatory violence historically, but the most recent acts of violence have escalated the conflict to a previously unimaginable intensity and level of despair.
The Rohingya Muslims currently number at nearly one million people living in Myanmar, with more than two million living in exodus in the neighboring nations of Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, and Pakistan.
Since early 2013, the Rohingya insurgent group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, have been engaged in steady conflict with the Myanmar military. They claimed responsibly for the attacks on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border post on October 9th in 2016, leaving 9 border officers and 4 soldiers dead.
The group had released a press statement days after the attack. A five-minute video showed the group’s leader, Ataullah Abu Ammar Junni, reading from a sheet of paper.
“Citizens of Arakan, citizens of Myanmar, and citizens of the world.
It is no longer a secret that the Rohingyas are the most persecuted ethnic minority on earth. Throughout the last six decades, we have been subjected to genocidal mass-killings, and all kinds of atrocities at the hands of successive tyrannical Burmese regimes … [We] are compelled by our dire situation to follow our own destiny through uprising … [We] stand as an independent body which is free from all elements of terror in any nature, seek fundamental but legitimate rights … [for] our fellow innocent Rohingyas and other civilians dying from the continuous military assaults.
[…] We have resolved to defend our mothers, sisters, elderly, children and ourselves.
We shall not rest until all our desired goals are achieved with the genuine help of the civilized world.”
Indeed, ARSA’s described motive is not without factual and historical accuracy. The controversy, rather, lies in whether the severity or extent of ARSA’s actions is completely justified.
On August 25, 2017, ARSA claimed responsibility for several coordinated attacks on police posts and an attempted raid on a Myanmar army base. The group claimed that they had taken “defensive actions” in 25 different locations.
On the same day, ARSA militants attacked a Hindu village located in northern Myanmar, killing 46 men, women, and children of the community.
In a new Amnesty International report released on May 24, 2018, crisis response director Tirana Hassan describes the attack.
“In this brutal and senseless act, members of ARSA captured scores of Hindu women, men, and children and terrorized them before slaughtering them outside their own villages. The perpetrators of this heinous crime must be held to account.”
The attacks committed by ARSA have been met with staunch military resistance. Even before the attacks of October 9th, the Myanmar military has been accused of severe human rights violations.
The recent attacks committed by ARSA has given the Myanmar military further fuel for their atrocities against the Rohingya people. They argue that their violent actions are merely defensive and precautionary measures, that the ideology of ARSA encourages the average Rohingya villager to become another lawless guerrilla fighter and an enemy to the government. It is this persecution that has propelled the massive exodus of Rohingya people.
The report issued by Britain’s International Development Committee on May 22, 2018, is striking in its clarity for condemning the “deliberate, state-sanctioned, long-term ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people”. The report also accuses the country’s supposed transition to democracy an illusion and that the country is rewinding to its traditional and historical values.
Neither the ARSA nor the Myanmar government have come thus far without committing any serious crimes or human rights violation. However, the people who suffer most from the situation, as in most historical cases, are those who do not hold themselves to either extreme. The average Rohingyan wishes no more than for the security of their family and livelihood, and the average Myanmar citizen seeks no more than safety from the constant threat of ARSA.
The conflict between ARSA and the Myanmar military will take time to resolve. The impact that the citizen of a developed country can have on this battle is extremely limited. The people presently in greatest need are the Rohingyas, living either in extreme poverty as a refuge or in constant fear for their lives as a stateless resident of Myanmar.
Genocide is as prevalent an issue today as it was in 1915, 1940, or 1990.
UNICEF, UNHCR, BRAC, International Rescue Committee, Save the Children
