The Rohingya Crisis by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group, have fled persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, fueling a historic migration crisis.
Here are excerpts from Council on Foreign Relations report of January 2020 about Rohingya crisis written by Eleanor Albert and Lindsay Maizland:
Discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in the predominantly Buddhist country. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Beginning in 2017, renewed violence, including reported rape, murder, and arson, triggered an exodus of Rohingya, as Myanmar’s security forces claimed they were carrying out a campaign to reinstate stability in the country’s western region. The United Nations has said that those forces showed “genocidal intent,” and international pressure on the country’s elected leaders to end the repression continues to rise.
Who are the Rohingya?
The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority who practice a Sufi-inflected variation of Sunni Islam. There are an estimated 3.5 million Rohingya dispersed worldwide. Before August 2017, the majority of the estimated one million Rohingya in Myanmar resided in Rakhine State, where they accounted for nearly a third of the population. They differ from Myanmar’s dominant Buddhist groups ethnically, linguistically, and religiously.
Since independence in 1948, successive governments in Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, have refuted the Rohingya’s historical claims and denied the group recognition as one of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups. The Rohingya are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many trace their roots in Myanmar back centuries.
What is the legal status of the Rohingya?
The government refuses to grant the Rohingya citizenship, and as a result most of the group’s members have no legal documentation, effectively making them stateless.
In recent years, the government has forced Rohingya to start carrying national verification cards that effectively identify them as foreigners and do not grant them citizenship, according to a report by the advocacy group Fortify Rights.
Why are the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar?
The Myanmar government has effectively institutionalized discrimination against the ethnic group through restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. For example, Rohingya couples in the northern towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung are only allowed to have two children. Rohingya must also seek permission to marry, which may require them to bribe authorities and provide photographs of the bride without a headscarf and the groom with a clean-shaven face, practices that conflict with Muslim customs. To move to a new home or travel outside their townships, Rohingya must gain government approval.
What’s caused the recent exodus?
Clashes in Rakhine broke out in August 2017, after a militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility for attacks on police and army posts. The government declared ARSA a terrorist organization and the military mounted a brutal campaign that destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages and forced nearly seven hundred thousand Rohingya to leave Myanmar.
Where are the Rohingya migrating?
Bangladesh: Most Rohingya have sought refuge in nearby Bangladesh, which has limited resources and land to host refugees. More than nine hundred thousand Rohingya refugees are in the country, according to the UN refugee agency. Many live in crowded camps in Cox’s Bazar district, now home to the world’s largest refugee camp. Nearly four hundred thousand children in the camps lack access to education, since teachers are banned from using both Bangladeshi and Myanmar curricula in the camps and Rohingya children are barred from enrolling in schools outside the camps. At the same time, the risk of disease outbreak in camps is high, with health organizations warning of possible outbreaks of measles, tetanus, diphtheria, and acute jaundice syndrome. More than 60 percent of the available water supply in refugee camps is contaminated, increasing the risk of spread of communicable and water-borne diseases. Some refugees have turned to smugglers, paying for transport out of Bangladesh and Myanmar and risking exploitation, including sexual enslavement.
Malaysia: As of October 2019, nearly one hundred thousand Rohingya were in Malaysia, according to the United Nations. Rohingya who arrive safely in Malaysia have no legal status and are unable to work, leaving their families cut off from access to education and health care.
India: Eighteen thousand Rohingya refugees have registered with the UN refugee agency, though Indian officials estimate there are forty thousand Rohingya throughout the country. The Hindu nationalist government considers Rohingya to be illegal immigrants and has worked to repatriate them. Since late 2018, India has reportedly sent dozens of refugees back to Myanmar, moves criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups.
Thailand: The country is a hub for regional human smuggling and serves as a common transit point for Rohingya. Migrants often arrive by boat from Bangladesh or Myanmar before continuing to Indonesia or Malaysia. The military-led Thai government cracked down on smuggling rings after the discovery of mass graves in alleged camps where gangs held hostages. But some experts say that while punishing traffickers disrupts the networks, it does not dismantle them.
Indonesia: The Rohingya have also sought refuge in Indonesia, although the number of refugees from Myanmar there remains relatively small because they are treated as illegal immigrants. Indonesia has rescued migrant boats off its shores and dispatched humanitarian aid and supplies to Bangladesh’s camps.
How has the rest of the world responded?
In November 2019, Gambia, on behalf of the fifty-seven-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, filed the first international lawsuit [PDF] against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, accusing the country of violating the UN Genocide Convention. The court unanimously ruled in January 2020 that Myanmar must take emergency measures to protect Rohingya from violence and preserve evidence of possible genocide. A final ruling in the case could take years. Separately, the ICC authorized an investigation into alleged atrocities in November
/www.cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-crisis
|
Published since July 2008 |
Your donation
is tax deductable.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
