What ails the Rohingyas?

In 1982 Myanmar enacted a law that was against all international conventions on human rights, child rights, citizenship and nationality. This law made the Rohingyas a stateless nation. It is a demonstration of the Burmese government of its complete non-compliance to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Child Rights and International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination. It makes the Rohingyas, the citizens of Myanmar by birth, extremely vulnerable in all respects; they are deprived of basic human rights including right to food, shelter, movement, organization, employment, marriage, birth and population control and many others; they are exposed to violence and abuses. The most dangerous impact of this uncivilized law is that it leads to statelessness of the Rohingyas over generations since it makes children born in Myanmar also stateless. The 1982 citizenship law in any definition is the most uncivilized jungle law of modern time. It destroyed a nation’s identity rights. The exclusion of the Rohingyas from the list of 135 Myanmar races was illegal by all legal, ethical and humanitarian norms and values. It was illegal and is still illegal since the Muslims of Rakhine have a history of being in their homeland for more than a thousand years. How much time a nation or community needs to live in a country to claim that land as their motherland!

Notably, prior to the Citizenship Act 1982, the Burmese governments earlier enacted two more vigorous legal anti-Rohingya acts. The Union Citizen Act of 1948 formulated and implemented by the Burmese government, immediately after independence from the British colonial regime was in fact the major institutional deprivation of the Rohingyas. Under this Act, all ethnic minorities except the Rohingyas were provided the right to become citizens of Burma. However, the Act allowed provision of identity cards to those who resided in Burma for at least two generations. Initially, the Rohingyas were given such identity cards. Even at that time they (the Rohingyas) had their representation in the Burmese Parliament. Given above, it is unauthentic and illegal to call these people foreigners or outsiders.

The 1962 military coup d’etat in Burma created yet another new problem for the Rohingyas, since all Burmese citizens obtained national identification cards except the Rohingyas. Later were given foreigners’ ID cards. This led to widespread discrimination of the Rohingyas. They were exempted from all citizen benefits, especially in employment and income generation, education, health and other services. This act was a clear violation of human rights. The action at that time undertaken by the military regime isolated the Rohigyas from mainstream socio-economic activities and marginalized them to the extent that they were compelled to abandon their homeland repeatedly.

In the following years of the promulgation of 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingya repression was institutionalized. The state machineries of the country started undertaking anti-Rohingya measures, such as confiscation of property, bann on sale and purchase of property, and many others. The local Buddhists were encouraged by the state authorities to socially and culturally deprive and oppress the Rohingyas. Ironically, the same policy was adopted and prevailed in Nazi Germany during Hitler regime in relation to the Jews!

The process of Rohingya exclusion from Burma and the failure, inability or lack of intention to address the problem taking into Bangladesh’s national interests during previous governments led to inflow of around five hundred thousand Myanmar citizens by birth into Bangladesh during 1978-2008. In August 2017 the Rohingya exclusion drastically increased due to enhanced repression, killing and annihilation process. This was a result of long lasting conflicting situation

prevailing in Rakhine and the objective of the Myanmar regime to conduct complete ethnic cleansing. Many dimensions worked behind this dilemma. Inside Bangladesh the terrorist and militant groups were cornered or were at the verge of elimination due to Hasina government’s zero tolerance policy to militancy and terrorism. Many of their strongholds in Bangladesh were destroyed. The 1971 collaborators were tried in the courts and many of their leaders were sentenced to death.

The terrorist and separatist groups of North East India lost their launching pad in Bangladesh and the arms supply channel though Bangladesh was disrupted. These militant groups gravely needed physical and moral support for their survival in this region and continue their operations. Rohingya issue was certainly instigated by the national and international militant groups in order to materialize their policy in this region.

On the other hand, Rakhine was found to be a region with rich natural resources where Burmese and international interest groups tried to impose their absolute domination. Rakhine is considered a suitable access for China and North East India to the Bay of Bengal. All these dimensions coupled with provocative activities of weak Rohingya militant groups and Myanmar state and military instigated Buddhist terror made the already vulnerable and backward Rohingyas victims of military and civilian repression in their own motherland. The worst part of the story is that these Rohingyas never had a competent political leadership or even an organized civil society to raise their voice against repression. All these led to the refuse of the nation from their homeland. Since 25 August 2017 till to date another 704,000 Rohingyas, overwhelming majority of this community in Myanmar, took shelter in Bangladesh. Since then another more than 120,000 children were born. Adding to this figure the previously migrated 500,000 Rohingyas plus their children after migration, may be another 100,000, makes the total Rohingya population in Bangladesh at 1,424,000. The Bangladesh government initially sealed the border and prevented inflow of the Rohingyas, who stayed for days in the neutral zone.

As repressions in Myanmar on the Rohingyas increased more Rohingyas were compelled to leave Myanmar. Bangladesh subsequently opened its border on humanitarian grounds and started accommodating these people in the specially created camps.

The writer is President Governance and Rights Centre (GRC).