Myanmar’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis, Explained

by Dramelin 6:30 AM 0 comments

A Rohingya Muslim woman, fled from ongoing military operations in Myanmars Rakhine state, gestures after her child died and many other left wounded in a boat accident while fleeing to a temporary makeshift camp, after crossing over from Myanmar into the Bangladesh side of the border, in Teknaff, Bangladesh on Sept.
Religious clashes in Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country, have driven an estimated 400,000 Rohingya Muslims out of the country, provoking the United Nations’ top human rights official to call the campaign against them "ethnic cleansing.
" It’s tarnished the reputation of the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi: Her silence on the violence has criticspetitioning to rescindher 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
It has raised doubts about whether Myanmar can keep attracting the levels of foreign investment the Southeast Asian nation has counted on to modernize the economy since it opened up to the outside world six years ago.
What’s causing the violence? The latest tensions were sparked on Aug.
25 when militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked 25 police and army posts, killing a dozen security officials in the eastern state of Rakhine.
The military responded with what it calls "clearance operations.
" There have been reports of security forces and Buddhist vigilantes indiscriminately attacking Muslims in the state and burning their villages.
 The army said more than 400 people have died, most of them militants, while human-rights groups say hundreds of villagers have been killed.
The military’s response has been similar to its reaction after an ARSA operation in October 2016: UN investigators concluded soldiers "very likely" committed crimes against humanity.
An estimated 87,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar then.
Who are the Rohingya? Many, though not all, of the Muslims living in the northern part of Rakhine identify as Rohingya.
(The word is derived from the name of the state.
) Their numbers were estimated at about 1 million before the exodus over the past year, and their origins are hotly debated.
The Rohingya stress the fact a Muslim community existed in the state, the site of independent kingdoms since antiquity, before Burma took control of Rakhine in 1784.
Their critics call the Muslims foreign interlopers and emphasize that during British colonial rule, starting in the 1820s, workers from Bangladesh arrived in Rakhine and the Muslim community grew significantly.
Myanmar’s government refuses to use the word Rohingya, as that might imply the Muslims of Rakhine are a distinct ethnic group, deserving of recognition.
A minority of Rohingya are Hindus.
How have the Rohingya been treated? Myanmar’s authorities have progressively denied the Rohingya rights and, along with vigilantes sometimes led by Buddhist monks, persecuted them, driving them from their homes and into neighboring countries, mostly Bangladesh.
In 1982, the government stripped the Rohingya of citizenship.
In the name of bringing order to Rakhine, the army launched an operation in 1991 featuring forced labor, rape and religious suppression.
The Rohingya face numerous legal restrictions.
Couples need government permission to marry and to travel beyond their home town or move to a new one.
Those in two of Rakhine’s cities are limited to having two children.
What has Suu Kyi done? Mindful of the near-universal dislike of the Rohingya among Myanmar’s other communities, Suu Kyi has blasted international criticism of the current crisis as fake news.
“A huge iceberg of misinformation” is creating divisions in society to promote the interests of terrorists, she said.
In September 2016, she did request the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Office of the State Counsellor form an advisory commission to examine the situation in Rakhine.
Its final report in August recommended speeding up the citizenship verification process for the country’s stateless community and regulating the rights of non-citizens who live in Myanmar.
The commission also recommended a review of the 1982 citizenship law.
How threatening are Rohingya militants? While Myanmar’s Rohingya don’t have a history of radicalization, a series of deadly attacks on border guard police bases in Rakhine in October 2016 marked the emergence of a new insurgency.
The largest Muslim attacks on government forces in living memory were carried out by the ARSA.
Support for the militants is difficult to gauge, but the vast majority of Rohingya are believed to be opposed to violence.
What does the crisis mean for foreign investment? The crisis threatens to sap investor confidence in the nation, which saw the U.
and European countries drop sanctions after then-military junta released Suu Kyi from house arrest in 2010.
Companies that rushed in are again worried about risks from human rights concerns.
Foreign investment plunged 30 percent last fiscal year after a record $9.
5 billion was pumped into the economy the prior 12 months.
The shortfall coincided with concern over the direction of the government’s economic agenda and increased focus over Rakhine.
The Reference Shelf.