The landing of 103 Muslim Rohingya boat people on the North Eastern Sri Lankan coast last month, and the government’s reluctance to accord them refugee status, have brought back into focus the persecution of this Muslim community from war-torn Myanmar.
The plight of the Rohingyas, who are natives of Rakhine State in North West Myanmar, and their search for refuge outside the country, have drawn world media attention since the country’s military junta began targeting them in 2016. No country wants to accommodate them, including Muslim Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. India has shut its doors to them.
The Sino-Indian conflict in Myanmar, an entrenched Myanmar military and the country’s rich mineral resources are factors preventing the world from addressing the grave human rights issues in Myanmar including those relating to the Stateless and persecuted Muslim Rohingyas.
No wonder the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Rohingyas as "one of, if not the most, discriminated people in the world.”
The problem of the Rohingyas stretches back to 1982 when they were denied Myanmar citizenship on the grounds that they were not indigenous to Myanmar but migrants from the Chittagong district of East Bengal (now Bangladesh). The 1982 Burma Citizenship Law, defined them as “Resident Foreigners” but with no rights of any kind.
Their language is a form of Bengali akin to the dialect spoken in Chittagong. The Rohingyas differ from the Bamars, the majority community in Myanmar, both racially and religion-wise. The Bamars are Mongoloid and Buddhist, while the Rohingyas are Muslim and look like Bangladeshis. In 2014, when the Myanmar national census was conducted, the Rohingyas were excluded and “erased” from the country as it were.
Trouble with the Myanmar government became infinitely worse on August 25, 2017, when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched deadly attacks on more than 30 Myanmar police posts. At least 6,700 Rohingya, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Amnesty International said that the Myanmar military also raped Rohingya women. The government however put the number of dead at 400.
At least 288 villages were partially or totally destroyed in Rakhine state, according to Human Rights Watch. A report published by UN investigators in August 2018 accused Myanmar's military of carrying out mass killings and rapes with "genocidal intent".
Over a million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh and have since been housed in sprawling and squalid camps in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh’s Chittagong District. Bangladesh sees them as native to the Arakan region of Myanmar now called Rakhine.
The Bangladesh authorities’ persistent attempts to repatriate them to Myanmar have failed partly due to the obduracy of the Myanmar government and partly due to the refugees’ refusal to go back to what, in their view, is an open prison.
India is scared of opening its doors to the Rohingyas as it has reservations about Muslim immigrants in general. In India’s view, the Rohingyas are also susceptible to radical Islamic or “Jehadist” influences.
The Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh tried to get China and India to persuade Myanmar to take back the refugees, but to no avail. Neither Beijing nor New Delhi was ready to engage Yangon on this issue. They had their geopolitical and economic projects to safeguard.
Myanmar is rich in natural resources waiting to be tapped. It has jade, rubies, and sapphires; gold, copper, silver, lead, zinc, tin, antimony, and iron. And also industrial minerals like fluorspar, manganese, nickel, tungsten, and zinc. It has coal, petroleum, natural gas and rare earth minerals too. To exploit these, outside powers need the goodwill of the government in Yangon. And given the fact that the army has been a dominant force in Myanmar politics since the 1960s, both New Delhi and Beijing are loath to alienate it by taking up human rights issues.
According to Sreeparna Banerjee of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), both the military junta and the ARSA) are recruiting Rohingyas for the military junta. The refugees in Bangladesh are also caught in the crossfire between ARSA and its rival, the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO).
In November 2019, the Rohingya issue was taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by the African Muslim country, The Gambia, on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). But Myanmar raised preliminary objections. The Gambia, Myanmar said, was not the "real applicant" and pointed out that there was no dispute between The Gambia and Myanmar for it to complain. But the court dismissed the plea and asked Myanmar to give certain preliminary reliefs to the Rohingyas.
But the ICC had no power to enforce its orders and directions unless the UN Security Council (UNSC) stepped in to enforce them. But UNSC members have, so far, taken no interest in the matter. They also do not want to alienate the Myanmar military which is firmly ensconced in the seat of power.
The Rohingya issue is in the International Criminal Court ICC) too. Since 14 November 2019, the ICC has been investigating alleged crimes committed against the Rohingyas. Investigations showed there were reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, bore criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya. The ICC prosecutor, Karim A.A.Khan, has sought the arrest Min Aung Hlaing. The court’s view on this matter is awaited.
But the question is whether the ICC can actually arrest the General in the absence of backing by world powers, particularly the five permanent members of the UNSC.
Be that as it may, by November 2024, faint signs of an awakening in the world to the plight of the Rohingyas appeared on the horizon. Seeing the junta yielding ground to the rebel ethnic groups in the North up to Mandalay, India started moving towards the rebel groups, albeit tentatively. Several anti-government groups from Myanmar attended a government of India-sponsored seminar in New Delhi on November 5 and 6, organized by the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA).
After the seminar, the Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that the conference was designed to “help develop a Myanmar-led and Myanmar-owned solution to address the country’s current challenges.” He went on to pledge India’s “steadfast support” for Myanmar’s “democracy and stability.”
India’s next steps are eagerly awaited by the pro-democracy groups in Myanmar.
India has reasons to be anxious about peace in Myanmar especially in North-West Myanmar which borders the Indian States of Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur. India fears an illegal influx of refugees, and armed groups and terrorists espousing secessionist causes.
India also has a deep economic interest in peace in North West Myanmar. Its on-going Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) is expected to connect Kolkata port with the Sittwe port in Myanmar. From Sitwe, boats will carry goods over the Kaladan River to Paletwa and from Paletwa they will go to the Indo-Myanmar border in Mizoram in India.
The project is expected to reduce pressure on the very narrow “Siliguri Corridor” in North Bengal which is nicknamed “Chicken Neck”. This Chicken Neck links mainland India with its North Eastern States. But the “Chicken Neck” faces the danger of falling to the Chinese in case of war.
The Kaladan Project is also meant to avoid going through Bangladesh which has become unfriendly to India after the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s pro-Indian government in August last year.
The United States has an important part to play in bringing peace to Myanmar as American backing is needed to give effect to ICJ and ICC directions, given America’s place in the UNSC. But there is doubt about the role the incoming President Donald Trump will play.
Given Trump’s inward-looking policies and his transactional approach in international relations, he could strike economic deals with China ignoring the fate of anti-junta groups and persecuted communities like the Rohingyas.
But still, there is a faint hope that in 2025, the Rohingyas will cease to be the “most discriminated people in the world.”