The Rohingya crisis

The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group not recognised by the Myanmar government as citizens. Since 2017, this group has been forced to flee en masse to Bangladesh; although the countless human rights violations they suffer date back a long time. The Burmese government is accused, by organisations such as Amnesty International, of crimes of genocide and “ethnic cleansing”.

The Rohingya crisis: background

The Rohingya or Rohingya (due to the Hispanicization of the name by which they are known) are a Muslim ethnic group that lives in the western part of Myanmar, a state in Southeast Asia that, since 1989, went from being called Burma to bearing the name of Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Specifically, they inhabit the Rakhine State (Arakan in the past), facing the Bay of Bengal, and bordering Bangladesh, whose predominant religion is Islam.

The predominant religion in Myanmar, on the other hand, is buddhism. According to 2014 census data, a 87,9% of the Burmese population practices this religion, while Islam would obtain a tiny percentage, around 4,3%. In the following map we can see the aforementioned Rakhine region.

The Burma region was taken as colony by the British Empire in the 1824th century, as a consequence of the Anglo-Burmese wars (1885 – XNUMX), turning the territory into another province of the “jewel in the crown”: India, just like Bangladesh. On January 4, 1948, Burma achieved independence from the Empire (and India), deciding not to join the Commonwealth.

To know more about the partition of India and the creation of Bangladesh you can consult: How did India, Pakistan and Bangladesh stop being the same country?

En 1962, years after independence, and after a brief period of democracy at the hands of You Now (Prime Minister of Burma), when a level of autonomy for the ethnic minority states that did not materialize, the General Ne Win starred in a coup d'état, establishing a military dictatorship and closing the country to the outside world. During this period, and in a manner totally contrary to Nu's democracy, the Rohingyas were decreed as “illegal immigrants without the right to citizenship” Burmese, turning them into stateless and, therefore, violating any convention on Human Rights.

According to article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): “1. Every person has the right to a nationality. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality or of the right to change his nationality.. The belief that proliferated was that this ethnic group did not belong to Myanmar, but rather they were displaced from the region of Bangladesh (which became independent in 1971), with a majority Muslim population.

El origin of this discrimination towards the Rohingya is not at all clear, but we have taken into consideration the hypothesis held by the human rights defender Benedict Rogers, who considers that during the Second World War the problem began. During it, the British Empire tried to use this ethnic group as a weapon to fight against the Japanese troops, but the Rohingyas also took advantage of it to "defend the country against them", destroying the lands of other Buddhist ethnic groups. 

Likewise, added to the colonial issues seen in the previous paragraph, circumstances such as the increase in the rapid demographic growth of the Muslim population, or the connection with Islamic terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda or the Afghanistan Taliban It may represent threats that the current Burmese government would not like to see materialized.

According to the Tatmadaw (Burmese Armed Forces): «Despite living among peacocks, crows cannot turn into peacocks.» This was the justification that, on a population that for generations had populated the lands of Burma, they were seen as intruders and should be expelled.

The first Rohingya expulsions during the dictatorship

It was during the Ne Win period (military dictatorship) when the first episodes really violent on a large scale against the Rohingya ethnic group, starting with the so-called “Operation Dragon King” (Operation Dragon King) in 1978. The Burmese military aimed to drive illegal migrants and refugees, not only the Rohingya, but especially these, out of the country. Approximately 250.000 people were displaced outside Burma; However, there were accusations by minority ethnic groups of a succession of intimidating actions, rapes and even murders by military personnel.

En 1982, the Citizenship Law It granted nationality to some 135 ethnic groups, excluding the Rohingya.

En 1989After the popular uprising that caused Burma to be renamed Myanmar, the ruling institution increased the military presence in Rakhine, especially the northern area, forcing the Rohingya to carry out activities under forced labor. They were forcibly relocated and forced to flee towards Bangladesh.

En 1991 was carried out Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation (Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation), whose objective was similar to the previous one: to force the Rohingya population to leave Rakhine State. This year they began to configure refugee camps in southern Bangladesh, where organizations like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) began to provide medical services to people living under inhumane conditions.

Due to these operations that took place over time, numerous migrations of this population occurred to Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, or even the Middle East. Proof of this is a tragic news story that became famous worldwide with this headline: Asia's new boat people (Asia's New Ship People), referring to the sinking on November 25, 2007, of several boats carrying around 240 smuggled Rohingya bound for Malaysia in the Bay of Bengal.

More information in Asia's new boat people

En 1992 The governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a Rohingya forced repatriation agreement, which led to the closure of the camps and, starting in the fall of the same year, thousands of them being sent back to Myanmar, prohibiting entry to Bangladesh for those who try to enter as refugees.

Finally, in 2012 Two waves of violence produced numerous deaths, injuries and destroyed homes.

From illegal population to ethnic cleansing

The United Nations report on the Rohingya crisis

It was not until 2017 when the situation began to take a turn that would hardly have a quick solution. As MSF points out, as a result of the Rohingya militia attacked several Burmese police and military posts, On August 25, 2017, a wave of violence and terror against the ethnic group began, causing displacement to begin again, but this time on a much larger scale. Various newspapers and media outlets, such as The Journal in Spain, the BBC and CNN They echoed the breakdown of the truce that existed between the Rohingyas and the Burmese Government, and that this was broken due to the attacks of the former, becoming classified by the Myanmar authorities as “terrorists”.

On August 27, 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council drafted a report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM), established in March 2017 to investigate allegations of human rights violations committed by military and security forces in Myanmar. He mandate This mission ended in September 2019.

In this report The Mission describes the conflict, since at least August 25, 2017, between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Burmese military and security personnel, as non-international armed conflict, which implies that the rules of International Humanitarian Law are applicable, specifically, and more generally, the rules of International Law of human rights and International Criminal Law. The report considers the Tatmadaw (Burmese Armed Forces) as the main actor on the part of the Burmese Government in this conflict, which seeks to establish itself as "protector of a nation under threat."

The interviews that the members of the International Mission carried out on the ground, to the population of Rakhine in particular, show the human rights violations to which we were referring: forced labor, confiscation of land, arbitrary arrests and detentions, violations of physical and moral integrity, property, sexual violence in the context of forced labor, etc.

“In Rakhine state, Muslims are like in a cage, they cannot travel abroad. There are no human rights for Rakhine Muslims. “I don’t know why God sent us there.”

A victim declared.

But the Tatmadaw was not the only actor providing violence against the Rohingya. Also the Rakhine Buddhists They carried out episodes of “intercommunal” violence with their Rohingya neighbors, who were the majority in the north of the region, causing tension to increase within the region among its inhabitants. Little by little, the Rohingya were becoming more and more isolated and without less support. 

Cleanup Operations starting August 25, 2017

Another of the victims' statements, in relation to this day, made it clear that it was a change of course in this crisis: 

“That day felt like the last day of this world, like the whole world was collapsing. “I thought the day of judgment had arrived.”

For the International Mission:

“What happened on August 25, 2017 and the days and weeks that followed was the realization of a long-gestating disaster. It was the result of systemic oppression of the Rohingya, the violence of 2012, and the actions and inactions of the Government since then. “It caused the disintegration of a community.”

Following the ARSA attacks on Burmese military and security personnel, leaving 12 security personnel dead, the response was immediate and of disproportionate proportions. The goal became “eliminate the terrorist threat.” As a result of such “Cleaning operations”, About mid-August 2018, nearly 725.000 Rohingyas migrated to Bangladesh. These operations were carried out not only by the Tatmadaw, but also by ethnic extremist radicals and Rakhine Buddhists.

The methods of action aimed to impregnate terror in the Rohingya to cause their flight out of the country. The operations were carried out by firing firearms during sleeping hours, explosions, destroying structures, fields, homes, and indiscriminate shooting directly at villagers. MSF estimates an approximate figure of 6.700 Rohingya dead in a single month, between August and September.

Ethnic cleansing, genocide

By genocide, regulated in art 6 of Rome Statute, constituent treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), we must understand actions aimed at destroying, in whole or in part, a group based on its race, ethnicity or religion. These actions include the following: murder of members of the group or serious injuries to their physical or mental integrity, subjection to conditions of existence that bring them closer to their destruction, measures aimed at preventing births within them, and the forced transfer of children from the group to another group.

La ethnic cleansing or cleansing, On the contrary, it is closer to the nature of forced migrations, in that it does not necessarily imply physical destruction or inflicting physical or mental damage on the group, but rather “purifying” the territory of their presence. That is why the differences are often imperceptible, since subsumption in genocide is, for the most part, the general rule.

Therefore, while the early stages of discrimination towards the Rohingya could be described as ethnic cleansing, beginning in 1962; Since 2012, or even previous years, the nature of the conflict is practically integrated into the crime of genocide, since it fits into the classification made by the Statute. The ultimate goal has always been the expulsion of the group from Myanmar, which corresponds to ethnic cleansing; the violence and methods used in a discriminatory manner against the Rohingya group, which brings it closer to genocide.

One of the main conclusions What the International Mission made about these attacks was that there was sufficient evidence to classify the Tatmadaw's activities as genocide, with the Competent CPI to determine responsibility for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.

Other international crimes

A) Crimes against humanity

The essential note that characterizes crimes against humanity or crimes against humanity is that they are perpetrated as part of a generalized or systematic plan against the civilian population, which corresponds to the policy of the Burmese Government, especially its Armed Forces. On the other hand, it is confirmed that the attacks were widespread and systematic and that they fell on the civilian population.

B) War crimes

As anticipated, the Mission described the conflict as a non-international armed conflict, due to the absence of extraterritoriality in the elements of the conflict. Therefore, crimes committed in the interest of humanity and genocide, having been committed by armed groups, including certain acts of the ARSA (military organization of the Rohingya), satisfy the requirements and elements that constitute a war crime of accordance with the Rome Statute.

2019: The International Court of Justice

On November 11, 2019 the Republic of the Gambia submitted a brief to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of the crime of genocide against the Rohingya population, in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948.

On January 23, 2020, the ICJ issued an order adopting provisional measures on the part of Myanmar, aimed at ensuring the protection of the Rohingya, and must take the necessary measures to prevent any attack of a genocidal nature, as well as to preserve the existence and integrity of the evidence related to the allegations produced in the case. Myanmar should report these measures after 4 months from the date of the ruling, which it did.

Currently, the process is in preliminary objections resolution phase that Myanmar on January 20, 2021 raised and that, given their nature, must be resolved before proceeding to resolve the substance of the matter.

The crisis in 2021: refugee camps

The majority of displaced Rohingya are in the closest neighboring country and closest to their religion: Bangladesh, where hundreds of refugee campsBut they do not have the necessary conditions to ensure ideal living conditions, to which is added the pandemic caused by Covid-19 since 2020.

But not only the health crisis has caused havoc in these camps, but also the climate crisis, since several of the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, a city in southeastern Bangladesh, near the border with Myanmar, were razed to the ground in March 2021 due to some fires in the region. This catastrophe caused those people to lose their homes, and now find themselves in a much worse situation than they already were.

As stated Yanghee Lee, United Nations special rapporteur, Bangladesh is the country that has welcomed the most Rohingya refugees, surpassing the number of million refugees who live in Cox's Bazar (statements made in 2019), it is understandable, with such numbers, that more people belonging to this group live outside of Myanmar than inside.

To know more about the state of the Rohingya refugees you can read the following article: Chaos, discrimination and sexual violence two months after the fire in Cox's Bazar

The coup d'état of 2021

En February 2021 el Tatmadaw took power after overthrowing, in a coup d'état, the elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and who, however, defended the Tatmadaw in his statements before the ICJ in 2019. 

However, the Burmese military accused her of having committed various crimes classified in the Burmese legal system, locking her in prison and now being the subject of a judicial process of which we still have to wait for the result. This coup d'état and the imprisonment of the political leaders had the immediate response of the civilian population taking to the streets, protesting against the coup and asking for the release of those imprisoned.

This return of military power to the top of the political hierarchy has increased the concerns of the Rohingya population. Currently, it is estimated that some 600.000 Rohingya still live in Rakhine, and their telecommunications were cut off after the coup d'état, so concern is increasing as time goes by.

It is still early to know what the consequences of the coup d'état and the takeover of the Tatmadaw will be, but history is by no means in favor of the Rohingya. Both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have an interest in studying the events that occurred in order to do justice and bring responsibility to the authors of the crimes that occurred. However, the clearest route seems to be that of the ICJ, since the Criminal Court depends too much on the collaboration of States to carry out its investigations, while the former can obtain help from the United Nations Security Council and the procedure It has a much greater development.