2016–17 Rohingya persecution in Myanmar

The 2016–17 Rohingya persecution in Myanmar refers to the ongoing military crackdown by Myanmar's armed forces and police on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State in the country's northwestern region. The crackdown was in response to attacks on border police camps by unidentified insurgents and has resulted in wide-scale human rights violations at the hands of security forces, including extrajudicial killings, gang rapes, arson, and other brutalities. The military crackdown on Rohingya people drew criticism from the United Nations; the human rights group Amnesty International; the United States Department of State; and the government of Malaysia. The de facto head of government Aung San Suu Kyi has particularly been criticized for her inaction and silence over the issue and for doing little to prevent military abuses.

Background[edit]

The Rohingya people in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar have been described as the world's most persecuted minority group.^[1][2][3] They describe themselves as descendants of Arab traders who settled in the region many generations previously.^[1] Scholars have stated that they have been present in the region since the 15th century.^[4] However, they have been denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar, which describes them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.^[1] In modern times, persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s.^[5] Since then, Rohingya people have regularly been made the target of persecution by the government and nationalist Buddhists.^[6] The tension between the various religious groups in the country was often exploited by the military rulers of Burma.^[1]

According to Myanmar state reports, on 9 October 2016, armed individuals attacked several border police camps in Rakhine state that left nine police personnel dead.^[7] Weapons and ammunitions were also looted. The major attack took place in Maungdaw town of the state. The identity of the attackers remained unknown, though it was believed to be a splinter group of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.^[8]

Crackdown[edit]

Following the police camp incidents, the Myanmar military began a crackdown in the villages of northern Rakhine state. In the initial operation, dozens of people were killed and many were arrested.^[9] As the crackdown continued, the casualties increased. Arbitrary arrest, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes, brutalities against civilians, and looting were carried out.^[10][11][2] According to media reports, hundreds of Rohingya people had been killed by December 2016, and many had fled Myanmar as refugees to take shelter in the nearby areas of Bangladesh.^{[12][6][13][3][9]} In late November, Human Rights Watch released satellite images that showed that approximately 1,250 Rohingya houses in five villages had been burned down by the security forces.^[3][11] The media and the human rights groups frequently reported intense human rights violations by the Myanmar military.^[9][11] During one incident in November, the Myanmar military used helicopter gunships to shoot and kill the villagers.^[6][10][13] As of November 2016, Myanmar had yet to allow the media and human rights groups to enter the persecuted areas.^[6] Consequently, the exact figures of civilian casualties remained unknown. The Rakhine State was termed an 'information black hole'.^[11]

Those who fled Myanmar to escape persecution reported that women had been gang raped, men killed, houses torched, and young children thrown into burning houses.^[14][15][16] The boats carrying Rohingya refugees on Naf River were often gunned down by the Myanmar military.^[17]

On 3 February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report based on interviews with more than 200 Rohingya refugees, which said that the abuses included gang-rape, mass killing, and killing children.^[18][19][20] Nearly half of the interviewees stated that family members of theirs had been killed.^[18] Half of the women interviewed stated that they had been raped or sexually assaulted: the report described the sexual violence as "massive and systematic".^[19] The army and police were stated to have burned "homes, schools, markets, shops, and mosques" belonging to or used by Rohingya people.^[18]

Refugees crisis[edit]

An estimated 92,000 Rohingya people had been displaced due to the violence by January 2017;^[21] 65,000 had fled from Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh between October 2016 and January 2017,^[22][23] while 23,000 others had been internally displaced.^[21]

In February 2017, the Government of Bangladesh announced that it intended to relocate the new refugees, and another 232,000 Rohingya refugees already in the country, to Thengar Char, a sedimentary island in the Bay of Bengal.^[22][24] The island first appeared around 2007, formed from washed down from the Meghna River.^[22][24] The nearest inhabited land, Hatiya island is around 30 km away.^[22] News agencies quoted a regional official describing the plan as "terrible".^[24] The move has received substantial opposition from a number of sources. Human rights groups have described the plan as a forced relocation.^[24][22] Additionally, concerns have been raised about living conditions on the island, which is low-lying and prone to flooding.^[24][22] The island has been described as "only accessible during winter and a haven for pirates".^[24][18] It is nine hours away from the camps in which the Rohingya currently live.^[24][22]

Related incidents[edit]

In January 2017, at least four policemen were detained by government authorities after a video emerged online of security forces beating Rohingya Muslims in November 2016. In the video, Rohingya men and boys were forced to sit in rows with their hands behind their head, whilst they were beaten with batons and kicked. This was the first incident in which the government punished its own security forces in the region since the beginning of the crackdown.^[25][26]

On 21 January 2017, the bodies of three Muslim Rohingya men were found in shallow graves in Maungdaw. The men were locals who had worked closely with the local administration, and the government believes they were murdered by Rohingya insurgents in a reprisal attack.^[27]

Criticism[edit]

The military crackdown on Rohingya people drew criticism from various quarters. Human rights group Amnesty International and organizations such as the United Nations have labeled the military crackdown on the Rohingya minority as crimes against humanity and have said that the military had made the civilians a target of "a systematic campaign of violence".^{[13][28][29][1]}

In November 2016, a senior United Nations official, John McKissick, accused Myanmar of conducting ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine state to free it from Muslim minority.^[6][30] John McKissick is the head of a UN refugee agency based in Bangladeshi town Cox's Bazar. Later that month, Bangladesh summoned the Myanmar envoy in its country to express 'tremendous concern' over the Rohingya persecution.^[31]

In December 2016, the United Nations strongly criticized the Myanmar government for its poor treatment of the Rohingya people, and called its approach 'callous'.^[16][32] The United Nations also called on Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor of Myanmar (de facto head of government) and a Nobel laureate, to take steps to stop violence against the Rohingyas.^[2][15] In its report released in February 2017, the UN stated that the persecution of the Rohingya had included serious human rights violations. The UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein stated "The cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable - what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk?"^[18][19] A spokesperson of the government stated that the allegations were very serious, and would be investigated.^[18]

The U.S. Department of State has also expressed concern about the violence in Rakhine State and the displacement of Rohingyas.^[6] In a protest rally in early December, Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak criticized the Myanmar authority for military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, and described the ongoing persecution as "genocide".^[33][34] Earlier, terming the violence against Rohingya Muslim minority as "ethnic cleansing", Malaysia said 'the issue was of international concern'.^[30] Malaysia also canceled two football matches with Myanmar in protest of the crackdown.^[35][12]

Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized in particular for her silence and lack of action over the issue, as well for failing to prevent human rights abuses by the military.^[9][6][1] She stated in response: "show me a country without human rights issues."^[2] The former head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, after a week-long visit in the Rakhine state expressed deep concern about reports of human rights violations in the area.^[36] He currently leads a nine-member commission which was formed in August 2016 to look into the situations in the state and to make recommendations to improve the situation there.^[36][1]

See also[edit]

• 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis
• Persecution of Muslims in Myanmar

References[edit]