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An Analysis of the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar
By Cecilia Gialdini is a PhD Candidate at Ulster University, United Kingdom.
This paper tries to analyses the allegedly genocide undergoing in the Rakhine province of Myanmar to the detriment of the Rohingyas, a Muslim confessional ethnic group living in the region. The adverb “allegedly” is required, since the international community’s institutions (namely the United Nations) did not defined the mass murders of Rohingya as a genocide, and, therefore, did not call for the application of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on Genocide. Although investigating the correct definition of the ethnic cleansing pursued by the Myanmar government is beyond the scope of this paper, it will indeed try to assess the motivations and the reasons of such. First of all, it will review the political evolution undertaken by Myanmar in the recent years, especially in the democratic transition culminated in 2015 with the victory of the National League for Democracy and the designation of the Nobel Prize for Peace Aung San Suu Kyi as State Counsellor. Then, it will give a picture of the situation of the Rohingya minority during the years, and the increasingly deprivation of civil and political rights. Finally, in order to understand the reasons of the oppression of the Muslim minority, it will frame it within the state-to-nation balance paradigm by Benjamin Miller, assessing if the ultimately motivation lies in the mismatch of country’ boundaries and ethnic groups. Within this framework, the dependent variable to be analysed shall be the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and the independent variable the democratisation process occurring in Myanmar. The final goal will be to determine the presence of an incongruence in the state-to-nation balance, and to define what type of state should Myanmar be considered.
The definition of genocide, under article 2 of the Convention, underlines the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. This means that the violations of human rights shall have a clear purpose, that is the elimination of a part of the population because of some characteristics. According to the classification of Professor Penny Green of the International State Crime Initiative, the main phases are stigmatisation, harassment, isolation, systematic weakening and mass annihilation. As in the Holocaust, every genocide starts with the propaganda against a targeted group of people, then moves to the negation of the existence of such group, denying civil and political rights, and, at the end, the executions. Such executions can be authorised by law (Nuremberg Laws against the Jews), or be a part of a military plan (the Srebrenica massacre in the former Yugoslavia), or spontaneously carried out by parts of the population (the Rwanda genocide). A genocide can have many motivations, but one of the most significant is the implementation of a belief or an ideology. In this case the goal is to create a pure race or an ideal society, populated by a homogeneous ethnicity, the Buddhist Burmese; in order to achieve such goal, those who do not fit the ideal shall be destroyed. The ultimate result of genocide is the annihilation of the enemy within the state, blamed to jeopardise the predominant group’s purity. There is evidence that proves that the Rohingya persecution is following the five phases identified by Professor Green. Therefore, on a pure legal point of view, the Rohingya’s ethnic cleansing is indeed a genocide. What lacks in such case is the political recognition, both from the state of Myanmar and the international community.
The paper will also present two alternative explanation applying the Social Constructivist and the Liberal approaches. The Social Constructivism will take into account the notion of identity, following Alexander Wendt’s definition. In particular, it will analyses the process of identity-definition as the construction of self in opposition to the other, and how religious identity (Muslim or Buddhist) can clash to the point of the eruption of violence. On the other hand, Liberalism will analyses how the Rohingya’s massacre is challenging the uprising democracy in Myanmar and how the very existence of democracy as a form of government does not always ensure the respect of human rights.
Myanmar (or Burma) was a former British colony which gained independence in 1948. The struggle for liberation was guided mainly by U Nu, who also became the first Prime Minister of the new state, and Aung San, the father of the activist Aung San Suu Kyi. In the 1960s, huge changes happened in the countries: in 1958 the army Chief of Staff General Ne Win split from the ruling AFPFL party guided by U Nu. Although in 1960 U Nu’s faction largely won the elections, his policies started to be unappreciated by the military, in particular the promotion of Buddhism as the state religion and his tolerance towards the separatism. The angers of the military resolved in a coup d’état led by General Ne Win in 1962 and the instauration of an autocratic regime, ruled by a military junta. In 1974 a new Constitution was adopted, transferring power from the armed forces to a People’s Assembly headed by Ne Win and other former military leaders. Ne Win revolutionised the country, abolishing the federal system and starting ”the Burmese Way to Socialism”. The latter, also called “Burmanisation”, was indeed a process of ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic assimilation that lasted until the 1990s.
Christians, Karen, Rohingya and many other religious and ethnic minority suffered civil and physical repressions in light of the “assimilation” process. The climax was reached in 1982, when the government enacted the Burmese Nationality Law, denying the Rohingya people citizenship, rendering them de facto stateless. The Rohingya people are a minority that lives in the State of Myanmar, the Rakhine (or Arakan) region. They are an Indo-Aryan population speaking a local language, and they are Muslim. This minority now account for one in seven of the global population of stateless people13. Out of the 1.5 million Rohingya people living in Rakhine and in other countries of southeast Asia, only 82 000 gained the status of refugees, as established by UN Convention and benefit, therefore, of legal protection. This is due to their stateless status, since the government of Myanmar does not acknowledge their existence: in fact, Rohingyas are not listed in the 135 recognised ethnic groups. So far, the official stance of the Myanmar government has been that the Rohingyas are illegal Bengali immigrants who migrated into the Rakhine region after Myanmar’s independence and, mainly, after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 which is baseless accusation.
Their view was also endorsed by the analysis of language pursued by Buchan who, in his article A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire refers to the “Mahommedans settled at Arakan” and to “Bengal Hindus”. Some have argued that he was reporting a name describing labourers visiting Burma from neighbouring Bengal. This study gave further legitimation for the Myanmar government to refuse to use the term Rohingya as a native population of Myanmar. This stance, though, it is debatable, when looking at historical facts. The region of Rakhine, before being part of Myanmar, was inhabited by an ethnic group speaking an Indo-Aryan language since 3000 BC: this group was indeed what is now known as the Rohingya people. In 1000 AD they adopted Islam and in 1300 AD Rakhine was multi-religious, hosting Hinduist, Buddhist and Muslims. All of these evidences assess the presence of Rohingya in Rakhine before the Burmese invasion of 178417. Then, in 1826 during the Frist Anglo-Burmese War, Britain annexed the region of Arakan or Rakhine.
