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MARGINALIZATION OF THE ROHINGYA IN ARAKAN STATE OF WESTERN BURMA
By Mohammed Ashraf Alam, A Senior Research Fellow of BIAS
The Rohingya of Burma are the world’s most persecuted and vulnerable ethnic minority. Due to their racial and religious differences with the Burman Buddhist-majority, they have been officially declared by Burma’s ruling military regime as non-citizens of Burma, making them legally stateless people. They are treated not only as aliens, but also modern-day slaves in their ancestral homeland of Arakan.
The name “Rohingya” derives from Rohang/Roshang, an earlier name for Arakan. Dr. Michael W. Charney writes, “the earliest recorded use of an ethnonym immediately recognizable as Rohingya is an observation by Francis Buchanan in 1799. As he explains, a dialect that was derived from Hindi “…is that spoken by the Mohammedans, who have long been settled in Arakan, and who call themselves Roainga, or native of Arakan”. He further writes, “it can be asserted…that one claim of the Buddhist school in Rakhaing historiography, that Rohingya was an invention of the colonial period, is contradicted by the evidence.”
Since 1992, “the torture and arbitrary execution, continued detention of a large number of persons for political reasons, the existence of important restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms, and the imposition of oppressive measures” that so concerned the UN have continued, forcing new movements of people and waves of refugees that place a burden on the limited resources of Bangladesh and Burma’s other neighbors. The campaign of displacement, denial of culture and identity, restrictions on the right to marry and form a family, killings, rape, torture, and denial of food are a slow-burning genocide – “deliberately inflict[ing] on the group [Rohingya and Arakan Muslims] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
The long-standing Rohingya problem is an issue of “religious, ethnic and political persecution”. The Rohingya are denied citizenship and have become actual or potential victims of massive atrocities and crimes against humanity. Even though the Rohingya were allowed to exercise their right of franchise and elect their representatives to the Constituent Assembly, Parliament/Hluttaw, and different levels of Councils in all elections held in Burma from 1936 to 2010 including 7 th, November 2010 Elections (they were even allowed to participate in SPDC’s sham constitutional referendum in 2008), the military regime has declared them non-nationals, rendering them “de-facto stateless”.
The Rohingya are an integral part of Burmese society. Their problem is a man-made tragedy with political and humanitarian ramifications. As responsible citizens they wish to be of contribution to the well-being of the nation. It is imperative that the democratic and political process in the country be “all-inclusive” and that the Rohingya be a part of it. They should be able to co-exist as equal residents of Arakan State, and as an ethnic group their rights and privileges should be ensured on par with other national groups of the Union of Burma.
Until the military-led government stops committing human rights violations such as land confiscations, discriminatory restrictions on employment and education, access to forest resources and arable land, together with tighter controls of local economies, and arbitrary taxes, the problems of poverty, food insecurity, and crimes against humanity will continue.
