The genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar has been ongoing since the 1970s. Since then, the Muslim community has been largely confined to refugee camps, with little access to education, healthcare, or jobs, and heavy restrictions on their movement. As a result, around one million Rohingya have sought refuge in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh. However, for decades now, both Bangladesh and Myanmar have refused to acknowledge them as citizens and each insists that they are “illegal immigrants” of the other, effectively rendering them stateless. Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, views this as absolving them of any responsibility to the Rohingya, and has led an ethnic cleansing campaign that peaked in August 2017, when the military drove the Rohingya out of the Rakhine state by torching almost 300 villages and killing at least 10,000. The February 1 military coup has now left the community anxious about another brutal wave of violence. While the coup was an attack on democracy and an affront to the freedom of all communities in Myanmar, it appears that the Rohingya stand to lose the most.
Admittedly, the situation was hardly promising under the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) government either, which was highly deferential to the military. In fact, the civilian government defended the Rohingya genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and was behind the decision to strip the Rohingya of their citizenship.
Nevertheless, human rights activists believe that even the “nominal” civilian government helped slow down “the worst of the military’s impulses”. This was possible due to the red tape provided by democracy, such as setting up committees and waiting to get approval for measures from more than one person. But with the new unaccountable and authoritative government, that balance, albeit fairly superficial, has been lost. Now that top members of the NLD government, including State Counsellor Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, have been placed under a year-long house arrest, the military is expected to ramp up its genocidal campaign against the 600,000 Rohingya Muslims who are still in the country, including 120,000 in what Human Rights Watch has described as “open-air detention facilities”.
Experts have highlighted how many of the chief perpetrators of abuses against the Rohingya are now in the foremost positions of power. For instance, Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, who oversaw the 2017 ethnic cleansing campaign, has now assumed leadership of the country.
Hinting at a 1982 law passed by the military junta that required minorities to attain citizenship by proving that they were residents of the country prior to the 1823 Anglo-Burmese War, UNESCO chair on genocide prevention Alex Hinton said that the coup is an especially tough time for minorities because “The military has historically demonized groups like the Rohingya to play to nationalist sentiments. So, the level of atrocity-crimes risk has risen.”
And there are fears that these atrocities will now be committed behind closed doors, with internet and mobile access shut down in many areas, and several journalists detained. Although the blackout has been eased, there are legitimate fears that the military will implement heavy restrictions on the access to and dissemination of information, paving the way for their human rights abuses to go unchecked.
Furthermore, the repatriation process from Bangladesh, which was scheduled to start this June after several rounds of problematic negotiations, is now feared to be further delayed due to the volatile situation in Myanmar. “I think Rohingya repatriation process will slow down because the military government will be more involved in its administrative and internal issues,” said M Humayun Kabir, the president of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute and Bangladesh’s former ambassador to the US. Moreover, the Rohingya themselves have expressed misgivings about returning to Myanmar, particularly under military rule. “Repatriation will not be safe at all under this regime. ... Now if we go back into the hands of people who are responsible for our torture, we will probably have to bear twice as much pain as before,” Mohammad Jaffar, a refugee in Cox’s Bazar, told the Free Press Journal. Some have even altogether refused to return to their homeland.
To make matters worse, Bangladesh, who currently shelters more than one million Rohingya refugees, has closed its borders to any further entrants. Moreover, it has already sent 7,000 refugees to the Bhasan Char island in the Bay of Bengal, which is dangerously cyclone-prone. Simultaneously, despite repatriation efforts being put on hold, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to express the hope that the coup will not hamper the return of the remaining refugees. Therefore, aside from the Rohingya who are still in Myanmar, those who are in Bangladesh also face the wrath of a government who clearly does not want them there and is doing everything in its power to repatriate them, regardless of what dangers they may face on their return. And for those who remain in Bangladesh, the situation is equally dire, as they are forced to live in crowded, unsafe, and unhygienic camps.
However, the outlook isn’t entirely bleak and to paint such a negative picture would do a disservice to the tens of thousands of protestors who have taken to the streets to protest against the military coup. The Rohingya have traditionally been viewed by the general Bamar (predominantly Buddhist) population through the lens of the government, which has for years perpetuated the notion that the Muslims are “illegal” residents, despite their centuries of history in the country. However, this time around, in an interesting turn of events, several Buddhist citizens have come out in support of the Rohingya community and congregating around the belief that the military is the common enemy. For example, Rohingya activists like Nay San Lwin and Yanghee Lee, who have previously been vilified within Myanmar and been sent death threats by citizens for championing the cause of the persecuted community, have now gained several thousand followers and messages of support from citizens after they posted tweets denouncing the coup.
I do want to apologise the way I treated you in recent years regarding rohingya.
— Myo (@myotheinoo) February 4, 2021
Forgive me for misunderstanding you. In the recent years, we were narrow-minded. I sincerely apologize to you. Thank you!🙏
— Nay Linn (@NayLinn4) February 4, 2021
In truth, this nascent empathy is unlikely to alter the overwhelmingly negative view that the majority of citizens hold of the Rohingya or erase deeply entrenched ethnic divisions. Nevertheless, even this minimal solidarity among religious and ethnic communities is steering national discourse towards holding the military accountable, wherein citizens can at least briefly overlook their differences to come together to defeat a bigger enemy.
In this regard, it is now essential for the international community to do more than just condemn the coup and instead impose targeted sanctions against the Tatmadaw. While the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has unfortunately decided to not intervene in the internal affairs of its member country, New Zealand has already suspended diplomatic ties, suspended any financial aid to Myanmar that may “benefit the military government”, and imposed a travel ban on military leaders. Similarly, the United States (US) re-imposed sanctions and cut off developmental funding to the country. The European Union (EU) is also scheduled to meet later this month to review its relationship with Myanmar. However, some fear that targeting army generals may be counterproductive as it may trigger them to act out against the Rohingya.
That being said, the current scenario, although seemingly bleak, presents a unique opportunity to join hands with the Burmese public and apply an unprecedented amount of pressure on the Tatmadaw, which it is hoped will ultimately cause it to relent and relinquish control to a civilian government. In such a scenario, it is thought that the abuses committed against the Rohingya community will at the very least recede. The NLD leadership, which is now more popular than ever at home, can equally use this platform to improve its tattered international image by finally distancing itself from the military after years of deference, thus standing up for the rights of all communities. The military coup was an affront to democracy, and must accordingly be used by actors both within Myanmar and across the globe as a launching board to protect the persecuted Rohingya community and integrate them into Burmese society.