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Akbar Ahmed & Harrison Akins
May 31, 2013

The "forgotten Rohingya" are one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world

Every breath the young orphan girl took brought pain to her body and tears to her eyes. She had been abused by the family she worked for as a servant, probably sexually molested, according to her doctor, and then, pushed into a fire to make her death seem accidental. 

They knew she had no official papers and therefore could not complain to the authorities. She was unceremoniously dumped at the gate of the Lada refugee camp in southern Bangladesh, where doctors in the camp cared for her. 

Horrible as her case was, the doctors knew she was but one of many similarly burnt young women they would see that month and were realistic about her slim chance of survival, lacking money for food or advanced treatment. Besides the volunteer doctors and other camp staff moved to donate money to buy her eggs or medicine, it seemed no one cared whether she lived or died. Her existence did not matter. 

The story of this young Rohingya girl was told to us by an American colleague who works at Georgetown University following her recent visit to the refugee camp on the border between Bangladesh and Burma. 

The “forgotten Rohingya,” whom the BBC calls “one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups,” are the little-publicised Muslim people historically located in the coastal Arakan state of western Burma, dating their ethnic lineage in this region over centuries. 

When the military junta under General Ne Win, an ethnic Burmese, came to power in 1962, it implemented a policy of “Burmanisation.” Based on the ultra-nationalist ideology of racial “purity,” it was a crude attempt to bolster the majority Burmese ethnic identity and their religion Buddhism, in order to strip the Rohingya of any legitimacy. 

They were officially declared foreigners in their own native land, and erroneously labelled as illegal Bengali immigrants. 

By officially denying them citizenship, the government institutionalised the long-held and unofficial discriminatory practices in Arakan State. 

As a result, the Rohingya have no rights to own land or property and are unable to travel outside their villages, repair their decaying places of worship, receive education, or even marry and have children without rarely granted government permission. 

In addition to the complete denial of their rights, the Rohingya were subjected to modern-day slavery, forced to work on infrastructure projects which include constructing “model villages” to house the Burmese settlers intended to displace them. 

Since 1991, the steady flow of refugees in Bangladesh reached an astounding number. The non-governmental organisations from Europe and North America put the number at an estimated 300,000. Only 35,000 of these Rohingya refugees live in registered refugee camps and receive some sort of assistance from NGOs. 

The remaining, more than 250,000, are in a desperate situation without food and medical assistance. Torrential rain and flooding each monsoon season takes a heavy toll in the unregistered and unprotected makeshift camps with the most deplorable and inhumane conditions. 

Outbreaks of epidemics of waterborne diseases from the lack of sanitation and flooding in the monsoon in the makeshift camps have shocked NGOs and the international community. 

There are many horror stories of the Rohingya who, no longer able to face the utter hopelessness of their lives, set forth on makeshift rafts into the sea. Too many such journeys have been abruptly ended by Thai and Malaysian naval patrols that force these rafts into deeper waters and then leave them to die. 

Because the US has targeted Islamic charitable organisations in order to dry up any possible funding for al-Qaeda, and other such groups it has caused Muslims to become wary of giving to charity. 

The normal Muslim sources, that may have helped the Rohingya, have therefore been largely absent. 

Muslim Aid is one of the only organisations allowed to operate in the camp where the young girl was burned, and they provide the only small and overworked clinic and child-feeding programme for thousands of refugees. 

All the Rohingya want is reinstatement of their citizenship in their own land, and the dignity, human rights and opportunities that come with it. 

Only then can a democratic Burma be legitimate in the eyes of its own people, the south Asian region, and the international community. Perhaps then the suffering of the young Rohingya girl and so many like her, will not have been in vain.




Akbar Ahmed and Harrison Akins
The Washington Post
October 24, 2012

In this photo taken on Sept. 8, 2012, Muslims gather during a visit by a delegation of American diplomats including U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell, unseen, at a refugee camp in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar. Three-and-a-half months after some of the bloodiest clashes in a generation between Myanmar’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslims known as Rohingya left the western town of Sittwe in flames, nobody is quite sure when -or even if- the Rohingya will be allowed to resume the lives they once lived here. (AP)She came, she saw, she conquered. The photograph of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi standing proudly with America’s smiling political elite at her Congressional Gold Medal ceremony last month in Washington, D.C., provides a powerful image of this heroine of democracy. She has justifiably caught the world’s attention and earned its love. Arizona Sen. John McCain called her “his personal hero.”

In Suu Kyi’s visit to American University where she received an honorary doctorate during her U.S. visit, we are provided with another powerful image of her, that of a supplicant Buddhist kneeling before a dozen monks to receive their blessing. She has not only become a voice for freedom and political leadership but a voice of Buddhist compassion for the Burmese people and the ethnic minority groups on the periphery who have long suffered under Burma’s oppressive government.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burmese founding father Aung San, was known to rely on her Buddhist faith for a sense of inner freedom during her 15 years of captivity after rising to power during the 1988 student uprising. After her release in 2010, she continued her work for democracy, stressing the “loving kindness” of Buddhist teachings for Burma’s democratic transition in place of feelings of hatred and revenge. She was elected to the Burmese Parliament representing the National League for Democracy, and in recent weeks, she has expressed her willingness to continue to serve her nation as the next president of Burma with elections scheduled for 2015.

With Suu Kyi’s near universal appeal and star power, she is in a unique position for both political leadership in Burma as well as a voice of Buddhist compassion and an ally for the oppressed. Buddha stressed that compassion lay at the heart of a Buddha nature and demonstrates one’s respect for the dignity of life.

Yet, Suu Kyi has remained curiously silent on one of the most urgent humanitarian issues facing Burma, the plight of the Rohingya people.

The Rohingya, whom the BBC and many NGOs call “one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups,” are the little known Muslim people of the coastal Arakan state of western Burma. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically pushed out of their homes by Burma’s military government and subjected to widespread violence along with the complete negation of their rights and even identity. They have become a stateless minority.

Many hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries. The Rohingya are surrounded by adherents of the great faiths - Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Christianty - all of which emphasis compassion and charity for the needy. Despite these compulsions from their faiths, many Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians in South Asia have treated the Rohingya with nothing but outright hostility.

The current situation of the Rohingya is a challenge not only for all in the region to adhere to the demands of their faiths but a challenge for Aung San Suu Kyi and the Buddhists of Burma to treat the suffering Rohingya with “loving kindness,” of which they have seen little.

The widely reported violence in July 2012 against the Rohingya by the neighboring Buddhist Rakhine people in which over 1,000 Rohingya were killed and entire villages burned to the ground must be understood in the context of this sustained campaign of oppression against the Rohingya. The violent actions of the Rakhine were committed with the complicity and, at times, participation of the government security forces.

Even the new democratic reforms have not altered the perception of the Rohingya with President Thein Sein stating in July 2012 in the wake of this violence that he would not recognize the Rohingya or their rights and wished to turn over the entire ethnic group to the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees. Buddhist monks, contrary to the teachings of Buddha, staged anti-Rohingya marches in September to declare their support for the president’s proposal. The Burmese government has blocked the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)from opening an aid office to assist displaced Rohingya due to the violence in Arakan state.

While many ethnic minorities in Burma, with non-Burmese peoples comprising over 30 percent of the population, have been the victims of the military junta’s oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened.

When General Ne Win and the military junta came to power in 1962, the central government began to shift away from the inclusive vision of Aung San and towards a nationalist ideology based on the Burmese ethnicity and the Buddhist faith. The Rohingya, as both non-Burmese and Muslim, were now stripped of any legitimacy and erroneously and incorrectly labeled “illegal Bengali immigrants.”

The initial push of the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign came in 1978 under Operation Naga Min with the purpose of scrutinizing everyone in the state as either a citizen or alleged “illegal immigrant.” For the Rohingya people, this resulted in widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, desecration of mosques, destruction of villages, and confiscation of lands. In the wake of this violence, nearly a quarter of a million Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh, many of whom were later repatriated to Burma where they faced further rape, imprisonment, and torture.

In 1991, a second push, known as Operation Pyi Thaya, or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched with the same purpose, resulting in another mass exodus of 200,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, with nearly 300,000 refugees remaining today, many without food or medical assistance from a Muslim population ignoring the demands for compassion in their faith towards their fellow Muslims.

With the passage of the 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingya were officially denied Burmese citizenship and effectively ceased to exist legally. With their loss of citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives difficult to lead. They were barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government permission, often procured through bribes which few are able to afford. The failure to receive permission for any of these innocuous acts lands the offenders in prison where men are beaten and women routinely raped.

Women who become illegally pregnant are forced to either flee the country or resort to dangerous back-alley abortions, where many die because of their inability to get adequate medical treatment due to the severe travel restrictions.

The Rohingya are also subjected to modern-day slavery, where they are forced to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing “model villages” to house Burmese settlers intended to displace them. Women are susceptible to forced prostitution by the Burmese security forces.

U.S. House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton applaud after Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi finishes her speech during a U.S. Congressional Gold Medal presentation ceremony.While many efforts have been made by the Burmese government towards the creation of an open and democratic political system, there is still much more to be done. Suu Kyi, following the example of inclusive leaders like Nelson Mandela, should reach out to the Rohingya people and set a positive precedent for an all-embracing society which welcomes the participation of the Rohingya as well as all the ethnic minorities of Burma. In this way, she will also be living up to the ideals of her Buddhist faith to show compassion towards those who suffer. Where she leads, others will follow.

Only when the systematic violence against the Rohingya ends can a truly democratic Burma be legitimate in the eyes of its own people and the international community.

But the first step is for Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma to acknowledge the Rohingya exist.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and former Pakistani High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ireland. Harrison Akins, an Ibn Khaldun Chair research fellow at American, is assisting Ahmed with his forthcoming book, “The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam .”
Millions of residents of western Myanmar have been stripped of citizenship and basic human rights. Will Suu Kyi help?

The Rohingya ethnic group of Myanmar is not recognised by the government [GALLO/GETTY]

Akbar Ahmed
Al Jazeera
January 30, 2012

This article is the first in a series by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani high commissioner to the UK, exploring how a litany of volatile centre/periphery conflicts with deep historical roots were interpreted after 9/11 in the new global paradigm of anti-terrorism - with profound and often violent consequences. Incorporating in-depth case studies from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ambassador Ahmed will ultimately argue that the inability for Muslim and non-Muslim states alike to either incorporate minority groups into a liberal and tolerant society or resolve the "centre vs periphery" conflict is emblematic of a systemic failure of the modern state - a breakdown which, more often than not, leads to widespread violence and destruction. The violence generated from these conflicts will become the focus, in the remainder of the 21st century, of all those dealing with issues of national integration, law and order, human rights and justice.

Washington, DC - The image of a smiling Daw Aung San Suu Kyi receiving flowers from her supporters is a powerful message of freedom and optimism in Myanmar, the symbol of democracy in a country which has known nothing but authoritarian oppression for decades.

Yet few ask one of the most pressing questions facing Daw Suu Kyi. How will she deal with the Rohingya?

"The Rohingya," you will ask. "Who are they?"

The Rohingya, whom the BBC calls "one of the world's most persecuted minority groups", are the little-publicised and largely forgotten Muslim people of the coastal Rakhine state of western Myanmar. Their historic lineage in Rakhine dates back centuries, as fishermen and farmers. Over the past three decades, the Rohingya have been systematically driven out of their homeland by Myanmar's military junta and subjected to widespread violence and the total negation of their rights and citizenship within Myanmar. They are a stateless Muslim minority.

The continued tragedy of the unrecognised Rohingya, both in Myanmar and as refugees abroad, casts a dark shadow over the bright hopes and prospects for democracy in a country plagued by violence and civil war. Suu Kyi is ideally placed to extend democratic reforms to all ethnic peoples, including the Rohingya, in a free Myanmar.

Though the Rohingya may be small in number at less than two million, the real lesson of the Arab Spring is that no notion of democracy can succeed without the inclusion of all people within a country's borders. Every member of society, regardless of race and religion, must be given their due rights as citizens.

"While many ethnic minorities in Myanmar have been the victims of the central government's oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened."

While many ethnic minorities in Myanmar have been the victims of the central government's oppressive measures, the Rohingya stand apart in that their very existence is threatened. The Rohingya's plight abroad as refugees in places such as Bangladesh and Thailand has seen glimmers of the media spotlight, but less attention has been brought to the underlying cause of their flight: the violence and cultural oppression at home.

These policies were enacted by Myanmar's government to force the Rohingya outside of Myanmar as a result of their being Muslim and ethnically non-Myanma. The government erroneously labelled them as "illegal Bengali immigrants" in their efforts to eradicate the Rohingya culture.

Kings to refugees

Yet, the long history of the Rohingya and the Rakhine state contradicts the government's claims. The medieval Kingdom of Arakan, encompassing the Muslim Rohingya, was once an enlightened centre of culture, knowledge and trade, displaying a harmonic blend of Buddhism and Islam in its administration and court life. The kingdom's cosmopolitan and international capital city, Mrauk U, was described in the 17th century as "a second Venice" by a Portuguese Jesuit priest and was often compared to Amsterdam and London by travellers and writers of the time.

It was the 1784 military conquest by Bodawpaya, the king of Burma (now Myanmar), that transformed this once vibrant kingdom into an oppressed peripheral region. After this, many haunting tales began to circulate of Burmese soldiers rounding up the Rohingya in bamboo enclosures to burn them alive, and marching thousands to the city of Amarapura to work, effectivley as slave labour, on infrastructure projects.

Rohingya boat people stuck in limbo

With the rise to power of the military junta in 1962 under General Ne Win, a policy of "Myanmarisation" was implemented as an ultra-nationalist ideology based on the racial purity of the Myanma ethnicity and its Buddhist faith. The Rohingya, as both Muslims and non-Myanma, were stripped of their legitimacy and officially declared foreigners in their own native land. With the passage of the junta's 1982 Citizenship Law, they effectively ceased to exist legally.

Stripped officially of their citizenship, the Rohingya found their lives in limbo: prohibited from the right to own land or property, barred from travelling outside their villages, repairing their decaying places of worship, receiving an education in any language or even marrying and having children without rarely granted government permission. The Rohingya have also been subjected to modern-day slavery, forced to work on infrastructure projects, such as constructing "model villages" to house the Myanmar settlers intended to displace them, reminiscent of their treatment at the hands of the Burmese kings of history.


Rohingya boat people stuck in limbo


The denial of citizenship and rights was accompanied by a military strategy of physical and cultural war designed to drive the Rohingya out of Myanmar.

The initial push of the military's ethnic cleansing campaign came in 1978 under Operation Naga Min, or Operation King Dragon. The purpose of this operation was to scrutinise each individual within the state as either a citizen or alleged "illegal immigrant". This resulted in widespread rape, arbitrary arrests, desecration of mosques, destruction of villages and confiscation of lands among the Rohingya people. In the wake of this violence, nearly a quarter of a million Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many of whom were later repatriated to Myanmar where they faced further torture, rape, jail and death.

In 1991, a second push, known as Operation Pyi Thaya or Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, was launched with the same purpose, resulting in further violence and another massive flow of 200,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
Non-governmental organisations from Europe and North America estimate that 300,000 Rohingya refugees remain in Bangladesh, with only 35,000 residing in registered refugee camps and receiving some sort of assistance from NGOs.

Acknowledging the Rohingya

Those remaining, more than 250,000, are in a desperate situation without food and medical assistance, largely left to slowly starve to death. The December 2011 refugee repatriation agreement reached between Myanmar President Thein Sein and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will exclude the Rohingya, due to their lack of Myanmar citizenship, one of the conditions for repatriation for the expected 2,500 returning refugees.

The Rohingya predicament underlines a paradox for the world's great faiths, straddling the divide between Islamic Asia and Buddhist Asia. Each emphasises compassion and kindness and yet, we see little evidence of this in their dealings with the Rohingya people.

As part of this current study on the relationship between centre and periphery in the Muslim world, we recently interviewed Dr Wakar Uddin, Chairman of The Burmese Rohingya Association of North America (BRANA). A gentle and learned man, he is an energetic ambassador for his Rohingya people with a firm grasp of regional history. All the Rohingya want is the reinstatement of their citizenship in their own land, as revoked by the former dictator General Ne Win, and the dignity, human rights and opportunities that come with it.

Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy have a unique opportunity to reach out to the Rohingya people and include them in the new democratic process. The NLD should work with the central government to expand the role of all ethnic minorities as full Myanma citizens.

By acknowledging their rights, the government will bestow upon the Rohingya the dignity and the responsibilities of citizenship and present opportunities for mutual cultural understanding and the repatriation of the thousands of refugees existing in purgatory, separated from their homes and families. Great strides have recently been made by the Myanmar government towards the creation of an open and democratic political system and an end to ethnic violence, yet this is only the beginning.

With the recognition of the Rohingya as Myanma citizens, Suu Kyi will honour the memory of her father, Aung San, as he, before his untimely and tragic death, also reached out to ethnic minorities to participate in an independent Myanmar. Only then can a democratic and modern Myanmar be legitimate and successful in the eyes of its own people.

But the first step is to acknowledge the Rohingya exist.

This article is based on research being conducted by Professor Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, Washington, DC, and Harrison Akins, a Research Fellow attached to the Chair, for the forthcoming study, Journey into Tribal Islam: America and the Conflict between Center and Periphery in the Muslim World, to be published by Brookings Press, exploring the conflict between Muslim tribal groups and central governments across the Muslim world in the context of the US-led 'war on terror'.

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Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington. Ahmed is a former Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK and former administrator in Waziristan and Balochistan. He is the award-winning author of numerous books, including Discovering Islam, and Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam (Brookings Press, 2010).

    • Rohingya Exodus