Putin, trump and modi shaping world's future

 The Rohingya Crises        

        

Discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in the predominantly Buddhist country. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Renewed violence, including reported rape, murder, and arson in 2017, triggered a massive exodus of Rohingya amid charges of ethnic cleansing against Myanmar’s security forces. Those forces claim to be carrying out a campaign to reinstate stability in the western region of Myanmar.

Who are the Rohingya?

The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority who practice a Sufi-inflected variation of Sunni Islam. A majority of the estimated one million Rohingya in Myanmar reside in Rakhine State, where they account for nearly a third of the population. They differ from Myanmar’s dominant Buddhist groups ethnically, linguistically, and religiously.

The Rohingya trace their origins in the region to the fifteenth century, when thousands of Muslims came to the former Arakan Kingdom. Many others arrived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Rakhine was governed by colonial rule as part of British India. Since independence in 1948, successive governments in Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, have refuted the Rohingya’s historical claims and denied the group recognition as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups. The Rohingya are largely considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many trace their roots in Myanmar back centuries.

Neither the central government nor Rakhine’s dominant ethnic Buddhist group, known as the Rakhine, recognize the label “Rohingya,” a self-identifying term [PDF] that surfaced in the 1950s, which experts say provides the group with a collective political identity. Though the etymological root of the word is disputed, the most widely accepted theory is that Rohang derives from the word “Arakan” in the Rohingya dialect and ga or gyameans “from.” By identifying as Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim group asserts its ties to land that was once under the control of the Arakan Kingdom, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a Thailand-based advocacy group.

Why are the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar?

The Myanmar government has effectively institutionalized discrimination against the ethnic group through restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. For example, Rohingya couples in the northern towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung are only allowed to have two children [PDF]. Rohingya must also seek permission to marry, which may require them to bribe authorities and provide photographs of the bride without a headscarf and the groom with a clean-shaven face, practices that conflict with Muslim customs. To move to a new home or travel outside their townships, Rohingya must gain government approval.

Moreover, Rakhine State is Myanmar’s least developed state, with a poverty rate of 78 percent, compared to the 37.5 percent national average, according to World Bank estimates. Widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of employment opportunities in Rakhine have exacerbated the cleavage between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya. This tension is deepened by religious differences that have at times erupted into conflict

Where are the Rohingya migrating?

• Bangladesh: Most Rohingya have sought refuge in nearby Bangladesh, which hosts tens of thousands of registered refugees. Hundreds of thousands of unregistered Rohingya refugees are also believed to live in the country, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates. Conditions in most of the country’s refugee camps are dire, driving many Rohingya there to risk a perilous voyage across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia. In January 2017, Myanmar agreed to begin talks with Bangladesh on refugees, yet border posts in Bangladesh have at times forcibly returned Rohingya. Amid the refugee influx in September, Bangladesh announced that it would create special identity cards for Rohingya to help bring order to the surging migrant flow and expand the existing camps for refugees.
• Malaysia: As of August 2017, more than 88 percent of Malaysia’s 149,100 registered refugees were from Myanmar, including sixty-one thousand Rohingya, according to the United Nations. Rohingya who have arrived safely in Malaysia have no legal status and are unable to work, leaving their families cut off from access to education and health care.