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For the last 40 years, Rohingyas of Northern Arakan/Rakhine State of Myanmar (formerly Burma), have been subjected to what Amartya Sen called a "slow genocide." Since August 26, over 607,000 Rohingyas have sought refuge in Bangladesh after having fled Myanmar’s campaign of murder, arson and sexual violence, the latest of 5 waves of state-sponsored terror in the region. Today there are more Rohingyas outside of their birthplace than inside it. Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine is honored to host a panel discussion on the topic of the Rohingya crisis and its global context with Maung Zarni, a Buddhist native of Burma and genocide scholar and human rights activist, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor in the Humanities (Columbia) and luminary in the field of postcolonial and feminist studies.






August 10, 2017

Denied citizenship, forced from their homes, and subjected to cruelty; we investigate the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya.

Filmmakers: Salam Hindawi, Ali Kishk, Harri Grace

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has a population of around 51 million people. The Burman ethnic group constitutes around two-thirds of this figure and controls the military and the government. But there are also more than 135 ethnic groups in the country, each with their own culture.

Many of them have become internally displaced by government moves to exploit land, provoking long-standing friction. 

In fact, the conflict between Myanmar's ethnic minorities and the ruling Burmese majority represent one of the world's longest ongoing conflicts.

One group, the Muslim Rohingya, are not recognised as an ethnic nationality of Myanmar, so they suffer from arguably the worst discrimination and human rights abuses of all. The Rohingya population is somewhere between one and two million and they are living mainly in Rakhine State in the north of the country.

In this film, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Salam Hindawi goes to Myanmar to investigate the situation surrounding the Rohingya.

Myanmar has been tightly controlled for decades and Hindawi has enormous difficulties gaining access to certain areas of the country that the government simply doesn't want anyone from outside to see.

"I think the military and the government are blocking people from going into northern Maungdaw [a majority Rohingya town], because they have something really horrible to hide," says David Mathieson, a former director of Human Rights Watch in Myanmar and now an independent analyst and observer. 

"There are signs of this in satellite pictures and by the government's own admission and through credible reporting coming out of the area, saying there have been extensive human rights violations. They want to hide the extent of the abuses against the civilian population. It's a cover-up," he says.

In 2012, the capital of Rakhine state, Sittwe, saw a wave of violence in which hundreds of Rohingya were killed and tens of thousands forced to leave their homes and move to camps.

"Our houses were burned down by the Rakhine people," says Sander Win, a Rohingya refugee. "We stayed at a friend's house and were then sent here. I've been here for five or six years."

Muhammed Yasin, the so-called camp doctor, says: "Our lives are very difficult. All our houses have been destroyed. In cold weather, we sleep on the floor ... our children get diseases and die."

The government restricts their movement, ability to marry and access to education and healthcare. The refugees Hindawi met seemed to have been in the camp for years - and the children appeared to never have lived anywhere else.

At the heart of the Rohingya's problems lie Myanmar's citizenship laws which deny them full nationality and therefore rights. This mirrors the widespread official and public prejudice against them.

"As a Buddhist, I feel sorry for them," says Buddhist monk U Par Mount Kha. "But these Muslims living in Myanmar, we can't just look at their human rights. They're not qualified to be citizens under our citizenship law ... If we let them out, the terrorist attacks will increase in Myanmar. There are 57 Islamic countries in the world, so if the leaders of those countries would take these people into their countries, there will be no problems in our country at all. We should consider that idea."

This discrimination has created tension and in October 2016 at least nine police officers were killed and four injured in multiple assaults along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh. The attackers were identified only as "terrorists" but were believed to belong to an armed Muslim group.

There was an immediate violent backlash and the army began a siege on Maungdaw. There were reports of mass killings, torture, rape - and of tens of thousands of Rohingya sought refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The government says these reports are exaggerated - but the UN has since reported a raft of human rights violations. It has even gone as far as suggesting that Myanmar's strategy may be to expel the Rohingya altogether. It announced a fact-finding mission to Myanmar but the government said in June that it would deny entry to officials taking part in the UN investigation.

Former Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi now holds the post of State Counsellor and is effectively the head of the Myanmar government. But since her days as an anti-government campaigner, she has been accused of ignoring the plight of the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

"[Aung San Suu Kyi] stays relatively silent about the abuses going on," says Mathieson. "She's really been absent when her voice as a leader needs to be heard."
By Al Jazeera
December 4, 2016

Malaysian prime minister urges foreign intervention to stop what he calls the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.



Pressure on government leaders in Myanmar is being ramped up - as Malaysia accused its neighbour of committing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Government leaders in Buddhist majority Myanmar deny the ethnic cleansing of people they consider illegal immigrants – and "terrorists".

Rohingya gunmen are blamed for the killing of nine policemen in October. Since then, dozens of Rohingya have been killed and tens of thousands forced from their homes in a military crackdown.

Some soldiers are accused of gang rape, torture and destroying entire villages in Rakhine state.

The Myanmar government denies the allegations but has banned journalists from visiting Rohingya areas.

Why has there been little international action so far? And why hasn't Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi spoken out?

Presenter: Sami Zeidan

Guests:

Tun Khin - President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK


Maung Zarni - Genocide Documentation Centre of Cambodia and human rights activist




November 11, 2016

In recent years, democratic reforms have swept through Myanmar, a country that for decades was ruled by a military junta. As the reforms took hold, however, things were growing progressively worse for the Rohingya, a heavily persecuted ethnic Muslim minority concentrated in the country's western state of Rakhine.

The 2012 gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by three Muslim men ignited violent riots in which hundreds were killed as Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya attacked each other. In the following months, tens of thousands of Rohingya were rounded up and forced to live in squalid camps; Human Rights Watch deemed the attacks crimes against humanity that amounted to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Thousands of Rohingya have since attempted to leave the country, fueling the region's intricate and brutal human trafficking network.

VICE News traveled to Myanmar to investigate the violence and discrimination faced by the country's Muslim minority.





Dr Maung Zarni comments on Kofi Annan Commission and Myanmar Genocide of Rohingya, Al Jazeera English News Hour, 7 September 2016

By Bian Elkatib and Nikita Mandhani
Medill
March 7, 2016

The Rohingyas are a primarily Muslim ethnic minority group from Burma, a country in Southeast Asia that is also known as Myanmar.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, media coverage of the Rohingya refugee crisis has been scarce.




The migration of Rohingyas from Myanmar and Bangladesh is “described as the biggest mass exodus since the Vietnam War” in the UNHCR’s study guide on the Rohingyas.

Their plight has captured the attention of President Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

By Al Jazeera
February 2, 2016


Inside Story - Is Myanmar's transition to democracy tainted by the persecution of Rohingya Muslims?








Myanmar's first democratically-elected parliament in decades is being called historic. But it's also the first Parliament that does not include a single Muslim legislator. More than a million Muslim Rohingya, who do not have citizenship, were prevented from voting in November's election.They are among the most persecuted people on earth. Hundreds were killed during violence between Muslim and Buddhist communities in 2012. Muslim-owned businesses and homes were burned.Since then, 140,000 Rohingya have been forced into refugee camps. Tens of thousands more have fled from the country on overcrowded boats.So, what will Myanmar's new mainly civilian government mean for the Rohingya?Presenter: Jane Dutton Guests: Kyaw Zwa Moe - The Irrawaddy News Magazine in Naypyidaw. Adam Cooper - Myanmar Country Representative at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Yangon.Tun Khin - President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation, UK.

Dr Zarni analyses Myanmar Leaders' talk BBC World TV, 6 Dec 2015, 11:10 GMT





A family stands outside their hut in one of the unregistered IDP camps, May 24, 2015 in Sittwe, Burma. Since 2012, the minority group of the Rohingya people are forced to live in IDP camps, in Rakhaing State in western Burma. (GETTY IMAGES/JONAS GRATZER)

November 3, 2015

A new film released by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has revealed Myanmar state documents showing the use of hate speech and the incitement of anti-Muslim riots and sentiments. These documents, along with eyewitness accounts and expert testimony, have led a clinic at Yale University Law School to say there is “strong evidence” the government of Myanmar is coordinating a genocide against the Rohingya people. The clinic is also calling on the UN Human Rights Council for an “urgent, comprehensive and independent investigation.” 



Discussed by:

Phil Rees @JPGREES
Al Jazeera Investigative Unit

Nay San Lwin @nslwin
Rohingya Blogger

Thomas MacManus @tmacmanus
International State Crime Initiative


    • Rohingya Exodus