Rohingya people

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Rohingya
Flag of the Rohingya
Total population

3 Million, Est[1]
Regions with significant populations
Myanmar (Arakan)
Bangladesh, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia
Languages
Rohingya language, Burmese language
Religions
Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
List of ethnic groups in Burma

The Rohingya are a Muslim Ethnic group of the Northern Rakhine State of Western Burma. The Rohingya population is mostly concentrated in two northern townships of Rakhine State (formerly known as Arakan):

Contents

History

They have a history in Arakan State back from the beginning of 7th century of the Arab Muslim traders, who settled in Arakan; however, there is no historical evidence to prove this point. They are physically similar to South Asians and there is proof for them that they are the descendants of the Arabs. Most of the Rohingya settling in Arakan now are descendants of Arabs, Persians and Pathans, who migrated to Arakan during the Mughal Empire.

  • Rohingya Parliament Members in Burma

Wealthy and influential Rohingya Muslim from Akyab, Arakan, a Rohingya Sultan Mahmood was the political secretary in U Nu’s government and later was appointed as Health Minister. Other Rohingya Muslims in U Nu’s Parliament as parliamentary secretaries were Mr Sultan Ahmed and Mr Abdul Gaffar. Mr Abdul Bashar, Mrs. Zohora Begum @ Daw Aye Nyunt, Mr Abul Khair, Mr Abdus Sobhan, Mr Abdul Bashar, Mr Rashid Ahmed, Mr Nasiruddin (U Pho Khine), were members of Parliament in different terms in U Nu’s Government. Press Release, Rohingya Patriotic Front 9-2-1966.

Human rights violations

According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya people have continued to suffer human rights violations under the Myanmar junta since 1978, and many have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result:[2]

"The Rohingyas’ freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Myanmar citizenship. They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced labourers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labour in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade."

"In 1978 over estimated number of 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the ‘Nagamin’ (‘Dragon King’) operation of the Myanmar army. Officially this campaign aimed at "scrutinising each individual living in the state, designating citizens and foreigners in accordance with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered into the country illegally". This military campaign directly targeted civilians, and resulted in widespread killings, rape and destruction of mosques and further religious persecution."

"During 1991-92 a new wave of the over estimated number of a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. They reported widespread forced labour, as well as summary executions, torture, and rape. Rohingyas were forced to work without pay by the Myanmar army on infrastructure and economic projects, often under harsh conditions. Many other human rights violations occurred in the context of forced labour of Rohingya civilians by the security forces."

Refugees

Northern Arakan, consisting of contemporary Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, has since the late eighteenth century been a region of intermittent unrest and refugee flows. Thousands of Arakanese fled to what is now Bangladesh in the late 1700s. Rohingyas also counted these Arakanese refugees of the 18th century as the Rohingyas. The British officials historically recorded these refugees as Rohingyas.

In 1784, the Burman King Bodawpaya conquered and incorporated the Arakan region into his kingdom of Ava in central Burma. As a consequence of the invasion, Arakanese refugees began to pour into what is today the Cox's Bazar area of southern Chittagong. Cox's Bazar takes its name from the British lieutenant who was sent to the area to organize and provide relief for the refugees.1 One of the groups of dissatisfied Arakanese Rohingya that fled to British controlled Chittagong in East Bengal proceeded to conduct raids against the Burman king. In one incident, the king's men pursued the Arakanese insurgents into British territory.2 The incursion led to tension between the British colonial government and King Bodawpaya over the king's demands for extradition of the insurgents. In 1811, the leader of the insurgents, Chin Byan, organized his forces and managed to capture much of Arakan.3 A request by Chin Byan for British protection, however, was rejected and the Burmese army pushed Chin Byan back into Bengal. Many of the Arakanese that fled during this period never returned to Burma, but instead settled in the area of Cox's Bazar and became integrated with the local community.

The British colonized Burma in a series of three wars beginning in 1824. During their rule, the Arakan problem declined as the British allowed for a relative degree of local autonomy. From 1824 to 1942, there were few recorded incidences of uprisings. This period witnessed significant migration of laborers to Burma from neighboring South Asia especially what is now Bengladesh. The British administered Burma as a province of India, thus migration to Burma was considered an internal movement. The Burmese government still considers, however, that the migration which took place during this period was illegal, and it is on this basis that they refuse citizenship to the majority of the Rohingyas they are not the ethinc groups of Burma.

World War II, Independence, and Rohingya Flight In 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma and during the British retreat communal violence erupted. Attacks were made against those groups that had benefited from British colonial rule. Burman nationalists attacked Karen and Indian communities, while in Arakan Rakhine and Rohingyas villagers attacked one another causing a displacement of Buddhist villagers to the south and Muslims to the north. The region remained under Japanese control until a British offensive drove out the Japanese in 1945. Prior to the Japanese invasion, the British, seeking to bolster support for their forces, had promised the Muslims of northern Arakan a Muslim National Area,6 and some of the displaced returned with the British. But Britain never delivered on its promise to create a Muslim National Area. After Burma became independent in January 1948, tensions between the government and the Rohingyas grew. Immediately following independence, a group of Arakanese Muslims went on the political offensive, pushing for the integration of Maungdaw and Buthidaung into what was then known as East Pakistan.7 The proposal was rejected by the Constituent Assembly in Rangoon. The government contributed to the escalation of tension by treating the Rohingyas as illegal immigrants. The immigration authorities imposed limitations of movement upon Muslims from the regions of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung to Akyab [Sittwe]. The Muslims were not resettled in the villages from which they had been driven out in 1942 (with the exception of villages they left in the Maungdaw and Buthidaung regions). Some 13,000 Rohingyas still living in refugee camps in India and Pakistan whence they had fled during the war, were unable to return; as for those who did manage to return, they were considered illegal Pakistani immigrants. The properties and land of all these refugees have been confiscated.8 Because they were denied the right to citizenship, Rohingyas were prohibited from military service and Buddhist Rakhine villagers replaced Rohingya civil servants.9

Beginning in 1950, segments of the Rohingya community resorted to armed action, led by armed groups called Mujahids. In a series of attacks, Mujahid fighters pushed out non-Muslims villagers unsympathetic to their cause from Maungdaw, Buthidaung and part of Rathedaung.10 Aware of the conflict just across the border, the Pakistani government in 1950 sent a warning to its Burmese counterparts about the treatment of Muslims in Arakan. However, Burma's Prime Minister, U Nu, quickly dispatched a Muslim ambassador, U Pe Kin, to negotiate an understanding according to which Pakistan would no longer provide weapons to the Mujahids.11 In 1954, authorities in Pakistan finally arrested Cassim, the leader of the Mujahids, and placed him in a Chittagong jail. In November 1954, the Burmese army stepped up counterinsurgency operations in Arakan and succeeded in quieting the rebellion.

Operation Nagamin and the 1970s Exodus

Shortly after General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) seized power in 1962, the government began to dissolve Rohingya social and political organizations.12 In 1977, Burmese immigration and military authorities conducted what they called Operation Nagamin (Dragon King), a national effort to register citizens and screen out foreigners prior to a national census.13 By May 1978, more than over estimated number of 200,000 Rohingya had fled to Bangladesh: this, the Burmese authorities claimed, signified the Rohingyas illegal status in Burma. Refugees reported that the Burmese army had forcibly evicted them and alleged widespread army brutality, rape and murder.14 The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Bangladeshi government supplied emergency relief but were quickly overwhelmed. The Bangladeshi government requested assistance from the United Nations and soon thirteen camps for the refugees were established along the border.

Almost immediately upon the refugees' arrival, the Bangladeshi government engaged its Burmese counterpart in a discussion on their repatriation. Bangladeshi authorities complained of the economic and social burden the presence of the Rohingya from Arakan placed on the local community and insisted that there would be no local integration.15 The United Nations also urged the Burmese leadership to allow the Rohingya's repatriation. U.N. officials hinted that a flow of aid, which the Ne Win government in Burma was pursuing through a more open foreign policy, would be more readily accessible should the ruling Burmese Socialist Programme Party agree to the returns.16 The Burmese government relented and the Rohingya began to go home. At first, in the early months of the program, few refugees opted for repatriation, but the number increased when the Bangladeshi government allowed camp conditions to decline and restricted food rations.17

Flight in the 1990s

The most recent mass outflow from Arakan to Bangladesh took place in 1991 and 1992, when more than over estimated number of 250,000 Rohingya refugees fled forced labor, rape and religious persecution at the hands of the Burmese army. With the assistance of UNHCR and non-governmental relief agencies, the Bangladeshi government sheltered the refugees in nineteen camps in the vicinity of Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh.

Faced with this new influx of refugees, the Bangladesh government announced that it would not countenance any local integration and that the Rohingya from Arakan would have to return home. Bangladesh was not then, and is still not, a signatory to either the 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. As in the 1970s, the Bangladeshi government intended to send all the refugees home quickly and sought to achieve this through negotiation with the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in Rangoon.

The Rohingya from Arakan repatriation, which the Bangladeshi and Burmese governments began in September 1992, was troubled from the outset, as Human Rights Watch and other organizations have previously reported.18 Following reports of forced repatriation, UNHCR began to monitor a proportion of the returns in October 1992 but withdrew its support in December 1992 when it became clear that coercion was continuing. UNHCR then agreed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Bangladeshi government and in May 1993 began to interview refugees individually in order to ensure that the Bangladeshi authorities were respecting the principle of voluntariness. When a UNHCR survey revealed that less than 30% of the Rohingya from Arakan wished to repatriate, however, the Bangladeshi government responded by insisting that all of the Rohingya should return by the end of 1994 and allowing the MOU with UNHCR to expire in July 1994.19 The same year, UNHCR gained access to the return sites located in the Buthidaung, Rathedaung, and Maungdaw townships of Arakan State; this, it insisted, would facilitate the safe return of the Rohingya from Arakan because UNHCR could now monitor what became of them. UNHCR then abandoned its system of individual interviews with refugees in August 1994 in favor of a program of mass repatriation in which thousands of Rohingya returned to Burma each week. Initially, however, UNHCR representatives were not permitted to travel within Arakan state without prior clearance from the Burmese government, and the latter also failed to provide a firm commitment that it would recognize the rights of the Rohingya to Burmese citizenship. At the time, Human Rights Watch questioned the accuracy of the information about conditions in Arakan which UNHCR provided to the refugees and noted the concerns expressed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved with the repatriation that it was being conducted in "less than optimum conditions."20 Even so, between 1993 and 1997, some 230,000 refugees returned to Arakan.

Continued Obstacles to Repatriation

In July 1997, a series of events surrounding the repatriation led to disturbances in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. A few months earlier, the Burmese government had informed both Bangladesh and UNHCR that it would accept no more returning refugees after August 15, 1997. The Bangladeshi authorities then sought to return as many refugees as possible before the deadline, in the course of which they forcibly expelled over three hundred Rohingya across the Naf River into Burma.21 This provoked a violent reaction on the part of other refugees, who seized control of the two remaining camps at Nayapara and Kutupalong. For over a year, only a select few UNHCR and NGO officials were permitted to enter the camps and the leaders of the protest would not allow refugees to leave the camps, and, in some cases, forced refugees to forego rations. A UNHCR vehicle was also stolen.

In March and October 1998, Bangladeshi authorities and local villagers moved into the camps and restored order. Some refugees were beaten by police and many of those responsible for the disturbances were arrested. From July 1997, when the disturbances broke out, until the Bangladeshi authorities restored order in 1998, all repatriation ceased.

Following the police action and negotiations between UNHCR and the Bangladeshi and Burmese governments, the Burmese authorities announced that as of November 15, 1998 they would once again permit the repatriation of Rohingya from Arakan refugee families but only if they, the Burmese authorities, could re-verify residence, limit the number of returnees to fifty per week, and receive only complete families. Later they added the stipulation that they be allowed to confirm each refugee's willingness to return. As a result of these conditions, which have proven onerous in practice, even those Rohingya who wish to return to Arakan have not been able to do so.

As this report was being prepared in late 1999 and early 2000, there were still problems in the camps and conditions inside Burma for Rohingya from Arakan remained dismal. In Bangladesh, UNHCR has made progress in reducing violence in the camps and in pressing the Bangladeshi government to respect the principle of non-refoulement, but there are still reports of violence by camp officials against refugees. UNHCR itself has been accused by NGOs and refugees of employing coercive tactics in its pursuit of refugee registration. In Arakan state, the Burmese government has continued to demand forced labor from villagers, arbitrarily confiscate their property, and restrict their movement. Moreover, members of the Rohingya minority are still being denied full rights of citizenship. As of 2005, the UNHCR had been assisting with the repatriation of Rohingya from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps have threatened this repatriation effort.[3]

Despite earlier efforts by the UN, the vast majority of Rohingya refugees have remained in Bangladesh, unable to return due the nature of the regime in Burma, the refugees however face problems in Bangladesh where they do not receive support from the government.[4]

Language

Coins Struck by the Kings of Arakan
Coins Struck by the Kings of Arakan

Rohingya Languages is the modern written language of the Rohingya People of Arakan (Rakhine) State in Myanmar formerly known as Burma. The first Rohingya Language written was back to very recently. Due to the long colonial period under British rule, Urdu, Farsi and English were the main communication languages in that time. Since then many other scholars have tried to write the Rohingya Language using Arabic, Urdu, Burmese and Hanifi Scripts; the last one being the new invented alphabets mostly derived from Arabic Scripts but a few from Latin and Burmese. However, to make Rohingya language more easy in today's Computers and communications world, Rohingyalish has been developed using Latin alphabets only. Since these alphabets are readily available in almost all personal computers used today, we need only a few guide lines to write the Rohingya Language. there has been a successful effort to write it using Roman script, known as Rohingyalish which has been recently recognized by ISO with ISO 639-3 "rhg" code.[5]

Religion is particularly important to the Rohingya people, who are predominantly Muslim. There are mosques and religious schools in every quarter and village. Traditionally, the men pray in congregation, while women pray at home.

See also

References

  1. ^ State of Myanmar's Rohingyas 2007
  2. ^ Myanmar - The Rohingya Minority: Fundamental Rights Denied, Amnesty International, 2004.
  3. ^ UNHCR threatens to wind up Bangladesh operations. New Age BDNEWS, Dhaka (2005-05-21). Retrieved on 2007-04-25.
  4. ^ Burmese exiles in desperate conditions
  5. ^ ISO 639 Code Tables - SIL Internationl

The Rohingya ethnic group has a history in Arakan State from the beginning of the 7th century, when Arab Muslim traders settled in Arakan. Rohingya in essence is one of the ethnic groups of Arakan State of Burma and Rohingya leaders had ruled Arakan State for many centuries before it was invaded by Burma’s Dictators, of-course the Mogi (presently known as Rakhine) leaders had also ruled Arakan State.

External links