Defining Myanmar's Rohingya Problem
![handle is hein.journals/huribri20 and id is 176 raw text is: Defining Myanmar's Rohingya Problem
by Benjamin Zawacki*
Much has been written either empathetically or as
a challenge of Myanmar's Rohingya problem.
Between June and November 2012, the Rohingya
bore the brunt of communal violence, human rights violations,
and an urgent humanitarian situation in Rakhine State, and still
face an uncertain future.
A great deal of rhetoric has attended
these accounts-by officials and citizens n
of Myanmar, Rohingya organizations, [I]n th
journalists, human rights groups, and Myanmar au
others-essentially attaching labels to
the situation. And while there have been . . . discrim
a number of thoughtful attempts to define violence
or even explain the Rohingya problem in
historical or political terms, they have somehov
been largely drowned out by emotive
outbursts and media-friendly sound bites.
This is not only unfortunate, it is also consequential, for as was
seen in 2012, rhetoric can influence both the way in which a
crisis plays out as well as in how it is responded to. In other
words, how we talk about what it is we are talking about matters.
What do we mean when we talk about the Rohingya problem?
In proffering a modest definition of Myanmar's Rohingya
problem-one almost entirely of its own making-three
distinct but related areas of law and fact warrant particular
examination: 1) nationality and discrimination, which focuses
exclusively on Myanmar; 2) statelessness and displacement,
which implicates Myanmar's neighbors as well; and 3) the
doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, which draws into the
discussion the role of the international community.
These three areas demonstrate that although the root causes
of the Rohingya problem are within Myanmar, their effects are
felt regionally and are of relevance even further afield. They are
thus progressively causal, and they imply where efforts toward
solutions should be directed and prioritized.
NATIONALITY AND DISCRIMINATION
The violent events of 2012, as well as those of 1978, 1992,
2001, and 2009, can be attributed to systemic discrimination
against the Rohingya in Myanmar. That is, to a political, social,
and economic system-manifested in law, policy, and practice-
designed to discriminate against this ethnic and religious minor-
ity. This system makes such direct violence against the Rohingya
far more possible and likely than it would be otherwise. Further,
* Benjamin Zawacki is the Senior Legal Advisor for Southeast Asia
at the International Commission ofJurists, and a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed in this article,
however, are his own.
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in the eyes of the Myanmar authorities at least-as evidenced
by the lack of legal accountability for civilians and officials
alike-discrimination also makes the violence and violations
somehow justifiable. This is the Rohingya problem boiled down
to its most basic element.
In 1978's Dragon King operation,
the Myanmar army committed widespread
killings and rapes of Rohingya civilians,
,es of the and they carried out the destruction of
rities at least mosques and other religious persecution.
These events resulted in the exodus of an
tion makes estimated 200,000 Rohingya to neigh-
violations boring Bangladesh. Another campaign
of forced labor, summary executions,
stifiable. torture, and rape in 1992 led to a similar
number of Rohingyas fleeing across the
border. In February 2001, communal
violence between the Muslim and Buddhist populations in
Sittwe resulted in an unknown number of people killed and
Muslim property destroyed. In late 2008 and early 2009,
Thai authorities pushed back onto the high seas several
boats-lacking adequate food, water, and fuel-of Rohingyas
in the Andaman Sea.2
All of these events have similar, separate equivalents in
countries in which systemic discrimination does not take place.
Yet in Myanmar such discrimination provides the violence
with a ready-made antecedent, expressly approved by the state.
Indeed to varying degrees, the seminal events noted above
were simply exacerbations of this underlying discrimination:
alarming episodic symptoms of a chronic legal, political, and
economic illness. It would overstate the causality to assert that if
Myanmar had never put its system of discrimination against the
Rohingya into place, then these events would not have occurred.
Eliminating it now, however, is urgently required for a future
of sustainable peace in Rakhine State. Equally important, it is
imperative under human rights law.
The system's anchor is the 1982 Citizenship Law, which in
both design and implementation effectively denies the right to a
nationality to the Rohingya population. It supersedes all previous
citizenship regimes in Myanmar.3 The 1982 Citizenship Law
creates three classes of citizens-full, associate, and naturalized
-none of which has been conferred on most Rohingyas.
Myanmar reserves full citizenship for those whose ancestors
settled in the country before the year 1823 or who are members
of one of Myanmar's more than 130 recognized national ethnic
groups, which do not include the Rohingya. Associate citizens
are those who both are eligible and have applied for citizenship
under a previous 1948 law. This requires an awareness of the law
that few Rohingya posses and a level of proof that even fewer
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Defining Myanmar's Rohingya Problem
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