Konflik di Rohingya: Hubungannya dengan umat Islam sejagat

Rohingya adalah etnis minoritas di Myanmar. Mereka hidup terutama di negara bagian barat
Rakhine. Mereka tidak secara resmi diakui oleh pemerintah sebagai warga negara dan
selama beberapa dasawarsa mayoritas Buddha di negara itu dituding berbagai kalangan
telah melakukan diskriminasi dan kekerasan terhadap mereka.

Rohingya Muslims are considered to be the world’s largest stateless ethnic group.

Numbering around 1.1 million, most of them live in northern Rakhine state of Myanmar, a

Buddhist majority nation. The government of Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as

citizens, resulting into their virtually legalised persecution. Often described as “the most

persecuted minority” of the world, Rohingya Muslims face several restrictions in Myanmar,

including on their movement, access to economy, education, health and other rights.

Origin

The Rohingya trace their origin in Rakhine to the 15th century or earlier, according to The

Indian Express. However, the official name for them today is “Bengali”, intended to highlight

that they entered Rakhine as part of British East India Company’s expansion into Myanmar

(then known as Burma) after the former defeated Burmese king in 1826. According to IE,

Burman, Chinese, Malay and Thai Muslims have better relations with Myanmar than the

Rohingya, who are also racially different.

Why the Rohingya have no rights in Myanmar

As per Myanmar’s citizenship law of 1982, full citizenship is granted to only those who trace

their origin in the country to before 1823 or to those belonging to ethnic groups like majority

Burman or Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan. In 1982, the country had

prepared another list of 13 ethnic groups and made it public in 1990. The list didn’t include

the Rohingya.

According to IE, Rohingya activists claim there have been several references, pointing to

their political acceptance as citizens, including the one by Myanmar’s first President U Nu,

who reportedly said that people living in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships (both

Rohingya dominated areas in Rakhine state) were Rohingya, ethnics of Burma.

From 1948 to 2010, Rohigya voted in every election in the country, after they were issued

“temporary scrutiny cards”. The cards clearly mentioned they were not entitled to citizenship.

In 2010 election under the then junta regime, three Rohingya MPs were sent to Parliament.
They were, however, disenfranchised when first full democratic election took place in the

country in 2012.

Conflict in Rakhine state

There were Rohingya-Buddhist clashes in 2012, reportedly triggered by alleged rape and

murder of a Rakhine Buddhist woman by two Rohingya Muslim men. Due to clashes,

thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh and to the camps set up under UN

supervision in Rakhine.

On October 9 last year, nine Myanmar policemen died in armed attacks on Myanmar’s

border with Bangladesh in Rakhine province. The attack was claimed by ARSA, then known

as Harraka al Yakin/Aqa Mul Mujahideen. Eight attackers were also killed. Since last year,

there have been several allegations of human rights violation by Myanmar’s military against

the Rohingya.

On August 25 this year, ARSA claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks on police posts

and a bid to raid an army base. The response by Myanmar military has forced around

2,50,000 Rohingya to flee into Bangladesh.

Around 40,000 Rohingya have also fled to India.

The Rohingya are an ethnic group, the majority of whom are Muslim, who
have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. Currently, there
are about 1.1 million Rohingya in the Southeast Asian country.

The Rohingya speak Rohingya or Ruaingga, a dialect that is distinct to

others spoken throughout Myanmar. They are not considered one of the
country's 135 official ethnic groups and have been denied citizenship in
Myanmar since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless.

Nearly all of the Rohingya in Myanmar live in the western coastal state of
Rakhine and are not allowed to leave without government permission. It is
one the poorest states in the country, with ghetto-like camps and a lack of
basic services and opportunities.

Due to ongoing violence and persecution, hundreds of thousands of

Rohingya have fled to neighbouring countries either by land or boat over
the course of many decades.
BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military systematically planned a genocidal
campaign to rid the country of Rohingya Muslims, according to a report
released on Thursday by the advocacy group Fortify Rights based on
testimony from 254 survivors, officials and workers over a 21-month
period.

The 162-page report says that the exodus of around 700,000 Rohingya
Muslims to Bangladesh last year — after a campaign of mass slaughter, rape
and village burnings in Rakhine State in Myanmar — was the culmination
of months of meticulous planning by the security forces.

Fortify Rights names 22 military and police officers who it says were
directly responsible for the campaign and recommends that the United
Nations Security Council refer them to the International Criminal Court.

“Genocide doesn’t happen spontaneously,” said Matthew F. Smith, a former

Human Rights Watch specialist on Myanmar and China who is chief
executive officer of Fortify Rights. “Impunity for these crimes will pave the
path for more violations and attacks in the future.”

Fortify Rights, a nonprofit organization registered in the United States and

Switzerland, was formed in 2013 by Mr. Smith and fellow human rights
activists. It has focused on investigating human rights abuses in Southeast
Asia, particularly Myanmar.

Beginning in October 2016, Myanmar’s military and local officials

methodically removed sharp tools that could be used for self-defense by the
Rohingya, destroyed fences around Rohingya homes to make military raids
easier, armed and trained ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, and shut off the spigot
of international aid for the impoverished Rohingya community, the Fortify
Rights report says.

Most of all, more troops were sent to northern Rakhine State, where the
bulk of the largely stateless Rohingya once lived. Fortify Rights says that at
least 27 Myanmar Army battalions, with up to 11,000 soldiers, and at least
three combat police battalions, with around 900 personnel, participated in
the bloodletting that began in late August and continued for weeks
afterward.

United States officials have said that the violence amounted to a

calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing, and one United Nations official
described the anti-Rohingya campaign as bearing “the hallmarks of
genocide.”
The Fortify Rights report suggests an alternate story line to the suggestion
that the military-led atrocities, which were often abetted by ethnic Rakhine
locals armed with swords, were solely a response to attacks by Rohingya
militants on army and police posts on Aug. 25, 2017.

“There is no genocide and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar,” said U Zaw Htay,

a government spokesman. “Yes, there are human rights violations, and the
government will take action against those who committed human rights
violations.”

Mr. Zaw Htay said that the Myanmar government would be forming an
“investigation team, which will include internationally well-respected
persons to investigate the human rights violations in Rakhine.”

Several commissions, committees and investigative bodies have been

formed in Myanmar to examine the Rakhine violence. But none have, so
far, resulted in substantive shifts in policy or broad admissions of blame by
the state.

“There are international organizations that accuse Myanmar with the terms
‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ without evidence,” Mr. Zaw Htay added,
naming Fortify Rights among them. “If there is evidence of genocide, then
they can inform the government and our government will investigate and
take action.”

Fortify Rights has accused the international community of failing to

adequately condemn the years of state repression of the Rohingya and,
more specifically, the mounting abuses in the months preceding last year’s
military-led campaign.

The Fortify Rights report also describes how militants from the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army killed and tortured Rohingya whom they
considered to be government informants.

The list of Myanmar military officials whom Fortify Rights finds directly
responsible for attacks on Rohingya Muslims include the commander in
chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing; his deputy, Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win;
and the chief of general staff, Gen. Mya Tun Oo.

Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit

advocacy group, just wrapped up a trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh, where
she met with military and government officials, along with victims of the
violence.
“What the United States should be doing,” she said, “is to insist that the
military and security forces that orchestrated this genocide are held
accountable through targeted sanctions so this violence won’t repeat itself.”

When Myanmar was under full military rule, the United States and other
Western governments placed sanctions on the army regime. But as the top
brass began sharing power with a civilian government, most of those
broad sanctions were lifted. Last December, Maj. Gen. Maung Maung
Soebecame the first Myanmar military officer subject to American
sanctions because of his links to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.

“We need more sanctions that target the people responsible for these
abuses, like the over 20 officers that Fortify Rights names, to ban their
travel, freeze their assets,” Ms. Kennedy said. “What we don’t want is
sanctions that hurt the Myanmar population as a whole, which would harm
the most vulnerable people.”