Manifesto-2
Rohingya
Rohingya in Burma, most of whom are Sunni, constitute at least 4 per cent of the country’s entire population, with the largest concentration in the north of Rakhine State (also known as Arakan), especially around Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Akyab and Kyauktaw.
There are a number of distinct Muslim communities in Burma, not all of which share the same cultural or ethnic background. While the country’s largest Muslim population resides in Arakan State, the majority of Muslims in Rakhine State refer to themselves as ‘Rohingya’: their language (Rohingya) is intelligible to Chittagonian but the other group of Muslims refer themselves as ‘Arakanese Muslims’, as they speak Rakhine which is closely related to the Burmese language and tend to share similar customs to the Rakhine Buddhist.
Historical context
We Rohingya and other Muslims were considered as citizens of Burma under the 1948 Constitution and civilian administration until the military coup d’état of 1962. Our status was subsequently downgraded under the 1974 Constitution, which does not recognize us as indigenous, and the Citizenship Act of 1982, which states that citizens must belong to one of 135 ‘national races’ as recognized under the constitution, or whose ancestors settled in the country before 1823. Given the lack of documentation to satisfy the latter requirement, the result has been a hugely discriminatory denial of citizenship for most Rohingya and many other Muslims, effectively rendering us stateless. As a result, we have faced numerous discriminatory obstacles in access to education, health, travel, many areas of employment and even in terms of receiving permits allowing us to get married.
The cycle of violence, rebellion and crackdown by authorities which has marked much of Burma’s history following the end of civilian rule, as well as the particular repressive and systematic measures against Muslims – and the Rohingya in particular – resulted in waves of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even over a million, fleeing to Bangladesh in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. In 1991, for example, a crackdown on Rohingyas resulted about 250,000 refugees taking shelter in the Cox’s Bazar district of neighbouring Bangladesh. While most were subsequently repatriated to Burma, some are still in exile in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, with smaller numbers in Thailand and Malaysia. International pressure on the Burmese government to stop military action and begin a process to enable the Muslim population to return home has meant most of these have been repatriated, though many repatriation were not actually voluntary. There were severe and systematic abuses of the refugees by camp officials, the police and the local population.
Since 1982 and the loss of citizenship, Rohingya have been persecuted and oppressed to an astounding level. Rohingya have been particularly targeted for atrocities committed by the Burmese army (the tatmadaw) such as torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, extra-judicial killing and summary execution, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape, destruction of homes, forced labour, forced relocation and eviction, confiscation of land and property, etc.
The denial of the basic human rights of the Rohingya and some other Muslims is not limited to the actions of the army. Government policy and regulations – often associated with the discriminatory refusal to recognize them as citizens – have a knock-on effect on other rights: the Rohingya do not have an automatic right to education, work or necessary social services. Because we Rohingya are considered non-citizens, even our right to marry is in fact obstructed, since we must obtain a variety of authorizations before being issued a ‘marriage permit’, which may take years.
State Peace and Development Council/State Law and Order Restoration Council (SPDC/SLORC) policies since the 1990s appear to be aimed at reducing the presence of Muslims in Rakhine State through a series of discriminatory policies: large areas of arable land are expropriated, usually without any or with inadequate compensation. These areas are either left to go back to jungle or used for military and police camps, plantations, shrimp farms and other economic projects controlled by military interests, or they are handed over as part of a massive colonization project to settle Buddhists in ‘model villages’ on lands confiscated from the Rohingya in the northern part of Rakhine State. Since this colonization project is part of official government policy, the (mainly) Buddhist families in these model villages not only benefit from ‘free’ land (about 4 acres), they also receive a pair of oxen and a house – the latter sometimes constructed by Rohingya of neighbouring villages through forced, unpaid, labour.
Lack of citizenship has meant that for the last couple of decades most Rohingya and many other Muslims are excluded from a large number of employment categories: public school teachers, university lecturers, government doctors and health personnel, and most other government employment opportunities are restricted to citizens; thus in practice the Rohingya are banned from all of these jobs because of the discriminatory nature of the citizenship requirements.
The religious activities are also severely curtailed. Many mosques and religious schools have been demolished since the 1980s, and repairs to them are often prohibited. There have been substantiated reports of waqf land (mosque land) and Muslim cemeteries being appropriated by authorities, as well as Muslim monuments, place names and historical sites being destroyed.
Travel restrictions have also been imposed since 2001, which has increased the intensity of the breaches of human rights for the Rohingya in particular. Many of the areas of northern Rakhine State where the Rohingya are concentrated are subject to travel restrictions, so that travelling from one place to another without a pass is banned. Because of the difficulty in obtaining these passes, which have to be paid for, visits to hospitals, doctors and markets, employment opportunities and even the ability to attend school beyond the primary level have all been drastically curtailed. This is especially true at the higher education level. As the capital, Sittwe, has the only university in Rakhine State, Rohingya students living outside the capital are effectively unable to join university on a full-time basis because of the travel restrictions and can only study through distance education: even if, in theory, they could obtain a pass to sit their examinations in the capital, in practice they face serious difficulties in obtaining such passes.
Current issues
The overall human rights’ situation of the Rohingya and Muslims has not improved in any marked way in 2005–7 and was highlighted in the June 2007 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. In some respects their situation has deteriorated. Lack of citizenship has maintained the exclusion of Rohingya and many Muslims from employment and other opportunities in society.
The requirement of a permit for Rohingya to get married has led to a backlog of applications, and delays of years before permission is granted. One report refers to at least 10,000 marriage applications pending with authorities in northern Arakan. In April 2006 in Maungdaw Township a young couple was found ‘guilty’ of the crime of getting married without a licence – and were sentenced to seven years. New reported requirements from February 2006 suggest the (male) applicant must be ‘clean’ shaven and the application for marriage must also be signed by three ‘clean shaven’ guardians.
Travel restrictions that particularly impact on Rohingya in northern Rakhine State have not been relaxed. On 29 July 2005 for example, the wife and three children of U Kyaw Min, a Rohingya MP of the National Democratic Party for Human Rights (NDPHR) were sentenced to 17 years each for travelling and residing in Yangon (Rangoon) without a permit. There appears to have been a hardening on the restrictions of movement that affect the Rohingya in northern Rakhine since 2005 far more than other parts of the country; a pass is now required for any movement between villages, even for day trips to health clinics.
The armed forces still routinely force Rohingya villagers and children to work without pay on various projects and installations, despite widespread international condemnation of such forced labour practices and the attention of the International Labour Organization. Forced labour continues to be used by the army for construction and maintenance of their camps and for their shrimp farms and plantations, portering, the establishment of model villages, etc.
Confiscation of land has also continued throughout the last few years, especially farmland in certain areas targeted for new villages and Buddhist settlers in northern Rakhine. Though not as extensive as in the 1990s since Burma attracted a great deal of attention from the International Labour Organization, the confiscations are at times given the appearance of ‘consent’ through torture, with continued reports in 2006 of Rohingya landowners being tortured by soldiers into signing over their farmland to Buddhist settlers.
These continued land confiscations, combined with the cumulative effects of the discriminatory restrictions on movement, employment, educational access and even food, have led to extreme hardship, increased poverty and even malnutrition among Rohingya populations. The stricter application of movement restrictions (including on the movement of rice into Rakhine), arbitrary taxes that tend to target the Rohingya, restricted access to forest resources and arable land and tighter control of local economies has created a situation where poverty has created a food security problem, with an estimated 60 per cent of the Rohingya children in northern Rakhine State thought to suffer from chronic malnutrition.
Rohingya
Rohingya in Burma, most of whom are Sunni, constitute at least 4 per cent of the country’s entire population, with the largest concentration in the north of Rakhine State (also known as Arakan), especially around Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Akyab and Kyauktaw.
There are a number of distinct Muslim communities in Burma, not all of which share the same cultural or ethnic background. While the country’s largest Muslim population resides in Arakan State, the majority of Muslims in Rakhine State refer to themselves as ‘Rohingya’: their language (Rohingya) is intelligible to Chittagonian but the other group of Muslims refer themselves as ‘Arakanese Muslims’, as they speak Rakhine which is closely related to the Burmese language and tend to share similar customs to the Rakhine Buddhist.
Historical context
We Rohingya and other Muslims were considered as citizens of Burma under the 1948 Constitution and civilian administration until the military coup d’état of 1962. Our status was subsequently downgraded under the 1974 Constitution, which does not recognize us as indigenous, and the Citizenship Act of 1982, which states that citizens must belong to one of 135 ‘national races’ as recognized under the constitution, or whose ancestors settled in the country before 1823. Given the lack of documentation to satisfy the latter requirement, the result has been a hugely discriminatory denial of citizenship for most Rohingya and many other Muslims, effectively rendering us stateless. As a result, we have faced numerous discriminatory obstacles in access to education, health, travel, many areas of employment and even in terms of receiving permits allowing us to get married.
The cycle of violence, rebellion and crackdown by authorities which has marked much of Burma’s history following the end of civilian rule, as well as the particular repressive and systematic measures against Muslims – and the Rohingya in particular – resulted in waves of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even over a million, fleeing to Bangladesh in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. In 1991, for example, a crackdown on Rohingyas resulted about 250,000 refugees taking shelter in the Cox’s Bazar district of neighbouring Bangladesh. While most were subsequently repatriated to Burma, some are still in exile in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, with smaller numbers in Thailand and Malaysia. International pressure on the Burmese government to stop military action and begin a process to enable the Muslim population to return home has meant most of these have been repatriated, though many repatriation were not actually voluntary. There were severe and systematic abuses of the refugees by camp officials, the police and the local population.
Since 1982 and the loss of citizenship, Rohingya have been persecuted and oppressed to an astounding level. Rohingya have been particularly targeted for atrocities committed by the Burmese army (the tatmadaw) such as torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, extra-judicial killing and summary execution, arbitrary arrest and detention, rape, destruction of homes, forced labour, forced relocation and eviction, confiscation of land and property, etc.
The denial of the basic human rights of the Rohingya and some other Muslims is not limited to the actions of the army. Government policy and regulations – often associated with the discriminatory refusal to recognize them as citizens – have a knock-on effect on other rights: the Rohingya do not have an automatic right to education, work or necessary social services. Because we Rohingya are considered non-citizens, even our right to marry is in fact obstructed, since we must obtain a variety of authorizations before being issued a ‘marriage permit’, which may take years.
State Peace and Development Council/State Law and Order Restoration Council (SPDC/SLORC) policies since the 1990s appear to be aimed at reducing the presence of Muslims in Rakhine State through a series of discriminatory policies: large areas of arable land are expropriated, usually without any or with inadequate compensation. These areas are either left to go back to jungle or used for military and police camps, plantations, shrimp farms and other economic projects controlled by military interests, or they are handed over as part of a massive colonization project to settle Buddhists in ‘model villages’ on lands confiscated from the Rohingya in the northern part of Rakhine State. Since this colonization project is part of official government policy, the (mainly) Buddhist families in these model villages not only benefit from ‘free’ land (about 4 acres), they also receive a pair of oxen and a house – the latter sometimes constructed by Rohingya of neighbouring villages through forced, unpaid, labour.
Lack of citizenship has meant that for the last couple of decades most Rohingya and many other Muslims are excluded from a large number of employment categories: public school teachers, university lecturers, government doctors and health personnel, and most other government employment opportunities are restricted to citizens; thus in practice the Rohingya are banned from all of these jobs because of the discriminatory nature of the citizenship requirements.
The religious activities are also severely curtailed. Many mosques and religious schools have been demolished since the 1980s, and repairs to them are often prohibited. There have been substantiated reports of waqf land (mosque land) and Muslim cemeteries being appropriated by authorities, as well as Muslim monuments, place names and historical sites being destroyed.
Travel restrictions have also been imposed since 2001, which has increased the intensity of the breaches of human rights for the Rohingya in particular. Many of the areas of northern Rakhine State where the Rohingya are concentrated are subject to travel restrictions, so that travelling from one place to another without a pass is banned. Because of the difficulty in obtaining these passes, which have to be paid for, visits to hospitals, doctors and markets, employment opportunities and even the ability to attend school beyond the primary level have all been drastically curtailed. This is especially true at the higher education level. As the capital, Sittwe, has the only university in Rakhine State, Rohingya students living outside the capital are effectively unable to join university on a full-time basis because of the travel restrictions and can only study through distance education: even if, in theory, they could obtain a pass to sit their examinations in the capital, in practice they face serious difficulties in obtaining such passes.
Current issues
The overall human rights’ situation of the Rohingya and Muslims has not improved in any marked way in 2005–7 and was highlighted in the June 2007 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. In some respects their situation has deteriorated. Lack of citizenship has maintained the exclusion of Rohingya and many Muslims from employment and other opportunities in society.
The requirement of a permit for Rohingya to get married has led to a backlog of applications, and delays of years before permission is granted. One report refers to at least 10,000 marriage applications pending with authorities in northern Arakan. In April 2006 in Maungdaw Township a young couple was found ‘guilty’ of the crime of getting married without a licence – and were sentenced to seven years. New reported requirements from February 2006 suggest the (male) applicant must be ‘clean’ shaven and the application for marriage must also be signed by three ‘clean shaven’ guardians.
Travel restrictions that particularly impact on Rohingya in northern Rakhine State have not been relaxed. On 29 July 2005 for example, the wife and three children of U Kyaw Min, a Rohingya MP of the National Democratic Party for Human Rights (NDPHR) were sentenced to 17 years each for travelling and residing in Yangon (Rangoon) without a permit. There appears to have been a hardening on the restrictions of movement that affect the Rohingya in northern Rakhine since 2005 far more than other parts of the country; a pass is now required for any movement between villages, even for day trips to health clinics.
The armed forces still routinely force Rohingya villagers and children to work without pay on various projects and installations, despite widespread international condemnation of such forced labour practices and the attention of the International Labour Organization. Forced labour continues to be used by the army for construction and maintenance of their camps and for their shrimp farms and plantations, portering, the establishment of model villages, etc.
Confiscation of land has also continued throughout the last few years, especially farmland in certain areas targeted for new villages and Buddhist settlers in northern Rakhine. Though not as extensive as in the 1990s since Burma attracted a great deal of attention from the International Labour Organization, the confiscations are at times given the appearance of ‘consent’ through torture, with continued reports in 2006 of Rohingya landowners being tortured by soldiers into signing over their farmland to Buddhist settlers.
These continued land confiscations, combined with the cumulative effects of the discriminatory restrictions on movement, employment, educational access and even food, have led to extreme hardship, increased poverty and even malnutrition among Rohingya populations. The stricter application of movement restrictions (including on the movement of rice into Rakhine), arbitrary taxes that tend to target the Rohingya, restricted access to forest resources and arable land and tighter control of local economies has created a situation where poverty has created a food security problem, with an estimated 60 per cent of the Rohingya children in northern Rakhine State thought to suffer from chronic malnutrition.
