Rohingya conflict
The Rohingya conflict is an ongoing conflict in the northern part of Rakhine State, Myanmar, characterised by sectarian violence between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities, a military crackdown on Rohingya civilians by Myanmar's security forces, and militant attacks by Rohingya insurgents in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, and Rathedaung Townships, which border Bangladesh.
The conflict arises chiefly from the religious and social differentiation between the Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. During the Burma campaign in World War II, Rohingya Muslims, who were allied with the British and promised a Muslim state in return, fought against local Rakhine Buddhists, who were allied with the Japanese. Following independence in 1948, the newly formed union government of the predominantly Buddhist country denied citizenship to the Rohingyas, subjecting them to extensive systematic discrimination in the country. This has widely been compared to apartheid by many international academics, analysts, and political figures, including Desmond Tutu, a famous South African anti-apartheid activist.
Following the independence of Myanmar, Rohingya mujahideen fought government forces in an attempt to have the mostly Rohingya populated region around the Mayu peninsula in northern Arakan gain autonomy or secede, so it could be annexed by Pakistan's East Bengal. By the end of the 1950s, the mujahideen had lost most of its momentum and support, and by 1961 most of their fighters had surrendered to government forces.
In the 1970s, Rohingya separatist movements emerged from remnants of the mujahideen, and the fighting culminated with the Burmese government launching a massive military operation named Operation Dragon King in 1978 to expel so-called "foreigners". In the 1990s, the well-armed Rohingya Solidarity Organisation was the main perpetrator of attacks on Burmese authorities near the Bangladesh–Myanmar border. The Burmese government responded militarily with Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation, but failed to disarm the RSO.
In October 2016, Burmese border posts along the Bangladesh–Myanmar border were attacked by a new insurgent group, Harakah al-Yaqin, resulting in the deaths of at least 40 combatants. It was the first major resurgence of the conflict since 2001. Violence erupted again in November 2016, bringing the 2016 death toll to 134, and again on 25 August 2017, when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched coordinated attacks on 24 police posts and an army base that left 71 dead.
A subsequent military crackdown by Myanmar prompted the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate the matter and release a report on 11 October 2017 detailing the Burmese military's "systematic process" of driving hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar "through repeated acts of humiliation and violence".
Background
The Rohingya people are an ethnic minority that live mainly in the northern region of Myanmar's Rakhine State and have been described as one of the world's most persecuted minorities. They describe themselves as descendants of Arab traders who settled in the region many generations ago. However, French scholar Jacques Leider has stated that "the forefathers of the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Rakhine have migrated from Bengal to Rakhine... their descendants and the Muslims as whole had in fact been rather uncontroversially referred to as 'Bengalis' until the early 1990s", and that they were also referred to as "Chittagonians" or "Mohamedans" during the British colonial period and British never used the term "Rohingyas". Others such as Chris Lewa and Andrew Selth have identified the group as ethnically related to the Bengalis of southern Bangladesh while anthropologist Christina Fink uses Rohingya not as an ethnic identifier but as a political one.With the Japanese invasion and withdrawal of the British administration, tensions in Arakan before the war erupted. The war caused inter-communal conflicts between the Arakanese Muslims and Buddhists. Muslims fled from Japanese-controlled and Buddhist-majority regions to Muslim-dominated northern Arakan with many being killed. In return, a "reverse ethnic cleansing" was carried out. The Muslim attacks caused the Buddhists to flee to southern Arakan. Attacks by Muslim villagers on Buddhists also caused reprisals. With the consolidation of their position throughout northern Arakan, the Rohingyas retaliated against Japanese collaborators, particularly Buddhists. Though unofficial, specific undertaking were made to Arakanese Muslims after World War II. V Force officers like Andrew Irwin expressed enthusiasm to award Muslims for loyalty. Rohingya leaders believed that the British had promised them a "Muslim National Area" in present-day Maungdaw District. They were also apprehensive of a future Buddhist-dominated government. In 1946, the leaders made calls for annexation of the territory by Pakistan. Some also called for an independent state. The requests to the British government were however ignored.
After the colonial period, the first mass exodus from what was then East Pakistan took place towards the 1970s. In the 1950s, a "political and militant movement" rose to create "an autonomous Muslim zone", and the militants used Rohingya to describe themselves, marking the "modern origins" of the term. The persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s. The term "Rohingya" has gained currency since 1990s after "the second exodus" of "a quarter-million people from Bangladesh to Rakhine" in the early 1990s.
The Rohingya were denied citizenship in 1982 by the government of Myanmar, which sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Since then, Rohingyas have regularly been made the target of persecution by the government and nationalist Buddhists.
Mujahideen (1947–1954)
Early insurgency
In May 1946, Muslim leaders from Arakan met with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and asked for the formal annexation of two townships in the Mayu region, Buthidaung and Maungdaw, into East Bengal. Two months later, the North Arakan Muslim League was founded in Akyab, which also asked Jinnah to annex the region. Jinnah refused, saying he could not interfere with Burma's internal matters. After Jinnah's refusal, proposals were made by Muslims in Arakan to the newly formed post-independence government of Burma, asking for the concession of the two townships to Pakistan. These proposals were rejected by Burma's parliament.Local mujahideen totalling an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 fighters were subsequently formed to fight against the Burmese government. Led by Mir Kassem, the mujahideen began targeting government soldiers stationed in the region and capturing territory, in the process driving out local ethnic Rakhine communities from their villages, some of whom fled to East Bengal.
In November 1948, martial law was declared in the region, and the 5th Battalion of the Burma Rifles and the 2nd Chin Battalion were sent to liberate the area. By June 1949, the Burmese government's control over the region was reduced to the city of Akyab, whilst the mujahideen had possession of nearly all of northern Arakan. After several months of fighting, Burmese forces were able to push the mujahideen back into the jungles of the Mayu region, near the country's western border.
In 1950, the Pakistani government warned its counterparts in Burma about their treatment of Muslims in Arakan. Burmese Prime Minister U Nu immediately sent a Muslim diplomat, Pe Khin, to negotiate a memorandum of understanding so that Pakistan would cease assisting the mujahideen. Kassem was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 1954, and many of his followers subsequently surrendered to the government.
The post-independence government accused the mujahideen of encouraging the illegal immigration of thousands of Bengalis from East Bengal into Arakan during their rule of the area, a claim that has been highly disputed over the decades, as it brings into question the legitimacy of the Rohingya as natives of Arakan.
Military operations against the mujahideen
Between 1950 and 1954, the Burma Army launched several military operations against the remaining mujahideen in northern Arakan. The first military operation was launched in March 1950, followed by a second named Operation Mayu in October 1952. Several mujahideen leaders agreed to disarm and surrender to government forces following the successful operations.In the latter half of 1954, the mujahideen again began attacking local authorities and soldiers stationed around Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung. Hundreds of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists began hunger strikes in Rangoon in protest of the attacks and to encourage the government to respond. The government subsequently launched Operation Monsoon in October 1954.
Decline of the mujahideen
Operation Monsoon was the culmination of the government's efforts to quell the mujahideen insurgency. It decisively reduced the mujahideen's presence in the region, as the Tatmadaw captured the mujahideen's main strongholds and killed several of their leaders.A group of 150 mujahideen led by Shore Maluk and Zurah surrendered to government forces in 1957. An additional 214 mujahideen under the leadership of al-Rashid disarmed and surrendered to government forces on 7 November 1957.
By the end of the 1950s, the mujahideen had lost most of their momentum. The Burmese government began implementing various policies aimed at reconciliation in Arakan. The governments of Burma and Pakistan began negotiating on how to deal with the mujahideen at their border, and on 1 May 1961 the Mayu Frontier District was established in Arakan to appease the Rohingya.
On 4 July 1961, 290 mujahideen in southern Maungdaw Township surrendered their arms in front of Brigadier-General Aung Gyi, who was Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Burma Army at the time. On 15 November 1961, a few more mujahideen surrendered to Aung Gyi in Buthidaung. However, dozens of mujahideen remained under the command of Moulvi Jafar Kawal, 40 under Abdul Latif, and 80 under Annul Jauli; all these groups lacked local support and unity, which led them to become rice smugglers around the end of the 1960s.