Junta plays Rohingya card to claim legitimacy
The endless cycle of the Myanmar military’s historic persecutions and manipulations always repeats itself. The military has never failed to utilize a diverse array of tools or to exploit any situation available to grip onto its position and further its interests. This will never end until and unless the international community holds the military accountable for the international crimes it has committed throughout the history of Myanmar.
The illegal Myanmar military junta, which has been encountering vigorous and sustained repudiation and resistance from the Myanmar people since the failed coup, while lacking any legitimacy and legality to represent Myanmar state, now focuses on playing the Rohingya card in a tacit attempt to gain legitimacy and salvage its abhorrent image. This is despite the tremendous amount of evidence of genocidal crimes against the Rohingya community prior to the coup attempt and its ongoing atrocities against different ethnic and religious communities in Myanmar. Thus, the junta lacks any legal authority to carry out repatriation of the Rohingya as there can be no safe, voluntary or dignified return implemented by the perpetrators of the very genocide they are fleeing from.
In the first week of February 2023, the military junta hinted at the so-called repatriation of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. On 5 February 2023, Ko Ko Hlaing, a sanctioned former military general and the junta-appointed Minister of International Cooperation, who led Myanmar’s preliminary objections against the Gambia’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year, visited Maungdaw Township in Rakhine State. Along with other junta appointees, he was purportedly instructing the local authorities under the junta’s control to prepare for transit camps for repatriation of the refugees from Bangladesh.
The closer the due date for the submission of Myanmar’s response to the Gambia’s case at the ICJ, the more apparent and boisterous the Myanmar junta’s ostentatious repatriation plan for one of the world’s most persecuted communities becomes. The ICJ dismissed the preliminary objections of Myanmar in July 2022 when Ko Ko Hlaing attended the world’s highest court, despite the junta not having any legitimacy to represent Myanmar. This granted the country time to submit its Counter-Memorial no later than 24 April, 2023.
There has been no justice, accountability and remedy for the Rohingya five years after the genocide in 2017, while Rohingya live a life they never wanted and do not deserve, in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as well as in grossly underfunded refugee camps in Bangladesh. No matter how much the illegal junta disseminates its propaganda about repatriation, the enormous amount of documented evidence of violence and atrocity crimes against the Rohingya in the past, including by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission report released in September 2018, only leads to the Rohingya refugees and the international community’s skepticism and concerns, even if the repatriation plan enters into force.
Given the rapidly deteriorating situation since the attempted coup, 2022 was one of the deadliest years in approximately a decade for the Rohingya people attempting to flee by sea. At least 348 individuals died or went missing at sea in 2022. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the Rohingya leaving Rakhine State for other States or Regions such as Ayeyarwady Region or Yangon en route in search of safe haven for them in neighboring countries, have experienced arrests, imprisonment or even deaths. For example, the dead bodies of 13 Rohingya including boys were found dumped on the street in an outskirt area of Yangon on 4 December 2022. Groups of Rohingya have been frequently arrested in different parts of the country, resulting in arrests of 1,653 Rohingya from IDP camps in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and refugee camps in Bangladesh, and in different parts of Myanmar throughout the country within 12 months until 21 December 2022, according to the compilation of Radio Free Asia.
It is not surprising that the Myanmar military seeks to exploit the Rohingya as a stepping-stone in its sham humanitarian work to claim legitimacy and international political and diplomatic advantage. The military junta allowed the political participation of the Rohingya, including the right to vote in the 2010 election ahead of the so-called democratic transition, in favor of many votes from the Rohingya community. Despite this, the subsequent quasi-civilian government under Thein Sein’s presidency always reiterated its rejection of the Rohingya as an ethnic group in Myanmar and imposed discriminatory measures, including a “two-child” policy for only Rohingya families as well as discriminatory four race and religion laws. In 2015, the parliament revoked their right to vote following the pro-military, ultranationalist Buddhist groups’ street protests in townships and cities in Yangon Region and Rakhine State. The persecution of Rohingya in previous and recent years has been widespread and systematic as the military forces raided, burned, and bulldozed Rohingya villages. In Buthidaung and Maungdaw Township, 20,000 villagers were displaced internally during and afterward the 2017 genocide, while over 800,000 were forced to flee to Bangladesh border during the genocide. Such horrendous incidents are living proof that the international community, UN’s refugee agency and Bangladesh must prevent any such so-called repatriation plan by the junta from taking place.
The endless cycle of the Myanmar military’s historic persecutions and manipulations always repeats itself. The military has never failed to utilize a diverse array of tools or to exploit any situation available to grip onto its position and further its interests. This will never end until and unless the international community holds the military accountable for the international crimes it has committed throughout the history of Myanmar. While the junta’s atrocities across the country have actively contributed to displacing more and more people throughout its failed coup, its plan for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees is nothing more than window-dressing for the forthcoming hearing at the ICJ.
The international community should not be fooled and distracted by the ostentatious work of the illegal murderous military junta. Instead, it must step up with concrete actions to pursue justice and accountability for the Rohingya with full respect to the role of victims and survivors. Furthermore, it must also seek to address justice and accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity the junta has committed in different parts of the country and demonstrate solidarity and support for the people of Myanmar by cooperating with the National Unity Government (NUG) – the legitimate government of Myanmar, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and ethnic revolutionary organizations (EROs) for the people’s Spring Revolution to succeed.
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[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.
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