Insight into the harrowing experiences faced
by Myanmar’s Rohingya at the hands of the military and Buddhist factions.
“After killing all the men, they asked: ‘Who
are you?’ We replied: ‘We are Rohingya, Rohingya’. They said: ‘This is not your
country, you can’t live here,” recalls Rowza Begun, a Rohingya refugee.
In August 2017, Myanmar’s military launched a
large-scale “security clearance operation” in the northern Rakhine state which
left thousands dead and drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their
homes to neighbouring Bangladesh.
The crackdown on the Rohingya has been
described by the UN as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, and UN
investigators have warned that the genocide threat for Myanmar‘s Rohingya is
greater than ever.
Despite historical evidence of their
long-standing presence in Rakhine state, Myanmar’s government and army refuses
to recognise the Rohingya’s right to citizenship and classifies them as
“illegal migrants” from Bangladesh and India.
“They call themselves Rohingya, but to us
they are Bengali. What do you want us to do? There’s too many of them,” says U
Parmaukha, a nationalist Buddhist monk.
When modern Burma was established after
gaining independence from Britain in 1948, the Rohingya were first recognised
as part of the Burmese nation and were registered as citizens, as an ethnic
minority.
An Unholy Alliance: Monks and the Military in
Myanmar | Featured Documentary https://youtu.be/mF1GZ0O94qk
But “as early as 1966, the Burmese military
started to see the Rohingya as a problem,” says Burmese academic Maung Zarni
and explains that the government set up special forces to deal with the Muslim
minority.
“Nasaka was essentially the Burmese
equivalent of the SS. Nasaka was the executioner,” he says.
The Nasaka border security force was set up
by General Khin Nyunt, the former head of Burmese Military Intelligence, who is
now thought to have masterminded the policy of ethnic cleansing leading to the
persecution of the Rohingya.
“These problems with Muslims have existed
since the British rule, because they brought labour from Bangladesh. Those who
came from Bangladesh, we could not accept them,” Khin Nyunt says.
“We needed to manage the population. It was
the right thing to do. They were migrants. Our objective was to control our
border. They were guests from Bangladesh and we didn’t want to accept guests.
Otherwise, there would be no more Rakhines, just more and more Muslims.”
According to Zarni, the first exodus of
Rohingya happened in 1978.
“They started a military campaign, which
resulted in over 250,000 Rohingyas escaping to Bangladesh,” he says.
“General Khin Nyunt was the guy in charge of
institutionalising the killing and destruction of the Rohingyas to the point
that the Rohingya community would be wiped out,” says Zarni. “Khin Nyunt should
be prosecuted for not simply crimes against humanity – for genocide.”
In November 2019, three separate cases were
filed against Myanmar for atrocities against Rohingya people in the first
international legal attempts to bring justice to what the UN has called “one of
the most persecuted minorities in the world”.
Directed by award-winning director and war
reporter Shahida Tulaganova, Exiled explores the roots and historical context
of increasing violence in Rakhine State, covering the perspectives of Rohingya
refugees, former Burmese government officials and radical Buddhist monks. Also
featured is General Khin Nyunt, the former head of Burmese Military
Intelligence who is considered the instigator of the policy of ethnic cleansing
which has resulted in the relentless persecution of the Rohingya.
Al Jazeera uncovers Rohingya abuse https://youtu.be/VQ02GCQn0qs
Myanmar: The Hidden Genocide | Al Jazeera Investigations:https://youtu.be/dSkZlgk76-E