Myanmar looks almost nothing like it did just three years ago. Emerging from a prolonged period of military dictatorship, imposed sanctions, and international isolation, what once seemed like a frozen piece of history has transformed into a rapidly developing nation. With this shift to a democratic civilian government in 2012, Myanmar has been deemed South Asia’s “frontier market” and transcended to the top of the list of countries to watch for investment opportunities.

 

Indeed the world is watching. International business people from across the globe have expressed joy as Myanmar has opened its doors. The underdeveloped country, rich in labor and natural resources, such as natural gas, hydropower, and gems has widened the eyes of more developed economies, and foreign nations have rushed to the opportunity to invest in this newly emerging market. Japanese visitors have more than tripled during the past two years, as Japanese companies have flocked to the country’s largest city, Yangon, to fund large infrastructure and development projects. Traditional tea stands that once sold local sodas are now stocked with the iconic red cans of Coca-Colas. Many teenagers have iPhones and laptops, not to mention Facebook and SnapChat. But with its gaze focused on potential economic prosperity, has the world turned a blind eye to the gross crimes against humanity and human rights violations occurring just hours away from Yangon in the country’s southwest corner?

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Recent measures taken by the Myanmar government to collect a country-wide census considered “crucial for national development” reveal bloody stains of the country’s past ethnic tensions. Although Myanmar is an ethnically diverse country, with more than 135 different ethnic groups, the Bamar, one of the eight “national races,” comprise an estimate of approximately 68% of the population. It is the Bamar people that currently hold high positions in the national government and military. In the past, tensions have flared between various ethnic groups in the country. But in particular, the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group estimated to make up about five percent of the total population of Myanmar, now face unprecedented persecution.

 

This new census for which information was collected from March 30 to April 10 of 2014 was the first national count since 1983. Although the product of years of planning, marked by approval from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the census’s flawed execution exposed broken promises on the part of the Myanmar government.

 

When census workers set out to collect data in Rakhine (also known as Arakan) state, it was always the same story. A knock on the door. A short exchange. Some questions on identification. A question about ethnicity. An answer of “Rohingya.” A thank you. And the view of the census workers’ backs as they walked away.

 

The census failed to count any of the population that self-identified as Rohingya. Discrimination against the Rohingya dates back to the 1970s and stems from the view that the group is made up of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In fact, presidential spokesperson Ye Htut said only those who called themselves “Bengalis” would be officially counted in the census. This policy has roots in the 1982 Citizenship Law, “which effectively denies Burmese citizenship on discriminatory ethnic grounds” by not defining Rohingya as one of the eight “national races.” In order for Rohingya to even be considered for citizenship, they must “provide ‘conclusive evidence’ that their ancestors settled in Burma before independence in 1948.” Yet to most of the Rohingya this explanation is incomprehensible. They have never even stepped foot in Bangladesh. Myanmar is the only home they have known, the soil they were born on, and the skies, which they sleep beneath at night. For these reasons human rights groups have criticized this targeted exclusion as the manifestation of a greater human rights issue: statelessness.

 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has a right to a nationality and to a legal identity, without which a person in fact does not exist before the law.” But historically the Rohingya do not possess a legal identity within Myanmar and, accordingly, are denied the protections that come with Myanmar nationality. Even with the international community calling for the granting of citizenship to members of the Rohingya living in Myanmar, in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of November 2013, the Myanmar government clearly denied this proposition. In this way the faulty, discriminatory census is just the tip of the iceberg that represents the precarious nature of ethnic relations and the Rohingya. Below the surface rests as a result of the Rohingya’s stateless status, multiple other impending human rights violations and crimes against humanity, deplorable acts of violence, and the denial of adequate protection.

 

Among the narrative of continual persecution, two waves of violence stand out amongst the rest. The story begins in May of 2012, in the village of Kyaw Ne Maw, a 28-year-old Buddhist woman, Thida Htwe, was raped and killed. Following this event the police detained three Muslim male suspects. One of the three men committed suicide in custody and the other two were eventually tried, found guilty, and sentenced with a punishment of death. The event regarding these four individuals would eventually lead to the situation today. For it was this incident that sparked a surge of sectarian violence targeted at Rohingya Muslims.

 

First, in June of 2012, ten Muslims, were pulled off of a bus and beaten to death in efforts of vengeance. This was followed by a Rohingya reprisal that eventually lead to five intense days of fighting as Buddhist Arakanese mobs rampaged Rohingya homes. As arson spread throughout Sittwe Township, the capital of the state, security forces did little to protect the Rohingya; most turned away, some made false promises of safety, and some even joined in on the attack. Alongside the massive violence occurred mass arrests of Rohingya and their detainment incommunicado. Incommunicado detention is “generally understood as a situation of detention in which an individual is denied access to family members, an attorney, or an independent physician.” Although detainment incommunicado within itself is not a violation of international human rights law, it has the potential to lead to severe violations by fostering an environment of hostility and deprivation. Further investigation would need to take place to determine exactly what was the case in this particular situation.

 

In events following the June attacks however, mass arrests and detainment persisted. In fact, Rohingya in Maungdaw Township were “systematically and violently rounded up” based on a list of people who were suspected to have participated in the earlier fighting. Many human rights violations are thought to have occurred. First, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma expressed concerns about “the denial of due process rights.” And second, another UN official gave accounts of torture taking place inside the detention centers.

 

Meanwhile the national government responded quickly with three actions. First, it appointed a 16-person committee to study the deeper causes that ignited the first killings of Rohingya. Although charged with reporting to the President within a period of a few weeks, their conclusions were never released.  Second, on June 10, President Thein Sein called the situation occurring in Rakhine state a state of emergency. Although it was initially a strong step to recognize that the violence could not continue, President Thein Sein’s decision led to further deprivation of Rohingya freedoms. Armed forces in charge of instilling order in Rakhine state set curfews and closely monitored the movements of the Rohingya people. Lastly, two days later President Thein Sein announced to the United Nations that refugee camps cared for by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or deportation to other countries such as Bangladesh, was the only “solution.” The UNHCR rejected this proposal. And the situation persisted.

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Five months, the second wave of violence, in October 2012, echoed a similar but very distinctive story. This time, the attacks were well coordinated as simultaneous raids spread throughout nine villages in the state. Furthermore, the violence, which lasted for one week, was premeditated. Human Rights Watch identified two groups that worked to orchestrate the planning and execution efforts: “the local order of Buddhist monks (the sangha) and the regionally powerful Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP).” Days before the October attacks, nationalist pamphlets were handed out, “demonizing the Rohingya” and some even mentioning the words “ethnic cleansing.” Additionally, public meetings were organized by community leaders to discuss “forcibly displacing the local Rohingya population.” Despite this warning however, during the incidence, once again, armed forces stood idly by or participated in the attacks, specifically to kill Rohingya who were attempted to save their homes. These targeted killings provide evidence that the Myanmar government helped aid an effort to forcibly remove Rohingya’s from their home villages. Among other casualties, 70 people, including 28 children, were murdered in one village alone.

 

In all, more than 280 Rohingya lost their lives in these two events. And this is only the figure suggested by “official” government estimates. Other estimates by local NGOs and activist groups are much higher. Furthermore, figures are difficult to estimate because many of the bodies were hastily buried in mass graves in order “to destroy evidence of crimes.” Human Rights Watch has found the sites of four mass graves, three of which it believes to have been dug since the initial June attacks. Additionally, countless properties were destroyed in the months of violence. Specifically, after the accounts of violence in June, government officials helped to contribute to the destruction of buildings that were still standing after the rampages. Buildings not only included homes, and businesses, but also local mosques. At times, this was justified by stating that the mosques were “militant outposts in which the Rohingya stored weapons” when indeed this was only rumored. 

 

When analyzed from an international law perspective the violence of 2012 shows signs of “crimes against humanity.” Defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as “crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population,” crimes against humanity can take many forms. With the case of the Rohingya, the nationalists’ campaign of ethnic cleansing and the Myanmar government’s lack of capacity to hold those accountable have amounted to a crime against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is itself defined as “a purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” The attacks of June and October 2012 are evidence of this attempt to violently remove the Rohingya from Myanmar.

 

But where are the Rohingya today? Those who survived the waves of sectarian violence in 2012 are now facing extensive and new challenges.

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Following the October attacks, many Rohingya decided to flee their homes in hopes of avoiding future violence and persecution. Of those who have fled many have chosen to attempt to leave the country by sea. However, ventures out to Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Thailand through the Bay of Bengal have proven extremely difficult and in many cases fatal. Smuggling rings have thrived with this influx of new costumers, yet the Rohingya often cannot pay the smuggling fees and end up “in smuggler’s camps hidden in the jungle across southern Thailand.” Additionally, many have been denied asylum or met with threats of deportation back to Myanmar upon their arrival only to spend their time abroad in detention cells. In this way, this situation is increasingly made complex by the fact that Thailand has specifically “declined to grant the Rohingya temporary shelter or basic services.”

 

Within Myanmar’s borders things are not getting any better either. Violence has spread into central parts of the country and displacement continues to be rampant. Rohingya villages that still stand are now guarded by armed forces that the government has declared necessary for their further protection. Yet these forces have done more harm than good. Surrounding the townships they have restricted the Rohingya’s access to necessities like food, water, and medication. These acts of deprivation provide further evidence for state-induced, systematic ethnic cleansing as the effect of this response is the creation of a segregated “ethnic ghetto.” Most significant evidence of this is the official expulsion of international humanitarian groups including Doctors Without Borders from the areas where Rohingya are located in February 2014. The government claims that the groups were expelled because they were providing preferential treatment to Rohingya patients.

 

Other restrictions on the Rohingya, which have historical precedence, have once again been ramped up in recent years. These include restrictions on movement, education, marriage, and employment. When these newly enforced policies are broken by the Rohingya, such as the one that outlaws the repairment of damages on their homes, they have to pay a fine in order to be released from custody. This comes at an enormous cost as the Rohingya were already “the poorest population in [Myanmar’s] second poorest state.” Specifically however, it is often the wealthiest and most educated Rohingya who are targeted throughout these restrictions.

 

Reportedly, one of these restrictions is the enforcement of the “Two Child Policy.” Beginning more than nine years ago as part of the “Regional Order 1/2005” members of the Rohingya population who can legally marry must then sign a document stating they will limit the number of children they have to two. Although only a regional policy, this is in clear violation of international human rights standards which state that women possess the right to “determine the number and spacing of their children.”

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Those who are not trapped within these “ethnic ghettos” have become subjected to the life of unregistered Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps, such as those surrounding Sittwe. Reportedly more than 140,000 Rohingya currently live in overcrowded camps made of “plastic tents and bamboo shacks.”

 

Conditions in the camps are well below international standards. Most of the camps were constructed on low lands, vulnerable to flooding during the rainy season. Raw sewage lines the walkways and makes the camps breeding grounds for dangerous waterborne illnesses. Most significant however are the increasingly high rates of malnutrition as the camps offer inadequate supplies of foods for its thousands of residents. The Associated Press described how young children run around the camps “black hair tinged with patches of red or blond, a tell-tale sign of nutrient deficiency commonly seen in places experiencing famine.” Furthermore, even before 2012 there was evidence that the people of Rakhine state were undernurouished: “malnutrition rates [hit] 23 percent—far beyond the 15 percent emergency level set by the World Health Organization.” Destruction of property, restriction of labor, and displacement of thousands could not have helped this situation. All in all, Yanghee Lee, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar reported that the "the situation is deplorable."

 

Despite these continual and persisting international human rights and humanitarian law violations, the international community has been hesitant to label the situation as a genocide, which has a very specific legal definition. According to the Rome Statue of International Criminal Court “‘genocide’ means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”[xlv] With regards to the Rohingya there is some evidence of acts falling under all of these categories, but still there is not a consensus.

 

It remains unclear whether Myanmar’s pursued campaign of ethnic cleansing amounts to genocide, per its legal meaning, of the Rohingya people. Nevertheless it is very evident that if it has not already it is heading down this path sometime in the near future. “The United Nations has taken 20 years to apologise for its failure to recognize and prevent the Rwandan genocide; the international community should not repeat the same mistake in Myanmar” Prudentienne Seward who survived the Rwandan genocide said. Despite such desperate pleas from journalists around the globe, the international response has been little more than weak. The underwhelming measures taken by the international human rights community to resolve these violations and mitigate the situation probably stem from Myanmar’s fragile economic and social state.

 

The case of Myanmar is a unique one. The international community is still not allowed unrestricted access to observe and report on events. Myanmar has not ratified and is not signatory to many pieces of international human rights law. Despite this, in many ways, the status of human rights there are improving; political prisoners are being released and freedoms of expression have grown. Yet simply because conditions have improved from the past does not mean that the Myanmar government should not still be held accountable for the violations occurring in the present. Better should not and cannot always be acceptable.

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