Nandar Oo Wai

The Rohingya Crisis

The Burmese military assassinated the Rohingya people, who are a Muslim ethnic minority

group and migrated from Bengal to Rakhine State, located on the western coast of Myanmar.

Members of the Rohingya community were tortured and detained and there were cases such as

gang rape, sexual assaults, and mass killings including children. The first genocide took place

from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been rising since August 2017 (Druce,

1970). More than a million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other

parts of South and Southeast Asia. The United Nations Agencies regarded this as ethnic

cleansing and genocide. In 2017, Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar and caused the greatest

human exodus in Asia. After fleeing Myanmar, Rohingya refugees have to live in refugee camps

in Bangladesh with appalling conditions such as 40,000 people having to live per square

kilometre. Consequently, refugee children and adults suffer from malnutrition, psychosocial

stress, respiratory diseases and watery diarrhoea (Reid, 2023).

It is reported that the refugees were asked to return to Myanmar by Bangladesh's Prime Minister,

Sheikh Hasina. On the other hand, the military officers responded to these as if they were

exaggerated and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Peace Prize Laureate, was condemned for being silent

during all these incidents. The military that occurred in February 2021 just worsened the

situation more since even Burmese people who had democratic facilities are now facing

life-threatening situations and the country currently is not a safe place for anyone to migrate or

travel. The Rohingya people have lived in Myanmar without any legal documents or registration

and the police and the military give an excuse and take advantage of the necessary procedures
related to residing in the nation. For example, the military said that they needed to perform

actions such as the destruction of property and forced relocation to another country, which go

against human rights in order to find out what the Rohingya Muslims' nationality was.

To solve the problem of the Rohingya genocide, the government, the Burmese people and the

society as a whole have the role to first obliterate the discrimination happening in the country.

The United Nations have the responsibility to severely penalize the military officers who took

part in this in order to prevent cases like these in the future. There should be certain laws that

protect the Rohingya people and their human rights and let them have equal opportunities as a

Burmese nationality. This will be extremely difficult given the horrifying situations that took

place, but the government has the duty to horrid experiences encountered by the Rohingya

people and ensure the safety of people who live in Myanmar whether they are foreigners or

Burmese people. Additionally, the government and the international communities should provide

the Rohingya people with basic needs such as shelter, food, cloth, formal education and

employment opportunities or . Currently, the Rohingya people are given white cards, the cards

provided by the Immigration Ministry as Temporary Identity certificates (The Rohingya Post,

2019). Nevertheless, this still does not solve all the issues since the white card cannot be

considered equal to the nationality card that every Burmese national has. For those Rohingya

refugees, who cannot return to Myanmar due to a number of reasons such as not having

documentation, which was very likely to be destroyed by the military during the crisis, and the

unavailability of the refugee camps proposed by the government, should be able to relocate to

other countries mentally and financially with proper security measures.

Having lived in a country for decades and not being considered equal when it comes to human

rights is very heartbreaking. Burmese people who are discriminating against the Rohingya
people should understand this and sympathize with them because everyone is living on the same

land and even if they consider Rohingya people merely as foreigners, they should still have

respect for them. Burmese national should come together to recognize that the situation of the

Rohingya people not improving is equal to their future not getting better because it is obvious

that the military tortured the Rohingya community, almost regarding them as objects. It can also

be seen in the 2021 where many Burmese people were killed by their own military. Everyone in

Myanmar should realize that it is not a problem that is related to nationality or illegal

immigration. It is the contempt and mindset of irresponsibility that the military officers have for

the people who live in Myanmar. Therefore, the country requires a democratic system the

government can control the actions and protect the Rohingya people.

Finally, the discrimination happening in Myanmar is mainly due to the fact that foreign people

have different physical features. The darker a person’s skin colour gets, the more he or she is . In

the case of the Rohingya people, they look very different in terms of skin colour and facial

features and the fact that they look darker and are known to illegally reside may stimulate some

uneducated Burmese nationals to discriminate against them. This is why in order to terminate the

discrimination and consequently, stop the military from troubling these people, every individual

in Myanmar s to change their mindset of racism. No one is intrinsically born with racism and it is

usually the adults who indoctrinate it into children. Thus, educational institutions, teachers and

parents are required to teach their students and children about equality and have an international

mindset that is needed in this day and age to coexist together with sympathy and understanding.

This will undeniably be very difficult since discrimination has been taking place for decades.

However, the government can educate the public about equality and activist groups can organize

events that can spread awareness to everyone and share these sorts of content on social media.
Consequently, it can lead to people being aware of the things that are happening around them and

even if discrimination against the Rohingya people cannot be obliterated immediately, their

future in Myanmar will become better given that Burmese nationals will strive to treat them

equally.

References

Druce, S.C. (1970) Myanmar's unwanted ethnic minority: A history and analysis of the

Rohingya crisis, SpringerLink. Springer Singapore. Available at:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-32-9570-4_2.

Ibrahim, A. (2017) Why the Rohingya can't yet return to Myanmar, The New York Times.

The New York Times. Available at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/opinion/rohingya-myanmar-bangladesh.html

Reid, K. (2023) Rohingya refugee crisis: Facts, faqs, and how to help, World Vision.

Available at:

https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories/rohingya-refugees-bangladesh-facts#:~:

text=BACK%20TO%20QUESTIONS-,What%20caused%20the%20Rohingya%20refugee

%20crisis%3F,U.N

The Rohingya crisis, explained: Five things to know, five years on (2022) Concern

Worldwide. Available at:

The Rohingya Crisis, explained: 5 things to know in 2022 (concernusa.org)

www.facebook.com/TheRohingyaPost (2019) The Rohingya and the White Cards Saga,

The Rohingya Post. Available at:

https://www.rohingyapost.com/the-rohingya-and-the-white-cards-saga/