Committee: Special Conference

Issue title: Measures to Reduce Violence towards

Submitted by: Lili Sarkadi-Nagy, Chair of the SPCF

Edited by: Kamilla Tóth, President of the General Assembly

Introduction

The persecution of the Rohingya people in is an ongoing conflict, which is manifesting in a humanitarian crisis. The military crackdown against them is recognised as ethnic cleansing by multiple international agencies, such as Amnesty International. Doctors sans Frontierès estimated that more than 6500 Rohingya people have been killed alone in 2017 August.

Definition of Key Terms

Rohingya people: A stateless, Indo-Aryan speaking ethnic group from the of Myanmar.

Ethnic cleansing: The systematic, forced removal of a certain ethnic or religious group from a given territory by a more powerful group, often with motives such as intent to make the territory homogeneous, or racial or religious discrimination.

Tatmadaw: The official name of the armed forces in Myanmar. It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

ARSA: The Rohingya Salvation Army, a Rohingya insurgent group led by Ata Ullah, with the aim of defending the rights of the Rohingya people.

Aung San Suu Kyi: The de-facto leader of Myanmar, who won the 2016 elections with an overwhelming majority.

General Overview

The Rohingya people are a stateless, Indo-Aryan, mostly Muslim community. The Rohingya population worldwide is estimated to be around 3 million1, a major part of which is currently in either or Myanmar. The only thing that distinguishes them from the other minorities in the country is their skin colour, although there are more than a hundred other ethnic minorities officially recognized by the government. More than 600,000 Rohingya people have fled the Rakhine State of Myanmar and arrived in Cox’s Bazar2 since the 25th of August of 2017. This number becomes even more shocking with the knowledge that it is more than the half of the entire Rohingya population in the Rakhine State. The refugees arriving in Bangladesh are wounded, badly injured or traumatized, with their homes burnt to the ground. The neighbouring states are facing a crisis: they are lacking resources necessary for providing these people proper shelters, clothing and nutriment. The UN’s humanitarian aid was banned in the heart of the conflict by the government, and in the neighbouring countries it is underfunded. The military actions against the Rohingya people are declared as “clearance operations from terrorists” by the military. Heavy rains due to the climate of the region have only made the situation worse.

The gradual oppression of the Rohingya has been going on since the liberation of Myanmar from the British. Although being one of the most significant minorities in the country, they were denied citizenship due to the 1982 Myanmar nationality law3, which did not recognize them as one of the eight “national races”, thus denied their possibility to have a nationality4, opposing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Article 15.15. Parallel to the lawful injustice ongoing from the 1948 liberation from the British, in 1972 the “Dragon King” operation was launched to take military action against Rohingya people based on a false claim stating that they are rather foreigners than an ethnic minority of Myanmar and calling them “Bengalis”. Following that, the situation grew gradually worse, and resulted in the human rights catastrophe known today. The has imprisoned tens of thousands of Rohingya people in concentration camps for „their own safety”. In 2016, a new government came to power, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the situation remained unchanged. She can either support the military’s actions or generate even more chaos by opposing the relatively independent Tatmadaw.

As the Tatmadaw (the Burmese military) has 25% of the seats reserved in the parliament to represent themselves since 2008, Aung San Suu Kyi does not have the authority to control them.

1 https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya 2 https://www.unocha.org/rohingya-refugee-crisis 3 http://un-act.org/publication/view/myanmars-citizenship-law-1982/ 4 http://burmacampaign.org.uk/media/Myanmar%E2%80%99s-1982-Citizenship-Law-and-Rohingya.pdf 5 http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Since Daw Suu cannot fill in the position of a president in her country due to the 2008 constitution 6(disqualifying anyone with children holding foreign citizenship and passports), she is the de-facto leader of Myanmar as a state counsellor, a position created for her. If she condemned the actions committed by the Tatmadaw making the Rohingya people flee, she would condemn the military itself and her electorate as well.

As many examples have shown it in our history, dictatorship, maltreatment, and injustice never results in the solid obedience of the oppressed side: in 2013, a group (declared as terrorists by the Burmese government) was formed in order to (as its leader has stated) “liberate the Rohingya people from the dehumanizing oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese regimes”7. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) has supposedly been recruiting members since the formation of the group, and the first armed attack for which they took responsibility was committed in October 2016. This issue cannot be handled without eliminating the causes generating it, which is the obviously disproportional military intervention in the conflict.

The response of the Burmese government was calling the ARSA “extremist Bengali terrorists”, although they are not linked to any transnational terrorist group, and neither do they target civilians in order to enforce their views and beliefs through havoc.

Parallel to the growth of the violence by the ARSA, ultranationalist extremists, hard- line Buddhist monks’ activity has also become more and more significant, because they feel threatened by the Muslim religion and they think of this as an authorization to use physical force. Due to the lack of resources, their weapons are mostly home- made. The Buddhist religious authorities have been trying to act against these extreme actions, but after any crackdown these groups strive to rebuild and relaunch themselves, and there is no reason for them to stop.

If the international community doesn’t take immediate action, these atrocities can manifest in unimaginably horrible armed conflicts, and result in a horrible refugee crisis affecting the lives of millions of people.

6 http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/mm/mm009en.pdf 7 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/28/asia-pacific/thousands-panic-stricken-civilians-flee-fighting- myanmars-northwest/#.WahVP71X7qA

Major Parties Involved

Tatmadaw: The military forces of Myanmar exercised not only brutality but also patience and restraint. In the early 1990s, soon after the military government had renamed the country “Myanmar” from Burma to promote its nationalist agenda, 250,000 Rohingya fled rape, religious persecution, and slavery to Bangladesh. The aims of the group include making the country racially more homogeneous by committing violent actions towards the Rohingya people and gradually extracting them from the country.

Aung San Suu Kyi: The de-facto leader of Myanmar, who won the majority of the parliament’s seats, but cannot command or interfere with the actions committed by the Burmese military or the Tatmadaw.

ARSA: The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which was established in 2016 is declared as terrorists by the Central Committee for Counter-Terrorism of Myanmar and is groundlessly accused of having ties with foreign Islamists such as the Islamic State.

Timeline of Events

Date Event

1790 Captain Hiram Cox sent as emissary to the Burmese king to solve the dispute between Arakan refugees and the people

living in Rakhine. He established the town of Cox’s Bazar, where groups with ties to Rohingya live today.

1986 Burma becomes a province of the India invaded by the British.

1937 Britain separates Burma and makes it a crown colony.

1942 The Japanese occupy Burma.

1945 The British liberate the country with the help of Aung San’s father, and many of the Rohingya want to join Pakistan due to its Muslim majority.

1960 Buddhism becomes state religion.

1975 25 000 Rohingya flee the country to avoid persecution.

1977 The operation Dragon King begins, 200 000 Rohingya flee the country. The army denies wrongdoing.

1991 Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize due to her peaceful attitude and progressiveness towards the issue.

1992 250 000 Rohingya people return to the country under a repatriation agreement, but some serious problems remain.

January 2007 The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation draft a resolution to end the violence towards the Rohingya people.

January 2009 Thailand expels hundreds of Rohingya refugees while the country denies the existence of the minority.

September 2009 Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State announces plans of engagement with the military of Burma.

October 2010 The country’s official name, flag and national anthem are changed.

September 2012 Clashes between Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya result in the displacement of 90 000.

March 2014 Nationalists attack foreign aid groups assisting Rohingya people.

April 2014 Muslims are prohibited from registering as “Rohingya”.

June 2014 The UNHCR says it is receiving increasing reports of abuse and exploitation of Rohingya and other Muslims who flee Myanmar by boat to escape persecution and violence in Arakan State, estimating that over 86,000 people have fled on boats since June 2012, including 55,000 during 2013 and 15,000 between January and April 2014.

October 2015 A “New Era” begins as Aung San Suu Kyi is being elected.

November 2015 The Tatmadaw opens fire with helicopters near villages in Maungdaw. The two days of ensuing violence displaced an estimated 15,000 people.

2016-2017 Thousands of Rohingya continue to flee the country due to military attacks committed by the Burmese army.

Previous Attempts to Solve the Issue

The issue of the violence towards the Rohingya people is a widely discussed topic in the UN, and many attempts have been made towards coming to a long-lasting solution. These include multiple sanctions by the European Union and the United States mainly on arms trade. The last UN resolution was drafted in October 2017, since in the recent past, 600 000 Rohingya people have fled the country in a month. It lists demands such as allowing humanitarian aid. Although the resolution passed, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam joined Myanmar in voting against the measure as did Belarus, Syria and Zimbabwe.

Possible Solutions and Approaches

The first step in solving the conflict would obviously be opening dialogue between the parties. As evidence has been shown in accusing the Burmese authorities of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, they should be made responsible for their actions. Humanitarian aid has to get in the area because many injured or ill people’s health can be threatened if they will not get the necessary support. The issue of the statelessness of these people also needs to be solved, since they cannot get citizenship according to the 1982 law, and thus, are not granted their human right of a nationality. It is not a domestic affair since the flow of the fleeing refugees affects the societies and economies of the neighbouring conflicts. Further pressure needs to be placed on Myanmar to cease the ongoing human rights violations and grant these people the essential needs for their living. Further inspections could also help in assessing the exact nature, effects and possible solutions of this complex conflict.

Useful Documents and Sources

 Draft UN Resolution Pressures Myanmar Over Rohingya Crisis (2017): https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/draft-un-resolution-pressures-myanmar- over-rohingya-crisis-1767217

 Myanmar: Who are the Rohingya? (2017): http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/08/rohingya-muslims- 170831065142812.html  Being Rohingya in Myanmar (2017): https://thewire.in/179759/rohingya- myanmar-timeline/  UNSC on Rohingya People (2017): http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=58040#.WlKG7HlG3cs  The 1982 Citizenship Act: http://un-act.org/publication/view/myanmars- citizenship-law-1982/  Thousands Fleeing Myanmar (2017): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/28/asia-pacific/thousands- panic-stricken-civilians-flee-fighting-myanmars-northwest/#.WahVP71X7qA  The UNOCHA’s Report on the issue (2017): https://www.unocha.org/rohingya- refugee-crisis  The Issues with the 1982 Citizenship Law (2014): http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/media/Myanmar%E2%80%99s-1982- Citizenship-Law-and-Rohingya.pdf  Cox Bazaar Report (2017): https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/wash- sector-coxs-bazar-situation-report-31-december-2017  Refugee babies endangered by diseases (2018): https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/squalor- disease-await-rohingya-babies-born-bangladesh-camps

Annex