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Rohingyas: "There is a desire to work more for this ethnic and religious diversity"

Audio 06:26

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, November 1, 2017 (Illustrative image).

AP - Bernat Armangue

By: Jelena Tomic Follow

7 mins

Five years ago, some 750,000 Rohingyas, a stateless and persecuted Muslim minority in Burma, took refuge in Bangladesh to flee abuses by the army.

On August 25, 2017, insurgents from Arsa, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, attacked around thirty border posts, killing twelve police officers.

In response, the forces burned down dozens of villages, and at least 1,000 civilians were killed.

For several days, the military and Buddhist militias engaged in systematic crimes, causing the exodus of several hundred thousand people.

Interview with Alexandra de Mersan, anthropologist, researcher-teacher at Inalco.

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For five years, nearly a million Rohingya refugees have lived crammed into sprawling, unsanitary camps in Cox's Bazar and Bhasan Char Island in southeastern Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal.

Floods, landslides, presence of gangs;

the living conditions of the refugees are deplorable.

On the other side of the border, the Burmese junta has regained power, plunging the country into chaos.

RFI: What is the situation in Arakan

For the moment, nothing in the official speeches prevents them from returning home.

The situation in Rakhine has however evolved since the coup, it has become more complex because there is an armed conflict between the Rakhine army and the Burmese army.

Conflicts which had started at the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, but which have since intensified, with the opening of several armed fronts which the Burmese army must face.

The Arakanese army has thus acquired territories and controls part of northern Arakan, in particular the region from which most of the Muslims of Arakan, the Rohingyas, originate.

For there to be repatriation, on the one hand there would have to be the will of the Burmese junta that it be approved, but for the moment these are territories which are not well controlled, neither by the burmese army,

nor by the army of Arakan.

It is therefore from a technical and practical point of view quite complicated. 

Where are we on the legal front?

Proceedings have been initiated against the Burmese state before the International Criminal Court.

What are the prospects for international justice for the Rohingya

What is new is that the National Unity Government (NUG) announced last February that it accepted the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in this case between Gambia and Burma in withdrawing its preliminary objections.

This means that he shows a clear desire to participate in this affair so that it can be dealt with at the international level.

That said, it is a long-term process, it is difficult to collect facts on the spot, even if a certain amount of evidence has already been collected during missions to be able to investigate this file.

But it is a process that will take a long time. 

Last March, the United States for the first time acknowledged that Rohingyas had been victims of genocide.

This qualification is not unanimous.

Do you think the term is appropriate

It is the experts in international law who will answer this question.

The term genocide has a very precise definition in terms of international law and it is the very purpose of the International Court of Justice to answer this question and to qualify the nature of the crimes that have been committed against the Rohingyas. , even if a number of facts have already been collected so far, during the various missions, in terms of the extreme brutality of the Burmese military towards the Rohingyas, pointing to the systematic nature of the attacks carried out against these populations.

Villages have been set on fire, rapes have been committed, a whole host of criteria which will make it possible to define by law the nature of these crimes.

But anyway, there was an ethnic cleansing. 

Five years after the massacre perpetrated by the Burmese army in response to Arsa attacks, what do we know exactly about this group of insurgents, active both in Arakan and in the camps in Bangladesh, where five murders are attributed to them? 

It is a relatively recent formation, which made headlines in 2017, following the attacks that this group perpetrated in Arakan.

The founder of this group is known to be a second-generation Rohingya, who was born and raised in Pakistan, and later educated in Saudi Arabia.

It is a group which is reputed to be rather in a fundamentalist movement.

Which is not at all the fact of the vast majority of Rohingyas.

What is complicated with Arsa is that they are somewhat self-proclaimed leaders and we do not know who they represent.

What is clear, however, is that recently,

a number of Arsa leaders were opposed to the repatriation of Rohingyas to Arakan and that assassinations have been perpetrated by armed Arsa gangs which operate in the camps and exert additional terror on the refugees already living in appalling conditions.

In addition, Arsa also carries out attacks in northern Arakan, and the group would not a priori have contact with the Arakanese army.  

The coup d'état in Burma brought about an unprecedented unity of all ethnic minorities against a common enemy: the junta.

How can this unity advance the rights of the Rohingya Muslim minority? 

The main advance is that since the coup, it is no longer just the ethnic minorities who are victims of the repression and violence of the Burmese army.

In fact, it's the whole country, Burmese included.

The Bamars have also become the victims and are in very severe armed conflict against the Burmese army.

This made the Burmese, the majority population, realize that the violence they are undergoing, the attacks they still face today, was the daily lot of the Rohingyas of Arakan and of a very large number of minorities.

And since the coup,

there were a number of statements that were made and symbolic actions that were taken to say that they recognized the existence of the Rohingyas and the suffering they had endured for decades, as well as other populations.

There is really, in any case, a clear desire to work more for this ethnic and religious diversity in the country.

There is a new openness and almost an apology from the national unity government which wishes to be more inclusive by giving Rohingyas positions of ministers, spokespersons, and integrating them into various discussions and demonstrations. .

I believe that it is essential that international bodies be able to concern themselves with the fate of these populations.

You should know that many Rohingyas continue to flee refugee camps, in Malaysia in particular.

And we can understand it, because they are going through hell in the camps.

The Rohingyas already experienced a form of imprisonment, confinement in Arakan, but it was at the level of a region, whereas there they live in conditions of promiscuity, precariousness and violence, an extremely hard.

It is important to remember this and not leave them to their fate.

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• Burma

• Rohingya

• Bangladeshi

• Religion

• Humanitarian

• Refugees

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