Ongoing Persecution of the Rohingya: A History of Periodic Ethnic Cleansings and Genocides

Abstract

In their own country, Myanmar, ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims
have suffered persecution and systematic killings which amount to periodic
ethnic cleansings and genocides. They are often dehumanised and frequently
subjected to state-sponsored abuses and institutionalised discrimination. This
article discusses the origins of the Rohingya in what was the kingdom of
Arakan (now renamed Rakhine state) and how Buddhist-Muslim tensions have
mounted. It argues that government authorities and Buddhist monkhood in
Myanmar as a whole are involved in organised violence against the Rohingya.
They incite racial hatred that contributes to the expulsion of the Rohingya
community from their country. The exclusionary policies of Myanmar’s
military government have rendered this ethnic minority stateless and exilic
in their own and neighbouring countries. They have suffered systematic
oppression, discrimination, civic exclusion, enslavement, mob killing, torture,
rape and sexual violence, forced labour, state harassment and so on. In the light
of this observation, this article attempts to analyse the plight of the Rohingya
in Myanmar which dates back two centuries but has received sufficient media
attention only recently.