Recent violence against the Rohingya In June and October 2012 there were large scale violent attacks against the ethnic Rohingya in Rakhine State. Ethnic Kaman Muslims were also targeted. In addition there were widespread and numerous other incidents of violence, intimidation and harassment against the Rohingya. International organisations which investigated this violence, including Human Rights Watch, gathered evidence that the attacks met the international legal definition of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Humanitarian consequences of recent violence Estimates of those killed in the violence range from several hundred to more than a thousand. The UNHCR has said that in the two years since the violence began more than 80,000 Rohingya have fled Burma by boat. Around 140,000 Rohingyawho were forced to flee their homes now live in temporary camps where humanitarian access is severely restricted as a result of Burmese government policies and the failure of thegovernment to ensure a secure environment for delivery of aid. Context of the humanitarian crisis While the appalling conditions of the Rohingya in camps in Rakhine State since 2012 has received international attention, the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State is not new. Since the 1960s governments in Burma have gradually introduced laws and policies designed to repress and impoverish the Rohingya, and drive them out of Burma. Increasing poverty and blocking economic development of the Rohingya is a deliberate and integral part of the Burmese governmentsRohingya policy. Since the reform process began under President Thein Sein in 2011, the application
| Recommendations • United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should personally take the lead in negotiating free and unhindered international humanitarian access in Rakhine State. Individual governments should encourage Ban Ki-moon to take up this issue and give high-level support to his efforts.• Governments need to make it clear that futurepositive diplomatic relations are contingent on unhindered humanitarian access, reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law, and abolishment of discriminatory policies and practices against the Rohingya. • Diplomats and UN ofcials should use the word "Rohingya" both in public and private. By avoiding the term, they legitimise the Burmese government's ongoing discrimination and campaign to portray the Rohingya as illegal immigrants. • The humanitarian crisis for the Rohingya in Burma is part of a systematic policy of impoverishment of the Rohingya. These policies may constitute crimes against humanity, and have helped lead to ethnic cleansing. The international community should support the establishment of an independent international investigation into possible violations of international law against the Rohingya in Burma. • Robust and specic language on the Rohingya mustbe included in the next United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Burma. This should include use of the word "Rohingya," demand unhindered humanitarian access, reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law and lifting of alldiscriminatory policies, and establish a UN Commission of Inquiry into possible violations of international law against the Rohingya in Burma.
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of these policies has been stepped up, leading to a serious deterioration of the human rights and humanitarian situation in Rakhine State.
Buddhist nationalists led Burma's struggle for independence and this nationalism is central to politics in Burma today. In 1961 Buddhism was declared the state religion. Following this declaration a series of laws and policies were introduced designed to repress and impoverish Muslim ethnic Rohingya. These include the notorious 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively denies citizenship to the Rohingya, and the 1988 banning of Rohingya from travelling outside Rakhine State.
Other policies and laws introduced include restrictions on Rohingya travelling from some townships to others, and even within some townships, checkpoints on roads targeting only Rohingya which include body searches and extortion of money, restrictions on marriage through a tax fee requirement, arbitrary taxation on a wide range of activities, even including death of cattle, forced labour, land conscation, arbitrary arrests and extortion for releasing the person arrested, almost no provision of government services such as health, education or infrastructure in Rohingya areas.
All of these policies are part of a systematic approach of impoverishing and oppressing the Rohingya in order to attempt to drive them out of Burma. They are deliberately designed so that there can be an element of deniability by central government, which tries to blame some of these policies on local authorities, rogue individual police and security officers, and a lack of adequatetraining.
Even before the violence in 2012, the humanitarian consequences of decades of government repression and impoverishment of the Rohingya were severe. While the government has traditionally failed to provide adequate services to the population in Rakhine State, including for the ethnic Rakhine, services were very limited, and especially for the Rohingya. Rohingya arefrequently denied access to hospitals and clinics.
• 70% of Rohingya have no access to safe water/sanitation services
• In the Maungdaw Rohingya District there is just one doctor per 160,000 people. The World Health Organisation
recommends one doctor per 5,000 people.
• Only 2% of Rohingya women give birth in hospital.
• 44% of the population of Rakhine State lives below the poverty line, almost 20 percent higher than the average in
most parts of Burma.
"Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, April 2014.
restrictive than in most countries and can take years to obtain.• The MoU limits what an organisation can do, so if they
want to work in a new area or provide a different service to meet a newly identied need they have to start difcult and
lengthy negotiations.
• The government uses 'security concerns' to block humanitarian access to certain places at certain times.
• Foreign staff need special visas to enter Burma and only limited numbers of visas
are given. Aid workers have had visas denied.
• In times of emergency restrictions on numbers of visas given still apply, effectively
stopping an adequate response, such as when Hurricane Giri struck Rakhine State.
• Foreign staff who are given visas can face restrictions on where they are allowed to go
within Burma, and only be allowed in the country for a short period.
• Travel authorisations are needed for Burmese humanitarian staff going to remote
areas. These often need renewing every month and may be delayed or denied.
• Rohingya staff working for international organisations face additional travel
estrictions. These have become much stricter since the violence in 2012.
• Rohingya humanitarian aid workers working for international organisations, including
the United Nations, have been subject to arbitrary arrest and detention.
• Several days advance notice needs to be given to the government before aid workers
can travel to some areas.
• Overall, access has become more difficult and restrictions more severe since the
violence in 2012, despite the need for humanitarian assistance increasing.
• Permission to stay overnight in remote areas is often denied, and as travel times make
going to a place and back in one day impossible, projects are effectively blocked
without officially being denied.
• The government has not taken effective action to stop the spread of misinformation and
incitement of violence against international humanitarian aid organisations and their
employees.
• Government ofcials and leading politicians have directly or indirectly supported or
appeared to support the spread of misinformation and incitement of violence against
international humanitarian organisations.
• Aid organisations, including MSF, have faced threats of expulsion or have effectively
been expelled, permanently and temporarily, from working in Rakhine State.
• Local humanitarian staff and their families have faced threats and abuse.
• Local campaigns against international humanitarian organisation have resulted in
blocking of delivery of aid, and refusing to rent offices, land, cars or other services to
humanitarian organisations. The government has taken no effective action to counter
these campaigns.As with many of the policies of impoverishment and repression
against the Rohingya, the Burmese government tries to deny responsibility for many
of these restrictions, citing local anti-Rohingya sentiment, the local government, and
bureaucracy for which they need international aid to improve. Taken together though
they amount to a clear pattern and policy of obstruction of humanitarian assistance in
line with the policy of making life for the Rohingya as unbearable as possible so that
they leave the country.President Thein Sein has stated that his goal is for all Rohingya to
leave Burma:
"The solution to this problem is that they can be settled in refugee camps managed by UNHCR, and UNHCR provides for them. If there are countries that would accept them, they could be sent there."
11 July 2012, while discussing the issue of Rohingya with UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres.
Camps For Internally Displaced Rohingya
"I witnessed a level of human suffering in IDP camps that I have personally never see before…appalling conditions…wholly inadequate access to basic services including health, education, water and sanitation."
Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kyung-wha Kang in June 2014 after visiting IDP camps in Rakhine State.
Around 140,000 ethnic Rohingya have been living in camps in Rakhine State since 2012. There is no adequate provision of health services, education for children, housing, sanitation, or food. The United Nations has not publicly published and promoted information about the situation in the camps, presumably for fear of upsetting the Burmese government, and also as such statistics would result in criticism of the United Nations and international community for allowing such dire conditions to continue.
In March 2014, 33 offices of humanitarian organisations were attacked by violent mobs. Extremists used the pretext of an aid worker insulting the Buddhist flag to incite the attacks. However, there was no evidence this had happened, and there had been well organised incitement against aid organisations building up for weeks with no preventative action taken by the government.
The so-called 'spontaneous' mobs had the names and addresses of aid organisations offices and were allowed to systematically attack them without interference from police or security forces. Aid workers were forced to ee for their lives, and many had to leave the area altogether. Humanitarian access gradually started to resume in the following weeks, but has still not returned to the already limited level it was at in March 2014.
As a result of Burmese government policies, actions and inaction, almost one million ethnic Rohingya are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. 140,000 of these are living in squalid camps in Rakhine State. There is a downward spiral with an overall decline in the ability of international organisations to deliver humanitarian assistance. The Burmese government strings the international community along with promises of future change, or using its old tactic of taking two steps back, one step forward, then being praised by parts of the international community for the one step forward, even though the overall situation is now worse than before. The case with MSF in 2014 is a classic example of this.
The government policy of increased violence and repression, and denial of humanitarian assistance, is working in terms of achieving their goals. Since 2012 more than 80,000 Rohingya have ed Burma by boat. More have left by other routes. This could amount to around ten percent of the entire Rohingya population in Burma driven out of the country within two years.
The international community, including the USA, European Union and agencies of the United Nations are even retreating from previous positions held in defence Rohingya rights. They are not applying any signicant high-level pressure regarding humanitarian access, they are no longer actively advocating for reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law, and are now even stopping using the word Rohingya. How can the international community protect the rights of the Rohingya when they won't even use our name?
• Diplomats and UN ofcials should use the word "Rohingya" both in public and private. By avoiding the term, they legitimise the Burmese government's ongoing discrimination and campaign to portray the Rohingya as illegal immigrants.
• The humanitarian crisis for the Rohingya in Burma is part of a systematic policy of impoverishment of the Rohingya. These policies may constitute crimes against humanity, and have helped lead to ethnic cleansing. The international community should support the establishment of an independent international investigation into possible violations of international law against the Rohingya in Burma.
• Robust and specic language on the Rohingya must be included in the next United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Burma. This should include use of the word "Rohingya," demand unhindered humanitarian access, reform of the 1982 Citizenship Law and lifting of all discriminatory policies, and establish a UN Commission of Inquiry into possible violations of international law against the Rohingya in Burma.
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