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Myanmar’s Rohingya: Five Years of Crisis

August 23, 2022/in News

Myanmar’s military launched a ferocious crackdown against the country’s Rohingya Muslim population in 2017, driving more than 740,000 refugees into neighboring Bangladesh. Here are the key dates in the five-year crisis: Army operations Early on the morning of Aug. 25, 2017 a shadowy Rohingya militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) stages coordinated attacks […]

Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

Noeleen Heyzer’s visit, which Min Aung Hlaing attempted to leverage for political legitimacy, was a failure, contributor Thuta Zaw writes UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, photographed wearing a green sarong and smiling as she shook the hand of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, has experienced a major backlash in the days that have […]

Myanmar’s Rohingya: Five Years of Crisis

August 23, 2022/in News

Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

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Myanmar’s Rohingya: Five Years of Crisis

August 23, 2022/in News

Myanmar’s military launched a ferocious crackdown against the country’s Rohingya Muslim population in 2017, driving more than 740,000 refugees into neighboring Bangladesh.

Here are the key dates in the five-year crisis:

Army operations

Early on the morning of Aug. 25, 2017 a shadowy Rohingya militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) stages coordinated attacks on dozens of police posts in Myanmar’s coastal Rakhine State, killing at least a dozen officers.

The army retaliates with operations in Rohingya villages, ostensibly to flush out insurgents.

It says it killed 400 militants but opponents say most of the dead are civilians.

The UN says at least 1,000 people were killed in the first two weeks of the military operations.

Refugee exodus

By Sept. 5 more than 120,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh, overwhelming its ill-equipped refugee camps.

There are already at least 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh from previous waves of violence.

Suu Kyi breaks silence

International anger mounts against Myanmar. Soldiers are accused of razing Rohingya homes and some world leaders allege “ethnic cleansing” has taken place.

In her first statement on the crisis, Myanmar’s civilian leader and Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi pledges on Sept. 19 to hold rights violators to account but refuses to blame the army.

Possible ‘genocide’

Bangladesh and Myanmar on Nov. 23 agree to start repatriating refugees.

But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says conditions are not in place for their safe return and the process halts.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Dec. 5 warns of possible “elements of genocide” and calls for an international investigation.

Courts and sanctions

On Aug. 25, 2018, tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees stage protests to mark the first anniversary of their exodus.

UN investigators call for the prosecution of Myanmar’s army chief and five other top military commanders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In November an attempt to repatriate 2,260 Rohingya fails as they refuse to leave without guarantees for their safety.

Reporters jailed

On Sept. 3, two Reuters journalists who are accused of breaching Myanmar’s state secrets law while reporting on a Rohingya massacre are jailed for seven years.

They will spend more than 500 days behind bars before being released on a presidential pardon.

US sanctions

On July 16, 2019, Washington announces sanctions against Myanmar’s army chief and three other top officers.

About 3,500 Rohingya refugees are cleared to return home but none turn up to make the journey on Aug. 22.

Legal challenges mount

On Nov. 11 Gambia files a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of genocide for its treatment of the Rohingya.

Three days later the separate Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) green-lights a full investigation into the persecution of the Rohingya.

In the same week, a third case is filed by rights groups in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Suu Kyi in court

On Dec. 11 Gambia lays out its case at the ICJ with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi personally leading Myanmar’s defense.

She refutes accusations of genocide, denying “misleading and incomplete” claims and insisting Myanmar is dealing with an “internal armed conflict”.

She admits the army may have used excessive force.

Court ruling

Delivering its ruling on Jan. 23, 2020, the ICJ orders Myanmar to take urgent steps to prevent alleged genocide and to report back within four months.

Coup d’etat

Myanmar’s military seizes power on Feb. 1, 2021,m ousting the civilian government and later waging a bloody crackdown on dissent.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is put under house arrest and later jailed for 17 years following a closed-door trial in junta court.

With several charges still hanging over her, the 77-year-old faces the possibility of decades behind bars.

US calls genocide

The United States on March 21, 2022 officially declares that the 2017 violence amounted to genocide, saying there was clear evidence of an attempt to “destroy” the Rohingya.

The ICJ rules on July 22 that the case filed by Gambia can proceed.

In the same month the junta executes four prisoners, the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

Camp killings

On Aug. 10 two Rohingya community leaders are shot dead in one of the Bangladesh refugee camps, the latest in a string of killings in the settlements.

Rohingya sources tell AFP that ARSA is behind the shootings.

ARSA is accused of running narcotics, murdering political opponents and instilling a climate of fear in the camps.

META DESCRIPTION: A look at the key events that have unfolded since the Myanmar military launched a deadly crackdown on Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2017.

Topics: Coup, genocide, junta, Military, Myanmar, Refugees, regime, Rohingya, Suu Kyi

Irrawaddy News

Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

Noeleen Heyzer’s visit, which Min Aung Hlaing attempted to leverage for political legitimacy, was a failure, contributor Thuta Zaw writes

UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, photographed wearing a green sarong and smiling as she shook the hand of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, has experienced a major backlash in the days that have followed their August 17 meeting.

Since her appointment to the role by UN Secretary General António Guterres in October 2021, Ms Heyzer has been attempting to sit down with Myanmar’s internationally shunned murderer-in-chief, a move she achieved on a surprise visit to Naypyitaw last week.

Myanmar is known for its “colour politics,” in which green represents the military and red is associated with the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD), whose elected administration was ousted in the February 2021 coup.

Was Heyzer’s own green attire selected in ignorance or was it a gesture intended to placate Min Aung Hlaing?

It can be said, after all, that there are no coincidences in politics.

A calculated colour choice does not seem to be out of the realm of possibility for Heyzer, who has in the past come under fire for comments seen as conciliatory to the junta, which has been violently crushing dissent nationwide since its attempted seizure of power last year.

While civil society and rights groups have repeatedly called on the international community to isolate and refuse to recognise the coup regime, Heyzer insisted in a January interview that the military be “included in talks to resolve Myanmar’s crisis,” describing the armed forces as being “in control” in the country.

Positions such as this, as well as any international engagement, have been used by the military council to further its claim to legitimacy.

In a press conference held just hours before their August 17 meeting, coup council spokesperson Zaw Min Tun strategically described the event as a discussion between the UN Special Envoy and “the current government of Myanmar.”

Heyzer issued a statement that day insisting that “UN engagement does not in any way confer legitimacy.”

A bitter junta responded by calling the press release “one-sided” and claiming that it had “created misunderstandings about Myanmar.” The military council released its own 28-page statement in Burmese on August 19, detailing the conversation between Min Aung Hlaing and Heyzer, which reportedly began with a claim by the coup leader that he was “taking responsibility to lead the Myanmar Government.”

Only the Special Envoy herself knows how she responded to this, but if she had announced in advance that her official visit would not be accompanied by an acknowledgement of legitimacy, the meeting arguably would not have taken place.

In any case, it was not a successful one. In his own administration’s recollection of events, Min Aung Hlaing appears to have systematically rejected all of Heyzer’s requests.

Relaying what were described as two key demands from the UN Secretary General, Heyzer called on the military to cease its airstrikes and arson attacks on civilian homes.

The junta chief claimed that the aerial attacks targeted insurgents, implying that they would continue, and he denied that his armed forces had burned villages, just as he denied that his troops had done so in the terror inflicted on Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State in 2017.

Heyzer also raised the issue of Rohingya refugee return, while avoiding using the term “Rohingya,” according to the junta’s statement. That decision may haunt her should she choose to visit the camps in Bangladesh housing hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya, as she has said she plans to do.

Min Aung Hlaing also went on to dismiss Heyzer’s request for a moratorium on executions after last month’s junta-sanctioned killing of four political prisoners, including two well-known democracy activists.

Myanmar junta executes four political prisoners

Two of Myanmar’s most prominent dissidents were among the four reportedly executed inside Insein Prison on Saturday

Inquiring about detained NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Special Envoy asked that the State Counsellor be allowed to return home from a Naypyitaw detention centre, where she is facing a total of 17 years in prison—six of which were handed down just one day before Heyzer’s visit.

The coup leader stated that Suu Kyi was already being granted “special privileges,” describing her cell as a “home-like arrangement.” Meanwhile, inside sources have described it as a 13-by-14-foot building within the jail walls, exposed to the elements.

“Although we could take more serious action against her, we have been lenient on her,” Min Aung Hlaing reportedly said.

The Special Advisory Council-Myanmar (SAC-M), a team of international experts who have been calling for the international prosecution of the military chief for crimes against humanity, acknowledged in an August 19 statement that Heyzer’s meeting was a “minimum requirement of her mandate,” but that it was “clear that nothing of significance will come from it.”

“We can only imagine how awful it must have been for the UN Special Envoy to meet with murderer-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, and the revulsion she must have felt at having to shake his blood-soaked hand,” SAC-M member Chris Sidoti is quoted as saying.

At the very time that Min Aung Hlaing was using the Special Envoy’s visit to defend both his claim to power and his military’s continued campaign of terror, locals in Sagaing Region’s Yin Paung Taing village were uncovering the bodies of civilians killed in a three-day junta siege on the community that left some 18 people dead.

There are no coincidences in politics.

With no gains to speak of, perhaps the most notable lesson from Special Envoy Heyzer’s visit to Naypyitaw is that in extending a hand to the junta, one’s own risks becoming stained with blood.

(This commentary was translated from Burmese and edited for clarity and brevity.)

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ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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Myanmar junta executes four political prisoners

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