ROHINGYA CRISIS IN BANGLADESH: SEARCHING FOR A DESTINATION

ROHINGYA CRISIS IN BANGLADESH: SEARCHING FOR A DESTINATION

Group Members

Sifat Uddin-KJ-137
Habibur Rahman-FR-121
Shakhaoath Hossain-ZIA-124
Mazharul Islam-KJ-87
Sumaiya Nour-KM-48
Faiham Ebna Sharif-MM-84
Md. Mohidur Rahman Bhuiyan-MM-82
Mostafa Mohammad Sazzad Hossain-BB-76

Submitted to 

Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan
Lecturer
Department of International Relations
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: July 5, 2007. 

DEDICATED TO

ALL THE REFUGEES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WHO ARE
REMAINING SCAPEGOATES OF VARIOUS INTEREST
GROUPS BUT STILL DREAMING
FOR A BETTER LIFE.

Good reason to tread carefully on Rohingya crisis

Jarkata Post
Tan Hui Yee

15.12.2016

 

 In this May 12 file photo, ethnic Rohingya sit at a refugee camp north of Sittwe, western Rakhine state, Myanmar. The long-persecuted Rohingya, many of whose families arrived in Myanmar generations ago, are treated as illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh and virtually excluded from the political process. (AP/Gemunu Amarasinghe )

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak broke with the spirit of Asean camaraderie by joining a recent march protesting against Myanmar's treatment of its beleaguered Rohingya, a Muslim minority group within the predominantly Buddhist country. "We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi enough is enough!" he told the leader of the fellow Asean member, in reference to alleged atrocities some have condemned as "genocide".

နဝတ/နအဖအစိုးရခေတ်

ISP Peace Desk
(September 18, 1988)

သမိုင်းအတွေ့အကြုံ

၁၉၈၈ ဇွန်လအတွင်း နိုင်ငံတဝန်း ဆန္ဒပြမှုများပေါ်ပေါက် လာခဲ့ပြီး ဇူလိုင် ၂၃ ရက်၌ ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည့် ဗမာ့ဆိုရှယ် လစ်လမ်းစဉ်ပါတီ(BBSP)၏ အရေးပေါ်ပါတီညီလာခံ၌ ပါတီဥက္ကဋ္ဌဦးနေဝင်းနှင့် သမ္မတ   ဦးစန်းယုတို့သည် ရာ ထူးမှ အသီးသီး နုတ်ထွက်ခဲ့ကြသည်ယင်းနောက်သမ္မတ နှင့် ပါတီဥက္ကဋ္ဌနေရာ ဆက်ခံသူအဖြစ် ဦးစိန်လွင်ကို ခန့် အပ်ခဲ့သည်။

၁၉၈၈ ခုနှစ် သြဂုတ် ၈ ရက်တွင် ရန်ကုန်မြို့တော်ခန်း မ ရှေ့၌ လူထောင်ပေါင်းများစွာ ပါဝင်သည့် ဆန္ဒ ပြပွဲကြီး ဖြစ်ပေါ်ခဲ့ပြီး ဆန္ဒပြပွဲများသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတဝန်း ဖြစ် ပွားခဲ့သည်။အဆိုပါဆန္ဒပြမှုများကိုတပ် မတော်က ပစ် ခတ်နှိမ်နင်းခဲ့ခြင်းကြောင့် ရာနှင့်ချီ သေဆုံးခဲ့သည်။

ယင်းနောက် သြဂုတ် ၁၃ ရက်၌ သမ္မတရာထူးမှ ဦးစိန် လွင် နုတ်ထွက်ကြောင်း မြန်မာ့အသံမှကြေညာ ခဲ့ပြီး ဒေါက်တာမောင်မောင်ကို သမ္မတသစ်အဖြစ် ခန့်အပ်ခဲ့ ကာ ရန်ကုန်မြို့တွင် ချထားသည့်တပ်များ ကိုလည်း ရုပ်သိမ်းခဲ့သည်။ သို့ရာတွင် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဆန္ဒ ပြမှုမှာ ရပ်တန့်မသွားခဲ့ဘဲ ဆက်တိုက် ဖြစ် ပေါ်နေခဲ့ပြီး အစိုးရအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရားရပ်ဆိုင်းနေသည့် အတွက် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများလည်း ပေါ် ပေါက်လာခဲ့သည်။

ဆိုရှယ်လစ်လမ်းစဉ်ပါတီအစိုးရခေတ်

ISP Peace Desk
(January 3, 1974)

သမိုင်းအတွေ့အကြုံ

တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီအစိုးရသည် ဗမာ့ဆိုရှယ်လစ်လမ်းစဉ်ပါတီက ဦးဆောင်ရေးဆွဲသည့် ဖွဲ့စည်း ပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေသစ်ကို ၁၉၇၄ ဇန်နဝါရီ ၃ ရက်၌ ပြည်လုံးကျွတ်လူထုဆန္ဒခံယူပွဲ ကျင်းပကာအတည် ပြုခဲ့သည်။

The Other Side of the Rohingya AsiaWeek – 14 July 1978

The Other Side of the Rohingya
AsiaWeek – 14 July 1978

 

Rangoon correspondent U Maung Maung reports on his recent (July 1978) secret visit to thetowns of Aykab (Sittwe), Buthidaung and Maungdaw:

Extracts: From the minarets of mosques in the townships I toured, I could hear the familiachant calling the devout to prayer. The sound seemed to support the government’scontention that there was no religious persecution in the area. I certainly saw no sign ofantipathy  among the non-Muslims towards Muslims.

Niger

 

Niger or the Niger[13][14] (/niːˈʒɛər, ˈnaɪdʒər/ nee-ZHAIR, NY-jər,[15][16] French: [niʒɛʁ]),[a] officially the Republic of the Niger[13][14] (French: République du Niger; Hausa: Jamhuriyar Nijar), is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the southwest, Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. It covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km2 (490,000 sq mi), making it the largest landlocked country in West Africa. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara. Its predominantly Muslim population of about 25 million[17][18] live mostly in clusters in the south and west of the country. The capital Niamey is located in Niger's southwest corner. 

According to Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) report of 2023, Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world.[19] Some non-desert portions of the country undergo periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence agriculture, with some export agriculture in the less arid south, and export of raw materials, including uranium ore. It faces challenges to development due to its landlocked position, desert terrain, low literacy rate, jihadist insurgencies, and the world's highest fertility rates due to birth control not being used and the resulting rapid population growth.[20]

Its society reflects a diversity drawn from the independent histories of some ethnic groups and regions and their period living in a single state. Historically, Niger has been on the fringes of some states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule. After the military coup in 2010, Niger became a multi-party state. A majority of the population lives in rural areas. 

 

Etymology

The name comes from the Niger River which flows through the west of the country. The origin of the river's name is uncertain. Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy wrote descriptions of the wadi Gir (in neighbouring modern Algeria) and the Ni-Gir ("Lower Gir") to the south, possibly referring to the Niger River.[21] The modern spelling Niger was first recorded by Berber scholar Leo Africanus in 1550,[22] possibly derived from the Tuareg phrase gher-n-gheren meaning "river of rivers".[23] There is broad consensus among linguists that it does not derive from the Latin niger ("black") as was first erroneously believed.[21] The standard pronunciation in English is /niːˈʒɛər/, while in some Anglophone media /ˈnaɪdʒər/ is also used.  

 
History 

Main article: History of Niger
Prehistory 

 

Rock engraving showing herds of giraffe, ibex, and other animals in the southern Sahara near Tiguidit, Niger

Stone tools, some dating as far back as 280,000 BC, have been found in Adrar Bous, Bilma and Djado in the northern Agadez Region.[24] Some of these finds have been linked with the Aterian and Mousterian tool cultures of the Middle Paleolithic period, which flourished in northern Africa circa 90,000 BC–20,000 BC.[25][24] It is thought that these humans lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.[24] In prehistoric times the climate of the Sahara was wetter and more fertile during the African humid period, a phenomenon archaeologists refer to as the "Green Sahara" ,which provided "favourable" conditions for hunting and later agriculture and livestock herding.[26][27]

The Exodus of Rohingya Community: From the Past to Present

Research Gate
Tarak Aziz
Texas Tech University

Tarak Aziz, Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies,
University of Dhaka and Dhaka University Research Society (DURS)

Burma–Bengal Crossings: Intercolonial Connections in Pre-Independence India

Devleena Ghosh
University of Technology, SydneyCorrespondence
Devleena.Ghosh@uts.edu.au
Pages 156-172 | Published online: 21 Mar 2016

Abstract

The large-scale movement of people between Burma and Bengal in the early twentieth century has been explored recently by authors such as Sugata Bose and Sunil Amrith who locate Burma within the wider migratory culture of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia. This article argues that the long and historical connections between Bengalis and Burmese were transformed by the British colonisation of the region. Through an analysis of selected literary texts in Bengali, some by well-known and others by obscure writers, this article shows that, for Indians, Burma constituted an elsewhere where the fantastic and superhuman were within reach, and caste and religious constraints could be circumvented and radical possibilities enabled by masquerade and disguise.

Introduction

Burma is a spectre that haunts the story of the east coast of India. Its geographical placement as one of India’s closest neighbours, sharing a thousand kilometres of common borders, is in contradiction to the elusive shadow that it intermittently casts on the emotional cartography of eastern India and, for the purposes of this paper, particularly Bengal. This lacuna in the shared and layered histories of the Eastern Indian Ocean has as much to do with shared colonial pasts as with the tendency of modern nation-states to treat relatively recent borders as sacred and inviolable, thereby denying all of the flows, movements, connections, fluidities and uncertainties that are the very stuff of human history and the imbrication of social, cultural and emotional worlds.

Myanmar: A New Muslim Insurgency in Rakhine State

Crisis Group
15 December 2016 

Recent attacks by an émigré-led force of trained Rohingya fighters mark a dangerous turn. To remove a main root of the violence – Rohingya despair – the government must reverse longstanding discrimination against the Muslim minority, moderate its military tactics, and reach out to Myanmar’s Muslim allies. 

Executive Summary

The deadly attacks on Border Guard Police (BGP) bases in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State on 9 October 2016 and the days following, and a serious escalation on 12 November when a senior army officer was killed, signify the emergence of a new Muslim insurgency there. The current violence is qualitatively different from anything in recent decades, seriously threatens the prospects of stability and development in the state and has serious implications for Myanmar as a whole. The government faces a huge challenge in calibrating and integrating its political, policy and security responses to ensure that violence does not escalate and intercommunal tensions are kept under control. It requires also taking due account of the grievances and fears of Rakhine Buddhists.

Failure to get this right would carry enormous risks. While the government has a clear duty to maintain security and take action against the attackers, it needs, if its response is to be effective, to make more judicious use of force and focus on a political and policy approach that addresses the sense of hopelessness and despair underlying the anger of many Muslims in Rakhine State. Complicating this is that Aung San Suu Kyi has some influence, but under the constitution no direct control over the military.

The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits.

Traditional Homeland of Rohingya in Myanmar

Nurul Islam (U.K.), Report,
Apr 7, 2019

The area between west bank of Kaladan River and east bank of Naf River, which demarcates Myanmar-Bangladesh border, in North Arakan is known as “Traditional Homeland of Rohingya”. It has been deeply implanted the minds of the Rohingya people despite changes in demography, due to pogrom in 1942 and continued systematic persecution against them particularly from 1962 military rule in Burma. Renowned historians such as, Burma Historical Commission’s compiler Prof. Dr. G.H. Luce and History Prof. Dr. Than Tun haveaffirmed this traditional homeland of Rohingya stating that in North Arakan there was“possibility of Rohingya and their kings in the Mayu valley since 800 years back”.[1]

A Bleak Future Awaits, But There’s Still Hope!

BORDER CRIMINOLOGIES
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Author(s) Arafat Reza,
Manzoor Hasan OBE
Posted :7 June 2023

Guest post by Manzoor Hasan OBE and Arafat Reza. Manzoor Hasan OBE is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University. He can be reached at manzoor.h@bracu.ac.bd. Arafat Reza is working as a Research Associate at the Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University. He can be reached at arafat.reza@bracu.ac.bd.

Credit: CPJ Volunteer.

We want to take you back to 2017. Ayesha Begum was twenty years old and the mother of a one-year-old boy at the time. She was having dinner with her sisters-in-law when Myanmar army forces stormed into their home and pushed the women into a room. For the next few hours, Ayesha and her sisters were raped in turns by twelve soldiers. Later when the opportunity arose, they walked for eight days and fled to neighbouring Bangladesh. Two of Ayesha’s sisters-in-law did not survive the tempestuous journey.

ဗမာ့တပ်မတော် ၁၉၃၇-၄၃

ဗမာ့တပ်မတော် ၁၉၃၇-၄၃

၁၉၃၇ ခုနှစ် ဧပြီလအထိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံကို အိန္ဒိယ၏ လက်အောက်ခံအဖြစ် အုပ်ချုပ်ခဲ့သည် ။ တိုင်းပြည်ခွဲထွက်ပြီးနောက် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့် အတိုင်းအတာတစ်ခုအထိ ရရှိခဲ့သော်လည်း ဘုရင်ခံရုံးမှတစ်ဆင့် ဗြိတိသျှတို့က ထိထိရောက်ရောက် ချုပ်ကိုင်ထားဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်အစိုးရသည် တိုင်းပြည်ကာကွယ်ရေးအတွက်၊ လက်နက်ကိုင်တပ်ဖွဲ့များကို ငွေကြေးထောက်ပံ့ရန်နှင့် ဗြိတိသျှစစ်ရုံးမှ စတိုးဆိုင်များနှင့် စက်ကိရိယာများ ၀ယ်ယူရန်အတွက် တာဝန်ရှိပါသည်။

ဒေသတွင်း ကာကွယ်ရေးအတွက် မြန်မာ၏ ဗျူဟာမြောက် အရေးပါမှုသည် ဗြိတိသျှ အကြီးတန်း တပ်မှူးများ ဆုံးရှုံးသွားခြင်း မရှိခဲ့ဘဲ ၁၉၃၇ ခုနှစ်မှ စတင်ကာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ လက်နက်ကိုင် တပ်ဖွဲ့များကို စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ်က အိန္ဒိယက ထိန်းချုပ်သင့်သည်ဟု စောဒကတက်ခဲ့သည်။ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ချာချီနှင့် စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ်များက ၁၉၄၁ ခုနှစ် ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၁၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် နောက်ဆုံးနာရီတွင်သာ ကွပ်ကဲမှု အပြောင်းအလဲကို ဆုံးဖြတ်ခဲ့သည်။

12th Frointer Force Regiment

12th Frointer Force

Regiment

This chapter is being re-produced with thanks from JOHN GAYLOR'S fine book 'SONS OF JOHN COMPANY'. JOHN GAYLOR, first came to India with the Royal West African Frontier Force and served in India and in Burma with the 82nd (West African) Division. He subsequently served with the London Scottish and the Special Air Service. He is the Secretary of The Military Historical Society and lives in retirement in Kent. This book is available from JOHN GAYLOR directly at £19.99 (UK) plus postage. He can be contacted at 30 Edgeborough Way, Bromley, Kent BRI 2UA Tel 44 (181) 3251391

Centre: 1923 MARDAN

1946 SIALKOT

10th Gloucesters in the Arakan, 1944

10th Gloucesters in the Arakan, 1944

by Major P.J.H. Pope, "D" Coy.

(Back Badge, 1948)

The Battalion spent Christmas 1943 in a tented camp on the edge of Kharakvasta Lake, near Poona, where we had been located since July. A good deal of training had been carried out during this period and consisted of exercises in which the Battalion marched considerable distances across country and up the highest and steepest hills in the district to plunge down the opposite side and into the nearest river or lake. But as yet no training in jungle warfare had been done. About this time an advance party went to the jungles of Mysore to prepare a camp and exercises for the Battalion, but the move was never made and we did no jungle training before proceeding to Burma.

Towards the end of January 1944, the Battalion (commanded by Lt-Col. H.C.R. Rose, DSO), was warned for operation "Porpoise." This was to be the units first operation against the Japanese. On 15th February the Battalion entrained at Kirkee Station and arrived at Calcutta on 20th February. We spent 2 days here and renewed many old acquaintances with the 28th who were, as usual, most hospitable to all ranks. We took ship to Chittagong and thence to Cox's Bazaar by river steamer where we arrived on 26th February.

Decolonizing History in ‘Myanmar’: Bringing Rohingya Back into Their own History

 Michael W. Charney

Abstract


This article makes two main arguments. First, it argues that due to the imperial roots of Area Studies the views of many contemporary states and many scholars on the Rohingya, Rakhine, and Myanmar have been shaped by colonial perspectives. Second, it argues that the Rohingya were erased historically from Rakhine by the British colonial state and this erasure has been reinforced by the country focus of US Area Studies during the Cold War and after. It concludes that societies in the global south may also have to decolonize how they construct and organize knowledge, and what their governments do with it in terms of policy, so they can escape the continual problems caused originally by the colonial administrative convenience.

 

‘မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ’၏သမိုင်းအပေါ် ကိုလိုနီစနစ်လွှမ်းမိုးမှုကို ပယ် ဖျက်ခြင်း – ရိုဟင်ဂျာလူမျိုးများအား ၎င်းတို့၏ကိုယ်ပိုင် သမိုင်းအတွင်း သို့ပြန်လည်ပို့ဆောင်ခြင်း

 Michael W. Charney

စာတမ်းအကျဉ်း

ဤဆောင်းပါးတွင် အဓိကသုတေသနတွေ့ရှိချက်နှစ်ခုကိုဖော်ပြထား ပါသည်။ ပထမအချက်မှာ ကိုလိုနီပြုခြင်း မှ မြစ်ဖြားခံလာခဲ့သော အရှေ့တောင်အာရှဒေသလေ့လာရေးနယ်ပယ်သည်ခေတ်ပြိုင်နိုင်ငံများနှင့် သုတေသီ များ၏ ရိုဟင်ဂျာ၊ ရခိုင်နှင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ လေ့လာမှုများချဉ်းကပ်ပုံကိုလွှမ်းမိုးထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ဒုတိယအ ချက် မှာ ရိုဟင်ဂျာများကို ဗြိတိသျှကိုလိုနီခေတ်က ရခိုင်သမိုင်းမှ သမိုင်း ကြောင်းအရ ဖျောက်ဖျက်ခံခဲ့ရပြီး ယင်း ဖျောက် ဖျက်ခံခဲ့ရမှုသည် စစ်အေးကာလအတွင်းနှင့် စစ်အေးတိုက်ပွဲအပြီးတွင် အမေရိကန်ပညာရပ်အဝန်း အ ဝိုင်း မှ ဦး ဆောင်သောအရှေ့တောင်အာရှဒေသလေ့လာရေး နယ်ပယ်၏အားဖြည့်ပေးမှုဖြင့် ဆက်လက်တည်ရှိ နေခဲ့ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ကမ္ဘာ့တောင်ဘက်ရှိ နိုင်ငံများသည် ကိုလိုနီ နည်းကျတည်ဆောက်ခဲ့သည့်အသိပညာ အ ဆောက်အအုံ ကို ကိုစနစ်တကျဖြို ဖျက်ရမည်ဖြစ်ပြီးယင်းနိုင်ငံများ၏အစိုးရများသည်လဲ ကိုလိုနီခေတ်အုပ်ချုပ် ရေးအဆင်ပြေစေရန်ဖန်တီးတည်ဆောက်ခဲ့သည့်မူဝါဒများကိုဖယ်ရှားနိုင်မှသာဤကဲ့သို့သောပြဿနာများမှလွတ် မြောက်နိုင်မည် ဖြစ် သည်။

Myanmar's resurgent nationalism shapes new political landscape

NIKKEI ASIA
Thant Myint-U
October 5, 2017 

The United Nations Security Council in recent weeks has placed new focus on Myanmar through discussions about violence in the country's western Rakhine state, allegations of "ethnic cleansing" and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring Bangladesh.

Missing though was the bigger picture in Myanmar, beyond Rakhine, which will not only shape future options for refugee return, but also regional stability, and any possibility of a better life for all the country's peoples.

Aside from Rakhine, there are at least another half million internally displaced persons, around 20 ethnic-based armed groups (the largest with more than 20,000 soldiers), hundreds of militias in the rest of the country and no real peace in sight. In addition, the economy is far from healthy, with the stability of the banking sector in question, investor confidence in decline, and prospects for millions of the poorest people in Asia in the balance. Meanwhile, Beijing is offering major infrastructure projects that would tie the country more closely with China's interior provinces and essentially make Myanmar China's bridge to the Indian Ocean.

History rewritten is not really history

The Daily Star
Tasneem Tayeb
Sun Apr 16, 2023 

While it is important to update textbooks with recent events, a deliberate attempt to rewrite history is highly irresponsible.

A helicopter view of the recent changes made in the history, political science, and sociology textbooks in India help identify how specific segments have been strategically deleted to curate a certain narrative. FILE PHOTO: AFP

"Gandhiji's death had an almost magical effect on the communal situation in the country. Partition-related anger and violence suddenly subsided… The government of India cracked down on organisations that were spreading communal hatred. Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were banned for some time."

In 2002, when the first NDA government was in power, led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, authorities had tried to portray Muslim rulers as invaders in textbooks, depicting the mediaeval period of Indian history as a dark phase.

Decolonizing History in ‘Myanmar’: Bringing Rohingya Back into Their own History

Written By-Michael W. Charney

Abstract

This article makes two main arguments. First, it argues that due to the imperial roots of Area Studies the views of many contemporary states and many scholars on the Rohingya, Rakhine, and Myanmar have been shaped by colonial perspectives. Second, it argues that the Rohingya were erased historically from Rakhine by the British colonial state and this erasure has been reinforced by the country focus of US Area Studies during the Cold War and after. It concludes that societies in the global south may also have to decolonize how they construct and organize knowledge, and what their governments do with it in terms of policy, so they can escape the continual problems caused originally by the colonial administrative convenience.

Introduction

This article begins with two suggestions. First, if everyone who reads this article agrees with its conclusions or does not disagree with them, it will have failed. This article mainly wishes to raise questions in the reader’s mind about things that will be difficult for anyone who has grown up and been educated in the contemporary world to accept right away or ever, at least completely. The systems of knowledge in which histories are produced are systems we all live in and so they are reinforced every day by concepts and images everywhere we go.

The Rohingya Crisis

COUNCIL on
FOREIGN
RELATIONS

WRITTEN BY
Eleanor Albert and Lindsay Maizland

Rohingya refugees help each other after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

Summary

• For decades, Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority group, in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country, have faced institutionalized discrimination, such as exclusionary citizenship laws.

• The Myanmar government launched a military campaign in 2017 that forced seven hundred thousand Rohingya to flee. Rights groups suspect the government has committed genocide against the Rohingya, but officials deny the accusations.

• The United States and other countries have sanctioned military officials and given aid to Rohingya refugees who have fled to nearby countries, such as Bangladesh.