Description:
"Myanmar is on a long and tedious road to democratic transition. As the country prepares for
General Elections in 2015, the struggle to maintain hegemony and legitimacy is becoming
even more intense for Thein Sein‘s Union Solidarity and Development party, given the
public support enjoyed by the newly revived opposition party National League for
Democracy led by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. This transition and struggle to
maintain status quo is coming at a high price for Myanmar, particularly for those belonging
to the ethnic minority groups. This paper is particularly concerned with the situation of one
such minority group — the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The Rohingya Muslims live in the Rakhine state bordering the Bay of Bengal in the west.
Despite an estimated 1-2 million Rohingya Muslims living in the region, they are not
recognized as ethnic minority group by the Myanmar government but are believed to be
Bangladeshi migrants who have settled in the state illegally. This perspective has given birth
to all the discriminatory policies and actions against them since beginning of the last century.
In June 2012, sectarian violence broke out between the majority Arakanese Buddhists and the
Rohingya Muslims, triggered by the rape of a 28-year old Buddhist woman by three Muslim
men. The violence in October was on a larger scale and much more lethal. The ensuing
violence since June has reportedly claimed hundreds of lives and caused thousands of
Rohingyas to flee their homes. As of July 2013, an estimated 140,000 Rohingya Muslims
have been displaced from their homes. An unaccounted number of people are dying almost
daily in the open sea as they attempt to flee to neighboring countries on rickety boats, and
many more are dying due to systematic blockade of aid, food, water or medicine supply in
the Rohingya IDP camps. Several factors clearly indicate that the ongoing violence is much
more than sectarian clash..."
Source/publisher:
European Peace University via Academia.edu (USA)
Date of Publication:
2013-10-16
Date of entry:
2020-02-09
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Countries:
Myanmar, Bangladesh
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
654.35 KB (23 pages)
Resource Type:
text
Text quality:
- Good