"The furious debate over when the ethnic group first arrived in Rakhine state will not easily be resolved ...he recent visit of Pope Francis to Myanmar provoked a storm of controversy over his decision to avoid using the term ?Rohingya”, with some accusing the pontiff of unwittingly emboldening ultra-nationalist forces who refuse to accept the term. Others defended the pope?s blatant omission of the word as sound diplomacy at a delicate juncture. The highest authority of the Catholic Church eventually used the word ?Rohingya” during his visit to Bangladesh, where over 600,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar military-led ?clearance operations” the United Nations has said represent a textbook example of ?ethnic cleansing.” The dailyReport Must-reads from across Asia - directly to your inbox The controversy over the Pope?s use of the term in Bangladesh but not in Myanmar speaks volumes about the gap between how the spiraling humanitarian crisis emanating from western Rakhine state is being viewed inside and outside of Myanmar. And the debate over the use of the word ?Rohingya” will intensify in the weeks ahead as the two sides begin a repatriation program that will again put the term in a spotlight. Myanmar?s citizenship criterion is based on the taingyintha, or ?national races”, concept. It is defined somewhat arbitrarily as those ethnic groups that were settled in Myanmar in 1823, a year before the first Anglo-Burmese war in which the British conquered Arakan (as Rakhine was officially known until 1989) and other regions of the country. The Citizenship Law passed in 1982 made belonging to one of the national races the primary, though not only, criterion for full citizenship. Nine years later, the government issued a list of 135 official national races, and the Rohingya were notably not on it. Arguably, Myanmar?s military-led state erased them from its national history..."