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Bangkok, Thailand – In early August, military officials assigned to Rakhine State by military generals in Myanmar called leaders of the Rohingya Muslim community in Buthidaung for a meeting on the banks of the Mayu River.
Officials came with a warning that the Rohingya should cut off all ties with the Arakan Army (AA), an armed rebel group fighting for the self-determination of the country’s ethnic minority minorities.
“Today we are all involved in the AA administration … because the AA is acting equally and legally for everyone,” a Rohingya municipal administrator in Buthidaung told Al Jazeera, adding that the Rohingya have so far refused the military’s request.
Concerns may be raised about the political crisis caused by the February 1 military coup Civil War, and as the ceasefire begins in the narrow northwestern state frustrated, the oppressed Rohingya minority in the country once again seems vulnerable.
In November last year, there were massive arrests of the Rohingya trying to leave Rakhine, new draconian restrictions on freedom of movement and fears of military officials about the dangers of collaborating with the rebel Army in Arakan.
“Our municipality is stable today, but we don’t know when the fighting will start, so we are always living together in fear,” said a 47-year-old Rohingya resident of Buthidaung municipality who asked to remain anonymous for fear of arrest.
It has long been illegal for Rohingya to travel outside the state, risking a two-year prison sentence for those who break the rules. But the situation is deteriorating they are trying more.
In late November, the Myanmar navy seized a ship near Sittwe on its way from Maungdaw to Malaysia, arresting more than 200 Rohingya on board, including 33 children.
Earlier this month, 55 Rohingya were arrested after moving to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
Military leaders appear to be facing harsher sentences, local media reported on December 15, when a court sentenced them to five years in prison for violating the Rohinyari law, which was arrested near Sittwe.
In 2017, the Myanmar Army launched a savage crackdown on Rohingya civilians, sending at least 700,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh, according to reports. murders, torture, rape and arson. Most of them are still there, trying to survive in the largest refugee camp in the world.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, then the de facto leader of the country, dismissed appeals to condemn violence by rights groups and the international community, even more so. defending Military against allegations of genocide in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
But when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government was overthrown in a February coup, there was growing concern that the Rohingya situation could worsen again.
‘We were really scared’
The AA, which mainly represents ethnic Buddhist Rakhine, wants greater political autonomy for the northwestern state.
Relations between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities have historically been close, often outbreaks of inter-ethnic violence.
Some Rakhine civilians were implicated in the 2017 crackdown on attacks on Rohingya peoples, and the AA referred to a Rohingya armed group as a “savage Bengali Muslim terrorist” using a common pejorative to indicate that Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The AA agreed to an uncomfortable ceasefire with the military in November 2020 after nearly 90,000 displaced people and hundreds of civilians were killed in a two-year savage civil war.
In March last year, the military withdrew its AA. ““terrorism”‘list, but the AA is now committed to building an administration that includes the Rohingya, and reports of recent riots have raised doubts about how long the truce will last.
Another administrator in Kyauktaw Township said armed military authorities had summoned administrators from six Rohingya villages in September.
He said officials did not explicitly threaten him or explain the consequences if they worked with the AA, but said it was a frightening experience to be armed.
“And then they said ‘don’t work to fix the problem with AA.’ We were really scared at the time because they had guns. We couldn’t tell them much.
As an administrator in Buthidaung, he said the AA is helping and treating the Rohingya correctly. But he also noted that the military was distracted by a nationwide uprising against their rule, allowing the AA to quietly consolidate territory and expand administrative control over Rakhine.
Although the urban areas remain largely under military control, most of the rural areas are under AA administration, and the armed group also has a partial influence in the state capital of Sittwe. Recent fighting has centered on Maungdaw, near the border.
“Currently the board members are afraid to come to the neighborhood of our town,” the administrator said because he was under the control of the AA.
AA spokesman Khaing Thu Kha said he was aware of the military’s attempts to intimidate him and accused the army of trying to control the population “through oppressive mechanisms”.
“Not only Muslims, but all people in Rakhine State are being threatened every day by the Myanmar army. As much as we can, we are trying to provide security, justice and harmony to all the people of Rakhine State, ”Al Jazeera said.
In the wake of the coup, Rakhine people have also stepped up their travel checkpoints and arrested or interrogated some for allegedly supporting military resistance groups.
“Lots of restrictions”
In the aftermath of the 2017 crackdown, about 600,000 Rohingya remained in Rakhine, more than 100,000 of whom were in so-called open-air prison camps. Human Rights Watch has described the camps as “harmful and abusive”, with “severe restrictions” on movement, education and health.
Amnesty International has described the treatment of Rohingya in Rakhine as equivalent to apartheid, and severe restrictions continued in Aung San Suu Kyi’s National Democracy League government.
Lately, however, they have become even more serious.
Although the Rohingya could normally travel with the permission of the village administrator, sometimes even a Rohingya, a 47-year-old resident of Buthidaung Township, confirmed to Al Jazeera that by the end of November, the Rohingya would need the permission of local military officers. travel to the neighboring town of Maungdaw.
The Rohingya travel is a threat to security and the rule of law, the military said.
But the administrator says the Rohingya are forced to pay 10,000 Myanmar kyat (about $ 5.65) to travel to Maungdaw, an extremely expensive amount of money for people living on the edge of poverty and a challenge for anyone with business interests outside the village. health conditions that need to travel to well-equipped hospitals.
“If we have to go to Sittwe because of our health problems, there will be a lot of restrictions and it will take a long time. First we have to go to the immigration office in Buthidaung and then we have to go to the immigration office in Maungdaw district. If the district office refuses, we can’t go, ”he said, adding that it may take a month for approval.
He says Rohingya are not yet threatened on the street, but they feel the situation is unstable and many are “afraid to travel” or to take to the streets for ordinary daily activities.
The human rights group Fortify Rights has also confirmed that the military is tightening its control over the Rohingya movement, and has condemned the measures taken by Myanmar to take measures to protect the Rohingya from genocide in violation of the ICJ’s interim injunctions.
Fortify Rights says that by preventing the Rohingya from gaining employment and health care, military generals “could deliberately cause the estimated living conditions to lead to the physical destruction of a group,” a form of genocide.
According to Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya activist living in the United States, the restrictions are a “grave violation of human rights.”
Aung Kyaw Moe serves as an adviser to the Ministry of Human Rights of the Government of the United Nations (UN) on the parallel administration established by the parliamentarians elected in the 2020 elections and removed from office by the military.
Although many senior members of the NUG come from the NLD, the group has pledged to carry out reforms that the NLD has previously rejected, saying it will recognize Rohingya citizenship and cooperate with international justice mechanisms.
Internally displaced Rohingya women and children gathered at the Thet Kay Pyin camp in Sittwe last year. The community faces stricter rules on the movement that some rights groups claim is genocide [File: AFP]But despite the official stance of the NUG and the AA, the situation in Rakhine remains complicated, and many still do not embrace the Rohingya.
Rakhine political analyst Kyaw Lynn says many ethnic Rakhine people are angry with the NUG’s commitment to Rohingya citizenship.
“It simply came to our notice then. Or they think it’s better to have international recognition than Rakhine recognition, ”he said.
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