Intervention in the Rohingya issue: Is it the right move?

Demand for Indonesia’s intervention to stop sectarian conflict in Rakhine state, Myanmar, is looming large. Recently, Indonesian student associations (PPI) in countries like Portugal, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom wrote to House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Ali and other institutions, asking Indonesia to raise the Rohingya issue at the upcoming ASEAN meeting.

Presidential spokesperson Julian Aldrin Pasha said Indonesia would bring the issue to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) instead.

I am critical of this move and suggest that we need to be careful before taking such steps. Ethnic conflict is a very complicated issue, requiring us to understand the root of the problem in detail, and to design the right strategy.

The Rohingya are part of an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority both in Myanmar and the province of Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan. Unlike majority Theravada Buddhist Burmese and the majority of Rakhine, who speak either Burmese or Rakhine, the Muslim
Rohingya speak Bengali.

The Rohingya claim they are descendents of Moorish, Arab and Persian traders, and Moghul, Turk, Pathan and Bengali soldiers and migrants (Ahmed, 2009). M. E. Huq and Karim (1935) said “Islam began to spread to the eastern bank of the Meghna to Arakan since the 8th and 9th centuries AD, long before the establishment of the Muslim kingdom in the frontier region”.

Between the 15th and 19th centuries, Islamic influence grew wider across the Bengal-Arakan frontier region, an in particular, Northern Arakan.

After the 1962 military coup that brought Myanmar’s current regime to power, the Rohingya were systematically denied their civil, political, economic and social human rights, culminating in the Burmese Citizenship Act of 1982.

The Myanmarese regime’s policy of extermination, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Rohingya forced the current generation of Rohingya to flee from their homes and seek protection in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

In the late 1970s, the King Dragon Operation (or Naga-Min) drove about 250,000 Rohingya out of Myanmar and entered Bangladesh (Banglapedia, 2006).

Initially, the Bangladesh government welcomed the Rohingya and made efforts to accommodate them. Bangladesh appealed to the United Nations (UN) for assistance, and eventually announced that it could not continue to shelter the Rohingya indefinitely.

By the end of 1979, more than 180,000 Rohingya had been repatriated to Myanmar (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2006). But in 1991 and 1992, when the Pyi Thaya Operation led about 250,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, that flow was reversed as the government of Bangladesh had lost patience (Banglapedia, 2006).

The Rohingya also made their way to Indonesia. In January and February of this year, thousands of emaciated Rohingya on rickety boats reached shorelines in Sumatra and Thailand. Now there are about 394 Rohingya left in Indonesia, many of them kept in detention centers, and who need an immediate and urgent solution.

However, the root cause of the current conflict in Myanmar is different to the previous turmoil. The violence now underway amounts to a communal conflict, not state-sponsored conflict.

The current clash erupted in early June after reports circulated that on May 28 an Arakan Buddhist woman was raped and killed in the town of Ramri by three Muslim men.

Details of the crime were circulated locally in an provocative pamphlet, and on June 3 a large group of Arakan villagers in Toungop stopped a bus and brutally killed 10 Muslims on board.

In retaliation, on June 8, thousands of Rohingya rioted in Maungdaw town after Friday prayers, killing an unknown number of Arakan people and destroying their property. The conflict between Rohingya and Arakan then swept through Sittwe and into surrounding areas.

However, it is hard to corroborate the news because Arakan state is very much isolated. Many human rights activists, journalists and aid workers are struggling to reach the Rohingya. Indeed, there are no credible reports from UN bodies thus far.

Indonesia has planned to initiate diplomatic efforts by bringing this issue to the ASEAN inter-parliamentary assembly and the OIC. This move, however, is not without risks as it could harm diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Myanmar. Myanmar would also be suspicious about Indonesia’s intervention. For a long time, the Rohingya have asked for independence, and Indonesia could be accused of supporting the separatist movement.

The militancy of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF) is well known. When founded, the activities of both organizations were restricted to Arakan, but following a series of incidents, and the disappointment of not finding refuge in Bangladesh, they have expanded their operations beyond the Southeastern region of Bangladesh.

According to reports, members of al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiah, which was responsible for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia, are hiding in the Rohingya camps (Lintner, 2009). In recent years, these camps have, in effect, been run by Bangladesh’s most extreme Islamic outfit, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI), which was set up in 1992 with financial support from Osama bin Laden.

Rohingya militants collect funds with the help of local and international Islamic parties, and Bangladesh’s right wing party, Jamaat-i-Islam, which has been known to finance the Rohingya Solidarity Organization. Many trainers of the Rohingya are members of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat (Lintner, 2009).

For all these reasons, Myanmar Nobel laureate and democracy tycoon Aung San Suu Kyi is cautious, and refrains from supporting the Rohingya because it is not clear who should be blamed.

She has demanded that the rule of law be upheld. She wants unity among ethnic groups and warns that partiality will harm the reconciliation plan. Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein has so far had the right response, asking all parties to calm down.

In a press statement, the Myanmar government claimed to have avoided the use of violence in resolving this issue. It also expressed its dislike of efforts to internationalize the Rohingya conflict, and denied it was a religious issue.

Indonesia could offer assistance to Myanmar with bringing peace back, given its success in ending conflicts in Aceh, Maluku and Poso. Why don’t we share our experience in conflict resolution with our fellow man in Myanmar?
Do'a & do the best, keep on fighting for the better Indonesia..