Rohingya and the ‘Paper Tiger’ Insurgency

For Rohingya refugees who fled persecution and escalating violence in Myanmar, even the pretense of safety overseas may now be jeopardized by a new armed insurgency few would have wished into existence.

Harakah al-Yaqin, or the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) as it recently re-styled, was born of desperation. After decades of oppression by Myanmar security forces and seemingly no end to apartheid-like conditions, the group eschewed the Rohingyas’ long-standing aversion to violence and stormed three border guard posts last October. Nine police officers were killed.

By some accounts a foreign-funded, sophisticated militant outfit, and by others a crude mob of machete-wielding guerrillas, ARSA joins a long list of Myanmar minorities pushing for self-determination through armed struggle. Most do not give the group a favorable prognosis.

“It is a paper tiger that won’t achieve any of its stated aims, but only provide a justification… for more severe military operations,” said Elliot Brennan, an independent Myanmar analyst.

ARSA’s first campaign provoked a ferocious response from Myanmar’s security forces, with civilians bearing the full and thundering brunt of retaliation. Since October, nearly 100,000 Rohingya have been forced from their homes and have joined the diaspora only to find they are also unwanted elsewhere, especially with the moniker “Muslim militancy” now hanging around their necks.

“Picking up arms is like giving the [Myanmar] military a license to kill us,” said Muhammad Noor, the CEO of Rohingya Vision TV, and a Rohingya refugee in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We cannot achieve anything through violence; we are not going to win a war. And being Muslims, if we support an insurgency like other Myanmar ethnic groups, [governments] will look for links to outside terrorist groups,” he added.

About one million Rohingya – nearly half the population – live overseas, where they are reliant on governments reluctant to host them even at the best of times. In the past, labeling these refugees a “security concern” provided a convenient myth, one that could be used to justify nasty rhetoric, or excuse police shakedowns in the handful of nations where Rohingya have established enclaves – Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia. But the depth of the repercussions may be starting to shift as opportunists seek to link Rohingya with a violent, armed Muslim organization that emerged alongside the global narrative of rising Islamic terror. 

“This is a concerning change. With the existence of what is claimed to be a live insurgency, people are now able to point to it as if to substantiate [concerns of militancy],” said Ronan Lee, a Ph.D. candidate at Deakin University researching Rohingya identity. “Until the October 9 attacks, they could not have previously done so with any degree of credibility.”  

He added that despite the implications of the scapegoating tactic, the Rohingya aren’t widely embracing violence. Instead they are largely consumed with day-to-day survival.

But Rohingya refugees do not even need to show support for ARSA for the armed group to make their life more difficult, as was recently thrown into sharp relief in northern India. In restive Jammu and Kashmir along the border with Pakistan, the existence of a Rohingya insurgency has helped foment nationalist scaremongering, and has added fuel to fears that Rohingya refugees could be radicalized.

Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's own right-wing political Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the calls for deporting Rohingya have grown to a fever pitch over the past six months.

In January, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir was called to the state assembly to answer questions about the alleged Rohingya-militant link. “No Rohingya has been found involved in militancy-related incidents [in India],” she reportedly said.

Nevertheless, the Home Ministry responded by directing all states to register and monitor “illegal” refugees, prompting concern among human rights groups that India is preparing to forcibly return stateless Rohingya in violation of international law. 

Rohingya refugees began arriving in India in 2008, followed by larger swells in 2012, when sectarian riots racked western Myanmar and saw 120,000 people, mostly Rohingya, swept into camps where many remain today.

Roughly half of the 14,000 Rohingya refugees officially registered in India settled in Jammu, where they have found, if not the safe haven they were seeking, then at least economic opportunity, and a respite from the oppression they fled in Myanmar and the fetid camps they endured in Bangladesh.

Crowded into rows of dilapidated shanties built of little more than tarpaulin sheets, they eke out a living through daily wage work or running stalls.

“Rohingya are living there just for the their survival [as Jammu offers] the cheapest cost of living, and work is available,” said Mohamad Sabber, founder of the New Delhi-based Rohingya Human Rights Initiative.

They have nevertheless earned the ire of the BJP, which filed a court case to evict the Rohingya refugees from Jammu.

“They have settled along the routes of militant [infiltration] into India,” Sunil Sethi, a lawyer who filed the case, and the local spokesperson for the BJP, told Indian media, as if demonstrating a transgression.

To vindicate their claim, the politicians point to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank, which said the new Rohingya insurgency is “well connected in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and possibly India.”

However, the ICG also cautioned against "over-interpret[ing] the significance of the [insurgency’s] international links,” while ARSA has vehemently denied association with any terrorist organizations.

Nevertheless, politicians have continued to stoke the claim, alleging the insurgency collaborates with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terror group responsible for 2008 attacks on Mumbai, and with Jaish-e-Mohammed, which operates in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Rohingyas are being targeted to be trained as terrorists in this country,” MP B. Mahtab told India’s Parliament, adding that the government should not wait for the “dark clouds” to burst.

In February, billboards appeared warning Rohingya to “leave the Jammu region or face consequences.” In March, around 2,000 families were allegedly served an eviction notice. In April, a fire burned down a shantytown inhabited by Rohingya.

The relentless campaign appears to have started succeeding in its efforts to push out the Rohingya.

“Some Rohingya families have informed UNHCR they had to leave Jammu due to fear.  We are helping these families settle in different locations,” said Ipshita Sengupta at the UN refugee agency in Delhi. She declined to specify how many families had left.

Gladston Xavier, from the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, said the suggestion that Rohingya refugees in Jammu pose a security threat “stretches the imagination beyond reason,” but added that it’s not an uncommon political ploy.

“Any insurgency makes refugee communities more vulnerable,” he said.

Rohingya advocates say it is too early to tell if the Jammu situation will be replicated elsewhere, but Rohingya community leaders abroad say they are carefully monitoring the situation. Bangladesh has already started using the pretext of Rohingya harboring terrorists and participating in drug trafficking to try to push a quixotic plan to relocate refugees to deserted outcrop in the Bay of Bengal.

Yet ARSA, like sporadic Rohingya insurgencies that have preceded it since the 1940s, by and large lacks popular backing, and its embrace of violence has been condemned by many within the community it claims to have taken up the mantle to protect.

“There does not appear to be any measurable support for [ARSA] from Rohingya refugees and the diaspora,” said Wakar Uddin, director general of the Arakan Rohingya Union.

Analysts and Rohingya leaders say there is a widespread awareness that violence – and particularly connections to transnational Islamic terrorist organizations – will only be counterproductive.

“Insurgency, and particularly the Myanmar military's response to it, has heightened fears about the risk of radicalization of some in the Rohingya diaspora, which is a potential security threat to host countries in the region. But we have to be very careful to stress that the vast majority of this diaspora is not radicalized,” said Richard Horsey, ICG’s Myanmar adviser.

Transnational jihadi groups have long sought to use the Rohingya crisis as a rallying cry, issuing unanswered calls for retaliation that serve only to gnaw at government nerves.

In 2013, extremists in Indonesia announced their intention to mount “jihad” on behalf of the Rohingya. In 2014, more formidable leaders like Islamic State “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi urged "revenge" against Myanmar for abusing Muslims, while al-Qaeda announced it would "raise the flag of jihad" across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar.

“By now, [ARSA] would have connected [to international jihadis] if they wanted to,” said Muhammad Noor. “But it is obvious they are not well connected. They are not well funded. They are barely clothed and have no shoes. To call them guerrillas even is a stretch.”

ARSA’s embryonic insurgency may have exercised only a tepid debut, but its outsized fallout continues to erode the already precarious state of a vulnerable, stateless people who had little ground to lose in the first place.

More than 15 percent of the Rohingya population in Rakhine State – upward of 200,000 people – have fled the country over the past five years. Without a home to return to, reducing the number of nations willing to grant them safe harbor is a dangerous proposition.

“ARSA's small, ineffective insurgency is having a ripple effect not only on Rohingya in Rakhine State but also abroad,” said Brennan. “Now, with the potential links to the insurgent group, governments will be required to vet more deeply Rohingya refugees. Asylum is likely to become harder and the conditions less favorable for Rohingya refugees across the region.”

“If ARSA wants to better the position of the Rohingya they would best resign their cause.”