Aaron Connelly on the Rohingya Crisis

In 2017, a military-led crackdown in response to an attack by Muslim militants on police posts drove the flight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar’s northwest Rakhine State to Bangladesh. The developments precipitated what has often been referred to as one of the world’s highest-profile and fastest growing humanitarian crises, the consequences of which continue to be felt in the region. To explore the current implications and future prospects of the ongoing Rohingya crisis, The Diplomat’s Prashanth Parameswaran recently spoke to Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

You’ve written and spoken extensively on the significant implications of the Rohingya crisis, not just for Myanmar or for Southeast Asia, but potentially for the wider Asia-Pacific and the international community. To start with, how would you frame the implications of the Rohingya crisis in this sense, both actual as well as potential? 

There are four broad implications. The first is humanitarian in nature; the ongoing humanitarian needs of nearly 1 million Rohingya in Bangladesh and around half a million in Rakhine State remain largely unmet. Humanitarian conditions continue to worsen in Rakhine State, from which Rohingya continue to flee, and plans of the government of Bangladesh threaten to make things much worse there as well.

Second, a decision must be made regarding where the displaced populations should go next, when, and under what circumstances. The default option is to leave Rohingya in the camps around Cox’s Bazar, but the Bangladeshi government refuses to consider this possibility, and since August has undertaken efforts to make life more difficult for the Rohingya in an attempt to make that option unpalatable.

Third, the international community must navigate a path to accountability for the alleged crimes against humanity that led to the exodus, despite opposition from three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

And finally, the longer these challenges fester, the greater the likelihood that poor treatment will lead to a more violent response from Rohingya populations.

On the humanitarian aspect of the Rohingya crisis, we are still looking at over a million displaced people and hundreds of thousands of others in need of some sort of assistance. There have been various options mulled, including aid, return, and repatriation, involving other countries including Bangladesh. What are the prospects for managing the humanitarian aspect of the crisis today, whether through these means or other ways?  

I would distinguish between humanitarian assistance and the issue of repatriation or moving the Rohingya to another location in Bangladesh. On the humanitarian side of things, the Joint Response Plan for refugees who have fled Rakhine State to Bangladesh requires funding of over $1 billion per year, but the international community has not been meeting that target, only hitting about 69 percent of it last year. The U.S. government has been providing around a third of that funding. If it were to pull back, things could get much worse.

The situation in Rakhine State remains dire. Around 500,000 Rohingya are confined to their villages, requiring permission to leave, even for emergency medical care. Often permission is not given or is subject to extortion. Those who leave their villages without permission sometimes end up dead. There is rarely an investigation. Another 120,000 are confined to internally displaced persons camps or ghettos around Sittwe, the state capital. Because they cannot earn a livelihood, most Rohingya in Rakhine State require food and other humanitarian assistance. Those in central Rakhine State and around Sittwe tend to do better than those up north.

Access to education for Rohingya in both Rakhine State and Bangladesh is extremely limited. It seems likely that today’s youth will come to adulthood as a lost generation. An average of 1,300 Rohingya continue to flee to Bangladesh each month, though Bangladesh border guards have sought to reduce these numbers over the past year.

In terms of repatriation of the Rohingya in Bangladesh, the UNSC has declared in a presidential statement that this must be done in a safe, voluntary, and dignified manner. It seems unlikely at present. Although the Myanmar government has said that it would welcome Rohingya back, every indication is that these declarations have been made in bad faith. The Aung San Suu Kyi government has promised that Rohingya will eventually be allowed to return to their places of origin, but given the continued restriction to IDP camps of 120,000 Rohingya in southern Rakhine State, there is little reason for confidence in these commitments. Moreover, the government has razed a number of Rohingya villages and built security installations where they once stood.

Instead, the government has built a system of repatriation camps where it says Rohingya will be housed temporarily, but where they would likely be indefinitely confined. In all likelihood, the Rohingya would be moving from camps in Bangladesh where at least the international community is able to safeguard their welfare to one degree or another, to camps in Rakhine State with no international oversight and little support structure. The Rohingya know this would not be a safe or dignified return, and it is one of the primary reasons they are unwilling to return voluntarily at present. The other is accountability.

There is also the matter of the conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Arakan Army, which has affected many Rohingya places of origin. As the Aung San Suu Kyi government has stepped up persecution of Rakhine nationalist leaders, support for the Arakan Army has soared. There are reports that both sides have committed atrocities, and Rohingya have at times been caught in the crossfire. The Aung San Suu Kyi government cut off internet access to many conflict areas earlier this year, and some remain off the grid, further complicating things. The return of the Rohingya cannot be safe until the level of violence has diminished and communications access is restored.

The government of Bangladesh has been deeply frustrated by these delays. While it initially welcomed the Rohingya, its generosity has since flagged. The refugees are in one of the poorest parts of Bangladesh, and have become a source of illegal labor. The sudden expansion of existing refugee camps and construction of new camps has damaged the environment, and there are concerns about communicable disease. Trafficking in persons and illicit goods has also ticked up, as criminal networks play upon the Rohingya’s desperation.

As a result, Dhaka is now contemplating the removal of 100,000 Rohingya to Bhasan Char, a silt island in the middle of the Meghna River delta. The island is inherently unstable, having only emerged from the tides around 20 years ago. While Bangladesh has poured tens of millions of dollars into a new camp on the island and a protective seawall, it remains vulnerable to typhoons and pirates who ply the nearby seas. It is hours from the mainland by boat, and humanitarian agencies fear they resupply would be difficult at the best of times and impossible in an emergency. Reports in mid-October suggest that Bangladeshi authorities have asked traditional leaders in the camps to submit names for removal to Bhasan Char in early November, so the crisis could come to a head soon.

While addressing the humanitarian aspect of the crisis is the most immediate concern, there has also been focus on accountability for the crisis as well, whether that comes internally with respect to the Myanmar government itself or externally on a regional or international basis. Where are we today on this, and what prospects do you see moving forward in the wake of upcoming developments, including Myanmar’s next election in 2020?

Myanmar has announced numerous investigations into the atrocities committed in 2016 and 2017, but only a handful of soldiers have ever been prosecuted – and those soldiers, who were convicted of executing men at a village called Inn Din, were only prosecuted after Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo began reporting on their crimes. The soldiers were released after less than a year in custody.

There are currently two inquiries ongoing in Myanmar, one commissioned by Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and one commissioned by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Given past practice and what is known about how the two inquiries have been conducted, it seems unlikely that either will deliver real accountability. The chair of the civilian inquiry, retired Philippine diplomat Rosario Manalo, has even said that it would not seek to assign blame for the violence.

International efforts to deliver accountability are progressing, but slowly. The reports of the UN Human Rights Council’s Factfinding Mission have provided considerable evidence of crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military and Rakhine vigilantes. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into the “deportation” of Rohingya to Bangladesh, which is a party to the Rome Statute. That investigation will be complemented by an Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, established by the UN Human Rights Council, which has a wider remit. There are also moves afoot to hold Myanmar accountable under the Genocide Convention, with the Gambia recently indicating that it would file suit at the International Court of Justice.

Many Rohingya in Bangladesh say that they will not return unless there is some form of accountability. But the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Aung San Suu Kyi government has refused to cooperate with any of the international investigations. It is worth noting here that while the investigations initially targeted the military figures directly responsible for the alleged crimes against humanity, the civilian government’s efforts to cover up these crimes and to prevent repatriation may result in charges filed against civilian figures as well.

How would you assess the response we have seen so far to the Rohingya issue among Southeast Asian states beyond Myanmar, be it individual countries with Muslim-majority populations such as Indonesia and Malaysia, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as a grouping?

Southeast Asian government have failed to address the Rohingya crisis in a constructive way. While Malaysian and Indonesian officials have repeatedly condemned the violence, only Malaysia has taken the crisis as seriously as the circumstances demand. For the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration and for the previous Najib Razak government in Malaysia, it seemed that domestic politics played a bigger role in their response than a genuine concern for the welfare of the Rohingya.

In any event, neither Wisma Putra nor Kemlu have been able to prevent a counterproductive response from ASEAN. Its chairman’s statements at the last two ASEAN summits have implied that Myanmar is willing to accept the repatriation of Rohingya when it is not, effectively giving diplomatic cover to Naypyidaw. The statements also lent legitimacy to the civilian government’s commission of inquiry, which as noted above is unlikely to deliver any form of accountability.

One particularly damaging episode has been the involvement of the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) Centre in offering advice on streamlining the repatriation process, without raising any objections to the conditions to which returnees would be subjected – even, in one case, downplaying those conditions. But the problem does not lie with the AHA Centre’s dedicated civil servants; it lies with the Southeast Asian political leaders who issued it a poorly designed assignment and for which it was not adequately prepared.

There continues to be attention on the security risks of the Rohingya crisis, be it the role of Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in Myanmar or the potential for wider radicalization that could affect the wider region and international community. How would you assess these risks today, and what are the prospects for this moving forward?  

For a long time, there was little support for ARSA among the Rohingya population. Those who joined the group’s few ill-fated attacks on Myanmar security forces were often pressed into service against their will and by the threat of violence. Traditional village leaders objected to its claims to leadership of the people, and prominent ulema wrote a fatwa condemning its violence (ARSA responded to these objections by abducting and assassinating some of the leaders).

But as hopelessness in the camps has grown, ARSA appears to have acquired greater support, particularly in far flung areas of the camps. Moreover, ARSA appears to have become more socially conservative over time. While its only declared religious goals have been the reconstruction of mosques destroyed by the violence in Myanmar, over the past year it has begun seeking to confine Rohingya women in the camps to their homes.

ARSA remains poorly armed and organized, and there are nascent, peaceful forms of political representation available to Rohingya in the camps. But two factors could increase ARSA’s popularity and effectiveness. First, Bangladeshi efforts to make life in the camps less comfortable for the refugees could push young people to take up arms as conditions become unbearable. Second, while there has been no documented connection between international jihadist groups and ARSA thus far, the chance that one will emerge as conditions in the camps decline cannot be discounted.

While there has been growing international attention to the issue over the past few years, there is always a risk with issues such as this of fatigue resulting in a lessening of a focus on it relative to other issues. What is your sense of where international attention to this is to date, and how do you assess the risk of this relative decline of attention in the headlines? 

This is a serious concern. International attention to the issue lasted for longer than many expected, but it seems clear that it has waned since the beginning of 2019. That is true even in Southeast Asia, where I sit. I fear that the press and governments have come to believe that the status quo is sustainable because nothing truly catastrophic has happened in the past two years.

It is not sustainable. Natural disasters such as typhoons and disease could devastate the camps. Hopelessness could push Rohingya to violence. By merely running in place, the international community is courting disaster.

This interview has been edited.