Els musulmans Rohingya a Myanmar

Malgrat la formació del 2016 d’un nou govern elegit democràticament a Myanmar (Birmania) encapçalat per la Lliga Nacional per a la Democràcia del premi Nobel de la Pau Aung San Suu Kyi, la situació seguia sent dura per a la minoria musulmana perseguida del país coneguda com la Rohingya. Com a indicació del seu compromís a trobar una solució als problemes, el govern l'agost de 2016 va nomenar l'ex secretari general de les Nacions Unides, Kofi Annan, per encapçalar una Comissió Consultiva per fer valoracions i fer recomanacions.

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Qui són els Rohingya?

El terme Rohingya s’utilitzava habitualment, sobretot en els mitjans internacionals, per referir-se a una comunitat de musulmans que es concentraven generalment a dos municipis del nord de l’estat Rakhine de Myanmar (Arakan), tot i que també es podien trobar residents en altres parts de l’estat i al país, així com als camps de refugiats de Bangla Desh. Es va estimar que els Rohingya constituïen aproximadament un terç de la població a l'estat de Rakhine, amb els budistes de Rakhine constituint una proporció significativa dels dos terços restants.

L’ús del terme Rohingya va ser molt contestat a Myanmar. Els líders polítics de Rohingya han mantingut que la seva és una comunitat ètnica, cultural i lingüística diferenciada que remunta la seva ascendència fins a finals del segle VII. No obstant això, la població budista més àmplia en general va rebutjar la terminologia Rohingya, referint-se a ells en lloc de bengalí, i va considerar que la comunitat estava composta en gran part d'immigrants il·legals de l'actual Bangladesh. Durant el cens del 2014, el primer que es va dur a terme en 30 anys, el govern de Myanmar va prendre una decisió d'onzena hores de no enumerar aquells que volien autoidentificar-se com a Rohingya i comptarien només els que van acceptar la classificació bengalí. La decisió va respondre a un boicot amenaçat del cens per part dels budistes de Rakhine.En el procés, el govern va renegar del seu anterior compromís de complir les normes internacionals de cens.

As with the rest of Myanmar’s postindependence borderlands that were historically multiethnic and politically fluid, Rakhine state had also suffered from decades of centre-periphery imbalances. On the one hand, Buddhist Rakhines had long felt oppressed by the Burmans, the country’s largest ethnic group, and on the other hand, they perceived the Muslim population to be a palpable threat to their cultural identity. Within the Myanmar context, race and ethnicity were rigid constructs that determined legal, political, and social relations. The debate surrounding the Rohingya terminology had, as such, paralyzed meaningful government recognition of the predicament of the Rohingya community.

Statelessness.

Almost all Rohingya in Myanmar were stateless. They were unable to obtain “citizenship by birth” in Myanmar because the 1982 Citizenship Law did not include the Rohingya on the list of 135 recognized national ethnic groups. The law had historically been arbitrarily applied in relation to those, such as the Rohingya, who did not fall strictly within the list of recognized ethnic nationalities. The legal status of a large majority of Rohingya was rendered even more precarious when Pres. Thein Sein unexpectedly announced in February 2015 the expiry of “white cards,” a form of temporary identity documentation held by many within the Rohingya community.

Intercommunal Violence and Displacement.

Two waves of intercommunal violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Rakhine state in June and October 2012 led to the displacement of approximately 140,000 people—the large majority of whom were Rohingya—to camps around the state capital (Sittwe) and surrounding townships. According to government figures, the conflicts resulted in 192 deaths, 265 injuries, and the destruction of 8,614 homes, with the impact disproportionately borne by Muslim communities. Human Rights Watch, as well as other nongovernmental organizations, claimed that the October 2012 violence was a coordinated campaign targeting the Rohingya.

Legislative Restrictions.

Following the 2012 violence, other developments, including a series of proposed legislative measures (some of which were passed by Myanmar’s parliament), resulted in further restrictions on the limited rights of the Rohingya. Although those developments had a nationwide application, they were understood to affect mostly the Rohingya community.

In September 2014 an amendment to the 2010 Political Parties Registration Law came into force; the legislation effectively disallowed the Rohingya to form and be members of political parties. Less than six months later, the Constitutional Tribunal delivered an opinion that prevented noncitizens from voting in any national referendum. The legal implication of the decision, formalized in June 2015 with amendments to the election laws, was that Rohingya, who were considered noncitizens, would not be allowed to vote in the 2015 general elections, even if they had cast their ballots during the 1960, 1990, and 2010 elections. The development also represented a final and absolute curtailment of the political rights of the Rohingya.

In November 2014 a package of draft laws popularly termed “laws on safeguarding race and religion” was submitted in the parliament for debate. The bills, which were initially proposed in 2013, were to an extent premised on anxieties over Myanmar’s being surrounded by highly populated countries, a factor that was believed to potentially affect the country’s demographics; on fears that Buddhist women were being coerced or tricked into marriages by and with non-Buddhist men; and on stereotypical views that Muslim families were polygamous and that consequently many children were being born. The bills were conceived as a necessary measure to protect Buddhist women and to address the perceived high population growth rate in Rakhine state.

Between May and July 2015, two of the four bills that permitted the state to regulate birth spacing and family planning, as well as to police the practice of religion within multireligious families, were passed by the parliament. The Population Control Healthcare Bill, which was aimed at Muslim women, could potentially be used to force women to space their births at least three years apart.