Interethnic Conflict and Genocide in Myanmar

• Date: 01 February 2020
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Afroza Anwary
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767919827354
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767919827354

Homicide Studies

2020, Vol. 24(1) 85 –102

© 2019 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767919827354

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Article

Interethnic Conflict and

Genocide in Myanmar

Afroza Anwary1

Abstract

This article, based on event history and a narrative analysis of reports produced by

human rights groups, reveals that the genocide of Rohingyas of the Rakhine state of

Myanmar is the result of the Myanmar military government’s deliberate policies and

unpremeditated consequences that have led to the higher level of conflict among

groups in Myanmar. It examines the processes by which the Myanmar government

has constructed the collective identity of Rohingya as illegal immigrants. It focuses on

the role of the sustained historical and conflictual relationships among the Myanmar

government, Rohingyas, and the Rakhine Buddhists that contributed to the Rohingya

genocide.

Keywords

interethnic conflict, genocide, Rohingya, Rakhine, Myanmar

Rohingya from Rakhine State in Myanmar have been experiencing ethnic cleansing

(BBC, 2016). The United Nations Special Rapporteur to Myanmar reported that the

atrocities inflicted on Rohingyas could be considered crimes against humanity. This

article explains how the mass killing of Rohingyas is explained by Myanmar govern-

ment policies that superimpose the historical conflict among the ethnic groups of

Rakhine. In this article, I use the terms Rakhine in reference to Rakhine State, Rakhines

in reference to Rakhine’s ethnic Theravada Buddhists, and ETBNs in reference to

Rakhine’s ethnic Theravada Buddhist nationalists. The term Rohingyas is used to refer

to the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine.

Rakhine is located in the western part of Myanmar. The national poverty rate of

Myanmar is approximately 38%, whereas approximately 78% of Rakhines live in pov-

erty. There are approximately 1.33 million Rohingyas in Myanmar. Approximately

1Minnesota State University, Mankato, USA

Corresponding Author:

Afroza Anwary, Minnesota State University, Mankato, 113 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001, USA.

Email: afroza.anwary@mnsu.edu

827354HSXXXX10.1177/1088767919827354Homicide StudiesAnwary

research-article2019

86 Homicide Studies 24(1)

1.08 million live in the northern part of Rakhine (Fortify Rights, 2014), where they

account for nearly one third of Rakhine’s population. The southern part of Rakhine is

the home of the majority of Rakhines. There are approximately two million Rakhines.

Analytical Framework

According to researchers, the mass killing of civilians during war is a military strategy

to defeat a well-organized guerrilla army supported by powerful mass-based civilians.

Civilian support for guerrilla insurgents frustrates regimes because guerrillas are not

easily found. Therefore, the regime targets the guerrillas’ mass base of support

(Valentino, Huth, & Balch-Lindsay, 2004). A reflection on the mass killing of

Rohingyas in Myanmar would explain that the assumptions of “a well-organized guer-

rilla army” and “powerful mass-based civilian support for guerrilla insurgents” are

problematic. The Myanmar government accused the Arakan Rohingya Salvation

Army (ARSA), an insurgent group, of being responsible for violent attacks on border

security officers in 2017. Compared with ARSA, the Karen National Union (KNU) is

“the most significant of Burma’s ethnic and political insurgent groups,” and Karen has

the longest history of conflict with the central government (South, 2011). Although the

Myanmar government has repressed the KNU and many Karen civilians, unlike the

intent to destroy all Rohingya civilians, all Karen civilians were not targeted. In addi-

tion, ARSA does not have mass-based Rohingya support (International Crisis Group,

2016).

In his historical analysis, Kiernan emphasizes the role of ideology in the origin of

genocide. He explains how the English conquest of Ireland, North America, Australia,

and the United States and European colonial power committed genocides in many

parts of the world. Kiernan also analyzes genocides in Maoist China and during

Japanese imperialism. He identifies racism, territorial expansionism, fetishes for

agrarianism, and a desire to restore purity and an idealistic cult of antiquity. Kiernan

(2007) argues that obsessions and preoccupations of one or a combination of these

four ideologies, along with other ideologies, have led to genocide in the past. Kiernan

overemphasizes the role of ideologies and downplays the role of specific political and

regional forces in genocide. Kiernan’s “focus is on genocidal ideology, which Kiernan

explains as a nostalgic reaction to the changes wrought by early modernity” (Moses,

2008).

Hagan and Rymond-Richmond demonstrate how the Sudanese government used

racial ideology and mobilized local Arab Janjaweed militia that led to the genocide of

non-Arab Black Africans in Darfur. They argue that the racial ideology was socially

constructed and had an important role in transforming individual motivation into the

“collectively organized dehumanization” of Black Africans (Hagan & Rymond-

Richmond, 2009, p. 876). Black Africans were victimized not because they were

Black, but because the Sudanese government and the militia successfully constructed

them as racially inferior to local Arabs through the persistent use of racial epithets.

Hagan and Rymond-Richmond overemphasize racial language as the main factor of

genocide and ignore the political dynamics of the Darfur conflict (Shaw, 2009). In