# data[].attributes.headline
Military crackdown in the state of Rakhine Myanmar

# data[].attributes.subject
Military crackdown in the state of Rakhine Myanmar

# data[].attributes.body
The focus of the outrage around the 2017 military crackdown against the people of Rohingya may give the false impression that the crisis has only recently begun (Ware & Laoutides, 2019). However, the government of Myanmar has a long history of exercising violence in the form of military operation against the people of Rohingya (Sohel, 2017). Some of the most prominent and devastating events include:

Operation Naga Min (1978): a campaign designed to brand the Rohingya people as illegal immigrants, thus giving legal basis to persecute them;

Military operation in 1992: the government ordered the arrests of muslim teachers and students and the destruction of mosques and muslim schools;

Military Crackdown (2017): buddhist citizens and the army of Myanmar forcefully drove the Rohingya minorities out of their home and burned down their habitat.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mass displacement of the Rohingya people

# data[].attributes.subject
Mass displacement of the Rohingya people

# data[].attributes.body
Over one million Rohingya muslim are believed to have been driven out of Myanmar since the 1970s (Sohel, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
The term "Rohingya" describes an ethnic group of people practicing Islam who share their ancestries with Bengali people and reside the Northern region of the Rakhine state in Myanmar, along the borders of Bangladesh (Sohel, 2017).

The Rohingya minority are said to be descendants from Arab people who originally migrated to the Rakhine state (formerly known as Arakan) during the eighth and ninth centuries as well as the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

They are further joined by migrants from Bengal and India following the annexation by the British Empire in the twentieth century, making up the Rohingya minority as we know today (Sohel, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
Maclean (2019) described the effort of Myanmar's government to eliminate the people of Rohingya through "Lawfare and Spacio-cide", which refers to the practice of shaping the legal framework and policies to deny the people of Rohingya their identity, paving the way for their exclusion from society and further facilitating the abuse of their human rights.

This form of oppression is also defined as "structural violence", where a group of people is intentionally alienated, categorized as different and less than. The author refers to the concept of Lawfare as the act of manipulating the legal framework and judicial system to deny the people of Rohingya of their citizenship, thereby robbing them of their legitimate claim of belonging in Myanmar.

Maclean credits Sari Hanafi as the mastermind behind the term "Spacio-cide" and defines it as a practice of "Erasing home" where the Rohingya people are driven from their homes through coordinated activities carried out by the government and other actors with the aim to strip the people of their livelihood and render their movement more difficult.

# data[].attributes.body
The Rohingya crisis refers to the series of abuse targeted to the people of Rohingya, an ethnic group in the State of Rakhine, Myanmar. This crisis has been escalating since 2017, resulting in the displacement of over 1 million Rohingya and the persecution of 2.8 million more insde of Myanmar. The level of violence has been subject to condemnation from the United Nations, who specifically described it as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". (United Nations, 2017)

# data[].attributes.body
In the context of the Rohingya crisis, the "Government of Myanmar" refers to the successive bodies governing Myanmar since its independence in 1948 who have used its political power to prosecute the people of Rohingya. This includes the military juntas who have taken the state by force as well as political parties who have been elected by way of democracy.

It is important to note that the Rohingya minority is not legally represented in the Myanmar government despite their habitat being part of Myanmar.

# data[].attributes.body
Myanmar's dominant religion is Buddhism. Sohel (2017) explained that the identity of the country is very deeply linked to buddhism. This contributes to a degree of hostility towards other religious, including Islam, which represent only 4% in Myanmar. As such the Islam practicing Rohingya community are widely seen as outsider who migrated from Bengali and not an indeginous people of Myanmar;

Following the independance of Myanmar in 1948, the established government further cemented its buddhist identity and intensified the oppression of the islamic minority of Rohingya by denying them of citizenship. This lack of recognition meant that the Rohingya are stateless and not enttitled to the same rights as the indigenous people (Sohel, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
The following section explores the multi-dimensional violence suffered by the Rohingya community by using the theories of Direct violence, cultural violence and structural violence as advanced by Galtung (1969, 1990) and Kent (2010) and juxtaposing them with the situation in Myanmar.

The direct violence at the hands of Myanmar's military is well-documented by the international community (Ware & Laoutides, 2019), however, the less apperent cultural and structural violence must be investigated to build a comprehensive overview of how the crisis has impacted not only the People of Rohingya and increase our understanding of how each form of violence are intricately linked and contribute to the spiral of suffering.

# data[].attributes.body
Islam and Wara (2022) discussed the potential of the mass displacement of the Rohingya people into Bangladesh escalating into a conflict with the host country. By referring to the theory of "exporting conflict", the authors argued that the sheer numbers of refugees escaping the war and arriving in Bangladesh put an increased pressure of the government of Banglsdesh to provide them with temporary habitats, catering to their needs during their stay and negotiating their eventual return to Myanmar.

Islam and Wara point to the increased strain of the Rohingya refugees on the local environment and social safety, specefically mentioning the deforestation and degradation of the land in and around Cox's Bazar refugee camps and the competition between the refugees and local peoplf for the already limited resources in Bangladesh, leading to tension between the two people.

The authors also hint at the wider ramification of the Rohingya's displacement in Southest Asia, particular countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesis where Muslim communities are prevalent.

# data[].attributes.headline
Compounded misery for the Rohingya people

# data[].attributes.subject
Compounded misery for the Rohingya people

# data[].attributes.body
Systemic oppression feeds radicalization and retaliation against a more powerful adversary, leading to even more violence and oppression.

Staub (1996) spoke of the relations between oppression and violence in groups of people who are victims of cultural, racial or sexual abuse. He stated that victims of persecution see their ability to live a good life diminished, develop a negative view on humanity and thus are more likely to engage in violence themselves. In addition, Staub argued that repeated violence may cause the victims to view the peosectuors as the ennemy and a threat to threat to their existence and wellbeing.

In the case of the Rohingya crisis, the prolonged marginalization led to the retaliation by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in 2016 who started to orchestrate attacks against the Myanmar regime in the name of liberation (Ware & Laoutides, 2019).

These attacks, however, would lead to even more misery for the Rohingya as the Myanmar regime would use them as an excuse to ramp up their military operations in the Rakhine state. This effectively create a cycle of perpetuating violence which plunges the Rohingya community into greater depths of misery.

# data[].attributes.body
Accountability: the government of Myanmar must admit to the unlawful persecution of the Rohingya and iterate its commitment to make the necessary reparations (Gorlick, 2019);

Recognition of the Rohingya: the recognition of the Rohingya community as a people of Myanmar is key in ensuring that they get the same protection and right from the government and will prevent any illegal abuse of power against them (Hamilton & Sharma, 1997);

Peaceful coexistence with other religious communities of Myanmar: promote non-violent exchanges between Rohingya and other communities of Myanmar, allowing all sides to openly share about their trauma and heal together (Staub, 1996)

# data[].attributes.body
Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural violence. Journal of peace research, 27(3), 291-305. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-3433%28199008%2927%3A3%3C291%3ACV%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6

Galtung, J. (2001). After violence, reconstruction, reconciliation, and resolution. Reconciliation, justice and coexistence: Theory and practice, 3-23.

Gorlick, B. (2019). The Rohingya refugee crisis: Rethinking solutions and accountability. Refugee Studies Centre, Working Paper Series, (131). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3506638

Hamilton, T., & Sharma, S. (1997). The violence and oppression of power relations. Peace Review, 9(4), 555–561. https://doi.org/10.1080/10402659708426108

Islam, M. D., & Wara, U. (2022). Conflict potential of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh and beyond. Journal of ASEAN Studies, 10(1), 107-127. https://doi.org/10.21512/jas.v10i1.8215

Kent, G. (2010). Structural violence. Experiments with peace: Celebrating peace on Johan Galtung’s 80th birthday, 131-140.

MacLean, K. (2019). The Rohingya crisis and the practices of erasure. Journal of Genocide Research, 21(1), 83-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2018.1506628

Sohel, M. S. (2017). The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar: Origin and emergence. Saudi J. Humanities Soc. Sci, 2. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3307082

Staub, E. (1996) Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Helping Victims of Genocidal Violence Heal, Journal of Loss & Trauma, 1:2, 191-197, https://doi.org/10.1080/15325029608412840

Ware, A., & Laoutides, C. (2019). Myanmar’s ‘Rohingya’conflict: Misconceptions and complexity. Asian Affairs, 50(1), 60-79. https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2019.1567102

United Nations. (September 17, 2017). UN human rights chief points to ‘textbook example of ethnic cleansing’ in Myanmar. https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/09/564622-un-human-rights-chief-points-textbook-example-ethnic-cleansing-myanmar