Abstract
This chapter analyses how the progressive erasure of citizenship of Rohingya shaped the gradual undoing of their livelihood in all of its aspects, with the result of legalization of the exodus of almost the entire population. I utilize lawfare and statelessness as related concepts in order to analyse the systemic nature of the factors fueling the Rohingya catasthropy. In the first two sections, I situate the Rohingya crisis within the broader politico-military context of post-colonial statehood in terms of redefining minority identity and international law debates on statelessness. I examine whether the legalized practices of violence and state-induced oppression exhibits a systemic character. In the last two sections, I trace how successive laws and policies then transformed the Rohingya into a de facto stateless population in the region. To this end, I critically evaluate the political and legal strategies, otherwise referred to as “lawfare”, that led to the mass dispossession of the Rohingya first internally and then across the border with reference to the larger context of international law prescriptions on statelessness.
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Change history
30 June 2020
In the original version of the book, revised texts in many places are incorporated as post-publication corrections in the “Chapter 11”. The chapter and the book corrections now has been updated with changes.
Notes
- 1.
For the overall figures of displacement, see UNHCR’s Rohingya Emergency Site at https://www.unhcr.org/rohingya-emergency.html. Accessed April 23, 2019.
- 2.
See Internal Displacement Monitoring Center data at http://www.internal-displacement.org/expert-opinion/how-many-internally-displaced-rohingya-are-trapped-inside-myanmar. Accessed April 23, 2019. Also note that IDMC states there is a considerable lack of credible data on displacement flows in this crisis, including very limited humanitarian access to verify any information coming out of Rakhine state.
- 3.
- 4.
The Citizenship Law 1982, the full text to be reached at http://eudo-citizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/1982%20Myanmar%20Citizenship%20Law%20%5BENGLISH%5D.pdf. Accessed on May 19, 2019.
- 5.
Provisions of the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, to be reached at https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/mm/mm009en.pdf. Accessed May 19, 2019. Also see Ghai (2008).
- 6.
Worthy of note is that the State Religion Promotion Act of August 1961, personally championed by Nu, was repealed by General Ne Win following his 1962 coup d’état. And yet, since 2011, the country has seen a significant rise in Burman-Buddhist nationalism. Monk-led groups such as “969” and the Organization for Protection of Race and Religion (“MaBaTha”) enjoy strong popular support, with Muslims being identified as particular targets. In tandem, there has been repeated calls for laws to promote and protect Buddhism. See Horsey (2015).
- 7.
This gap was tackled profoundly by the recently published monograph entitled Understanding Statelessness edited by Tendayi Bloom, Katherine Tonkiss and Philip Cole.
- 8.
For a sentimental account of the UNHCR’s role, see Belton (2016).
- 9.
Milner and Wojnarowicz (2017).
The central question guiding the authors’ inquiry is apt for the Rohingya context as well: “Can a more disaggregated understanding of power, sensitive to form and context of expression, open new areas of enquiry into the functioning of the regime and help explain its ability and inability to fulfil its core mandate of protection and solutions for refugees?” (p. 8).
- 10.
For an overall summary of such efforts, see https://harvardhrj.com/2019/02/atrocities-documented-accountability-needed-finding-justice-for-the-rohingya-through-the-icc-and-independent-mechanism-by-paul-r-williams-jessica-levy/. Accessed May 19, 2019.
- 11.
For a full text of these submissions, see http://www.globalrightscompliance.com/en/news/grc-files-submissions-on-behalf-of-400-rohingya-victims-at-the-icc. Accessed May 19, 2019.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
See Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, HRC Res 39/64 of 2018, UN, 39th Sess, Agenda Item 4, UN Doc A/HRC/39/64 (August 24, 2018) (hereinafter “FFM Report”) at https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/hrc/myanmarFFM/Pages/ReportoftheMyanmarFFM.aspx. Accessed May 19, 2019.
- 15.
In her canonized discussion of the plight of stateless people, Hannah Arendt invokes the “right to have rights” as the one true human right. In doing so she establishes what Jacques Ranciere called “aporia”. The question that remains with us post-Arendt is the following: if statelessness corresponds not only to rightlessness but also to a life deprived of public visibility and political presence, how could those excluded from politics possibly claim the right to have rights? Rancière’s response to Arendt’s aporetic account of human rights situates this question in relation to Arendt’s conception of the political. According to Rancière, Arendt depoliticizes human rights in identifying the human with mere life (zoë) and the citizen with the good life (bios politikos). For him, politics is about contesting how that very distinction is drawn. For Rancière, “the human” in human rights does not refer to a life deprived of politics. In contrast to Arendt, Rancière’s approach thus enables us to recognize contests over rights as part and parcel of social-legal struggles that are the core of political life. For further debate, see Rancière and Panagia (2000) and Schaap (2011).
- 16.
Timeline: Being Rohingya in Myanmar, from 1784 to Now. The Wire, September 23, 2017, https://thewire.in/external-affairs/rohingya-myanmar-timeline. Accessed 19 May 2019. Also see MacLean (2018) for a very detailed analysis of political representation of the Rohingya.
- 17.
Department of Population Ministry of Labour, Immigration, and Population, The 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census: Census Report Volume 2-C (Naypyidaw: Ministry of Labour, Immigration, and Population, 2016), 12–5, reached at https://www.google.com/search?q=Department+of+Population+Ministry+of+Labour%2C+Immigration%2C+and+Population%2C+The+2014+Myanmar+Population+and+Housing+Census%3A+Census+Report+Volume+2-C&oq=Department+of+Population+Ministry+of+Labour%2C+Immigration%2C+and+Population%2C+The+2014+Myanmar+Population+and+Housing+Census%3A+Census+Report+Volume+2-C&aqs=chrome..69i57.335j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. Accessed 19 May 2019. Also see MacLean (2018).
- 18.
Warner (2002). Warner’s concept of counter publics illuminates the dynamic relationship between the realm of ideas, the social imaginary and the bodily habitus within which politics happens. Viewing statelessness from the lens of counter public highlights the significance of its changing temporalities, multiple social locations and the hybrid, fluid, nonlinear nature of post-colonial politics of belonging.
- 19.
See the Reliefweb report ISCG Situation Report: Rohingya Refugee Crisis, Cox’s Bazar https://reliefweb.int/report/bangladesh/iscg-situation-report-rohingya-refugee-crisis-cox-s-bazar-15-November-2018. Accessed May 19, 2019.
- 20.
The majority of Asian states have not signed onto the major international refugee law instruments which promote refugee recognition and protection. Yet, second to Africa, the Asian region has had the highest number of refugees since the Second World War. The most commonly offered explanations in this regard are “economic costs” and “social disruption” arguments. An alternative explanation is of course how limited Asian involvement was in the drafting of international refugee law, which has led Asian states to reject refugee recognition practices and judicialization of the process as heavily Eurocentric. See Davis (2006) and Iskandar (2018). Iskandar’s work takes this alternative argument even further. Accordingly, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as the only institutionalized transnational body in the region, not only embodies a political statement against the Western liberal order, but also keeps the spirit of the decolonization era alive by summoning Bandung’s post-colonial ideals declaring the state is the only and ultimate agent in international affairs.
- 21.
Scheel and Squire (2014). As Scheel and Squire argue, based on the severe limitations imposed upon their agency and choice, asylum seekers who are deemed as “deserving” refugee status are accorded at least a degree of legitimate existence.
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Canefe, N. (2020). New Faces of Statelessness: The Rohingya Exodus and Remapping of Rights. In: Chowdhory, N., Mohanty, B. (eds) Citizenship, Nationalism and Refugeehood of Rohingyas in Southern Asia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2168-3_11
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