Massacre in Myanmar. The US continues its bloody games. What's really going on in Myanmar How many Muslims are there in Burma
Myanmar is once again in the spotlight of the world press: on July 1, a Buddhist mob burned down a mosque in the village of Hpakant, Kachin State. The attackers were infuriated by the fact that a Muslim prayer building was built too close to a Buddhist temple. A week earlier, a similar incident occurred in the province of Pegu (Bago). There, too, a mosque was destroyed, and a local Muslim resident was also beaten.
- Reuters
Such incidents are not uncommon in modern Myanmar. This Southeast Asian state borders China, Laos, Thailand, India and Bangladesh. From Bangladesh, a population of 170 million, Muslims are illegally migrating to predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, with a population of 55 million. Those who call themselves Rohingya made this journey many years ago. They settled in Rakhine State (Arakan), a historical land for the Myanmar people, the cradle of the Burmese nation. They settled, but did not assimilate.
Migrants with roots
“Traditional Muslims of Myanmar, such as Malabari Hindus, Bengalis, Chinese Muslims, Burmese Muslims, live throughout Myanmar,” explains orientalist Pyotr Kozma, who lives in Myanmar and runs a popular blog about the country, in a conversation with RT. “Buddhists have had experience of coexistence with this traditional Muslim ummah for many decades, therefore, despite the excesses, it rarely came to large-scale conflicts.”
With the Bengalis, the Rohingya are a completely different story. It is officially believed that they entered Myanmar illegally several generations ago. “After the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, came to power, the official wording was adjusted. They stopped saying “Bengalis” and started saying “Muslims living in the Arakan region,” Ksenia Efremova, an associate professor at MGIMO and a specialist on Myanmar, tells RT. “But the problem is that these Muslims themselves consider themselves the people of Myanmar and claim citizenship, which is not granted to them.”
- Reuters
According to Peter Kozma, for many years the Myanmar government did not know what to do with the Rohingya. They were not recognized as citizens, but it is incorrect to say that they did this because of religious or ethnic prejudices. “There are many Rohingya who fled Bangladesh, including due to problems with the law,” says Pyotr Kozma. “So imagine enclaves where radicals and criminals who escaped from a neighboring state rule the roost.”
The expert notes that the Rohingya traditionally have a high birth rate - each family has 5-10 children. This led to the fact that in one generation the number of immigrants increased several times. “Then one day this lid was blown off. And here it doesn’t even matter who started it first,” concludes the orientalist.
Escalation of the conflict
The process got out of control in 2012. Then in June and October, armed clashes in Rakhine between Buddhists and Muslims killed more than a hundred people. According to the UN, approximately 5,300 homes and places of worship were destroyed.
A state of emergency was declared in the state, but the cancer of conflict had already spread across Myanmar. By the spring of 2013, pogroms moved from the western part of the country to the center. At the end of March, riots began in the town of Meithila. On June 23, 2016, the conflict broke out in Pegu province, and on July 1 in Hpakant. It seemed that what Myanmar's traditional ummah feared most had happened: Rohingya grievances were being extrapolated to Muslims in general.
- Reuters
Inter-communal controversy
Muslims are one of the parties to the conflict, but it is incorrect to consider the unrest in Myanmar as interreligious, says Dmitry Mosyakov, head of the department of regional studies at Moscow State University: “There is a significant increase in the number of refugees from Bangladesh who cross the sea and settle in the historical region of Arakan. The appearance of these people does not please the local population. And it doesn’t matter whether they are Muslims or representatives of another religion.” According to Mosyakov, Myanmar is a complex conglomerate of nationalities, but they are all united by a common Burmese history and statehood. The Rohingya fall out of this system of communities, and this is precisely the core of the conflict, as a result of which both Muslims and Buddhists are killed.
Black and white
“And at this time, the world media talks about the exclusively affected Muslims and says nothing about Buddhists,” adds Pyotr Kozma. “Such one-sidedness in covering the conflict has given Myanmar Buddhists a feeling of being under siege, and this is a direct path to radicalism.”
- Reuters
According to the blogger, the coverage of the unrest in Myanmar in the world's leading media can hardly be called objective; it is obvious that the publications are aimed at a large Islamic audience. “In Rakhine State, not much more Muslims were killed than Buddhists, and the sides are approximately equal in the number of destroyed and burned houses. That is, there was no massacre of “peaceful and defenseless Muslims,” there was a conflict in which both sides distinguished themselves almost equally. But, unfortunately, Buddhists do not have their own Al Jazeera and similar worldwide rating TV stations to report this,” says Peter Kozma.
Experts say that the Myanmar authorities are interested in smoothing out the conflict or at least maintaining the status quo. They are ready to make concessions - recently peace agreements have been reached with other national minorities. But this will not work in the case of the Rohingyas. “These people board junks and sail along the Bay of Bengal to the Burmese shores. A new wave of refugees provokes new pogroms of the local population. The situation can be compared to the migration crisis in Europe - no one really knows what to do with the flow of these foreigners,” concludes Dmitry Mosyakov, head of the department of regional studies at Moscow State University.
In the state of Arakan in Myanmar, over the past three days, about two to three thousand Muslims have been killed as a result of a military attack, and more than 100 thousand Muslims have been evicted from their homes.
How it conveys website, Anita Shug, spokeswoman for the European Rohingya Muslim Council (ERC), told Anadolu Agency.
According to her, in recent days the military has committed more crimes against Muslims in Arakan than in 2012 and October last year. “The situation has never been so dire. A systematic genocide is practically being committed in Arakan. Only in the village of Saugpara in the suburbs of Rathedaunga there was bloodshed the day before, as a result of which up to one thousand Muslims died. Only one boy survived,” Shug said.
Local activists and sources say the Myanmar army is behind the bloodshed in Arakan, an ERC spokeswoman said. According to her, at the moment, about two thousand Rohingya Muslims, evicted from their homes in Arakan, are on the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, since the official Dhaka decided to close the border.
The spokeswoman also reported that the villages of Anaukpyin and Nyaungpyingi are surrounded by Buddhists.
“Local residents sent a message to the Myanmar authorities, in which they noted that they are not guilty of the events taking place, and asked to lift the blockade and evacuate them from the indicated villages. But there was no answer. There are no exact data, but I can say that there are hundreds of people in the villages, and all of them are in great danger,” Shug added.
Earlier, Arakan activist Dr. Muhammad Eyup Khan said that Arakanese activists living in Turkey called on the UN to facilitate an immediate end to the bloodshed against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan state by the Myanmar military and Buddhist clerics.
“There is an unbearable atmosphere of persecution in Arakan: people are killed, raped, burned alive, and this happens almost daily. But the Myanmar government does not allow journalists from other countries, representatives of humanitarian organizations and UN staff into the state, but also the local press,” said Eyup Khan.
According to him, in 2016, several young Muslims, unable to withstand pressure from the authorities, attacked three checkpoints with clubs and swords, after which the Myanmar government, taking advantage of the opportunity, closed all checkpoints, and security forces began attacking towns and villages in the state Arakan, killing local residents, including children.
The activist recalled that on July 25, the UN established a special commission of three people, which was supposed to identify facts of persecution in Arakan, but official Myanmar said that it would not allow UN staff into the state.
“Taking advantage of the inaction of the international community, on August 24, government forces besieged another 25 villages. And when local residents tried to resist, bloodshed began. According to the data we received, about 500 Muslims have died in the last three days alone,” said Eyup Khan.
According to UN norms, sanctions should be imposed on countries where genocide has been committed, but the international community does not accept the fact that genocide is being committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the activist said. “The UN prefers to call what is happening here not genocide, but ethnic cleansing,” Eyup Khan emphasized.
According to him, about 140 thousand people in Arakan were expelled from their places of permanent residence. Houses of Muslims are being burnt down in the state and they are being housed in camps.
According to the activist, Islamophobic sentiments that have reigned in Myanmar since the early 1940s are part of a special plan under which the Myanmar government and Buddhists are trying to cleanse Arakan state of Muslims using the most brutal methods.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said Ankara strongly condemns the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar, which “in many ways resembles acts of genocide.”
“Türkiye is concerned about the increase in violence and the killing and injury of Myanmar people. The UN and the international community must not remain indifferent to these events, which in many ways resemble genocide,” Bozdag said.
There is a confrontation between Rohingya Muslims and government troops in Myanmar. The conflict escalated on August 25, 2017. Then militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army movement, which the republican authorities consider a terrorist organization, attacked 24 police posts in Rakhine State. As a result, 109 people died. After these events, the troops began an anti-terrorist operation.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the de facto prime minister of Myanmar. She has been criticized more than once due to the fact that during her reign the persecution of Muslims in the country intensified. “Show me a country without human rights problems,” Aung San Suu Kyi commented on the situation.
The Rohingya are an ethnic group of Muslims living in Rakhine State. There are about a million of them. Clashes between the Rohingya and the Myanmar authorities occur regularly. In 2012, more than 200 Myanmar people died during sectarian clashes. Rohingya are not allowed to obtain Burmese citizenship. According to the UN, they are one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the world.
According to official data, 402 people were killed during the clashes.. Of these, 370 are militants, 15 are police and 17 are civilians. Muslim media say that several thousand people were killed. According to official data, more than 2,600 houses have been burned in Myanmar.
Eyewitnesses in Myanmar say children are being beheaded and civilians are being burned alive in villages. The human rights organization Fortify Rights, citing the Al-Jazeera TV channel, published eyewitness accounts of the events in Myanmar, who say that about 200 people, including children, were killed in the villages of Chut Pyi and the village of Rathedaung. The Myanmar government denies claims of genocide. On September 4, RIA Novosti reported that a group of militants from the Rohingya ethnic group attacked and burned a Buddhist monastery. According to the BBC, some of the photographs of victims of clashes in Myanmar are fakes that are being spread on social networks as part of the information war.
Photo from New Yourk Times website
About 38 thousand people from Rakhine became refugees. The flow of migrants headed mainly to Bangladesh. On September 1, 2017, The New York Times published information that one of the boats with refugees sank. 46 people died, including 19 children.
Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov expressed Kazakhstan's position regarding the situation around the Muslim community in Myanmar. “Regarding the events in Myanmar, I would like to say that our country, as a member of the UN Security Council, actively took part in the organization and spoke at closed consultations that took place on August 30. Together with other member countries of the UN Security Council, we called on the Myanmar authorities to actively cooperate with international structures, primarily with the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other partners, whose efforts are aimed at resolving the situation in Myanmar,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdrakhmanov.
Photo from the New York Times website
The Russian Foreign Ministry officially stated that it condemns the actions of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army group. A message about this appeared on the department’s website on August 28. “We strongly condemn this armed attack aimed at undermining the efforts of the Myanmar authorities and the international community to stabilize the situation in the RNO,” says the official statement. “We believe that the solution to the problems existing in Rakhine, which are of a complex, comprehensive nature, is possible exclusively through political means, through establishing dialogue between representatives of all nationalities and religions for the purpose of socio-economic development of this area."
Back in March of this year, Russia and China vetoed certain provisions of the UN Security Council statement on the situation in Myanmar. Speaking to the press, Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN Pyotr Ilyichev said that only elements of the press statement were blocked. Earlier in 2007, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to human rights violations in Myanmar. According to the Guardian, on September 4, Myanmar authorities refused humanitarian aid for Muslims in Rakhine state.
On September 3, hundreds of Muslims came out to protest in Moscow in solidarity with the Rohingya people. According to the Interfax agency, protesters gathered near the Myanmar Embassy on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. Believers laid out prayer mats in front of the embassy building and chanted: “Allahu Akbar.” The action was not coordinated with the Moscow authorities. An armored vehicle, as well as riot police officers, arrived at the scene of the event. According to news agencies, the action ended peacefully, its participants dispersed on their own.
The President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov expressed disagreement with Russia's position regarding the situation in Myanmar. “If Russia supports shaitans who commit crimes, I am against Russia’s position,” the leader of the Chechen Republic said in a video message on his Instagram. Kadyrov also said that they write to him a lot about the need to “send troops” into Myanmar. At the same time, he emphasized that this is impossible, since he alone cannot make such a decision. Also on September 4, thousands of people rallied in the Chechen capital to condemn the actions of the Myanmar authorities against Muslims living there.
The Turkish President called what is happening in Myanmar genocide under the guise of democracy.
“Those who turn a blind eye to this genocide, committed under the guise of democracy, are its accomplices. The Muslim population in Arakan, which was four million half a century ago, has been reduced by one third as a result of persecution and bloodshed. The fact that the world community remains silent in response to this is a separate drama,” Erdogan emphasized.
Last Sunday, Muslim rallies against discrimination against the Islamic population of Myanmar were held in Moscow and other cities around the world. In August, members of the armed group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked several dozen military targets. In response, Myanmar authorities launched an extensive anti-terrorist operation, during which dozens of Muslims were killed and which the international community calls genocide of the country's Islamic population. What are the reasons and why this conflict cannot be called religious - in the material of “Futurist”.
What's happening in Myanmar?
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar - this is how the country began to be called recently, getting rid of the military dictatorship that had been in power since 1962. It consists of seven provinces inhabited by Buddhist Burmese and seven national states that have never recognized a central government. There are more than one hundred ethnic groups in Myanmar. The diverse ethnic, religious, and criminal groups inhabiting these regions have been waging civil wars for decades—against the capital and against each other.
The conflict between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists has been going on for decades. The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar. They make up approximately 1 million of Myanmar's more than 52 million people and live in Arakan State, which borders Bangladesh. The Myanmar government denies them citizenship, calling them illegal Bengali immigrants, while the Rohingya claim to be the original inhabitants of Arakan.
One of the bloodiest clashes occurred in 2012. The reason was the death of a 26-year-old Buddhist woman. Then dozens of people died, and tens of thousands of Muslims were forced to leave the country. The international community made no attempt to resolve the conflict.
Another escalation of the conflict occurred on October 9, 2016, when about 200 unidentified militants attacked three Myanmar border posts. And in August 2017, fighters from the local armed group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked 30 army installations and police stations and killed 15 people. They declared this an act of revenge for the persecution of their compatriots.
The international community calls the retaliatory anti-terrorist operation a genocide of Muslims in the state of Arakan - not only the Rohingya, but also representatives of other ethnic groups. Hundreds of people have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism. According to Myanmar authorities, as of September 1, 400 “rebels” and 17 civilians had been killed. Fleeing refugee camp residents told Reuters the army and Buddhist volunteers were torching Muslim villages, forcing them to flee to Bangladesh. On the morning of September 1, Bangladeshi border guards found on the river bank the bodies of 15 refugees who drowned during the crossing, 11 of them were children. According to the UN, more than 120,000 refugees have crossed into Bangladesh over the past two weeks, creating a migration crisis.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov demanded that the UN intervene and stop the violence. In Moscow, near the Myanmar embassy, Muslims staged a spontaneous rally against genocide.
Why don't Buddhists like the Rohingya?
There are several theories about the origin of the Burmese Rohingya. Some scientists believe that the Rohingya migrated to Myanmar (then called Burma) from Bengal primarily during the period of British rule. The British annexed the aspiring state of Arakan in 1826 and facilitated the migration of Bengalis there as labor. Some of the Rohingya came to Burma after the country declared independence in 1948, as well as after the liberation war in Bangladesh in 1971. Traditionally, this people has a high birth rate, so the Muslim population has grown rapidly. The second theory (followed by the Rohingya themselves) suggests that the Rohingya are descendants of the Arabs who colonized the Indian Ocean coast in the Middle Ages and also lived in the state.
The first serious clash between the Rohingya and Arakanese Buddhists was the Rakhine massacre in 1942. During World War II, Burma, then still a British dependency, was captured by Japan. The Rohingya Muslims remained on the side of the British, while the Buddhists supported the Japanese, who promised independence for the country. The Buddhist troops were led by General Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the current leader of Myanmar's Democratic Party. According to various estimates, tens of thousands of representatives of both sides were killed, but there is still no objective figure. After the Rakhine massacre, separatist sentiments in the region worsened.
The military dictatorship that ruled Burma for half a century relied heavily on a blend of Burmese nationalism and Theravada Buddhism to consolidate its power. Ethnic and religious minorities such as the Rohingya and Chinese were discriminated against. General Nain's government passed the Burmese Citizenship Law in 1982, which declared the Rohingya illegal. With the end of military rule and the rise to power of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's allies at the end of 2015, the Rohingya were expected to receive Myanmar citizenship. However, authorities continue to deny the Rohingya political and civil rights.
How does discrimination manifest itself?
The Rohingya are considered "one of the most persecuted minorities in the world." They cannot move freely throughout Myanmar, receive higher education, or have more than two children. The Rohingya are subjected to forced labor and their arable land is taken away from them. A February 2017 UN report said locals, the army and police beat, killed and raped Rohingya.
To escape violence, Rohingya are trafficked illegally to Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand. In turn, these countries do not want to accept refugees - which is why they are subject to international pressure and condemnation. At the beginning of 2015, according to the UN, about 24 thousand Rohingya tried to leave Myanmar on smugglers' boats. The remains of more than 160 refugees have been discovered in abandoned camps in southern Thailand as smugglers held Rohingya hostage, beating them and demanding ransom for their lives. As Thai authorities tightened controls across the border, smugglers began throwing people into “boat camps” where they died of hunger and thirst.
The refugee problem has not yet been resolved. In particular, the government of Bangladesh in February 2017 announced a plan to resettle all Rohingya refugees on the Tengar Char island, which was formed 10 years ago in the Bay of Bengal - it is prone to floods and there is a complete lack of infrastructure. This caused outrage among human rights organizations.
Aren't Buddhists against violence?
“The world media talks exclusively about Muslims who suffered and says nothing about Buddhists,” says orientalist Pyotr Kozma, who lives in Myanmar. “Such one-sided coverage of the conflict has given Myanmar Buddhists a feeling of being under siege, and this is a direct path to radicalism.”
It is traditionally believed that Buddhism is one of the most peaceful religions. But despite the fact that Buddhists and Muslims are involved in this conflict, it is incorrect to view it as inter-religious. We are talking about the status of a certain ethnic group. Experts say that Buddhists have coexisted with Myanmar's Muslims for centuries: Hindus, Chinese, Malabari, Burmese and Bengalis. The Rohingya, being refugees according to one version of their origin, fall out of this “conglomerate of nationalities.”
Burmese Rohnija refugee camp in Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters
Aida Simonia
Leading Researcher, Department of Southeast Asia, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
British inheritance and the Saudi trail
— Burma (as the state was called until 1989) was part of India for a long time and was a British colony. During British rule, the Rohingya - ethnic South Indians - moved en masse to British Burma, where the British used them as cheap labor in the rice fields. (Burma was the rice granary of all of Asia at that time). After Burma declared independence in 1948, border demarcation began. And it turned out that the Burmese government is not going to grant citizenship to the Rohingya.
In 1962, a military dictatorship was established in the country, and state leaders began to think about what to do with these people. A citizenship law was passed in 1982, but civil and political rights were never granted to the Rohingya people.
Myanmar is a highly complex multi-ethnic and multi-religious state with a population of 55 million people and is home to 135 different ethnic groups, of which eight are major. All of them are citizens - except for the Rohingya, whose number in Myanmar now amounts to 1-1.2 million people.
I would emphasize that the conflict is not of a religious nature. Myanmar is a tolerant country. Yes, the Rohingya are Muslims in a predominantly Buddhist country. But there are also other Muslims in Myanmar, they make up about 5% of the population, as well as Christians - 7%. All of them are citizens of the country. Unlike the Rohingya, who have neither civil nor political rights, and have been denied this by authorities for decades, not considering them an indigenous population. In response, militants (and they, of course, should be separated from civilians) of the terrorist “Arkan Rohingya Salvation Army” stage provocations: previously this was predominantly criminal in nature (assaults, robberies, rapes), but now it has reached a completely different level.
The Arkan Rohingya Salvation Army arose in 1948, almost immediately after Burma declared independence. The goals of this organization can be judged by their flag, which depicts the outlines of the state of Arkan (as it was called before, the modern name is Rakhine) as a state independent from Myanmar.
For a long time nothing was heard about the Army, but in the 90s they found funding in Saudi Arabia, which is very sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood in their struggle for independence. Their training camps are located outside the country. Well trained and armed, they easily penetrate translucent borders and organize various kinds of provocations - from attacks on checkpoints to burning Buddhist villages. The Myanmar government, with good reason, considers this organization a terrorist organization. It is often very difficult to distinguish a young man from a militant by eye, so when the government begins a purge operation in response to provocations, civilians are often targeted as well.
What we are seeing now is a second serious aggravation. The first occurred on October 9, 2016, when heavily armed militants carried out a series of attacks on government checkpoints in large numbers. Then, as now, the Myanmar authorities responded to the incident extremely harshly. But it is important to understand that the vast majority of photographs and videos about the atrocities of government troops that are now circulating en masse on the Internet are old. Now we have practically no photos and videos from the scene - the Myanmar government has closed entry for journalists and employees of international organizations.
Vladimir Putin did not condemn what is currently happening in Myanmar. Together with the Egyptian leader, he simply made a statement about the inadmissibility of oppression of anyone, including Muslims. As far as I know, in recent days a resolution on Myanmar was not included in the agenda of the UN Security Council, so Russia could not block it. Although in all previous years, our country and China several times blocked the resolution on providing assistance to the Rohingya Muslim minority.
Myanmar has been under harsh sanctions from Europe and the United States for 20 years. Russia has traditionally had good relations with this country. The Soviet Union was one of the first to recognize Burma's independence. There was never any special friendship or deep economic ties, but support was always provided. In the 90s, Russia established military-technical cooperation with Myanmar and began supplying aircraft there.
Many are now accusing Nobel Peace Prize laureate Myanmar Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi of remaining silent and doing nothing to protect the Rohingya. This is absolutely not true. She is a very worthy, honest and decent person, and she does not remain silent, she acts. Exactly a year ago, she created a special commission on the problems of the Rohingya, which she asked Kofi Anana to chair personally. Over the course of a year, Anan and his colleagues traveled to Rakhine State dozens of times and documented in detail everything that was happening there. Based on the results of the collected material, on August 24, the commission published a 70-page report with recommendations on how the Myanmar government can get out of the current situation. And on August 25, Army militants attacked government checkpoints, and another escalation of the conflict began.
It is noteworthy that neighboring Muslim countries, such as Bangladesh, refuse to accept Rohingya refugees. Several years ago, the government of Ghana, a predominantly Christian and very secular state, officially offered refuge to the Rohingya, they stated that they were ready to accept every single person and provide them with full rights. However, the Rohingya refused.
According to Amnesty International, during the week of escalation the conflict provoked the exodus of 50 to 90 thousand refugees - both Muslims and Buddhists. The exact number of deaths is unknown. Officially, the government speaks of the 401st victim on both sides.
Recorded it Irina Gordienko
opinion
Valery Shiryaev
"New Newspaper"
Rohingya are Bengalis
— From the point of view of pure science, it is difficult to call the Rohingya an established independent ethnic group. It is not even known exactly when the Bengali-speaking Chittagong dialect (28 million speakers) Muslims of East Bengal, seeking a better life, formed a compact minority in Burma, a neighboring British province. But all historians agree that no later than 150 years ago.
Then flourished the work of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali, a great fellow Rohingya, of whom they can rightfully be proud. The wonderful song by Alexey Rybnikov from the Soviet teen melodrama “You Never Dreamed of It” was originally written in the mother language of the Rohingya, although they have recently begun to use the Latin alphabet for writing.
There are quite a few quite serious articles where the formation of this ethnic minority in Myanmar attributed to the war for the independence of Bangladesh, which gave rise to massive migration flows in 1971.
Almost all Indian languages consist of a thick mixture of dialects, in which the roles of the speakers often change. This also applies to modern Bengali. However, attempts to highlight Rohingya language into an independent language are untenable.
The increase in the Rohingya population has been fueled by civil strife, military action and natural disasters in neighboring lands. With each one, a new stream of refugees sought refuge in Myanmar, which was then still Burma. For example, the flow of refugees was generated by the Bhola cyclone, which left half a million people homeless in 1970 (one of the worst in history), to which George Harrison dedicated the famous song “Bangladesh” and a charity concert. The older generation of Beatlemaniacs in the USSR listened to how “so many people are dying fast,” and at that time the growth of the Rohingya people was taking place.
The War of Independence, which forced people to leave their homes, was, in fact, a civil war; then at least 200 thousand people died (according to some estimates, up to 3 million). Since this region has been one of the poorest on Earth for two centuries, one cannot expect regular, clear demographic statistics from local governments. But tropical growth is evident even without statistics. It is worth noting that if you exclude the city states and the Maldives, Bangladesh has the highest population density in the world. This population is saved only by the fertile floods of the Ganges, which allow them to harvest up to four harvests a year.
Number of Rohingya in Myanmar UN experts estimated it at 800 thousand back in 2012, and in 2017 it was already more than a million (Myanmar newspapers scare each other with the figure of 2.5 million). East Bengalis know how and love to make children, but it is still hardly possible to increase the population by 20% in 5 years. It is easier to assume that they were joined by fellow tribesmen from Bangladesh.
Thus, the rebellious region of Myanmar, which was subjected to bloody acts of pacification, is inhabited by Bengalis, who are increasing their numbers, including through migration, and are no different from the inhabitants of Bangladesh in terms of religion, culture and level of social development.
This is their main guilt (which justifies murders and medieval violence against the civilian population) in the eyes of the autochthonous population, which categorically does not want to recognize them as local, despite the fact that the bulk of the Rohingya have been living here for the fourth or fifth generation.