This article was originally published by The Irrawaddy and is republished here with permission. Read the original at irrawaddy.com.
As resistance against long-term Rohingya presence in host countries grows, the refugees’ fate is back in the headlines. Malaysia is a recent example. Its government has yielded to growing hate speech against Myanmar refugees, and Rohingya in particular. In September, Malaysia and Myanmar negotiated a controversial repatriation agreement for 5,000 refugees that is not supported by the UN or its refugee agency. Resentment in India and Indonesia has also grown.
Following large-scale Rohingya returns from Bangladesh to Myanmar in the 1970s and 1990s, repatriation efforts started again in 2017, after the enforced flight of 750,000 Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Initially, they were based on a Chinese offer to mediate between the two countries. Even though these and later efforts failed, Bangladesh’s pursuit of repatriation continues, and Malaysia has now joined in.
There are many reasons why the repatriation initiatives of the past 10 years have not been successful. A largely unmentioned one is that many initiators wrongly assume that traditional diplomatic relations between states can lead to meaningful dialogue and conflict resolution. This state-centric approach overlooks the key question at the heart of Myanmar’s decades-old volatility: how power and political authority are shared between Myanmar’s center and its highly diverse regions and ethnic nationalities. Moreover, since the country’s 2021 military coup, the regime in Naypyitaw has lost control over much of the country. In Arakan (Rakhine State), the birthplace of most Rohingya refugees—and where some 500,000 of them still live—the current regime has control over only three of the state’s 17 townships.
Today’s Myanmar is in transition. It is a country with multiple centers of authority. In some, local territorial control has been in place for decades; in others, it has been established since the military coup of 2021. These ethnic and regional authorities are not against a federal state as such. They are against the current federal union that is based on a constitution that concentrates significant power at the center, and particularly with the armed forces.
Right now, the key question is whether a new form of federalism can emerge, one that leaves a highly centralized system behind and, instead, focuses on existing and newly emerging centers of political authority. A long road lies ahead but in many parts of the country progress is clearly visible.
Arakan is a prime example. As the territorial dominance of the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) grows, particularly since 2023, it has been transforming into a central administrative authority with local administrative, security and judicial mechanisms. The Institute for Strategy and Policy in Chiang Mai recently reviewed the progress that has been made and concluded that “despite persistent challenges, a solid institutional framework is emerging”. But it also cautions that following rapid territorial expansion, a performance gap has emerged between public expectations and the administration’s delivery capacity.
A key reason for the delivery gap is that right now Arakan is a war zone with almost daily ground clashes between the AA and Myanmar’s armed forces, as well as attacks by Bangladesh-based Rohingya militias. Moreover, Arakan is now a prime target for attacks by Myanmar’s air force, which deliberately targets civilian structures with bombs of up to 500 pounds. The devastation on the ground is massive, with hundreds of civilians killed and maimed, while schools, markets, clinics and prayer houses have been destroyed. Physical infrastructure is also heavily affected, including by recent massive floods, leading to large-scale disruption of livelihoods and food security.
According to a recent report by the UN Development Programme, 68.4 percent of Arakan’s population (all ethnicities) experience multi-dimensional poverty, while a further 20 percent is at risk of falling into that category. Arakan’s current population is thought to stand at just over 2.4 million, while a Doctors Without Borders report in 2024 estimated that only 636,000 Rohingya remained in Arakan. Today that number will have fallen significantly, as approximately 150,000 more Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since then.
To be clear, Rohingya repatriation from Bangladesh and other countries will take time. Refugees cannot return if armed conflict continues and before the underlying reasons for their flight have been addressed. To achieve this, a central role for both ULA/AA and the people of Arakan, including the Rohingya, is critical. But at the same time, various factions on the Rohingya side stand in the way of a united approach, particularly those supporting armed militias. Moreover, some of them have been used as a divide-and-rule tool by Myanmar’s military-backed regime.
Arakan’s problems are manifold and a broader vision of identity is critically important, one that acknowledges inclusion and equality as basic building blocks for a stable, secure and prosperous Arakan.
This understanding led the Rakhine Advisory Commission of 2016-17, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to focus on solutions to address the legitimate grievances and suffering of all Arakan’s diverse people. Its report and recommendations to Myanmar’s leaders remain highly relevant, based as they are on the central objective of developing conditions in Arakan that will lead to a peaceful, fair, harmonious and prosperous future for all communities. In 2018, the commission published a lessons-learned report focusing on how it operated in Myanmar’s highly politicized and complex context.
Obviously, much has changed since the report was released but it remains relevant, even after the National League for Democracy’s violent removal in 2021. It analyzes Arakan’s situation around three major crises: a security crisis, an economic and development crisis, and a human rights crisis. These crises persist and could form the basis for an all-of-Arakan approach.
Since 2017, the Annan report has been re-acknowledged annually by an overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council. Yet, no efforts have been made to establish how it might serve Arakan’s people under their current circumstances, and particularly since 2024, when most of Arakan came under the control of the ULA/AA.
Any process leading to a comprehensive plan for Arakan will be complex, not least because of the wide range of actors, functioning at diverse levels. In “The Dilemma of Hard Choices”, published in August, the Center for Arakan studies identifies the heterogeneity of agents as a key issue and adds that it is compounded by the problem of ownership, where most states, armed groups, civil society and international bodies each deflect overall responsibility while pursuing their own narrow strategic interests.
Precisely these diverging interests would make the Annan report a helpful starting point for dialogue. For good reasons, the commission’s recommendations are not highly prescriptive. Its general understanding was that, while basic principles of governance and human rights should guide the implementation process, details could be developed as part of dialogue processes. The report contains 88 recommendations on a comprehensive set of issues, ranging from economic and social development to freedom of movement, citizenship, health, access to justice, intercommunal cohesion, humanitarian access and internally displaced persons.
Obviously, dialogue cannot be based on the Annan report alone, but it could be a starting point. Additional questions must be raised to take account of developments since 2017. The first is the clarification of victimhood. Who are the victims of decades of oppression, persecution and violent conflict? A second is the “fog of war” that distorts a clear view of what is happening on the ground.
Obviously, it is not necessary to argue that the Rohingya are victims; that is accepted around the world. But what about the other communities in Arakan—the Rakhine, the Maramagyi, the Mro, the Chin, the Hindus and others?
They too are victims, yet their plight has been getting far less attention. They too have had their villages bombed and burned, their clinics, schools and livelihoods destroyed, while thousands are displaced in areas where relief goods cannot reach them. But their plight is not as widely documented. Acknowledgment that all Arakan’s people are victims could be a first step in reconciliation. And clearly, there are different degrees of victimhood and these too must be acknowledged.
The second point concerns the current “fog of war” and the urgent need to establish independent investigations. As in other places around the world, violent conflict, displacement and hunger obscure a clear view of developments on the ground. In such situations, deliberate disinformation thrives. We should not pretend that we have a clear view of what is happening in Arakan and in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Lack of independent access and blocked internet facilities compound the problems.
Independent investigations will be needed to establish what has happened in Arakan and Bangladesh since 2017. While a significant body of research about the Rohingya exists, research on Arakan’s other communities remains scant. Moreover, research should also focus on disturbing allegations about what has been happening in Bangladesh. How did Rohingya militias manage to get a firm grip on the population in the refugee camps? Where did funding for their arms and operations come from? And how can large numbers of refugees and militia fighters continue to cross the Bangladesh-Myanmar border seemingly unnoticed?
Since 2018, the Independent Investigating Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) has been collecting and preserving evidence to facilitate criminal prosecutions of those most responsible for atrocity crimes. But it only shares its findings with investigative, prosecutorial and judicial authorities in national and international courts. As a result, a vast body of information remains inaccessible to the public. Moreover, IIMM’s mandate does not cover other truth-seeking needs, such as documenting and public acknowledgment of crimes through truth and reconciliation bodies and publicly accessible archives. These limitations underline the importance of establishing additional mechanisms to ensure that accountability is pursued as an integral part of transitional justice and reconciliation. This should be part of a comprehensive approach: an all-for-Arakan approach.
Using the Annan report as a credible starting point for dialogue could be a first step towards creating a better understanding of the needs of all Arakan’s people. Moreover, its repeated recognition by the UN General Assembly might help to rally much needed support for such an exercise at a time when resources are scarce.
Laetitia van den Assum is a former Dutch diplomat. She was also a member of the Rakhine Advisory Commission (2016-2017), chaired by Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General.
