¹ UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), ‘Rohingya Emergency’, 31 July 2019. Available at https://www.unhcr.org/rohingya-emergency.html, [accessed 7 April 2021].

² On 10 December 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) convened to hear an opening request in a genocide case filed against Myanmar for its atrocities against Rohingya Muslims. The Gambia has lodged a case against Myanmar alleging violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (usually known as the Genocide Convention) in Myanmar's treatment of ethnic Rohingya Muslims. On 23 January 2020 the ICJ ordered Myanmar to take ‘all measures within its power’ to prevent genocide. Available at https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/178/178-20200123-ORD-01-00-EN.pdf, [accessed 8 April 2021].

³ OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), ‘Detailed Findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar’, 42nd session, Agenda item 2. 9–27 September 2019. Available at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24991&LangID=E, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁴ Schissler, M., Walton, Matt and Thi, Phyu Phyu, ‘Reconciling Contradictions: Buddhist-Muslim Violence, Narrative Making and Memory in Myanmar’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 47, no. 3, 2017, p. 377CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Das, V., ‘Specificities: Official Narratives, Rumour, and the Social Production of Hate’, Social Identities, vol. 4, no. 1, 2008, pp. 109–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ K. Nyi Nyi, Freedom of Religion, the Role of the State, and Interreligious Relations in Myanmar (Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies and Equitas—International Centre for Human Rights Education, 2018), pp. 24–25.

⁶ A. Bouzas, ‘Mixed Legacies in Contested Borderlands: Skardu and the Kashmir Disputes’, in Critical Border Studies: Broadening and Deepening the ‘Lines in the Sand’ Agenda, (eds) N. Parker and N. Vaughan-Williams (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014; Kindle edition).

⁷ Ware, A. and Laoutides, C., Myanmar's ‘Rohingya’ Conflict. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) p. 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ ‘Taingyinthaar’ literally means ‘the original breeds of a certain land’.

⁹ Cheeseman, N., Myanmar, ‘How in “National Races” Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, no. 47, vol. 3, 2017, pp. 461–483, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2017.1297476Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The field visit in Rakhine state was conducted in September and October 2015, one month before the nationwide election. It was a time of hope for Rohingya people: several Rohingya informants expressed their belief that their lives would be positively changed when the National League for Democracy Party (NLD) gained power after the election.

¹¹ According to Rohingya respondents in one of the villages located in Rathedaung, NaSaKa refers to a border security force introduced in 1996, which consisted of different state institutions such as the army, the police, and immigration, intelligence, and customs officials. NaSaKa was disbanded in 2013 by the government led by President U Thein Sein which came to power after the 2010 general election. It was replaced by the Border Guard Force (BGF) which, according to the Rohingya informants in northern Rakhine state, is composed of the police and immigration and customs officials.

¹² N. Parker and R. Adler-Nissen, ‘Picking and Choosing “Sovereign” Border: A Theory of Changing State Bordering Practices’, in Critical Border Studies, (eds) Parker and Vaughan-Williams.

¹³ Bouzas, ‘Mixed Legacies in Contested Borderlands’.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 141.

¹⁵ C. Rumford, ‘Towards a Multiperspectival Study of Borders’, in Critical Border Studies, (eds) Parker and Vaughan-Williams, p. 171.

¹⁶ Pain, R. and Staeheli, L., ‘Introduction: Intimacy-Geopolitics and Violence’, Area, vol. 46, no. 4, 2014, p. 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Fluri, Jennifer L., ‘Bodies, Bombs and Barricades: Geographies of Conflict and Civilian (In)security’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 35, no. 2, 2010Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Fluri, J. L. and Piedalue, Amy, ‘Embodying Violence: Critical Geographies of Gender, Race, and Culture’, Gender, Place and Culture, vol. 24, no. 4, 2017, p. 534CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Rohingya people are considered as a double minority group in Myanmar, where Bamar Buddhists are the majority and most powerful, with control of national armed forces and executive powers. The Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Chin, Bamar, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan are considered the main ethnic groups. ‘Ethnic groups’ in Myanmar means ‘national/native races’ (‘တိုင်းရင်းသား’ or ‘taingyintha’ in Burmese) and ‘national races’ in turn means acquiring citizenship at birth, according to the 1982 Citizenship Law. Rakhine state is the area where non-Bamar ethnic groups, like Rakhine, Chin, Mro, Dynet, and Kaman reside, in addition to Rohingya people. Rohingya people are not recognized as one of the national races by either the Myanmar state or the majority of people, including those residing in Rakhine state. Thus, Rohingya people are considered as a double minority group in Rakhine state as well as in Myanmar.

²¹ Bouzas, ‘Mixed Legacies in Contested Borderlands’, p. 143.

²² This article does not provide a comparative analysis of the Rakhine situation with other ethnic minority areas, but my argument regarding the particularly strong effects of local orders on the Muslim Rohingya—their exclusive discrimination—is supported by the research I did in other ethnic armed conflict areas, such as Kachin state and Shan state. In those areas, the term ‘local order’ itself was not widely reported and other ethnic minorities have citizenship cards and there are no restrictions on marriage, housing, and births. Generally, they also do not experience wide and very tight travel and mobility restrictions like Rohingya people do.

²³ C. Lewa, ‘North Arakan: An Open Prison for the Rohingya in Burma’, Forced Migration Review, vol. 32, April 2009, pp. 11–14. Available at https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/statelessness/lewa.pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021].

²⁴ The name of the larger study and funding organization will not be mentioned here in order to anonymize the names of the researchers involved in the study.

²⁵ At least two of the villages visited during this research study are believed to have been destroyed by Myanmar armed forces and Border Guard Forces in 2016.

²⁶ The youths hired by the research team as interpreters were students who could no longer go back to studying after the 2012 riots because of the restrictions on mobility placed on tract villages, the township, and the state capital where the university is located.

²⁷ The author is a person considered as a Bamar by other people, even though she never presents herself in ethnic terms. The author used to think that Rohingya people were illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, without knowing about the long-term institutionalized discrimination against Rohingya until she visited the three villages mentioned above.

²⁸ G. Thompson, ‘The Fate of Territorial Engineering: Mechanisms of Territorial Power and Post-Liberal Forms of International Governance’, International Politics, vol. 44, no. 5, 2007, p. 15.

²⁹ Schissler et al. ‘Reconciling Contradictions’, pp. 381–382.

³⁰ These kinds of ‘malicious’ teachings about Islam are widespread in Myanmar. Circumcision in Myanmar is widely referred to by the majority Buddhist population as ‘Kalar Shinpyu’ (‘ကုလားရှင်ပြု’) which means ‘Kalar's ways of monk novice’. ‘Shin Pyu’ is a Buddhist socioreligious ceremony that inducts young boys into temporary monkhood which, for the majority of Buddhists in Myanmar, is a necessary step for a male Buddhist.

³¹ International Crisis Group, ‘Buddhism and State Power’, Asia Report, vol. 290, 5 September 2017. Available at https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/290-buddhism-and-state-power-in-myanmar.pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021].

³² Parker and Adler-Nissen, ‘Picking and Choosing “Sovereign” Border’, p. 47.

³³ Ware and Laoutides, Myanmar's ‘Rohingya’ Conflict, p. 27.

³⁴ The term ‘Arakan’ or ‘Arakanese’ is used in this article to refer to the place or the people prior to Ne Win's socialist regime. Since then, the term ‘Rakhine’ has been used, including by the military regime.

³⁵ M. W. Charney, ‘Where Jambudipa and Islamdom Converged: Religious Change and the Emergence of Buddhist Communalism in Early Modern Arakan (Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries)’, PhD thesis, University of Michigan, 1999, p. 73

³⁶ J. Leider, ‘Rohingyas: The History of a Muslim Identity in Myanmar’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, 2019. Available at http://oxfordre.com/asianhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-115?print=pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021].

³⁷ Charney, ‘Where Jambudipa and Islamdom Converged’, pp. 145–157 and p. 20 (for information about Banga). Banga was one of the five zones of the Arakanese kingdom of the early modem period, until at least the mid-seventeenth century. Bang/Vanga, the zone outside of Arakanese Littoral, included Chittagong, Sundiva Island, and Ramu. The other four zones were: Danra-waddy river basin; the two great islands of Rama-waddy and Mekha-waddy; and, further south, Dwara-waddy. These four sub-zones together comprised most of what is today the district of Arakan in the Union of Myanmar.

³⁸ D. Tonkin, ‘Exploring the Issues of Citizenship in Rakhine State’, in Citizenship in Myanmar: Ways of Being in and from Burma, (eds) A. South and M. Lall (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publishing, 2018), p. 226.

³⁹ P. Leider, ‘Conflict and Mass Violence in Arakan (Rakhine State): The 1942 Events and Political Identity Formation’, in Citizenship in Myanmar, (eds) South and Lall.

⁴⁰ Leider, ‘Rohingyas: The History’.

⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 8–9.

⁴² The transcript of a speech given by Brigadier General Aung Gyi, as described in a national newspaper called Myanmar Ahlin, is referred to in Zarni, M. and Cowley, A., ‘The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar's Rohingya’, Washington International Law Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, 2014, p. 695Google Scholar.

⁴³ Ibid.

⁴⁴ Leider, ‘Rohingyas: The History’.

⁴⁵ Tonkin, ‘Exploring the Issues of Citizenship in Rakhine State’, p. 227.

⁴⁶ The 144 ethnicities listed as indigenous groups were reduced to 135 when the 2014 Census was carried out. The list excluded Rakhine-Chittagong and Myedu, together with other such ethnic groups. According to the list the only Muslims who remained as a national race were the Kaman. According to the 1982 Citizenship Law, the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine, and Shan are the only ethnic groups described by name as those that were settled in Myanmar prior to 1823. And it is up to the Council of State to decide whether any ethnic group is national or not. However, the state of Myanmar has never officially promulgated the list of national races. Although the list of 135 ethnic groups has been widely referred to in the country since the 2014 Census (conducted during President U Thein Sein's government), it has never been officially stipulated.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ G. Constantine, ‘Bangladesh: The Plight of the Rohingyas’, Virginia Quarterly Review, published online on 18 September 2012. Available at https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/bangladesh-plight-rohingya, [accessed 9 April 2021].

⁴⁹ Tonkin, ‘Exploring the Issues of Citizenship in Rahkine State’, p. 232.

⁵⁰ A. Selth, ‘Myanmar's Armed Forces and Rohingyas Crisis’, United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Report, 17 August 2018, p. 12. Available at https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/08/myanmars-armed-forces-and-rohingya-crisis, [accessed 12 April 2021].

⁵¹ ‘Terror on the Border’, Asiaweek, 21 February 1992, p. 24. Available at http://netipr.org/8888/terror-on-the-border-by-asiaweek, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ International Crisis Group Report, ‘Myanmar's “Nasaka”: Disbanding an Abusive Agency’, Commentary Asia, 16 July 2013. Available at https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/myanmars-nasaka-disbanding-abusive-agency, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁵⁴ Lewa, ‘North Arakan’.

⁵⁵ S. Roughneen, ‘Rohingya MP Banned from Contesting Election’, Nikkei Asian Review, 23 August 2015. Available at https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Rohingya-MP-banned-from-contesting-election, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁵⁶ P. Leider, ‘Transmutation of the Rohingya Movement’, in Ethnic and Religious Identities and Integration in Southeast Asia, (eds) O. K. Gin and V. Grabowsky (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2017).

⁵⁷ They are widely believed to be Rohingya people, although the official news named them as Muslims.

⁵⁸ Human Rights Watch, ‘All You Can Do Is Pray: Crimes against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma Arakan State’, 22 April 2013. Available at https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁵⁹ According to UNHCR, over 740,000 people were displaced during the last exodus in August 2017. It is estimated that 90 per cent of the Rohingya population resides in Rakhine. The proportion of Rakhine in Myanmar is estimated at 4 per cent according to CIA's World's Fact Book. The populations of each ethnicity are officially unknown, since the 2014 Census has yet to officially publish the data.

⁶⁰ Republic of the Union of Myanmar Submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review, 23rd Session of the UPR Working Group, 2–13 November 2015, ‘Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Minorities and other Marginalized/Vulnerable Groups’, submitted by: The Lutheran World Federation (LWF). There are many people in Myanmar, especially those in rural and remote areas, who did not have national identity cards until 2011 when the government instituted the ‘Moe Pwint’ operation to issue Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSCs). Under this operation immigration staff went into the residential areas and issued CSCs during the so-called ‘one-stop quick service’. Available at https://www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/document/myanmar/session_23_-_november_2015/lwf_upr23_mmr_e_main.pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁶¹ This is based on the findings of the same research study and others related to access to justice and rule of law where the author was the research team leader. ‘Between Fair and Hope: Challenges and Opportunities for Strengthening Rule of Law and Access to Justice in Myanmar’, September 2014. Available at: https://www.emref.org/sites/emref.org/files/publication-docs/between_fear_and_hope_eng_version.pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021]. According to the Myanmar state, Kaman is recognized as one of the seven sub-ethnic groups of Rakhine, which covers Rakhine, Mro, Thet, Khami, Daingnet, and Maramagyi, and, as we have seen, the only Muslim community in Myanmar that is recognized as an ethnic group (national race) by the government. According to Kaman leaders, the present-day Kaman population in Rakhine state numbers around 50,000. See also N. Kyaw, ‘Myanmar's Other Muslims: The Case of Kaman’, in Citizenship in Myanmar, (eds) South and Lall.

⁶² Tonkin, ‘Exploring the Issues of Citizenship in Rakhine State’, p. 235.

⁶³ C. Lewa, ‘Issues to be Raised Concerning the Situation of Rohingya Children in Myanmar (Burma): Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. For the Examination of the 2nd Periodic State Report—Myanmar’, November 2003, p. 2. Available at https://www.burmalibrary.org/docs12/CRC2004-Myanmar-NGO-FA.pdf, [accessed 7 April 2021].

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Of the three cards, the two cards issued in 1955 and 1974 could have belonged to those who became citizens as per the 1948 Citizenship Act which was stipulated after the country gained independence from British rule. The 1948 Citizenship Law included ‘Arakanese’ as one of the national races that resided in Myanmar before 1823. It is widely assumed that at that time Rohingya people were considered Arakanese citizens. Later, in the 1982 Citizenship Law the ethnonym ‘Arakanese’ was substituted with the term ‘Rakhine’ and Rohingya people were not considered Rakhine. After that, three types of Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSCs) were issued: 1) the Pink Card for absolute citizens, 2) the Blue Card for associate citizens, and 3) the Green Card for naturalized citizens. Not many Rohingya people were given even the Green Card and it seems that a Green Card was issued to the informant as he was working for the government's agricultural department.

⁶⁶ Tonkin, ‘Exploring the Issues of Citizenship in Rakhine State’, p. 238. White Cards are issued not only to Rohingya people but also to those whose citizenship status has yet to be verified. However, it is very rare for White Cards to be issued to those who identify themselves as one of the ethnic groups considered as national races (‘တိုင်းရင်းသား’ or ‘taingyintha’ in Burmese).

⁶⁷ According to the author's own experience, in the early 1990s, Pink Cards were issued to the majority of the population in Myanmar through immigration officers who were stationed at religious buildings or schools. They were issued to the majority of the population as a special mission and one-stop service. At the same time, people had to return their previous ID cards.

⁶⁸ Parker and Adler-Nissen, ‘Picking and Choosing “Sovereign” Border’, p. 49.

⁶⁹ Parker and Vaughan-Williams, ‘Introduction’, in Critical Border Studies, (eds) Parker and Vaughan-Williams, p. 4.

⁷⁰ The informants were possibly suspected of illegal migration, although they did not knowingly commit a crime.

⁷¹ This was before 2012 when Rohingya people were allowed to go to the township capital using White Cards. Rohingya people, except those living in Maungdaw, were not allowed to go to the township capital after the 2012 communal violence between Rakhine and Muslims, including Kamans.

⁷² The word ‘Kalar’ is used by non-Indian people in Myanmar as a derogatory term to refer to those of Indian and Middle Eastern descent. However, some of Indian descent who are not Muslims also use the term to refer to Indian and Middle Eastern Muslims in order to ‘Other’ the latter.

⁷³ Non-Muslim Rohingya people who are citizens and have CSCs like other citizens could not freely travel to any part of Rakhine state.

⁷⁴ This was told to us by Rohingya informants in Maungdaw.

⁷⁵ Although the informant uses the term ‘unofficially’, there was in fact no official way for Rohingya people to go outside of Rakhine state.

⁷⁶ The informant is referring to a sub-national level court.

⁷⁷ Even though the judge mentioned the township endorsement, it is widely known that Muslims were not allowed to go outside or into Rakhine state. They were strictly checked and banned at the airports and bus gates. In fact, anyone in Myanmar who identifies their religion as Islam on their Citizenship Scrutiny Cards is normally not allowed to enter or leave Rakhine state freely.

⁷⁸ The household registration list is an essential document that allows people to apply for citizenship cards, public schools, business licences and tenders, and so on. People without household registration will also lose their citizenship rights and their access to public education and official business rights.

⁷⁹ Securing housing permission in urban areas is generally required and subject to inspections by the revenue department. But residents in rural areas usually do not require permission from any of the government departments for building houses.

⁸⁰ Non-Rohingya people living in rural areas do not normally need to report a birth unless the delivery takes place at the public hospital. People register their children with the public authorities only when they want to enrol them in school or at a time of their convenience, for example, when they need an ID card or the like. The point is that the registration of birth is not a stressful matter for non-Rohingya people.

⁸¹ In Myanmar, it is the police force that provides security in wards and villages located in Myanmar state-controlled areas in the normal situation.

⁸² The informant did not know the longer term ‘ICNV’, but he mentioned that ICNV is used to verify your nationality.

⁸³ Dynet refers to a sub-ethnic group of Rakhine according to the stipulations of the Myanmar government. The majority of Dynets are Buddhists. Dynet informants who live in a village next to a Rohingya village noted that many words of the Rohingya language are similar to Dynet and that Dynet tend to communicate using the Rohingya language. Rohingya people in the villages studied also reported that Dynet people get along with them better than Rakhine.