By Imran Hossain
In the game of geopolitics, perhaps the most important rule is ‘self-interest first’. In Rakhine, Myanmar’s every internal actor, including the military junta, the civilian govt. (NLD) and the United League of Arakan (ULA) or the Arakan Army (AA) sought their own interest, making a complex situation for the Rohingya. But ‘expelling Rohingyas from Rakhine’ was the biggest strategic miscalculations by the junta and the then Suu Kyi-led NLD civilian govt.
24 Oct 2025 – Before the 2017 Rohingya ethnic cleansing, Rakhine had a population where around 55% people were Buddhist, 43% were Muslim, 1.2% Christian, 0.3% Hindu, and 0.1% followed Animism. Clearly, there were only two vital groups, i.e., Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. With 1.2 million Rohingyas expelled from Rakhine to neighboring Bangladesh, Rakhine Buddhists now enjoy a majority of around 80%.
The Rakhine people’s desire for an independent Arakan/Rakhine nation or perhaps an autonomous Rakhine state has grown as a result of this circumstance. As the United League of Arakan (ULA) or the Arakan Army (AA) gets full support from Rakhine Buddhists, the AA now dreams of an autonomous or even independent Arakan/Rakhine country. The expulsion of the Rohingyas, thus, clearly benefited the ULA/AA and the Rakhine Buddhists.
The ULA/AA now holds the position of de facto governmental authority in the state of Rakhine, which is dominated by Buddhists. The military junta only controls three of Rakhine’s seventeen townships—Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung—while AA currently controls fourteen of them. Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung Townships, once known as the home of Rohingyas, are all now under the control of the AA.
If the Rohingya were in the Rakhine province, the ratio of Rakhine to Rohingya today would have been around 55:43. As a result, the Rakhine Buddhists, being around half the population, could not stake claims for an independent country based on their ethnic identity. This clearly justifies why Rakhine Buddhists were also involved in expelling the Rohingyas from the Rakhine state.
The historic conflicts between these two arose during the Second World War. During World War II, Rohingya Muslims, who were allied with the British, fought against local Rakhine Buddhists, who had allied with the Japanese. Following independence in 1948, the newly formed union government of the predominantly Buddhist country subjected the Rohingyas to extensive systematic discrimination in the country.
The Myanmar military, regrettably, has consistently opposed the Rohingya in the confrontations between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. The Junta consistently ignored the reality that the Rohingya have never demanded separation or an independent Rakhine State; all they asked was citizenship and rights to live in their motherland like other ethnic groups. So, there was never any threat to Myanmar’s sovereignty or territorial integrity from the Rohingya people.
Unfortunately, despite ample evidence of the Rohingya’s ethnic presence in Myanmar for generations, the majority of internal actors still view them as British colonial and postcolonial migrants from nearby Bangladesh.
“A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire” by Francis Buchanan (1799), which was found and republished by Michael Charney in the “SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research” in 2003, states, among the native groups of Arakan, there are the “Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan, and who call themselves Rooinga, or natives of Arakan.” The Classical Journal of 1811 identified “Rooinga” as one of the languages spoken in the “Burmah Empire.” In 1815, Johann Severin Vater listed “Ruinga” as an ethnic group with a distinct language in a compendium of languages published in German.
Blatantly ignoring this history, Myanmar still regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and non-citizens. Thus, the persecution of the Rohingya went beyond all bounds. Violent, large-scale crackdowns targeted toward the Rohingya — like Operation King Dragon in 1978, and Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation in 1991 — forced hundreds of thousands to flee Burma into Bangladesh.
The Myanmar military’s ruthless assault on the Rohingya villages in August 2017 marked the start of the most recent and arguably most severe phase of Rohingya persecution. Later, the chief of the United Nations agency for human rights described the military’s actions as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” “acts of horrific barbarity,” and possibly “acts of genocide.” The persecution forced over a million Rohingya to flee to their neighboring country, Bangladesh, while thousands fled to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia.
However, in today’s reality, to save Rakhine’s and Myanmar’s territorial integrity, there is only one path for the Myanmar government/junta, and that is to repatriate Rohingyas to Rakhine, return their citizenship and create a balance there.
Regional and global actors cannot afford to just sit and watch Rakhine’s fall to any non-state actors. Because, this will encourage many insurgent/separatist groups in South Asia and South-East Asian regions, threating security and stability.
Imran Hossain, Lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Bangladesh Army International University of Science and Technology (BAIUST), (MBA), (BBA), University of Rajshahi.
27 October 2025
Source: transcend.org