INTRODUCTION
This paper identifies the aetiology of persecution against the Rohingya – a minority ethnic group in Rakhine State (formerly Arakan State) of Myanmar (as the military dictatorship renamed Burma in 1989), a Southeast Asian nation. Drawing on a case study of systematic implementation of policies concerning discriminatory practices and atrocity crimes against the Rohingya, it focuses on examining the roles of Myanmar governments of different periods and individual perpetrators, such as military personnel and other security force members, paramilitaries and vigilantes at the macro, meso and micro levels. For this purpose, it adopts the Multi-level Integrated Theory of Supranational Crimes (MITSC), designed by Rothe and Mullins (Reference Rothe and Mullins2008) to find out what criminology contributes to developing an aetiology of atrocity crimes, that involves four specific dynamics: motivation, opportunity control, and constraint. This paper limits its analysis and interpretation of data collected through the focus group discussion (FGD) method reflecting the incidents that transpired from 1962 to 2019 in Myanmar.
In the case of the Rohingya, following Myanmar’s independence on 4 January 1948, when the military regime formally began in 1962, different policies (primarily anti-foreign policies) were undertaken to remove all non-Burmese people, including Indians, Chinese and other foreigners, from Myanmar (Ibrahim Reference Ibrahim2016). Many Muslim communities were also forced to leave Myanmar by the Tatmadaw (the official name of Myanmar’s military) (Ibrahim Reference Ibrahim2016; South Reference South2008). In many official and unofficial meetings, the successive military leaders and government officials started calling the members of the Rohingya community – predominantly Muslim though a small number are Hindu – illegal by underlining that they had come to Myanmar during the British colonial period. In 1982, a law was passed that revoked Myanmar’s citizenship of the members of the Rohingya community and limited their fundamental rights, including education, movement, health care, etc. (Ganesan and Hlaing Reference Ganesan and Hlaing2007).
Significant atrocities against the Rohingya occurred between 1974 and 1978, in 1997 and 2001 and from 2012 to 2017 in Myanmar (Hossain Reference Hossain2021). In some events, the Myanmar military or police suppressed conflicts between the Rohingya and the Buddhist extremists. However, their actions against the Rohingya were always alleged to have involved mass murder, sexual violence against women and girls, child sexual abuse, unlawful arrests and confinements, brutal beatings, widespread arson on houses, mosques, schools, cattle/businesses, and villages of the Rohingya and looting of personal belongings in many parts of Rakhine State (International Court of Justice 2020). Consequently, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya escaped to the Cox’s Bazar region, bordering Bangladesh under different circumstances (Ibrahim Reference Ibrahim2016).
Nevertheless, Myanmar’s military mostly denies its violent actions, but, in some cases, it defends its responses against the Rohingya as necessary to protect national security. On the other hand, in response to the largest wave of violence against the Rohingya from 25 August 2017, the International Criminal Court (ICC) initiated an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity – essentially, the deportation of the Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh as well as other crimes that can be linked to the territory of Bangladesh (International Criminal Court 2018). In addition, a case filed by The Gambia against Myanmar is in litigation before the International Court of Justice for Myanmar’s alleged commission of genocide against the Rohingya (van den Berg Reference Van den Berg2019).
It is, however, worth mentioning that the events of violence against the Rohingya, particularly those that occurred in 2017, are still denied by the Myanmar junta, a group of military leaders – officially called the State Administration Council – that ruled Myanmar from 1962 until late 2011 and, again, took power in a coup on 1 February 2021 (Maizland Reference Maizland2022). The significant events and timeline involving Myanmar governments’ profiles from 1962 until 2021 are briefly and palpably sketched in Table 1.
Table 1. Events and Timeline Concerning Myanmar Governments
Source: BBC News (2018), last updated in 2021.
THE MITSC: AN INTEGRATED THEORETICAL MODEL OF ATROCITY CRIMES
The term “atrocity” originates from Roman military law that signifies unlawful acts committed in conformity with military commands. Scheffer (Reference Scheffer2006) has proposed a concept of “atrocity crimes”, which refers to large-scale, systematic and massive violence committed by State and non-State actors. International crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – defined in the 1998 Rome Statute of the ICC in Articles 6, 7, and 8, respectively, are covered in the definition of atrocity crimes. Regarding perpetrators of atrocity crimes, Scheffer (Reference Scheffer2006) draws attention to the State and non-State actors who lead and plan. Based on the historical evidence, Khalfaoui (Reference Khalfaoui2020) finds that atrocity crimes were primarily committed by State officials and State-affiliated armed forces, while non-State armed organizations perpetrated a few. Aksenova (Reference Aksenova2019) indicates that mass atrocities are instances of the collective behaviour of the perpetrators.
The struggle to explain the causes of atrocity crimes using the “situationist” and “voluntarist” approaches is not new. While the “situationist” approach concentrates on aetiology at the macro and meso levels, the “voluntarist” approach focuses on the micro level (Foster Reference Foster2010; Harrendorf Reference Harrendorf2014). However, given that the roots of international crimes are based on the relations between ideologies, individuals and groups, it is essential to use a framework that combines both approaches to develop an aetiology of atrocity crimes.
Accordingly, Rothe and Mullins (Reference Rothe and Mullins2008) have used the MITSC to examine the issues of atrocity crimes’ motivation, opportunity, constraint and control at four levels (i.e. international, macro, meso and micro). Considering the MITSC, this part of the paper discusses criminology’s role in developing the aetiology of atrocity crimes at three levels: macro (national), meso (organizational) and micro (individual). Some factors of the aetiology of atrocity crimes at the macro level overlap the elements at the meso and micro levels. However, as the reasons for individuals’ involvement in atrocity crimes often differ, separate discussions are made at each level.
Macro Level (National)
According to Harff (Reference Harff2003), almost all the countries which suffer atrocity crimes or collective violence have previous experiences of authoritarian regimes, political instability (at times, ethnic tensions), civil wars, revolutions and swift changes, miserable living conditions, and so on. Haveman and Smeulers (Reference Haveman and Smeulers2008:22) affirm that “… the perpetrators of these crimes [genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity] are usually ordinary people who act within extraordinary circumstances”. Smeulers (Reference Smeulers, Smeulers and Haveman2008) suggests that the aspects of such “extraordinary circumstances” are, namely: general people’s massive participation, “continuum of destructiveness” (Staub Reference Staub1989) – meaning a situation in which the use of violence is gradually escalated, and people get trapped in it; and the common perception among perpetrators that their actions are legitimate and justified based on their ideology.
The Rwandan genocide provides an insight at the macro level that it was part of continuing regional conflicts and, accordingly, allied to the series of violence inside and beyond the borders of neighbouring countries (Ducey Reference Ducey2008). Hence, Karstedt (Reference Karstedt2013) endorses that mass atrocity crimes should be understood based on their relationship with international reactions and world politics.
Pruitt (Reference Pruitt2021) claims that macro factors influence the behaviours of individuals (micro factors). This claim substantiates the MITSC’s macro-level “constraints” and “controls” (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). When atrocity crimes are committed in a country, colliding social movements and insurgencies at the national level, and political pressure, media inspection and denouncing public opinion at both national and international levels prove the macro-level constraints (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Regarding controls, at the federal level, as State agents are somehow involved in committing atrocity crimes, States’ reluctance to implement laws against them significantly leads to such crimes (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008).
In Darfur and the Crime of Genocide, Hagan and Rymond-Richmond (Reference Hagan and Rymond-Richmond2008:57) refer to Sutherland’s “theory of differential association” that “explains individual criminality with a social psychological process of learning crime within the interaction with social groups”. Sutherland argues that an individual’s criminal behaviour is influenced by their determination whether their group is “organized in favor of crime versus organized against crime” (Matsueda Reference Matsueda2006:3–4). In line with this theory, Hagan and Rymond-Richmond (Reference Hagan and Rymond-Richmond2008) highlight Glueck’s concerns over conspiracy and international justice for atrocity crimes, illustrating the macro-level constraints and controls.
Next, Aksenova (Reference Aksenova2019) offers that socio-legal scholarships, empirical evidence and practical considerations rooted in criminological studies of atrocity crimes may contribute to defining the perpetrators’ “motivations”. It will eventually assist in preventing future international crimes and, thereby, developing international law. Rothe and Mullins (Reference Rothe and Mullins2008) divide the motivations of perpetrators of atrocity crimes into three groups at the macro level: economic, political and dehumanization construct. First, referring to Rwanda’s situation after the downfall of “international coffee markets”, they argue that the people engaged with producing the commodity are more driven to commit crimes (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Second, Reike (Reference Reike2014) suggests that “criminal masterminds” design the policies of atrocity crimes to achieve political and ideological ends. They motivate individuals to create a social context where committing atrocity crimes seems rational (Reike Reference Reike2014). For example, Hagan and Rymond-Richmond (Reference Hagan and Rymond-Richmond2008) observe that genocide in Darfur is grounded on “race” and motivated by the government (Pruitt Reference Pruitt2014). Hagan and Rymond-Richmond have developed the “collective action theory of genocide” and explicated that macro-level paradigms of ideology formed micro-level groups, such as Arabs and Black Africans (Pruitt Reference Pruitt2014). Last, the dehumanization mechanism signifies the psychological process of constructing the “other” or building the “us vs them thinking” to identify the victim group (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008:140). The “us vs them thinking” exaggerates differences between group members, eventually leading to the social exclusion of the targeted group and believing “kill or be killed” (Waller Reference Waller, Jensen and Claus-Christian2008).
Finally, the MITSC’s macro-level “opportunity” means the State’s ability to generate and exploit criminal opportunities (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). The propaganda and control of information, social disorganization (including political instability), military occupation and accessibility of illegal means are considered national-level opportunities (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Agnew’s “strain theory” suggests that hostile social relations, including relations between States, yield negative impacts on the states and behaviours of the people (Maier-Katkin, Mears, and Bernard Reference Maier-Katkin, Mears and Bernard2009). Maier-Katkin et al. (Reference Maier-Katkin, Mears and Bernard2009) argue that Germany’s political oppression and experience of the inter-war years validated the idea that the macro-level strain is a crucial precondition for causing crimes against humanity. The Rwandan genocide can also be illustrated as an example of opportunity because in the same way that the Nazis developed “anti-Semitic propaganda”, the Hutus gave hate speeches against Tutsis, which they pronounced using broadcast media (Kressel Reference Kressel1996). The Hutu leaders often used euphemisms like cleansing, clearing the bush, final solution, etc., to justify their violent and destructive actions against the Tutsis (Kressel Reference Kressel1996).
Meso Level (Groups/Organizations)
At the meso level, first, the factor of controls involves the failure of States to implement internal rules and codes of conduct when atrocity crimes occur (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Second, internal omissions and deficient communication systems are significant constraints (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Third, the leaders, organizational objectives and reward schemes motivate criminal conduct (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Finally, opportunities mainly encompass organizational structure that often leads to deindividuation (or loss of self-awareness in a group), which signifies that people act differently from they would as individuals, and financial support (Alvarez Reference Alvarez2001; Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). Additionally, “obedience to authority” and “conformity” should be addressed as opportunities at the meso-level.
Reike (Reference Reike2014) identifies that middle-ranking perpetrators, like bureaucrats, dedicated fighters, or racketeers, do not design plans but obey the orders of criminal masterminds. They are “ordered into ordering others”, while others follow orders to maintain a chain of command and pursue career progression (Reike Reference Reike2014). Woolford (Reference Woolford2013) refers to Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority to explain that situational contexts reduce morality and permit perpetrators to commit collective violence. Jamieson (Reference Jamieson1998) designates such crimes as crimes of obedience from the perspective of criminology of war.
Sessar (Reference Sessar2016) suggests that obedience to authority gradually shapes the psychological development of “conformity”, which makes it harder to leave the group or organization. Maier-Katkin et al. (Reference Maier-Katkin, Mears and Bernard2009) observe that conformity to primary-group norms is used as a tool to ensure the participation of individuals in crimes against humanity and genocide. They also find the conformist influence of groups in Jedwabne’s situation. The empirical accounts suggest that an older (deviant) normative order becomes a convention which systematically controls individuals’ behaviour (Maier-Katkin et al. Reference Maier-Katkin, Mears and Bernard2009).
Micro Level (Local Communities and Individuals)
Atrocity crimes combine macro and meso views (circumstances) with micro perspectives (emotions). Therefore, Pruitt (Reference Pruitt2014) attempts to establish that low self-control and social situations limit or accelerate an individual’s behavioural products (e.g. crimes). At the micro level, the local communities and individuals do not participate in designing atrocity plans; instead, they play the role of collaborators in committing crimes (Reike Reference Reike2014). The key circumstantial factors, for example, lawlessness (controls), socialization, antithetical social norms and dampened morality (constraints), ideologies, normalization of deviance and strain (motivations), and obedience to authority and conformity (opportunities) influence individuals to participate in atrocity crimes (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008).
Techniques of neutralization are micro-level criminological tools that explain why individuals become involved in atrocity crimes and how they neutralize their feelings and justify their criminal behaviours. The core of techniques of neutralization proposed by Sykes and Matza signifies that “criminal behaviour becomes possible when individuals can rationalise the behaviour in a way that reduces its apparent immorality” (Day and Vandiver Reference Edward and Vandiver2000). Of the five techniques formulated by Sykes and Matza, “denial of the victim” is used to blame the victims for their victimization (Day and Vandiver Reference Edward and Vandiver2000). For example, during the Holocaust, projecting the Jews as the enemy, the Germans tried to justify their brutal behaviours as acts of self-defence (Pruitt Reference Pruitt2014). Remarkably, applying the techniques of neutralization to the Holocaust, Alvarez (Reference Alvarez1997) identifies that individuals deny their responsibility as they believe that their actions are beyond their control. He also finds that perpetrators deny the injury and attempt to present their behaviours as socially acceptable by classifying killings as cleansing or special treatment (Alvarez Reference Alvarez1997).
Table 2 brings together multiple elements of motivation, opportunity, control and constraint at macro, meso and micro levels to identify the aetiology of atrocity crimes.
Table 2. The Multi-level Integrated Theory of Supranational Crimes: Level of Perpetrators and Catalysts for Action
Source: Rothe and Mullins (Reference Rothe and Mullins2008).
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Methodological Approach and Sampling Design
This research has used the case study method as it is helpful to explore complex and new phenomena, understanding a real-world case to develop knowledge and assess the existing studies (Yin Reference Yin2018). This method has long been involved with the research of State crimes. However, the criminological study of serious human rights violations and atrocity crimes is relatively new. We still require a wide-ranging understanding of the situations concerning atrocity crimes against the Rohingya in Myanmar to identify the aetiology. Thus, using the case study method in this research has helped construct a logical chain of evidence to understand episodes of atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya. This method has also helped evaluate the usefulness of the MITSC in their situation from a criminological viewpoint by stressing relationships between variables.
The primary data of this research has been collected from Rohingya refugees living in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh. It first applied a “simple random sampling” method to identify 383 Rohingya households from the estimated 150,000 using the “random number table” method, in which each was assigned a unique number. Subsequently, two separate lists of 1,786 female and male members of the Rohingya households, who were over 18 years, were made. Then, using a random number table method, 96 participants – 59 male and 37 female – were chosen to form 12 focus groups (each consisting of seven to nine participants). That there were fewer female participants shows that many female members of the Rohingya households were unwilling to participate in the FGDs.
Of the 96 participants, 81 came to Bangladesh on/after the 2017 wave of violence, and the remainder had arrived at several points beginning from the 1980s. The participants were categorized into three groups by age (the sample ranged from 18 to 71 years of age): young adults (18 to 35 years old); middle-aged adults (36 to 55 years old); and older adults (over 55 years old) (Kogan Reference Kogan1979). The participants of this research came from various townships (districts) of Rakhine State of Myanmar; for example, most of them originated from Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, though a small number originated from Ponnangyun, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U and Minbya.
Data Collection and Analysis Methods
Case study data can be obtained from multiple sources, including documents, archival records, interviews, direct observations, participant-observation and physical artefacts to reduce threats to validity (Yin Reference Yin2018). Accordingly, in this research, the process of collecting qualitative data was carried out in two parts. First, primary data was collected through 12 FGDs with 96 participants whose names have not been used in this paper to protect their confidentiality. While conducting the FGDs, the research team, composed of the author, 12 research assistants, two interpreters, two psychologists and two note-takers, followed a checklist. The checklist subsumed open and non-committal questions so that the subjects of this research could express their experiences without being controlled by the wording or the preliminary description of the research topic. Most FGDs continued for 90 to 120 minutes, occasionally more, depending on the situation.
Second, secondary data has been obtained from websites, newspaper and journal articles, books, and governmental and non-governmental reports. The author has attended to all the primary and secondary data collected, investigated credible rival explanations, and addressed the specific aspects of the Rohingya persecution. In brief, the author has used thematic analysis to code and analyse the data systematically and put them into different sections, reflecting the selected themes of this paper (Braun and Clarke Reference Braun and Clarke2006).
AETIOLOGY OF THE PERSECUTION OF MYANMAR’S ROHINGYA
This part presents analysis and interpretations of data that refer to the factors of aetiology of the persecution against the Rohingya at macro, meso and micro levels. However, the levels of perpetrators are construed under three broad themes (by combining the latter two dynamics of the MITSC) – namely, motivation, opportunity, and control and constraint. Although separate discussions are made on each theme, specific catalysts for the action of the same somewhat overlap.
Motivation
At the national level, a State or macro-level perpetrator creates a situation where the victims’ group is differentiated from others based on ethnicity, race, religion or nationality to commit atrocity crimes against the targeted group (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). In other words, an ideology considering the concept of “us vs them”, or “kill or be killed”, is reinforced in society to motivate the meso- and micro-level perpetrators. Here, the “us” refers to the perpetrators of macro-, meso- and micro-level actions and “them” denotes the victims as a group.
This paper argues that the Rohingya have been subjected to State-sponsored persecution since 1962, which marked Myanmar’s coup d'état and the beginning of military rule (Blakemore Reference Blakemore2019). It identifies that from the 1960s, different policies – official or unofficial – of the military leaders to differentiate the Rohingya as “them” include: first, identifying them as “Bengalis” (the Rohingya speak Ru´aningga, which is a Bengali–Assamese language and is mutually intelligible with Chittagonian, spoken in Bangladesh) or interchangeably, “Bangladeshis”; second, labelling them as “kalar” or “(Muslim) kalar” – a derogatory adjectival noun meaning “dark”; and last, denaturalizing them by revoking their citizenship to deprive them of their fundamental rights.
At the macro level, Myanmar’s military leaders identified the Rohingya as “Bengalis” instead of “Burmese”, creating a social setting in which the Rohingya used to live since – arguably – as early as the 9th century (Farzana Reference Farzana2017). This de facto assault against the Rohingya motivated the perpetrators of all levels to rationalize persecution against them. For example, a 27-year-old Rohingya man said, “the Myanmar government officials used to say that we are Bengalis, we look like Bangladeshi people, we have come from Bangladesh, and so we are just their guests”.
Distinguishing the Rohingya as “Bengalis”, they were also labelled as “kalar” or “Muslim kalar” by the locals and officials in both formal and informal propaganda to refer to the Rohingya as a non-Burmese ethnic group, or “dirty” population (Hossain Reference Hossain2021; Latt Reference Latt2012). A participant of this study, a 32-year-old Rohingya man, confirmed that he personally experienced that the Buddhist Maghs (Magh/Mog refers to the Rakhine Buddhists) used to refer to him and other Rohingya as Muslim kalar. Moreover, John Zaw, a Myanmar-based journalist working for Union of Catholic Asian (UCA) News, indicated in 2016 that “Rohingya is still a dirty word in Myanmar” (Zaw Reference Zaw2016). Thus, the Rohingya are often exposed as fragile, unattractive and disgraceful because of the skin colour of their bodies. Such symbolization demonstrates the degree of difference between the perpetrator group and the Rohingya community.
As a result, the notion that treating the Rohingya differently from other humans is acceptable was deliberately instilled among the meso- and micro-level perpetrators. It became official when this community was labelled as “them” to the rest of Myanmar’s over 135 officially recognized ethnic groups. It means that the Rohingya’s social exclusion has materialized based on ethnicity, religion, and even race. Therefore, based on ideology initiated at the macro level to motivate the meso and micro levels, atrocity crimes against the Rohingya seemed rational as a part of social exclusion and neutralization among the local Buddhist community.
Over the decades following the enactment of the 1982 Myanmar Citizenship Act, which overlooked the term “Rohingya” referring to the identity of an ethnic group, the members of this community were considered “illegal immigrants” (Human Rights Council 2019). Their civil and political rights were increasingly denied by implementing prejudicial laws and policies or reviving prejudicial customs since the mid-1980s (Human Rights Council 2019). For example, their freedom of movement was restricted by requiring expensive and time-restricted official permissions for travelling between villages. Also, since 2012, all mosques in Rakhine State have been permanently shuttered, which has affected the freedom of the Rohingya to practise their religion (Human Rights Council 2019). Consequently, the Rohingya were not treated as equal citizens and were legally barred from obtaining any government document by identifying them as Rohingya (Radio Free Asia 2015).
On the other hand, the Myanmar government initiated various policies of distributing different types of identity cards among the members of the Rohingya community – apparently – in 1989, which intensified tension among them. Most of the participants of this study confirmed that they were provided with various identity cards issued by the authorities of Myanmar in different phases. For example, during our field investigation, some of them showed us “white cards”, issued by the Immigration Ministry of Myanmar as “Temporary Registration Certificates” (TRCs), that revealed the Rohingya as unverified residents of Myanmar.
In 1993, Myanmar officials began issuing TRCs for those Rohingya with “pending process[es] to validate applications for citizenship” that identified them as Bengalis in a formal manner (Hölzl Reference Hölzl2018). TRCs were also issued to a few other ethnic communities in Myanmar, namely, Chinese or Indians, while the Rohingya of Rakhine State were mainly the holders of TRCs or white cards (Green, MacManus, and de la Cour Venning Reference Green, MacManus and de la Cour Venning2015). However, the ethnic groups recognized in Myanmar’s citizenship law did not require such cards.
Therefore, introducing and implementing various rules for the Rohingya through the TRCs confirmed and underpinned the de facto denial of their full citizenship. For instance, under the white-card system: first, the Rohingya were allowed any freedom of movement only in Rakhine State, and their travel outside Rakhine State was restricted; second, they were allowed only the most basic medical services; third, they were not permitted to study past elementary school; and last, in general, they were identified and treated as “temporary residents” of Myanmar (Hossain Reference Hossain2021).
A 46-year-old Rohingya man, one of Myanmar’s white-card holders now living in Kutupalong refugee camp, stated:
I have never realized the benefits of having a white card. I just knew that I could not do this, I could not do that, etc. etc. Schools, mosques, and madrasas were all shut down or burnt to ashes by the government officials and military forces after 2012. Our children were deprived of all kinds of education. We were subjected to torture if we went to mosques for our prayers.
He added:
Our citizenship was revoked by the government. We could not vote. The government used to elect local representatives such as Chairmen and Members of our villages from the Buddhist Maghs. They were often asked to distribute leaflets to introduce new religious rules to us.
Coupling the research for this paper with the statements, Myanmar intended to exclude the Rohingya socially by denying their fundamental rights, including the right to take part in any political decision of the State and by expunging their citizenship. Along with stripping the rights of the Rohingya, Myanmar’s leaders used to blame them for the country’s deficiencies by asserting that the Rohingya were illegal migrants from Bangladesh and had stolen good lands in Rakhine State (Gettleman Reference Gettleman2017).
Myanmar’s denial of citizenship and rights of the Rohingya and its leaders’ blame directed towards them are reflections of the macro-level perpetrators’ generation of motivation based on race and the creation of the perception of ideological difference between the Rohingya and the others. Such motivation has generated micro-level groups of perpetrators. From a different perspective, it can be suggested that atrocity crimes against the Rohingya played a significant role in the military leaders staying in power for more extended periods by forcing Burmese and other ethnic communities to put their attention on the Rohingya instead of State affairs. It is not uncommon for dictators to distract the public through various means, which might not be in the interest of the State but are helpful for them to remain in power.
Denaturalizing the Rohingya resulted in creating micro-level perpetrators of atrocity crimes, who considered the Rohingya as second-class citizens, sub-humans or non-humans. In various events, the Rohingya were compared with animals, parasites, insects or disease germs in Myanmar (Hossain Reference Hossain2021). Gettleman (Reference Gettleman2017) has deduced that some influential Buddhist monks stated: “the Rohingya were the reincarnation of snakes and insects and should be exterminated, like vermin”. Not only that, but it has also been cited that Myanmar government officials used to portray the Rohingya as “ugly as ogres” (Winn Reference Winn2016). A 22-year-old Rohingya man recounted:
The Hukumat [government], military, and Maghs were all against our ethnic community. Most Muslim people used to live in our locality. But we used to dislike Buddhist Maghs. They used to torture us with the help of our local police and Chairmen at different times.
This suggests that the meso-level perpetrators, such as local administration like the chairmen and the local police, have intentionally eased the micro-level control and allowed lawlessness (as discussed below).
It is thus suggested that through the process of dehumanizing the Rohingya, the meso-level perpetrators reinforced different religious mindsets and ideological differences of the micro-level perpetrators, thus motivating them to neutralize their inhuman behaviours against the Rohingya. These actions of the perpetrators demonstrate that they intended to consider the Rohingya community as sub-human or non-human. For this purpose, the macro-level military leaders in Myanmar created a social context that dehumanized the social and religious practices of the Rohingya Muslims, allowing the meso- and micro-level perpetrators to rationalize exploiting the opportunity to commit atrocity crimes against the Rohingya.
Opportunity
Macro-level opportunities within a nation involve employing propaganda against the targeted group, inducing political instability, blaming the targeted group for any social disorders, enhancing military control over a particular territory by arranging military support, and forming paramilitary groups to generate circumstances that make it possible to commit atrocity crimes (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). As a result of such opportunities, obedience to authority and conformity with the organizational structure usually cause a loss of self-awareness among the meso-level perpetrators and influence micro-level perpetrators to participate in atrocity crimes.
In the case of the Rohingya, this paper finds that the military leaders invoked certain strategies for opportunities – namely, strengthening military support and paramilitary forces, supporting organizational commitments and financial gain of the military and paramilitary forces, and blaming the Rohingya victims for justifying their atrocity crimes.
A 25-year-old Rohingya recounted: “… during 2012, the police, the NaSaka, and the Buddhist mobs attacked us. Those violent attacks worsened the peaceful life between the Muslim and Buddhist religious people”. Myanmar formed the notorious NaSaka, a border security police, in 1992 that was tasked with besieging the Rohingya in Rakhine State. A 37-year-old Rohingya man narrated:
Our village was attacked on the night of Eid-ul-Adha [Islamic Feast of Sacrifice] of 2017 [dated: 31 August/1 September 2017]. I can still remember that some of the people who attacked were local and border guard police and Maghs, and some of them were dressed in military uniforms bearing patches of “star”. The colour of the dresses was “khaki” [dark yellowish green]. They were cutting our children into pieces and throwing them into the canal in front of our eyes. Many men and women were arrested and confined in unknown places. The Buddhists villagers also burnt our houses and looted our properties.
Interpretation of this interview suggests that the Myanmar militia forces were organized since or before 1992, while the paramilitary groups composed of the local Buddhist Maghs were eventually trained and armed. Besides, after the 2012 military operation against the Rohingya, concentration camps were established in central Rakhine State to detain the Rohingya, where, as of July 2019, around 128,000 – forcefully – internally displaced people are living in inhuman conditions with several limitations (McVeigh and Ellis-Petersen Reference McVeigh and Ellis-Petersen2019).
Thus, it can be pointed out that the organizational commitment to atrocity crimes against the Rohingya was planned by the macro-level government and carried out by meso- and micro-level military and paramilitary forces and local Maghs. Initially, the military might have committed atrocity crimes against the Rohingya to maintain the chain of command, i.e. the obedience to authority. However, their action became habitual, and their thoughts in collectively committing the atrocity crimes conformed with the State. They committed atrocity crimes to generate income and for the progression of their career, which falls under motivation too. The military and paramilitary forces had lost their self-awareness in groups (i.e. deindividuation) and only thought of the opportunity of achieving the organizational goal. Also, they took the chance of obedience to authority to absolve themselves of any guilty conscience and ethical dilemma while carrying out the atrocity crimes.
During military operations against the Rohingya in different episodes, the Myanmar government inspired the meso-level military by allowing them to rob the houses of the Rohingya while raiding the villages, which can collectively be called an opportunity for generating financial gain. For example, a 22-year-old Rohingya man stated:
One or two days before [dated: 29/30 August 2017] Eid-ul-Adha, our villages were attacked by the military and local Maghs. They killed thousands of our people, raped our mothers, sisters, and daughters, and robbed our houses.
This account indicates that military government intentionally loses control of the meso-level perpetrators to create an opportunity to commit atrocity crimes. For example, when talking about rights violations that the Rohingya used to face in Myanmar, a 46-year-old man said: “During Eid-ul-Adha, we used to sacrifice cows or goats secretly because if we were caught, the military used to torture us and impose a huge fine.”
Here, it is essential to note that the meso-level military, by imposing a fine on the Rohingya, used to ensure a substantial amount of revenue flow. In addition, when the micro-level perpetrators live where there are not enough economic and other opportunities, it creates strain (Maier-Katkin et al. Reference Maier-Katkin, Mears and Bernard2009). Consequently, the micro-level perpetrators in the Rakhine State looked for people to blame. Differentiating the Rohingya as “them” – discussed in the “Motivation” section – allowed the micro level to find the victims to blame. Due to social strain, they committed violence against the victim group Rohingya.
Moreover, by justifying Myanmar’s military operations against the Rohingya as “ethnic cleansing”, “clearance operations” or “counter-terrorism efforts”, the military represents the Rohingya Muslim community as a threat to national security (International Crisis Group 2017). Aung San Suu Kyi, pro-democracy leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, blamed the violence between Buddhists and Muslims on a “climate of fear” and claimed that the awareness that “global Muslim power was ‘very great’” had triggered the tensions in Rakhine State of Myanmar (BBC News 2013). Besides construing this as a motivation for the macro-level political leaders for political gain, the military government used to portray the Rohingya as followers of a religion which is a threat to the national security of the State, hence rationalizing the military operations against them. As a result, the macro-level Myanmar government has generated opportunities for the meso- and micro-level perpetrators to crack down on the Rohingya. For example, a 56-year-old Rohingya man stated, “During 2012’s military attack, the Rohingya Moulovis [religious leaders] were targeted and slaughtered.”
The government devised the plan of targeting the Rohingya religious leaders so that they could neutralize the spread or propagation of the Islamic faith in the community. More specifically, a 58-year-old Rohingya man recounted:
On the following day of clashes between the Rohingyas and Arakanese Buddhists in 2012, the Myanmar military and police forces began arresting mostly the young adults and some middle-aged adults of our villages, accusing them of joining a terrorist group. We thought that they were taken to the police station, but after a few days, we found dead bodies of many of them, and some are still missing (Hossain Reference Hossain2021).
Myanmar government and military officials spread propaganda over the broadcast media beginning in 2012 (although carrying on more forcefully after the incidents of 25 August 2017) that: a Rohingya terrorist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) emerged in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar, and those who are involved with terrorist activities were fleeing to avoid law enforcement (The Daily Star 2017). The Myanmar government promoted a narrative about Rohingya about how they are terrorists in the name of ARSA, which appeared in 2012. However, in practice, most Rohingya had to flee Myanmar because of repeated persecution against them for over half a century.
It is significant to mention that Myanmar’s propaganda against the Rohingya created a perception that the members of the Rohingya community are terrorists. Consequently, it was justified for the meso- and micro-level perpetrators to victimize them as well as deny their victimhood. In particular, the meso-level perpetrators took the opportunity of deindividuation and obedience to authority to explain that they were only following orders and trying to achieve organizational objectives. This justification allowed them to eliminate their ethical dilemma, if any existed.
Control and Constraint
The failure to implement domestic and international laws and norms by the macro-level State, and, where applicable, the international community to prosecute and punish the perpetrators are considered the main reasons behind atrocity crimes within the ambit of control (Rothe and Mullins Reference Rothe and Mullins2008). In line with this, macro-level constraints arise due to political changes and denouncement of public opinion in both national and global domains.
This paper identifies that in the case of the Rohingya, such lawlessness (controls) and internal omissions (constraints) on the part of macro-level perpetrators caused deliberate (and sometimes, subconscious) reinforcement of antithetical social norms among the meso- and micro-level perpetrators resulting in dampening their morality.
The Myanmar government allowed lawlessness and lost its control over the meso- and micro-level actors for their wrongful acts committed against the Rohingya, and, thus, the military and local Buddhist Maghs got the opportunities to commit atrocity crimes in different periods. For example, a 36-year-old Rohingya man said:
Most of the people of our village were Muslims but a small number of Hindus were living with us peacefully. Since 2012, a group of Maghs used to visit our village and rob our valuable belongings. After a few incidents of such robbery, some of the villagers complained to the local police but they did not give us any protection. Meanwhile, the same group of Maghs began coming to our village again and again and threatened us not to make any complaint to the police in future.
He added that the local Maghs used to shout: “Who are the mad dogs that want to file complaints against us? Come before us; we will send you to your Allah.” Thus, on the one hand, it is evident from the discourse on motivation that the Myanmar government officials and military used to treat the Rohingya under prejudicial laws and policies. However, on the other hand, they practised lawlessness by providing immunity to the local Maghs as an unofficial method of discriminating against the Rohingya in different forms.
Furthermore, the Rohingya women and girls were publicly humiliated and violated to vilify the community and forced to lead a substandard life in Myanmar. Through the dehumanization process, the Myanmar government (macro level) has generated the motivation and idea that the Rohingya are lesser than humans and can be dealt with in manners that a human cannot be. For example, a 21-year-old Rohingya woman said:
I got married in February 2015. After a few days of my marriage, around 10–15 soldiers entered our house breaking the front door. I was lying in bed with my husband that evening. Some of them took my husband outside. Five or six soldiers [military] forcibly undressed me and raped me. After that, they took me outside, naked, and pushed me to the ground. I saw that there were also some naked women lying on the ground and screaming. I was a new bride there; I was feeling very ashamed. Meanwhile, a few women were dragged outside as well. The soldiers forced all of us to stand and make a queue. Then we were forced to march toward the paddy fields of our village.
From this interview and supporting research, two findings emerge. First, the macro-level perpetrator made the idea that committing criminal acts against the Rohingya is nothing but ordinary. Consequently, the meso-level military soldiers have delved into deindividuation as they lost the awareness that what they were doing against the Rohingya was not the actions of treating them as human beings. Second, the lawlessness attributable to the loss of control by the macro levels promoted confidence among the meso-level (and perhaps, micro-level) perpetrators that they would not be tried for their crimes. In other words, the Myanmar government accorded perpetrators impunity for systematically committing rape of the Rohingya women in various periods.
The concerned authorities of Myanmar hardly investigated any matter of human rights violations of the Rohingya (Altsean-Burma 2017). Instead, the Rohingya were often blamed for any conflicts between them and the military or Buddhist extremists. Such internal omissions on the part of the macro- and meso-level perpetrators caused increasing constraints on the Rohingya community. In addition, many of the participants of this research stated that the local Chairmen, Members, and the Buddhist Maghs – mainly after 2014 – used to distribute leaflets to the Rohingya. A 42-year-old Rohingya man confirmed that: “The leaflets were written in the Burmese language, and they were banned from doing some activities through the leaflets, e.g. chatting in groups of more than two persons, moving after eight o’clock at night, saying prayers for five times, and meeting people to spread Islamic faith in the Mosques.”
By banning these activities, Myanmar attempted to neutralize the Islamic faith of the Rohingya so that they did not face problems in converting them to Buddhism. At the same time, the micro-level perpetrators were encouraged to create constraints by spreading anti-ethical social norms, such as proscribing five-times prayers among the Rohingya Muslims. As regards a different way, a 60-year-old Rohingya Muslim imam said:
We had seven mosques in our village, Tumburu, Rakhine. I was an imam [a Muslim who leads prayers in the mosque] in one of the mosques of our village. The Myanmar military burnt all the mosques one after another. Before the military attacks of August 2017, the police raided our village, arrested many imams of our villages, including my elder brother [62 years old] who was imam of another mosque, and opened fire on our locality. Subsequently, we came to know that the military burned the imams alive.
The constraints in the religious practice of burning mosques and practising lawlessness by allowing the killing of imams achieve the objective of macro-level perpetrators disrupting the usual way of life of the Rohingya Muslims. Together with killing the people with leadership qualities to reinforce constraint on the Rohingya to neutralize their potential threat, the military government of Myanmar drafted the bill of Political Parties Registration Law during the election of 2010 to put a constraint on the Rohingya concerning national matters, which would bar this ethnic group from taking part in making any decision about national interest.
The bill allowed only the “scrutiny card” holders to stand as candidates in the election (Myint Reference Myint2014). Consequently, many of the Rohingya could not participate as candidates in the 2010 election as the Rohingya were provided with TRCs or white cards replacing the scrutiny cards from 1989 (Radio Free Asia 2015). Afterwards, during the 2015 election, the white-card-holder Rohingya community members could neither stand as a candidate nor exercise their right to vote because President Thein Sein declared on 11 February 2015 that all the white cards would expire on 31 March 2015 (Ullah Reference Ullah2019).
Myanmar military leaders deliberately prompted a lack of control over the law-and-order situation to practise lawlessness against the Rohingya. Also, by targeting the influential people in the community, including religious figures, and revoking their civil and political rights, the macro-level perpetrators created such constraints for them so that they could not live like normal human beings. Consequently, the meso- and micro-level perpetrators, without fear of being prosecuted, committed atrocity crimes against the Rohingya during and before the most enormous wave of violence in 2017.
CONCLUSIONS
The Rohingya have been the most persecuted ethnic group under the military regime since 1962 in Myanmar. After over 50 years of military rule, a transition to democracy began in the country in 2012. Nevertheless, the military launched the newest and most enormous level of violence against the Rohingya on 25 August 2017, which caused a mass inflow of Rohingya to bordering Bangladesh. This research has examined the aetiology of persecution – mainly human rights abuses and atrocity crimes – against the Rohingya from 1962 to 2019 in Myanmar, using a multi-level model that integrates the essence of criminology. It considers that atrocity crimes are linked with macro conflicts and micro dynamics. Hence, it unfolds criminology’s contribution to evolving an aetiology of atrocity crimes through four specific themes under the MITSC: motivation, opportunity, control and constraint. Although Rothe and Mullins (Reference Rothe and Mullins2008) examined these themes at four levels, such as international, macro, meso and micro, the author focuses on three levels – namely, macro, meso and micro, to conduct the current study.
Primarily, this paper finds that the military operations against the Rohingya in different chapters in Myanmar, which were strengthened by political influences of the military leaders or criminal masterminds, led to Rakhine State’s local Buddhists’ massive participation in atrocity crimes. However, until the military leaders staged the 2021 coup and retook political charge by forcing out the civilian government (i.e. NLD), the latter was in power – in reality – from 2016. Therefore, it can be argued that the macro-level perpetrators of the Rohingya persecution, which happened after the civilian government came into power, involve its leaders too.
This paper suggests that Myanmar’s successive military leaders and governments (macro level) generated motivation for the meso-level military personnel, security force members, paramilitaries, and micro-level vigilantes, i.e. local Buddhist Maghs, by fostering the notion that the Rohingya are not the same social beings and thus, the Rohingya are lesser humans than them. As a result, the perpetrators and the Rohingya victims were trapped in an enduring cycle of violence, i.e. a continuum of destructiveness. Furthermore, the military leaders eventually revoked their citizenship, distinguished them as Bengali or illegal immigrants, and took their civil and political rights away through its 1982 Citizenship law and different policies on various occasions. Thus, excluding the Rohingya from Myanmar became a socially acceptable practice to the micro-level perpetrators due to such practices of the macro-level perpetrators, which is the process of normalization of deviance.
It is identified in this paper that by labelling the Rohingya as “dirty” people and using raping and sexually violating women as a tactical method of humiliating and creating terror among the Rohingya people, both macro- and meso-level perpetrators dehumanized the Rohingya and neutralized their persecution to the micro-level Buddhist Maghs in Rakhine State. Moreover, opportunities for financial gain and career progression were accomplished by the meso-level military by imposing fines on the Rohingya for various purposes and by both meso- and micro-level perpetrators by looting the personal belongings of the Rohingya. However, it should be noted that further research may delve into how Myanmar as a State has benefited economically as a part of its motivation to persecute the Rohingya.
This paper also suggests that the macro-level perpetrators deliberately lost control by not implementing laws against the meso- and micro-level perpetrators in order to create opportunities for them to commit atrocity crimes against the Rohingya. In other words, the lawlessness from the loss of control by the macro-level perpetrators augmented confidence among the meso- and micro-level perpetrators that they would not be prosecuted for their crimes. Myanmar propagated – nationally and internationally – that the Rohingya Muslims are terrorists or threats to national security to justify the military operations as ethnic cleansing, clearance operations or counter-terrorism efforts. Consequently, the Buddhist Maghs (micro level), through denial of the victimhood of the Rohingya, used to rationalize that the Rohingya are to be blamed for their persecution due to their race, ethnicity or religion.
For further research, considering that this paper has limited its analysis to national-level motivation, opportunities, control and constraint to study the Rohingya persecution, exploring these themes at the international level might be insightful. It may reveal how the international community’s failure to implement international crime control mechanisms to respond to succeeding events of violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar motivated macro-level military leaders to create different opportunities for meso- and micro-level perpetrators to commit atrocity crimes against the Rohingya on the largest scale in 2017.
Acknowledgements
I thank all the Rohingya participants for participating in this research. I am grateful to Dr Andy Aydın-Aitchison for his comments on drafts of the literature review of this paper. I am incredibly thankful to Akhlak-Ul-Islam Tusar for his comments on drafts of this paper that helped sharpen the data analysis and interpretation. Also, I am thankful to Nusrat Jahan Nishat for her support in further sharpening the paper.
Mohammad Pizuar Hossain is a senior lecturer in law and criminology at East West University, Bangladesh, and a consultant (pro bono) of the Bangladesh Office of Asia Justice and Rights, Indonesia. He served as a legal researcher at the Edinburgh International Justice Initiative in the United Kingdom. His research interests cover public international law, human rights, mass atrocity and genocide studies, criminology and criminal justice, and constitutional law. He has recently published journal articles on amnesty for war crimes and genocide, 10 stages of the Rohingya genocide, geopolitics and the Rohingya repatriation, the environmental impacts of the Rohingya crisis on Bangladesh, and the implications of international law on Bangladesh–India water-sharing management.
