In 2016 and 2017, in response to small attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, Myanmar’s armed forces launched “area clearance operations” against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State—a response the U.S. government has called ethnic cleansing. This report explores the structure, training, and ethos of Myanmar’s armed forces to clarify the implications and challenges of, and the prospects for, finding constructive ways forward as well as an accounting for the past. Drawing on an in-depth review of the literature, extensive field experience, and interviews, the report is published by the United States Institute of Peace. Myanmar’s military leaders have long been haunted by the prospect that one day they may lose the power to control events and be brought before a court to account for their actions, and those of their subordinates. They have had good reason to be concerned.

For decades Myanmar has been portrayed as a case of good citizen versus bad regime – men in jackboots maintaining a suffocating rule over a majority Buddhist population beholden to the ideals of non-violence and tolerance. But in recent years this narrative has been upended. In June 2012, violence between Buddhists and Muslims erupted in western Myanmar, pointing to a growing divide between religious communities that before had received little attention from the outside world. Attacks on Muslims soon spread across the country, leaving hundreds dead, entire neighbourhoods turned to rubble, and tens of thousands of Muslims confined to internment camps. This violence, breaking out amid the passage to democracy, was spurred on by monks, pro-democracy activists and even politicians. In this gripping and deeply reported account, Francis Wade explores how the manipulation of identities by an anxious ruling elite has laid the foundations for mass violence, and how, in Myanmar’s case, some of the most respected and articulate voices for democracy have turned on the Muslim population at a time when the majority of citizens are beginning to experience freedoms unseen for half a century.

Offers new analysis of the complexities of the conflict and new insights into what is preventing a peaceful resolution to this intractable

This book discusses the current reality and the future of ethnic Rohingyas in Myanmar. It presents Myanmar’s history, ‎policy, politics and, most ‎importantly, while focusing on Rohingya ethnic conflict, presents a resolution by looking at ‎the global and regional policies ‎and politics of South Asia and ‎South-East Asia. The recent coup unfolded in Myanmar and the detention of the democratic ‎leaders has surprised the ‎world with its subsequent emergency declaration in 2021, thus making this ‎book ‎relevant and well-timed. ‎ Eventually, the book offers an account of a previously ‎little ‎known, yet much-discussed role of media, ‎international actors, human trafficking, ‎and ‎humanitarian-based resolution for Rohingya refugee crisis. It shows a new perspective ‎in the post-Rohingya influx era of Bangladesh and the neighbouring countries.

Myanmar’s Buddhist-Muslim Crisis is a probing search into the reasons and rationalizations behind the violence occurring in Myanmar, especially the oppressive military campaigns waged against Rohingya Muslims by the army in 2016 and 2017. Over more than three years John Holt traveled around Myanmar engaging in sustained conversations with prominent and articulate participants and observers. What emerges from his peregrinations is a series of compelling portraits revealing both deep insights and entrenched misunderstandings. To understand the conflict, Holt must first accurately capture the viewpoints of his different conversation partners, who include Buddhists and Muslims, men and women, monks and laypeople, activists and scholars. Conversations range widely over issues such as the rise of Buddhist nationalism; the sometimes enigmatic and unexpected positions taken by Aung San Suu Kyii; use of the controversial term “Rohingya”; the impact of state-sponsored propaganda on the Burmese public; resistance to narratives emanating from international media, the United Nations, and the international diplomatic community; the frustrations of local political leaders who have felt left out of the policy-making process in the Rakhine State; and the constructive hopes and efforts still being made by forward-looking activists in Yangon. Three main perspectives emerge from the voices he listens to, those of Arakanese Buddhists who are native to Rakhine (once called Arakan), where much of the conflict has taken place; Burmese Buddhists (or Bamars), who make up the vast majority of Myanmar’s population; and the Rohingya Muslims, whose tragic story has been widely disseminated by the international media. What surfaces in conversation after conversation among all three groups is a narrative of siege: all see themselves as the aggrieved party, and all recount a history of being under siege. John Holt gives voice to these different perspectives as an engaged and concerned participant, offering both a critical and empathetic account of Myanmar’s tragic predicament. Readers follow the hopes and dismay of this seasoned scholar of Theravada Buddhism as he seeks his own understanding of the variously impassioned forces in play in this still unfolding drama.

Myanmar’s security forces have conducted clearance operations in the Rakhine State since August 2017, driving a mass exodus of ethnic Rohingyas to neighboring Bangladesh. In The Rohingya Crisis: Analyses, Responses, and Peacebuilding Avenues, Kawser Ahmed and Helal Mohiuddin address core questions about the conflict and its global and regional significance. Ahmed and Mohiuddin identify the defining characteristics of Rohingya identity, analyze the conflict, depict the geo-economic and geo-political factors contributing to the conflict, and outline peacebuilding avenues available for conflict transformation at the macro-, meso-, and micro-level. This book is recommended for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, peace and conflict studies, political science, and Asian studies.

Armed conflict in Myanmar's Rakhine State between the Arakan Army and the Tatmadaw, the national army, has escalated sharply in the past two years. This development has been largely eclipsed, however, by the continuing international focus on the human rights crisis of the Rohingya Muslim minority. As this report explains, if this new conflict continues to expand in scope and ferocity, the hope of repatriating Rohingya refugees will recede into the future and the rest of the country will suffer from the increasing violence and destabilization.