Rohingya refugees in neighboring Bangladesh have said the coup raised their anxieties about return, seeming to further complicate a new effort to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to Myanmar later in 2021. It also may lead to changing public attitudes towards the Rohingya and military, as the general public-whose sentiment had been largely against the Rohingya-experiences firsthand the junta’s strongarm tactics in cracking down on anti-coup protests. The coup, however, immediately resulted in a deep schism between the military and the civilian government, as evidenced by Suu Kyi’s deposing and arrest.
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The military and Myanmar’s hitherto civilian-led government, under the de facto leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, had previously presented a unified front on the Rohingya issue, with Suu Kyi even appearing on behalf of the Myanmar delegation before the ICJ. These efforts were complicated by the Myanmar military’s February 2021 coup, and it remains to be seen how this development will impact wider efforts to protect Rohingya rights and pursue accountability for alleged international crimes. And the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is in the process of reviewing genocide allegations against Myanmar, has ordered the country to comply with measures to safeguard the Rohingya. House of Representatives have all concluded a genocide took place. Members of the Rohingya community, rights groups, and a range of international officials including the U.S. UN-appointed independent factfinders have found that the Myanmar military’s indiscriminate violence against the Rohingya, which has included brutal tactics such as burning villages, torture, and sexual violence, may amount to genocide. Their status is due to a long history of discriminatory and arbitrary laws, policies, and practices that have deprived and denied Rohingya people from obtaining citizenship in their native Myanmar (also known as Burma), complicated their access to asylum abroad, and subjected them to a wide array of rights violations and persecution.
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People of the Rohingya ethnic group have been described by the United Nations and others as the world’s most persecuted minority, a phrase that is a poor substitute for the personal histories of loss, deprivation, and displacement experienced by more than 2 million people.