06 ROHINGYA GENOCIDE DAY The military and Buddhist chauvinists, Rakhine extremists – who include politicians, academics, journalists, and monks— have denied the existence of Rohingya in Myanmar. After 1990, the military State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) excluded the Rohingya from its shortlist of 135 so-called national races that Myanmar has recognized indigenous, although, in 1960 U Nu parliamentary government recognized and included them in the list of about fifty ethnic groups and Ne Win also put themin his shortlist of 144 ethnic races. Systematic misinformation, fake news and hate speech against Rohingya are widespread in Myanmar. In Arakan, Bengali-phobic and Islamophobic hate crimes spread like wildfire, accusing the Rohingya of Bengali immigrants suggesting their expulsion to Bangladesh. Frequent armed operations have been carried out against Rohingyas, involving terrorization, torture and criminal atrocities, arrest and detention, destruction and expulsion from the country. Unfortunately, the Rakhine have been instrumental in “Rohingya persecution”. Rakhine leaders and academics like Dr. Aye Maung, Dr. Aye Kyaw, Monk Ashin Nayaka, U Khin Maung Saw, Dr Aye Chan and U Shwe Zan are some of the masterminds, to mention a few. In 2012 the organized Buddhists under the aegis of the administration attacked and killed many hundreds of Rohingyas and consequently removed about 140,000 people to internally displacement camps in Sittwe and southern towns where they are living in subhuman condition without adequate food, health care, education and necessities for life. On 23 August 2012, the former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Darek Mitchell said, “In Myanmar the Rohingya are oppressed by everybody.” In 2015, the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School found "strong evidence that genocide is being committed against Rohingya." The study found that the Burmese government, with the help of extremist Buddhist monks, was responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Rohingya”. Throughout 2013–2015 isolated incidents of violence against Rohingya continued to take place. In late November 2016 Human Rights Watch released satellite images which showed about 1,250 Rohingya houses in five villages in Kyaukpyu, western Arakan were burned down by security forces. Many people were detained. Their average age was 34, the youngest was 10, and the oldest was 75. In 2017, the world was appalled by the images of hundreds and thousands of innocent Rohingya men, women and children fleeing mass atrocities in Arakan/Rakhine State. Families were massacred, mass graves uncovered, hundreds of villages scorched, thousands of houses burned to the ground, women gangraped, babies thrown into the flame, forcing nearly a million survivors to take refuge in neighboring Bangladesh creating a great humanitarian disaster. The crisis spilled over into many countries in the region and beyond with huge ramification posing threats to regional and international peace and security. Boats carrying Rohingya refugees on the Naf River were often gunned down by the Myanmar military, including helicopter gunships and Myanmar Navies. The military also planted internationally banned landmines along the border to prevent the fleeing Rohingyas to Bangladesh. Some villages were targeted for ariel bombing. Since 1948 almost three quarters of Rohingya population were expelled from their homeland in the most inhumane manner. Today Bangladesh is a home to more than 1.2 million Rohingya, including those who came before 25 August 2017, creating the world’s largest refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar district. Under impossible situation, many escaped to India or risked deaths by rickety boats to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. Thai-Malaysia border, Bay of Bengal, Andaman sea and Strait of Malacca became graveyards for the Rohingya boat people. The Rohingya are very appreciative of Bangladesh and other receiving countries for sheltering and taking care of them on humanitarian grounds.