35 In 1977, the Myanmar military initiated operation Naga Min, or Dragon King in English, to identify and register residents of three states (Rakhine, Chin, and Kachin states) and two divisions (Mandalay and Sagaing divisions) as either citizens or foreigners.28 The operation began in Rakhine State in February 1978, targeting Rohingya in northern Rakhine State.29 During the operation, the Myanmar Army reportedly razed Rohingya villages and committed severe human rights violations, forcing more than 200,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.30 Myanmar authorities at the time denied allegations of abuses and blamed the situation on “wild Muslim extremists” and “rampaging Bengali mobs.”31 In June of 1978, Myanmar President General Ne Win and the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh met, and the following month the two governments moved forward with a plan to forcibly return Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.32 The authorities subsequently forced tens of thousands of Rohingya back to northern Rakhine State.33 1982-2011: CITIZENSHIP DENIED Four years after Naga Min and three years after forced repatriations began, the military government passed the 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively denied Rohingya equal access to citizenship rights and eventually stripped a majority of Rohingya of their Myanmar citizenship. The timing, content, and commentary on the 1982 law demonstrate that it deliberately targeted Rohingya on racial and religious grounds, though the authorities did not fully enforce it for several years.34 For instance, on October 8, 1982, General Ne Win, the President of Myanmar from 1962 to 1981, delivered a speech about the incoming citizenship law at a meeting held at the President’s House in Yangon, saying: We, the natives or Burmese nationals, were unable to shape our own destiny . . . [s]o at the time of independence there were not only true nationals, but also guests . . . We are, in reality, not in a position to drive away all those people who had come at different times for different reasons from different lands . . . we have therefore designated them eh-naing-ngantha (associate citizens) in this law.35 28 William L. Scully and Frank N. Trager, “Burma 1978: The Thirtieth Year of Independence,” Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 29 In Rakhine State, Naga Min reportedly degenerated into violent attacks on Rohingya by both the Myanmar army and 2, in A Survey of Asia in 1978: Part II (Oakland: The University of California Press, February 1979), pp. 147-156. local civilian perpetrators. See, Human Rights Watch, Burma: The Rohingya Muslims, p. 11; Bertil Lintner, “Diversionary Tactics: Anti-Muslim Campaign Seen as Effort to Rally Burmans,” Far Eastern Economic Review, August 29, 1991. 30 The feature-length documentary film The Venerable W., directed by Barbet Schroeder, includes rare historical footage of Rohingya survivors of Naga Min in Bangladesh. The Venerable W., directed by Barbet Schroeder, 2017. See also, Human Rights Watch, Burma: Rohingya Muslims, p. 12. 31 Quoted in Martin Smith, Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity, (London: Zed Books, October 1999), p. 241. See also, Human Rights Watch, “All You Can Do Is Pray.” 32 William L. Scully and Frank N. Trager, “Burma 1978: The Thirtieth Year of Independence,” Asian Survey, pp. 147-156. 33 Carl Grundy-Warrand and Elaine Wong, “Sanctuary Under a Plastic Sheet: The Unresolved Problem of Rohingya Refugees,” Durham University Centre for Borders Research, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1997, pp. 79-91 http://www.mcrg.ac.in/WC_2015/ Reading/D_Unresolved_Problem_Rohingya_Refugees.pdf (accessed August 23, 2019); Human Rights Watch, Perilous Plight: Burma’s Rohingya Take to the Seas, May 26, 2009, https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/05/26/perilous-plight/ burmas-rohingya-take-seas (accessed June 10, 2018), p. 6; Human Rights Watch, “All You Can Do Is Pray.” 34 Nick Cheesman, Rohingya,” “How in Myanmar Journal of Contemporary Asia, ‘National Races’ Came to Vol. No. pp. 461-483, 47, 3, Surpass Citizenship and Exclude https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ full/10.1080/00472336.2017.1297476?scroll=top&needAccess=true (accessed August 26, 2019). Cheesman writes that the “work of introducing the new citizenship regime appears to have gone on lethargically and without fanfare,” and other accounts differ as to when the government began implementing the law. Most accounts, including government data, indicate that by 1989 the authorities were implementing the law as designed. See also, for example, Patrick Brown, No Place on Earth (New York: FotoEvidence, 2019); Brinham, “Looking Beyond Invisibility,” Tilburg Law Review, pp.156–169. 35 General Ne Win, “Speech by General Ne Win: Meeting Held in the Central Meeting Hall, President House, Ahlone Road,” The Working People’s Daily, unofficial translation, October 9, 1982, https://www.scribd.com/document/162589794/NeWin-s-Speech-1982-Citizenship-Law. Ashley South and Marie Lall, eds., Citizenship in Myanmar: Ways of Being in and from Burma (Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2017), p. 234.