39 In 1989, the Myanmar government conducted a “nationwide citizenship scrutiny exercise” to apply the 1982 Citizenship Law and its 1983 Procedures.57 The government issued Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSC) to applicants who fulfilled the requirements of the law.58 The CSCs provided full citizenship to holders and replaced the NRCs.59 The authorities also issued Associate Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (ACSCs) and Naturalized Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (NCSCs).60 Individuals considered to be members of the 135 recognized “national ethnic groups” retained their citizenship status, while the government refused to issue CRCs to Rohingya and others.61 In 1991, similar to 1978, the Myanmar military launched Operation Pyi Thaya—in English, “Clean and Beautiful Nation”—in Rakhine State, committing killings, rape, and razing villages and mosques, forcing an estimated 270,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh.62 The operation was “designed to deny the Rohingya their claims to residence in Myanmar.”63 In September 1992, the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—the U.N. agency mandated to ensure protection for refugees, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons—began facilitating refugee returns “characterized by the use of force and coercion.”64 As of early February 1995, the governments with support from UNHCR reportedly returned 155,000 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, with more than 4,000 effectively forced back per week.65 In 1995, the Government of Myanmar began issuing Temporary Registration Cards (TRCs), also known as “White Cards,” to Rohingya and other minorities not officially recognized among the “national ethnic groups.”66 The authorities gave White Cards to large numbers of Muslims, including Rohingya in Rakhine State.67 The White Cards did not confer citizenship rights and, as the name indicated, were meant to be temporary.68 57 UNHCR, Study on Community Perceptions of Citizenship, Documentation and Rights in Rakhine State, August 2016, p. 6, https://themimu.info/sites/themimu.info/files/assessment_file_attachments/Community_Perceptions_FINAL. PDF (accessed August 23, 2019). 58 Ibid; Cheesman, “How in Myanmar ‘National Races’ Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, p. 472. 59 Ibid. 60 Trevor Gibson, Helen James, and Lindsay Faley, eds., Rohingyas: Insecurity and Citizenship in Myanmar (Chiang Mai: Thaksin University Press, 2016), pp. 87–88. See also, 1983 Procedures to the Myanmar Citizenship Law. 61 UNHCR, Study on Community Perceptions of Citizenship, p. 6. 62 Brown, No Place on Earth; Nicholas Farrely, “Muslim Political Activity in Transitional Myanmar” in Islam and the State in Myanmar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 107. 63 Farrely, “Muslim Political Activity in Transitional Myanmar,” p. 107. 64 U.S. Committee for Refugees, The Return of the Rohingya Refugees to Burma: Voluntary Repatriation of Refoulement?, March 1995, p. 1, https://refugees.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Return-of-the-Rohingya-Refugees-toBurma_Voluntary-Repatriation-or-Refoulement_March-1995_Curt-Lambrecht.pdf (accessed August 23, 2019). 65 Ibid. 66 Although Myanmar authorities began issuing White Cards in 1995, the cards came into force under 1949 Registration Act. Amnesty International, “Caged Without a Roof:” Apartheid in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, November 2017, p. 29, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA1674842017ENGLISH.PDF (accessed August 23, 2019). 67 UNHCR, which was working in Rakhine State at the time and was advocating for documentation for Rohingya, did 68 Chris Lewa, “North Arakan: An Open Prison for the Rohingya in Burma,” Forced Migration Review, 2009, p. 12. not publicly condemn the process. See, Brinham, “Looking Beyond Invisibility,” Tilburg Law Review, pp. 156–169.