THE ROUND TABLE 149 in 2014), the reality is that statelessness severely degrades basic human rights and can inhibit long-term solutions for human and state security (UNHCR, 2014). The Consequences of Statelessness: The Case of the Rohingya The Rohingya are a religious, ethnic, and linguistic minority group formerly residing in the Rakhine province on the western coast of Myanmar (Rahman, 2010, p. 234). Over 900,000 have sought refuge in Bangladesh, most living in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar on the eastern border of Bangladesh (UNHCR, 2017). While a significant number of Rohingya have resided in Bangladesh since the first Burmese military operation against the group in the late 1970s, over 650,000 fled Myanmar between August and December 2017 following renewed crackdowns by Myanmar’s security forces (Lewis et al., 2018). This most recent and arguably most severe wave of violence was triggered by an attack against Myanmar forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, an extremist militant group claiming to represent the interests of Rohingya in the northern Rakhine State (Htusan, 2017). Myanmar’s military campaign in response to this attack included the systematic forced movement, rape, and killing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya (Amnesty International, 2018). The campaign has been labelled a ‘textbook case’ of ethnic cleansing, highlighted by mass graves containing the bodies of Rohingya villagers (Cumming-Bruce, 2017; Klug, 2018). According to Myanmar’s government, the Rohingya are not indigenous. The group was officially stripped of their recognition as an ethnic national group when Ne Win’s regime came to power, placing Myanmar (then Burma) under military rule (Nemoto, 1991). After enacting the 1974 Emergency Immigration Act, the Rohingya were considered illegal immigrants (Nemoto, 1991). Their status as stateless was made official by the 1982 Burmese Citizenship Law that distinguished three categories of citizenship, excluding the Rohingya from each (Razzaq and Haque, 1995). Systematic violence against the Rohingya can, however, be traced back to 1978’s ‘Operation: Dragon King’, a campaign to register citizens in which government forces evicted the group on the grounds they violated the state’s nationality laws (Parnini, 2013). Though the history of the Rohingya has been politically contentious in Myanmar, there is consensus among historians and anthropologists that the Rohingya are descended from Arab Muslim traders who came to the Arakan Kingdom as early as the eighth century (Chowdhury, 1995).6 While the group has historically faced discrimination, the 1978 operation saw a shift towards more violent tactics of repression and a deterioration in Rohingya–Myanmar relations. The 1991–1992 Exodus In 1991, renewed operations against Rohingyas saw a mass exodus of some 250,000 to Bangladesh (Human Rights Watch, 2000). Systematic human rights abuses (forced labour, rape, and confiscation of land) forced the Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh (Abrar, 1995). Though repatriated after the events of 1978, the largest repatriation of Rohingya occurred between 1992 and 1997 when over 200,000 Rohingya were repatriated – many involuntarily – with the approval of both governments and, later, the UN. This repatriation represented a clear refugee refoulement.