2020
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
2(2)
migrants and counter the armed activities of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation
led to the displacement of thousands to Bangladesh. 75
A similar scenario was repeated in 1991, when a similarly framed ‘Operation
Clean and Beautiful Country’ (‘Pyi Thaya’) led to over 250,000 persons displaced
across the border. In 2012, a series of incidents between Rohingya and Rakhine
led to riots that displaced 125,000 persons internally. 76 These internally displaced
persons (‘IDPs’) were housed in detention camps that continue to exist, despite
commitments from the government such as those reflected in the Final Report of
the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. 77
From 2016 onwards, the government started replacing the former Temporary
Registration Cards with ‘Identity Cards for National Verification’ namely to
scrutinise whether the applicant meets the eligibility to become a citizen of
Myanmar and to identify them as residents of Myanmar during the citizenship
verification process. 78 In practice, it prolonged a situation of legal uncertainty
without a clear process of conferring citizenship.
In November 2016 and August 2017, following attacks by the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army, the army launched an offensive that led to the
displacement of 750,000 Rohingya civilians to Bangladesh. 79 The scale of the
violence used, including rape, torture, killings and other crimes, led to claims that
the Burmese authorities committed crimes against humanity and genocide against
the Rohingya. 80
III
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The second case analysed is the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of
Hispaniola with Haiti in the Caribbean archipelago. Since independence from
Haiti in 1844, the Dominican elites made an effort to build a Dominican national
identity in opposition to the Haitian identity in line with the logic of nation
building. 81 Hence, during the 20th century, antihaitianismo (xenophobia against
Haitians) was fed by the political elites, promoting a European and Hispanic
identity and denying any African roots. 82 The delegitimisation of African heritage
was put in practice through the omission of any reference to the contribution of
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
Smith (n 27) 42.
ibid 54.
Towards a Peaceful, Fair and Prosperous Future for the People of Rakhine: Final Report of
the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State (Report, Advisory Commission on Rakhine State
25
August
2017)
<https://storage.googleapis.com/kofiannanfoundation.org/2017/08/FinalReport_Eng.pdf>
‘Press Release on Issuing Identity Card for National Verification (NVC) and Collecting Three
Categories in Rakhine’ (Press Release, State Counsellor Office Information Committee 26
December 2016) [7]. The original is no longer offered on the Information Committee website
but can be found on the Committee’s Facebook page. See State Counsellor Office Information
Committee, ‘Press release on issuing Identity Card for National Verification (NVC) and
collecting three categories in Rakhine’ (Facebook, 28 December 2016)
<https://www.facebook.com/InfomationCommittee/posts/661370280702748>.
Smith (n 27) 97.
Human Rights Council, Detailed Findings of the International Fact-Finding Mission on
Myanmar, UN Doc A/HRC/42/CRP.5 (16 September 2019).
Simone Rodrigues Pinto, ‘Anti-Haitianismo en la República Dominicana: de Sánchez
Valverde hasta Balaguer’ in Matías Bosch Carcuro, Eliades Acosta Matos, Amaury Pérez
(eds), Masacre de 1937: 80 Años Después: Reconstruyendo la Memoria (CLACSO 2018)
25–45.
Bridget Wooding, ‘Upholding Birthright Citizenship in the Dominican Republic’ (2014)
44(1–2) Iberoamericana — Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 99.
206