Special issue on the Rohingya crisis: From the Guest Editor’s desk
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | Imtiaz Ahmed |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891120929570 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2020, Vol. 5(2) 85–88
Special issue on the
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Rohingya crisis: From the
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891120929570
Guest Editor’s desk
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Imtiaz Ahmed
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Bangladesh is facing one of the worst refugee crises in contemporary times, sheltering a refugee
population larger than Bhutan, with the bulk of the refugees having entered Bangladesh in less than
three months. However, one does not require too much intelligence to understand the following
sequence of events and the reasons behind the unfolding of the current Rohingya crisis. Four dates
are critical. On August 23, 2017, the Advisory Commission on the Rakhine State (also known as
the Kofi Annan Commission) submitted its final report to the Myanmar national authorities. On
August 24, 2017, the media, at home and abroad, published the report in detail. On August 25,
2017, the so-called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked the Myanmar military
forces. The very next day, on August 26, 2017, the Myanmar military resorted to what came to be
referred to as “a textbook case of ethnic cleansing,” which in the next three months saw more than
750,000 Rohingya people, mostly women and children, flee Myanmar to take refuge in Bangla-
desh. The unfolding of the crisis shows that the issue is no longer limited to Myanmar and
Bangladesh. Rather, it is an issue that is simultaneously national, regional, and international. This
makes the crisis equally problematic but not something that is totally out of the norm and difficult
to resolve.
The first three articles in this special issue deal with the state of Myanmar and the manner in
which the Myanmar security forces have committed atrocities against the Rohingyas. Niloy Ranjan
Biswas examines the nature of the Myanmar state, particularly “the denial of citizenship and the
military takeover of the country in 1962,” contributing to the “widespread persecution of the
Rohingyas in Myanmar.” Taking a cue from Lasswell’s “garrison state,” Biswas contends that
“Myanmar is a state which is compulsively concerned about perceived threats to its sovereignty.”
To what extent this is related to the confluence of state and religion, as found in the country’s
practice...
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