GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR

COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION: GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR
foreign diplomats; local and international journalists; lawyers; monks; imams; business people; local and
international photographers; and academics. 32 Fieldwork also involved ethnographic observation in some
40 Rohingya, Kaman and Rakhine villages and camps for IDPs (within Sittwe, Thandwe and Mrauk U
districts), and in Aung Mingalar, the one Rohingya ghetto in Sittwe. The ethnographic fieldwork, which
combined interviews with observation, provided the opportunity to analyse social relations in Rakhine
state.
The interviews were designed to elicit the experiences and perceptions of both perpetrator and victim
communities and to document the state of genocidal persecution. An important goal was to penetrate
and understand the sense of grievance that animates hostility against the Rohingya within the Rakhine
community – many of whom we interviewed had engaged in the violence of 2012 against their longstanding
neighbours. An understanding of the Rakhine sources of insecurity, which underpin nationalist
and racist ideologies, is crucial to understanding underlying tensions and animosity between Buddhists
and Muslims within the region.
The first interviews in Rohingya, Rakhine and Kaman villages were normally conducted with the formal
or informal village administrators, who granted permission to interview residents and provided basic
information about the village. The less structured nature of the camps tended to mean that interviews
began immediately upon entering the camps, with researchers randomly selecting those willing to speak.
Women in the camps were far more reticent to speak than men, but as strong a representation of women’s
voices as possible was achieved.
ISCI researchers faced hostility twice: once in a Rakhine camp during an interview with a group of elders
who vented their anger at the international community for discriminating in favour of the Rohingya; and
once in a Rakhine village when an elder asked the researchers to leave during an interview with two
young perpetrators of the 2012 violence.
Informed consent was secured in every case and confidentiality assured. Most of those interviewed are
not named in order to protect their identities and safety.
The fieldwork was supplemented by documentary searches in Burmese and British archives, media
searches and academic literature surveys. In addition, leaked documents and interview data were made
available by Al Jazeera, Wikileaks, journalist Francis Wade and Fortify Rights, and are referenced as such.
When ISCI researchers attempted to secure approval to visit northern Rakhine state it was denied. A
translation of the pertinent discussions revealed that the team was denied access on the basis that it
would most certainly speak to ‘kalar’ (a pejorative term used to refer to Muslims), though the official reason
given was that the team’s security could not be guaranteed. As a result, much of what ISCI learned
about northern Rakhine comes from the testimony of Rohingya who have fled the area.
32 Interviews were conducted in 6 Rohingya villages, 10 Rohingya camps; 17 Rakhine villages, the 2 existing Rakhine camps;
the one existing Maramagyi camp; and the 3 existing Kaman villages in Sittwe and in the Rohingya ghetto of Aung Mingalar.
The interviewees comprised 71 Rakhine (57 male and 14 female), 53 Rohingya (45 male and 8 female), 13 Kaman (9 male and
4 female), and 11 Maramagyi (6 male and 5 female). In addition, 18 international journalists, photographers, international NGO
workers and diplomats, 10 monks (the transcripts of 5 acquired through Al Jazeera), and a number of state officials, business
people, developers, politicians, civil society and political activists and local journalists were also interviewed.
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