About ARNA

In this trying situation, with the encouragement of the Rohingya people, the “Arakan Rohingya National Alliance” (ARNA) was founded to achieve the “right of self-determination”, “right of return” and all other goals of the Rohingya people within the Federal Democratic Union of Burma/Myanmar. And we hereby declare that:

(1) The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim community, living in Arakan with a long history are indigenous to Myanmar. They have had connections to the high cultures of Bengal, Persia and Arabia. Their sublime civilization was a gift to the whole people of Arakan. For centuries Arakan prospered in international trade and brought into its people new ideas and learning. Today they are not tolerated in their own homeland for their ethnicity and religion. The United Nations has described them as the world ‘s most persecuted people.

(2) Arakan is our homeland, our life, and since we don’t have another one, we will fight for it until the very end and we will never give it up. We have physical, mental and spiritual attachments to it.

(3) Rohingya identity is genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The dispersal of Rohingya people through disasters befalling them, must not make them lose their Rohingya identity and their membership in the Rohingya community, nor should they negate it.

(4) The Rohingya masses whether in the homeland or in their places of refuge, comprise one national front. We will organise, inspire and galvanise them into positive action at the service of the community. Youth are necessary assets to the society, and we will undertake youth development programmes, improve human qualities in them through education, health, appropriate trainings in order to face the challenges effectively.

(5) The struggle of the Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA) is to achieve the “right of self-determination” and “right of return” of the Rohingya people. It is a continuation of the Rohingya people’s long and heroic resistance against injustice, persecution and atrocity crimes, including genocide. We salute and honour all those martyrs who sacrificed their valuable lives in defence of the freedom of Rohingya people. We will remember them forever.

(6) We will work unitedly in a transparent, accountable and comprehensive manner to achieve all our goals as enunciated in the “Rohingya National Charter”.

(7) We are committed to upholding “peaceful coexistence” on the agreed upon union principle of “unity in diversity”. We also express support and solidarity with Muslim communities, persecuted ethnic and religious minorities in the country.

(8) Unity is strength. We look at every Rohingya male or female as necessary asset. Particularly the youth are our future leaders. We warmly welcome them to join with the ARNA agreeing to the Arakan Rohingya National Charter that reflects hopes and aspirations of the Rohingya people.

(9) We oppose settler colonisation that has been carried out in North Arakan by appropriating Rohingyas’ land and their expulsion from their homes in the most inhuman manner. They included Rohingya genocide survivors most of them taking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. Rohingya areas have been depopulated to be populated by Buddhist settlers from inside and outside of the country. It is a dangerous scheme causing serious demographic changes. This illegal plan is totally unacceptable.

(10) The Burma Citizenship Law of 1982 is the cruellest of injustice done to the Rohingya people. It violates several fundamental principles of international customary legal standards, offends the 1948 United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and leaves Rohingyas lacking legal protection of their rights. The law has perpetuated the Rohingya citizenship crisis making them objects of persecution and discrimination and rendering them stateless in their native country. Such persecution and discrimination constitute a total disregard for the most elementary humanitarian principles and is contrary to the purpose of the United Nations. It is conflicting Myanmar’s obligation to fulfil the rights of the child as stipulated by Article 7(1) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Child, 1989; Myanmar ratified it in 1991. This oppressive and discriminatory law must be repealed straightaway.

(11) We strongly condemn the 1st February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, and we are determined to fight together with all democratic forces against the illegitimate autocratic military regime in order to establish a Federal Democratic Union respecting the will of the democratic aspirations of the whole people of Myanmar.

(12) We cautiously welcome the National Unity Government (NUG) of the Union of Myanmar and strongly wish to work together with NUG and other stakeholders. In this connection, it is crucial that they declare unequivocal policies ensuring the Rohingya’s right to exist in Arakan on the basis of “full and effective equality”, “the right of return” and their inalienable “right to self-determination”.(13) Also, it is of great importance that NUG:

(a) Supports credible accountability efforts, acknowledges all past crimes against Rohingyas.
(b) Accepts the findings and recommendations of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM). This includes an unequivocal acknowledgement that genocide and crimes against humanity have been committed against the Rohingya as stated by the UN Fact-Finding Mission.
(c) Commits to a comprehensive and durable solution to safeguarding Rohingya’s inherent universal rights and ethnic identity as an indigenous people of Myanmar, including through the Federal Charter, new constitutional process and vision set out by the NUG.

(14) It is irrefutable historical fact that the Rohingya and Rakhine had lived together in Arakan in perfect amity for centuries. But under “divide and rule policy”, of the Myanmar’s administrators, politicians and successive military regimes, the two indigenous communities have been put at loggerheads, dividing them on racial and religious lines. Unfortunately, this criminal policy that reduced the two peoples of Arakan at the abyss of their history has been supported by racists who have recurrent of dreaming about turning Arakan into a Buddhist region. With regard to it, we urge the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) and all other Rakhine organizations to genuinely work together with the Rohingya people to forge a better, brighter future for all peoples of Arakan, including ethnic Chin, Mro, Khami, Dainnet (Chakma), Thet and Hindu etc.; and make Arakan great again.

(15) The Myanmar military regime is progressively altering and destroying the Rohingya historicity, Islamic cultural heritage, archaeological remains, Muslim graveyards, monuments, mosques, madrassas and demography in Arakan and across the country. Much of the persecution has historically targeted Rohingya or Muslims. Other non-Burman people, particularly Christians and Hindus, are also subjected to religious persecution. We are committed to the preservation and growth of Islamic culture among our people without prejudice to the preservation and growth of other indigenous and religious cultures in our homeland and the country.

(16) In 1942, during Second World War, about 100,000 innocent Muslim Arakanese were massacred by the Buddhist Rakhine at the provocation of the chauvinist Rakhine leaders linked to misguided Burma Independence Army (BIA). Muslims’ vast age-old areas and settlements were emptied, particularly along the Kaladan and Lemro deltas, turning them into non-Muslim or Buddhist territories. Still their descendants are willing to return to their homeland.

(17) After Burma’s independence, seizure of Rohingyas’ land and their expulsion from their homes continued increasingly and it has been more systematic from 1962 military rule. In 2017, the world was appalled by the images of hundreds and thousands of Rohingya men, women and children again fleeing the mass atrocities. Families were massacred, mass graves uncovered, hundreds of villages scorched, thousands of houses burned to the ground, women gangraped, babies thrown into the flame, and more than a million Rohingya were forcibly expelled into Bangladesh, causing regional instability and threat to international peace and security. We are grateful to the people and Government of Bangladesh and other receiving countries for sheltering and taking care of our helpless people with solidarity and compassion. We will never forget these humanitarian gestures.

(18) Today Bangladesh is a home to more than 1.2 million Rohingya, including those who came before 25 August 2017. The foremost important for them now is to return home from Bangladesh and other countries of refuge. The right of return is embedded in four bodies of international law: the law of nationality, humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law. We will leave no stone unturned for the voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable repatriation of all Rohingya refugees, including forcibly and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Akyab/Sittwe and southern towns, to their original homes and places in Arakan with suitable reparation. Land is the life or means of making a living of the people. All previous land and landed properties must be entirely returned to the returnees or rightful heirs.

(19) Rejcted in Myanmar and unwanted elsewhere, since 2008 thousands of Rohingya took dangerous voyages in rickety boats towards Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries in search of safe shelter and protection. The fleeing people were often victimized at the hands of the human traffickers and greedy exploiters. Many died of starvation. Mass graves were discovered on the Thai-Malaysian borders. Likewise, the Bay of Bengal, Andaman sea and Strait of Malacca become graveyards for the Rohingya. Thus Rohingya refugee crisis has become a regional crisis. Now with the continued persecution and genocide, the Rohingya have become more desperate to risk death. All countries in the region have a responsibility to ensure the seas do not become graveyards for people seeking safety. Bangladesh cannot be left to address this situation alone. A coordinated regional response is desperately needed to protect Rohingya in Myanmar, in refugee camps abroad, and at sea, while pressing Myanmar authorities to take the steps necessary for them to return home safely. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must enhance regional cooperation in order to improve protection for the region’s refugees.

(20) Genocide never happens overnight and without warning. The systematic destruction of Rohingya people began decades ago in Myanmar, largely from 1962 military rule, and the worst in August 2017. August 25 is a most memorable day for us, for our people and for our generations to come as “the Rohingya Genocide Day”.

(21) We will continue to seek justice and accountability to ensure victims see justice served and the cycle of violence is not repeated. All perpetrators must be brought to justice. This includes referring the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international tribunals. The world needs to show that it is not ready to tolerate such barbaric acts.

(22) We will undertake necessary programmes for the uplift of the Rohingya people in socio-cultural, economic, educational, health care and technical fields. We ensure that all children have access to basic education of good quality. Proper encouragement will be awarded to meritorious students for higher studies.

(23) We will establish a stable, peaceful and welfare society based on absolute freedom, equality, democracy and human rights for all people, without distinction as to race, colour and religion, and discrimination of any kind.

(24) Rohingya women and girls have borne the brunt of oppression by Myanmar’s military regime. The regime’s officers and soldiers and military sponsored non-state actors in systematic campaigns have most horrendously abused them. We salute the female Rohingyas’ courageous efforts to survive, even as refugee widows and orphans. For the future, we support the rights of Rohingya women and girls to education, health and economic empowerment, in a new atmosphere of utmost respect and absolute safety and security.

(25) As the dangerous narcotics flowing out of Myanmar with its military regime’s full involvement poses a terrible hardship to all peoples of Asia and the world, we oppose this deadly trade. We will educate our youths of the dangers of drug (including AIDS infection) and firmly obstruct any such narcotics trafficking through our land.

(26) We call for a halt to the present grievous ravaging of the forests of our homeland by greedy exploiters and the Myanmar military regime. For our future generations’ heritage, we pledge to protect our environment, including forests, rivers, wetland, coastline ocean. We shall save our land from unsustainable logging, killing of endangered species, all forms of pollution, and overfishing to preserve a green haven for our children and the world.

(27) We reject and boycott against all multinational corporate investment with the Myanmar military regime. In the future, any investment and development must only be done with the wishes and welfare of our people in mind and with their full informed consent and oversight. Future development must be sustainable, appropriate, clean and beneficial to the common people.

(28) We appeal to the international community, United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its member states, Australia, U.S.A, U.K, EU, ASEAN, Burma’s neighbours and Bangladesh to find out a permanent solution to the longstanding Rohingya crisis.