Bangladesh/Myanmar: The Dangers of a Rohingya Insurgency Crisis Group Asia Report N°348, 18 June 2025 Page 20 man community found themselves subject to the Myanmar military’s brutal methods, these attitudes began to soften. The National Unity Government – a parallel administration appointed by elected lawmakers ousted in the 2021 coup, which operates mostly from exile – consolidated this shift by introducing a Rohingya policy, appointing a Rohingya as a deputy minister and vowing to replace the 1982 Citizenship Law, which for decades has been used to discriminate against the Muslim minority.109 These policies marked a major departure from those of the National League for Democracy government (2016-2021), during which Aung San Suu Kyi defended the Myanmar military at the International Court of Justice.110 Even so, latent suspicion of the Rohingya has not gone away. Most people in Myanmar do not view armed movements purporting to represent the community as legitimate, let alone the equivalent of the country’s other ethnic forces. Media outlets and social media users typically refer to ARSA and the RSO as “terrorist organisations”, rather than “ethnic armed groups”. Many people in Myanmar also believe that armed Rohingya groups are trying to establish an Islamist enclave.111 The recent use of religious rhetoric to mobilise the Rohingya refugee population, and the fact that recruitment is taking place over the border in Bangladesh, a majority-Muslim country, will only further this perception. 109 The law made it much more difficult for people from ethnic groups deemed non-Indigenous – mainly those of South Asian and Chinese descent – to get citizenship. 110 National League for Democracy representatives played a crucial role in forming the National Unity Government and hold prominent positions in it. See Richard Horsey, “Myanmar at the International Court of Justice”, Crisis Group Commentary, 10 December 2019. 111 Crisis Group Report, Myanmar: A New Muslim Insurgency in Rakhine State, op. cit.