and political elite suggest, the Rohingya can legally be subjected to forced displacement and other human rights abuses. The Union Citizenship Act of 1948 was added to define and differentiate indigenous and non-indigenous races of Burma—largely due to the numerous ethnicities within Burma’s borders and the various claims over territory and depends for differing degrees of autonomy apart from the central government. The 1948 legislation stipulated: Automatic acquisition of citizenship ... included: a) permanent residents whose grandparents had resided in Burma permanently, b) children born in the Union after 4 January 1948 one of whose parents was a citizen and c) children born outside Burma and one of the parents was a citizen serving for the state authorities of the Union. Citizens could apply for a “Union Certificate of Citizenship” (UCC) as proof of citizenship of the union ... only foreigners were required to register under the Registration Foreigners Act, 1940. (Arraiza & Vonk, 2017, p. 6) This shows that the post-independence government of Burma was far more concerned, at the time, with the surveillance and monitoring of foreigners within the country. This is not surprising given the unstable relationship Burma had with major foreign powers in the years leading up to national sovereignty. The Citizenship Act also underscores the pervasive paranoia associated with Burma’s power structure regarding fears of foreign invasion or domination: it requires foreigners to register with the government, and those in high positions of power were able to control the whereabouts and activities of non-nationals. With respect to military control, the 1948 act set a precedent in terms of the way the central government viewed those whom it deemed outsiders—a view the military has clearly taken to justify its mistreatment of the Rohingya. Since independence, the Tatmadaw has continuously referred to the Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants in 63