OK, I’ll play along. Let’s say that the Rohingya are not Rohingya, but are Bengali immigrants to Myanmar, as the regime claims. How citizens can be transformed into immigrants by the stroke of a legislative pen, I don’t know; but never mind. For the sake of argument, alright, they are immigrants.
So what?
Every country has immigrants, every country hosts expats, workers, professionals, students,etc.
Myanmar is seeking to ATTRACT foreign companies, and that is going to mean even MORE foreigners entering the country. Are you telling me that none of them will have any rights? That they will be eligible for extrajudicial killing simply on the basis of them being immigrants? Is that Myanmar’s policy towards foreigners?
Do you really think that by saying the Rohingya are Bengali, this justifies repressing and dehumanising them?
The median salary for expat workers in Myanmar is $4,000 (at least four times higher than Burmese workers), and this doesn’t include perks like housing, schooling and transportation allowances. Yet the Nationalists do not regard these immigrants as an economic rival for locals; indeed, they are welcomed.
The “Bengali immigrant” argument does not work very well. Are you really prepared to integrate foreigners from all over the world into the society and into the economy, but you are unwilling or unable to integrate the “foreigners” who have lived in Myanmar for generations? How does that make sense?