Operation Dragon King (), officially known as Operation Nagamin, was a

military operation A military operation (op) is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operati ...

carried out in 1978 by the

Tatmadaw The Tatmadaw, also known as the Sit-Tat, is the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include ...

(Myanmar Armed Forces) and immigration officials in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day

Rakhine State Rakhine State ( ; , ; ), formerly known as Arakan State, is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Re ...

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

), during the socialist rule of

Ne Win Ne Win (; ; 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002), born Shu Maung (; ), was a Burmese army general, politician and Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. Ne Win was Burma's mili ...

Background

The

Rohingya people The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless nation, stateless Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Ban ...

are an

ethnic minority The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...

that live in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day

), who have suffered historical persecution by the Burmese government and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

majority. After General

and his

Burma Socialist Programme Party The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was the ruling party of Burma (now Myanmar) from 1962 to 1988 and the country's sole legal party from 1964 to 1988. Party chairman Ne Win overthrew the country's democratically elected government i ...

(BSPP) seized power in a coup in 1962, the government systematically dissolved Rohingya political and social organizations. The end of the

liberation war Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...

in neighbouring

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

strengthened the Burmese government's fears of "foreign invaders" infiltrating their country. Therefore in 1977, the government began its preparations for Operation Dragon King, which commenced early the following year.

Events

The official purpose of Operation Dragon King was to register citizens in northern Arakan and expel so-called "foreigners" from the area prior to a national

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

. Immigration officials and military personnel conducted the operation together, with the latter being accused by

Rohingya The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Ro ...

refugees of forcibly evicting villagers through intimidation, rape and murder. The operation began on 6 February 1978, beginning in the village of Sakkipara in the Sittwe District, where there were mass round ups of civilians. In the span of over three months, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 refugees, mostly Rohingya Muslims, fled to

. The government of Burma estimated that 150,000 fled during the operation, and proclaimed that the mass exodus signified that Rohingyas were in-fact "illegal immigrants". The

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

(ICRC) and the government of Bangladesh provided emergency relief to the refugees, but were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis. Bangladesh requested assistance from the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, and a

UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and Humanitarian protection, protect refugees, Internally displaced person, forcibly displaced communities, and Statelessness, s ...

relief mission was sent to the region. On 31 July 1978, the governments of Burma and Bangladesh reached an agreement regarding the

repatriation Repatriation is the return of a thing or person to its or their country of origin, respectively. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as the return of mi ...

of Rohingya refugees, and 180,000 returned to Burma following the agreement.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dragon King, Operation History of Myanmar (1948–present) Rohingya genocide Conflicts in 1978 1978 in Burma

Background

Events

See also

References