16/08/2026
Rohingya Identity and the History of Their Forced Displacement Cannot Be Erased!
A recent statement by Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs attempts to portray established accounts concerning the Rohingya population in Bangladesh and their forced displacement from Myanmar as “false and one-sided.” However, the Tatmadaw has a longstanding pattern of committing grave abuses against ethnic communities and subsequently denying, minimizing, or reframing those violations.
In this context, I am reminded of the 2008 film Rambo, directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone. I have long admired Mr. Stallone’s films, and this particular film touched me deeply.
My purpose is not to debate which parts of the film were factual or fictional. Its significance to me lies in how it drew international attention to the suffering of the Karen people and other ethnic communities affected by the Tatmadaw’s longstanding scorched-earth tactics—village destruction, landmines, forced displacement, and brutal violence against civilians. These patterns of abuse have also been documented for decades by international human rights organizations.
The film’s impact was itself significant. Myanmar’s then-military junta prohibited its distribution and ordered DVD vendors not to stock it. Despite those restrictions, unauthorized copies circulated and generated considerable public interest. Contemporary news reports also indicated that the film’s well-known line—“Live for nothing, or die for something”—became a powerful rallying expression among some anti-junta activists and resistance supporters in Myanmar.
This demonstrated how cinema can be more than entertainment: it can bring an overlooked humanitarian crisis into global public consciousness.
In August 2017, members of our team and I personally interviewed several Rohingya women shortly after they crossed the Naf River and reached Bangladesh. Some had spent 15–20 days, or even longer, hiding in hills and forests to save their lives.
They described villages and homes being burned, settlements destroyed, indiscriminate attacks, family members killed or separated, and terrifying journeys to safety. Their words, their faces, and the trauma they carried remain deeply embedded in my memory.
Their eyewitness testimonies provided profoundly moving accounts of the violence and forced displacement inflicted upon the Rohingya. In their experiences, we recognized a longstanding pattern associated with the Tatmadaw’s scorched-earth tactics: terrorizing communities, destroying settlements and livelihoods, imposing collective punishment, and ultimately forcing people from their ancestral homeland.
The tactics experienced for decades by Karen and other ethnic communities appeared again, with horrifying clarity, in the testimonies of Rohingya survivors in 2017.
We must, of course, remain precise when discussing population figures. The number who arrived during the major 2017 influx and the total Rohingya population currently living in Bangladesh—including those displaced during earlier and subsequent periods—are different measurements.
Nevertheless, Myanmar’s incomplete verification process or unilateral statistics cannot erase the Rohingya’s identity, their historical presence in Myanmar, or the documented reality of their forced displacement. Joint Government of Bangladesh–UNHCR data and findings from independent UN investigations remain our most credible reference points.
As members of the NGO and humanitarian community, our responsibility extends beyond debating numbers. We must:
• protect the voices and dignity of survivors;
• preserve testimonies through ethical, safe, and survivor-centered approaches;
• communicate verified and credible information;
• resist attempts to erase identities or rewrite history; and
• Continue emphasizing that repatriation cannot be considered safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable without citizenship, legal rights, security, justice, and accountability.
Our position is not against the people of Myanmar, many of whom have themselves suffered under military rule and violence. Our position is against the Tatmadaw’s atrocities, denial, disinformation, impunity, and attempts to erase the identity and lived experiences of forcibly displaced people.
The testimonies I heard from Rohingya women who had just crossed the Naf River in 2017 were not distant news reports or statistics. They were the voices of human beings who had survived unimaginable violence—the painful histories of lost family members, burned settlements, and forced removal from their homeland.
Their voices, identity, dignity, and demand for justice must remain at the center of our humanitarian response, advocacy, and future decisions.
Dear Mr. Sylvester Stallone, your film helped bring a long-overlooked humanitarian crisis in Myanmar to global attention. Nearly a decade later, while interviewing newly arrived Rohingya women in Cox’s Bazar, I heard testimonies reflecting a similarly devastating pattern of violence and forced displacement. Cinema can create awareness; transforming that awareness into truth, humanity, justice, and responsible action is now our collective responsibility.
I am sharing Myanmar’s recent report and the link to Rambo, directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone, as references for context and public awareness.
Mohammad Helal Uddin
Director – Strategy, Partnerships & Emergency Oversight
AGRAJATTRA, Bangladesh
১০ লাখ রোহিঙ্গা বাংলাদেশে প্রবেশের তথ্য ঠিক নয়, বেশিরভাগ বাঙালি: মিয়ানমার, বাংলা ট্রিবিউন রিপোর্ট
১৫ আগস্ট ২০২৬, ১৫:৪০
https://www.banglatribune.com/national/962869/%E0%A7%A7%E0%A7%A6-%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%96-%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B9%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%99%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%BE-%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87-%E0%A6%AA%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B0-%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%A5%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AF-%E0%A6%A0%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95-%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%9F
References on the film’s reception in Myanmar:
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL02468068/
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSEIC16853520080201/
https://youtu.be/8VsGO9ksRSE?si=YfeISJMhl9q9CC8v
Sylvester Stallone
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