Rohingya Power Struggles Before the UN Conference
2025 has already been billed as decisive for the Rohingya. Fighting between Myanmar's junta and the Arakan Army has redrawn front lines in Rakhine; a caretaker government in Dhaka is tightening its grip on the refugee camps in Bangladesh; and deep cuts to the World Food Program's budget have pushed rations to a breaking‑point. Against that backdrop, a high‑stakes United Nations pledging conference is set for New York in September.
For the million‑plus Rohingya who depend on aid, every year is billed as pivotal – and new groups with fresh acronyms keep appearing, each claiming to speak for them
'We now see a repeated cycle: fragmentation, new group names, personal ambitions replacing real strategy,' warned lawyer and activist Razia Sultana. Sultana , who has briefed the U.N. Security Council on conflict‑related sexual violence and written landmark reports on atrocities against Rohingya women, says she was never approached during the Council's so‑called 'wide consultation.' Her frustration frames the central question: why do the same leaders keep rebranding, and what does that mean for people who cannot afford another false start?
Dhaka is keen to prove 2025 marks a new chapter. In March, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres toured the camps, praising Bangladesh's 'pivotal' moment and its pledge to curb criminality. Days later, police paraded Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army chief Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi in handcuffs – evidence, officials said, that they were dismantling criminal networks. The administration has since promised to 'break Rohingya crime gangs' through a series of refugee camp elections with selected voter lists. Refugees, however, see opaque ballots quietly seating proxies of armed factions rather than genuine community leaders.
The disconnect worries diaspora critic Dr. Ambia Parveen, vice chair of the European Rohingya Council. 'We in the diaspora dominate the organizational landscape,' she said, 'but we're not the ones facing daily risks. Instead of fighting our enemies, we compete with each other.'
Launch by Press Release
Against this backdrop, the ARNC rolled out a thin manifesto asserting its sole legitimacy. Its stated aim is 'to overcome decades of division and establish a unified political voice for the Rohingya people.' The language echoed that of the Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA), launched in 2022 with many of the same personalities – including veteran activists Tun Khin and Nay San Lwin.
'Creating new names without substance risks confusing allies,' Razia Sultana cautioned. The Rohingya Consultative Council (RCC), formed last year after months of camp‑level meetings, was even more blunt: 'Legitimacy does not come from social‑media presence and press releases; it comes from sustained, democratic engagement.'
Within hours of the ARNC's debut, an entirely different body, the Arakan Rohingya National Congress, cried foul. In a July 14 statement, former MP Shwe Maung blasted the newcomers for 'deliberate deception … using a name and logo strikingly similar to ours.' He believed the move intended to 'sow confusion and derail years of painstaking diplomacy.' The Congress, chartered in 2021, says it already unites 39 senior figures and has logged 496 registrations for a Washington‑based Rohingya Round Table ahead of the U.N. conference.
In an interview, Shwe Maung added that ARNC's claim of delegates from every township is not true. 'They never consulted with them [inside Arakan],' he said.
In his public statement, Shwe Maung stressed that the Arakan Rohingya National Congress sits inside a three‑part structure – Congress, Council and Conference – governed by a charter first ratified in 2021 and updated in 2025. By launching a new entity with the same four letters and claiming exclusive legitimacy, the July 2025 ARNC, he argued, has not only duplicated the name but pre-empted an entire political structure already in place.
'This is a time for unity, not confusion,' the statement pleaded, warning that such tactics risk sabotaging the Rohingya community's limited credibility on the global stage.
The new Council has offered no public rebuttal. Three individuals listed as its media contacts ignored requests for comment, leaving its reasons for striking out on its own unexplained. ARNC allies privately dismiss the row as 'turf‑war theatrics' by an aging diaspora elite. What is clear, however, is that the acronym ARNC now sits in limbo – claimed by both camps, yet effectively held hostage by the newly launched Council, which shows no sign of sharing the stage.
Past Failed Umbrella Groups
This habit of clashing acronyms did not begin in the 2020s. In 2011 the Organization of Islamic Cooperation helped broker the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU), fronted by U.S.‑based academic Wakar Uddin, and gathering 25 diaspora groups under one banner. Seven years later, just as lawyers were pushing for a genocide case at the International Criminal Court, Uddin told Voice of America that an ICC referral was 'not necessary.' Within days, 28 diaspora organizations issued a blistering open letter declaring he had 'no mandate to speak for the Rohingya,' accusing him of opaque leadership and of 'undermining the pursuit of justice for our people.'
Predecessors and stand‑alone outfits have foundered on similar reefs – bad decisions, personality feuds, donor dependencies, and distance from the camps. By the time the 2017 massacres began, the Rohingya still lacked a single, trusted organization that could serve as their voice.
Post‑genocide urgency produced another reset. A virtual convention on November 20, 2022 proclaimed the ARNA the 'sole political platform' for Rohingya self‑determination. Prominent Rohingya figures, including Nurul Islam, Reza Uddin, Tun Khin, and Nay San Lwin were involved and argued that unity was finally within reach. Yet a counter‑statement circulated within weeks: the process had been 'neither consultative, diverse nor inclusive' and risked repeating past exclusivity .
Over 2023‑24, the ARNA posted sporadic updates but no joint strategy emerged; energy dissipated into internal stalemate and roundtables in Dhaka. Now yet another group risks repeating the same history. As Razia Sultana remarked: 'The solution is to strengthen what we already have, not keep abandoning one group after another.'
Nurul Islam, a stalwart of the Rohingya resistance and a founder of the ARNA, is even more scathing: 'The new council's agenda is identical to ARNA's – so why create another body? This isn't unifying the Rohingya; it's deepening divisions.'
The RCC's Consultative Turn
When the ARNA stagnated, disillusioned activists tried a different tack. The effort began on March 26, 2024, when a Convening Committee of eight organizations and 25 individuals announced plans for a Rohingya Consultative Council in a statement released by Aung Kyaw Moe, the current deputy minister for human rights in the shadow National Unity Government of Myanmar. Their stated aim was to build a single, coherent political body by bringing together politicians, activists, women leaders, youth advocates, and others. After a year of online meetings and refugee camp visits, the Council was formally introduced on May 11, 2025 as an interim, open‑membership platform promising gender balance and a crowd‑sourced 'Future Political Roadmap.'
In a written reply to questions about the newly launched ARNC, the RCC said the people now leading the ARNC had 'been consulted and engaged in [our] processes over the past year' but had chosen to break away and set up a body they could 'instead themselves control.' The ARNC, it noted, had been formed 'without the broad consultation' that would be expected and was driven by the 'same individuals' whose repeated rebranding 'risks generating confusion among international partners and resistance allies.'
In stark contrast, the RCC highlighted its own formation through 'sustained consultation and engagement, with prioritized inclusion of participation of individuals across generations, genders, and geographies.' The RCC argued that real legitimacy must come from open elections, gender‑balanced leadership, and verifiable links to refugees on the ground – not from 'social‑media presence and press releases.'
Why do Rohingya leaders keep setting up new organizations when they all claim to want unity? Rebranding is both a survival strategy and a political tactic. First, rebranding helps senior figures reset their reputations, allowing them to leave past failures behind without a public reckoning. Second, a new banner catches the eye of diplomats and donors whenever a fresh negotiating window opens – this year's aid crisis and the New York conference are good examples. Third, starting yet another body can outmaneuver rivals while allowing the same people to stay in charge. At times, these maneuvers appear to unfold with quiet encouragement from Bangladeshi authorities, who have their own interests in managing the leadership landscape.
Parveen of the European Rohingya Council summarized the dilemma: 'We excel at creating organizations, but struggle to move beyond that into collective action with real impact.' Until diaspora figures share power with camp‑based leaders, she argued, the cycle will repeat – 'same people, different uniform.'
New York Looming
A U.N. 'High‑Level Conference' on September 30 will give Rohingya delegates a microphone, but attendance is not guaranteed. Delegates must clear both U.S. visa hurdles and U.N. accreditation rules. The ARNC's own statement said it intends 'to represent the Rohingya people in dealings with the United Nations and other international institutions.'
Even if any faction reaches New York under its own banner, the event itself is likely to be more show than test. Legitimacy will not be won or lost in a Midtown conference room. The real measure remains power‑sharing, transparency, and tangible relief for refugees now surviving on rations that could drop below $8 a month.
Every new reboot raises the reputational bar. Outsiders expect proof that the latest group is more than just a renamed version of the same old leadership minus one or two personalities. The consequences of political disunity in a deteriorating humanitarian situation mean less effectiveness in terms of advocacy for aid or protection. This risks deepening cynicism among the very people it claims to represent.
'Unity is not a photo or a logo – it's the ability to protect our people when they are starving, displaced and silenced,' Razia Sultana insisted. With trust fraying and needs escalating, many Rohingya will judge these new initiatives not by their names or press statements, but by whether they deliver greater security, sustenance, and a path toward lasting solutions.
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When the Arakan Rohingya National Council (ARNC) unveiled itself on July 13, Bangladeshi and other news sites obligingly reproduced its press release almost word for word. The self‑described 'most inclusive and unified platform ever' promised to speak for Rohingya refugees, the diaspora and those still trapped in Myanmar. Supporters hailed a breakthrough; skeptics felt a wave of déjà vu. 2025 has already been billed as decisive for the Rohingya. Fighting between Myanmar's junta and the Arakan Army has redrawn front lines in Rakhine; a caretaker government in Dhaka is tightening its grip on the refugee camps in Bangladesh; and deep cuts to the World Food Program's budget have pushed rations to a breaking‑point. Against that backdrop, a high‑stakes United Nations pledging conference is set for New York in September. 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Days later, police paraded Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army chief Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi in handcuffs – evidence, officials said, that they were dismantling criminal networks. The administration has since promised to 'break Rohingya crime gangs' through a series of refugee camp elections with selected voter lists. Refugees, however, see opaque ballots quietly seating proxies of armed factions rather than genuine community leaders. The disconnect worries diaspora critic Dr. Ambia Parveen, vice chair of the European Rohingya Council. 'We in the diaspora dominate the organizational landscape,' she said, 'but we're not the ones facing daily risks. Instead of fighting our enemies, we compete with each other.' Launch by Press Release Against this backdrop, the ARNC rolled out a thin manifesto asserting its sole legitimacy. Its stated aim is 'to overcome decades of division and establish a unified political voice for the Rohingya people.' The language echoed that of the Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA), launched in 2022 with many of the same personalities – including veteran activists Tun Khin and Nay San Lwin. 'Creating new names without substance risks confusing allies,' Razia Sultana cautioned. The Rohingya Consultative Council (RCC), formed last year after months of camp‑level meetings, was even more blunt: 'Legitimacy does not come from social‑media presence and press releases; it comes from sustained, democratic engagement.' Within hours of the ARNC's debut, an entirely different body, the Arakan Rohingya National Congress, cried foul. In a July 14 statement, former MP Shwe Maung blasted the newcomers for 'deliberate deception … using a name and logo strikingly similar to ours.' He believed the move intended to 'sow confusion and derail years of painstaking diplomacy.' The Congress, chartered in 2021, says it already unites 39 senior figures and has logged 496 registrations for a Washington‑based Rohingya Round Table ahead of the U.N. conference. In an interview, Shwe Maung added that ARNC's claim of delegates from every township is not true. 'They never consulted with them [inside Arakan],' he said. In his public statement, Shwe Maung stressed that the Arakan Rohingya National Congress sits inside a three‑part structure – Congress, Council and Conference – governed by a charter first ratified in 2021 and updated in 2025. By launching a new entity with the same four letters and claiming exclusive legitimacy, the July 2025 ARNC, he argued, has not only duplicated the name but pre-empted an entire political structure already in place. 'This is a time for unity, not confusion,' the statement pleaded, warning that such tactics risk sabotaging the Rohingya community's limited credibility on the global stage. The new Council has offered no public rebuttal. Three individuals listed as its media contacts ignored requests for comment, leaving its reasons for striking out on its own unexplained. ARNC allies privately dismiss the row as 'turf‑war theatrics' by an aging diaspora elite. What is clear, however, is that the acronym ARNC now sits in limbo – claimed by both camps, yet effectively held hostage by the newly launched Council, which shows no sign of sharing the stage. Past Failed Umbrella Groups This habit of clashing acronyms did not begin in the 2020s. In 2011 the Organization of Islamic Cooperation helped broker the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU), fronted by U.S.‑based academic Wakar Uddin, and gathering 25 diaspora groups under one banner. Seven years later, just as lawyers were pushing for a genocide case at the International Criminal Court, Uddin told Voice of America that an ICC referral was 'not necessary.' Within days, 28 diaspora organizations issued a blistering open letter declaring he had 'no mandate to speak for the Rohingya,' accusing him of opaque leadership and of 'undermining the pursuit of justice for our people.' Predecessors and stand‑alone outfits have foundered on similar reefs – bad decisions, personality feuds, donor dependencies, and distance from the camps. By the time the 2017 massacres began, the Rohingya still lacked a single, trusted organization that could serve as their voice. Post‑genocide urgency produced another reset. A virtual convention on November 20, 2022 proclaimed the ARNA the 'sole political platform' for Rohingya self‑determination. Prominent Rohingya figures, including Nurul Islam, Reza Uddin, Tun Khin, and Nay San Lwin were involved and argued that unity was finally within reach. Yet a counter‑statement circulated within weeks: the process had been 'neither consultative, diverse nor inclusive' and risked repeating past exclusivity . Over 2023‑24, the ARNA posted sporadic updates but no joint strategy emerged; energy dissipated into internal stalemate and roundtables in Dhaka. Now yet another group risks repeating the same history. As Razia Sultana remarked: 'The solution is to strengthen what we already have, not keep abandoning one group after another.' Nurul Islam, a stalwart of the Rohingya resistance and a founder of the ARNA, is even more scathing: 'The new council's agenda is identical to ARNA's – so why create another body? This isn't unifying the Rohingya; it's deepening divisions.' The RCC's Consultative Turn When the ARNA stagnated, disillusioned activists tried a different tack. The effort began on March 26, 2024, when a Convening Committee of eight organizations and 25 individuals announced plans for a Rohingya Consultative Council in a statement released by Aung Kyaw Moe, the current deputy minister for human rights in the shadow National Unity Government of Myanmar. Their stated aim was to build a single, coherent political body by bringing together politicians, activists, women leaders, youth advocates, and others. After a year of online meetings and refugee camp visits, the Council was formally introduced on May 11, 2025 as an interim, open‑membership platform promising gender balance and a crowd‑sourced 'Future Political Roadmap.' In a written reply to questions about the newly launched ARNC, the RCC said the people now leading the ARNC had 'been consulted and engaged in [our] processes over the past year' but had chosen to break away and set up a body they could 'instead themselves control.' The ARNC, it noted, had been formed 'without the broad consultation' that would be expected and was driven by the 'same individuals' whose repeated rebranding 'risks generating confusion among international partners and resistance allies.' In stark contrast, the RCC highlighted its own formation through 'sustained consultation and engagement, with prioritized inclusion of participation of individuals across generations, genders, and geographies.' The RCC argued that real legitimacy must come from open elections, gender‑balanced leadership, and verifiable links to refugees on the ground – not from 'social‑media presence and press releases.' Why do Rohingya leaders keep setting up new organizations when they all claim to want unity? Rebranding is both a survival strategy and a political tactic. First, rebranding helps senior figures reset their reputations, allowing them to leave past failures behind without a public reckoning. Second, a new banner catches the eye of diplomats and donors whenever a fresh negotiating window opens – this year's aid crisis and the New York conference are good examples. Third, starting yet another body can outmaneuver rivals while allowing the same people to stay in charge. At times, these maneuvers appear to unfold with quiet encouragement from Bangladeshi authorities, who have their own interests in managing the leadership landscape. Parveen of the European Rohingya Council summarized the dilemma: 'We excel at creating organizations, but struggle to move beyond that into collective action with real impact.' Until diaspora figures share power with camp‑based leaders, she argued, the cycle will repeat – 'same people, different uniform.' New York Looming A U.N. 'High‑Level Conference' on September 30 will give Rohingya delegates a microphone, but attendance is not guaranteed. Delegates must clear both U.S. visa hurdles and U.N. accreditation rules. The ARNC's own statement said it intends 'to represent the Rohingya people in dealings with the United Nations and other international institutions.' Even if any faction reaches New York under its own banner, the event itself is likely to be more show than test. Legitimacy will not be won or lost in a Midtown conference room. The real measure remains power‑sharing, transparency, and tangible relief for refugees now surviving on rations that could drop below $8 a month. Every new reboot raises the reputational bar. Outsiders expect proof that the latest group is more than just a renamed version of the same old leadership minus one or two personalities. The consequences of political disunity in a deteriorating humanitarian situation mean less effectiveness in terms of advocacy for aid or protection. This risks deepening cynicism among the very people it claims to represent. 'Unity is not a photo or a logo – it's the ability to protect our people when they are starving, displaced and silenced,' Razia Sultana insisted. With trust fraying and needs escalating, many Rohingya will judge these new initiatives not by their names or press statements, but by whether they deliver greater security, sustenance, and a path toward lasting solutions.
