The atmospherics in Arakan State have improved, in the sense that tempers have cooled.
Tempers have cooled, essentially, and local Rakhine officials who hate the Rohingya have realized that they actually have other priorities besides hating Rohingya. Because of that, they just haven't focused their attention on getting them all kicked out of the country by making their lives miserable, so I suppose you could say that's one thing that's better.
I think you have local Rakhine officials who recognize that it's naive to think that this problem is just going to disappear, and that you just can't have all these people live in ghettoized camps in misery and suffering and have every visiting international delegation ask about them. After a while, if you're a racist Rakhine government official, you'll probably get tired of being asked about the Rohingya every time, and you'll start thinking that maybe you have to figure out some kind of solution there, so you'll start thinking rationally for the first time.
For whatever reason, things have cooled down, and I think people are starting to look at actual long-term solutions, which is good. Maybe they can start thinking about some of the things I've talked about today.
At the broader level, back in Nay Pyi Taw where the laws are made, are we going to get rid of the 1982 citizenship law, which is really the basis of all these problems? That situation hasn't gotten much better. There's not a sense that parliament is ready to start debating how to fix the 1982 citizenship law.
Parliament has a long list of laws that it needs to fix or repeal. We actually sent them a list. Just the other day, we sent the rule-of-law committee a list of laws that we think need to be repealed or amended, with a priority on laws that are used to prosecute people for free speech acts and criticism of the government. The laws that need to be fixed also include the 1982 citizenship law.
While we're optimistic that parliament is going to focus on those laws that were used for years to prosecute dissidents and all of that, we are much less optimistic that they will look at the 1982 citizenship law and start figuring out how to fix or repeal it. That's another thing that governments can push. If you're going to fix your laws, that has to be one you fix.
The bigger project is the 2008 constitution. Fixing that is more difficult. I can talk for a long time about that if you want, but that's a bigger project that is much more complicated.