By Derek Tonkin | Monday, 23 February 2015 The controversy over the use of the term “Bengali” to describe Muslims in Rakhine State known as “Rohingya” seems set to continue following the second visit by UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee to Myanmar. For many in the West, this controversy is an unfortunate distraction. For Myanmar and its neighbours though it goes to the very root of the crisis. Some 95 percent of all Muslims resident in Rakhine are of Bengali origin, although this may well go back many generations and in some cases even centuries. They would now seem to be under pressure to deny their Bengali heritage and ancestry. A single reference in a linguistic essay published in 1799 by a British visitor, Francis Buchanan, to the Burmese court of Ava is the only historical record extant that there were people who described themselves as “Natives of Arakan”, or “Rooinga”. He never used the term again. Nor was the word used by any of his contemporaries.