The Rohingya people are an ethnic minority that live in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day Rakhine State, Myanmar), who have suffered historical persecution by the Burmese government and Buddhist majority. After General Ne Win and his Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) seized power in a coup in 1962, Rohingya political and social organisations were systematically dissolved by the government. The end of the liberation war in neighbouring Bangladesh strengthened the Burmese government's fears of "foreign invaders" infiltrating their country, and so in 1977, the government began its preparations for Operation Dragon King, which commenced at the start of the next year.