{"id":83715,"date":"2016-12-05T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=83715"},"modified":"2016-11-30T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T12:09:35","slug":"in-myanmar-genocide-looms-as-the-world-waits-on-nobel-peace-laureate-suu-kyi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/in-myanmar-genocide-looms-as-the-world-waits-on-nobel-peace-laureate-suu-kyi\/","title":{"rendered":"In Myanmar, Genocide Looms as the World Waits on [Nobel Peace Laureate] Suu Kyi"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Syria and Yemen weren\u2019t enough to illustrate the depressing\u00a0state\u00a0that global humanitarianism finds itself in today, look no further than Myanmar.<\/em><\/p>\n

30 Nov 2016 – <\/em>A year after a comprehensive report<\/a> was published by the London-based International State Crime Initiative, suggesting the nation\u2019s long-oppressed Rohingya \u201cface the final stages of genocide,\u201d and 6 months into human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s de-facto leadership, the minority ethnic group finds itself, yet again, under siege.<\/p>\n

Yet beyond harsh words, calls for an independent investigation, and crossed fingers for\u00a0a convicted Suu Kyi intervention, the international community has been frustratingly helpless\u2014and useless. Human rights observers, humanitarian aid, and journalists have all been barred by the government from entering Rakhine state\u2014where\u00a0the violence has been taking place\u2014while in May, Suu Kyi asked<\/a> for \u201cenough space\u201d to\u00a0address\u00a0the Rohingya\u2019s plight.<\/p>\n

But the clock is ticking ever faster. Last month, the Burmese army launched a large counter operation<\/a> in Rakhine after officials accused a militant Rohingya group for the deaths\u00a0of \u00a0nine\u00a0border guards. And since, satellite images released<\/a> by Human Rights Watch show that over 1,200 of their\u00a0homes had been razed<\/a>, over 100 have been killed, according to activist groups, women have been systematically raped<\/a>, and\u00a0thousands more have been displaced. The government\u00a0denies the severity of the allegations.<\/p>\n

The fresh reports of conflict compounds the historic atrocities the Muslim ethnic group have\u00a0faced. Facing religious persecution, economic exclusion, and unrecognized by successive\u00a0government\u2019s\u2014including Suu Kyi\u2019s\u2014various attempts\u00a0to\u00a0flee<\/a> have seen hundreds drown\u00a0at sea, and thousands rendered homeless.<\/p>\n

How much more space can be given? It\u2019s clear Suu Kyi\u2019s hands are tied<\/a>. Acting, or even speaking out, against the injustices pits Myanmar\u2019s state counselor against the military, who she must\u00a0win-over in their fragile power-share. Meanwhile the electorate, and the nation\u2019s influential Buddhist monk-hood, hold strong nationalist\u2014and anti-Muslim\u2014beliefs. And upsetting Myanmar\u2019s\u00a0fragile state of politics, risks destabilizing her National League for Democracy (NLD) party\u2019s priority of economic development. Moreover, Suu Kyi has little control over what the military does.<\/p>\n

But the Nobel Prize winner\u2019s silent expedience (Suu Kyi considers herself<\/a>\u00a0primarily a politician, not\u00a0an activist) is outrageously Machiavellian, and inexcusable, given the nature of warnings emanating\u00a0from her\u00a0country. Surely this wasn\u2019t the vision of democracy she sacrificed decades of her life for?<\/p>\n

And what more can be said of a\u00a0international humanitarian system that vowed \u2018never again\u2019 after Rwanda, Bosnia, Syria, and Yemen, particularly in the week a UN refugee agency representative in neighboring Bangladesh\u2014where the Rohingya have been fleeing to\u2014said the Burmese government\u2019s ultimate goal is \u201cthe ethnic cleansing<\/a> of the Muslim minority in Myanmar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diplomatic and political channels are now seemingly blunt, not to mention disproportionate, policy tools for the Rohingya\u2019s increasingly desperate situation. And as the optimistic\u00a0shine of the NLD\u2019s election victory last year dims in the eye of the human rights\u00a0community, the UN and national governments must see that\u00a0the global \u2018Responsibility to Protect\u2019 threshold, has been breached, and shows little sign of being addressed, quickly enough, by the Burmese state apparatus.<\/p>\n

The humanitarian system is evidently stretched this year\u2014but that just means it must expand its capacity, improve its early warning systems, and\u00a0sharpen its\u00a0approaches. And concerning\u00a0Myanmar, earlier this month, the UN Security Council discussed<\/a> the violence, and called for a resumption of aid access to Rakhine and an international investigation. Though, crucially, it remains unclear whether the UN or national governments have a red-line, or a coherent strategy, for\u00a0sending-in peacekeepers without sovereign consent\u2014as has been the case for\u00a0countless instances of state violence.<\/p>\n

What is<\/em> clear is that the Rohingya are not interested in being part of an arbitrary statistic, nor are they able to wait for business-like evidence cases to be drawn to justify their defense.\u00a0Enough is already apparent.\u00a0They\u2019ve suffered for decades under oppressive governments, and it may just be too late to see if Suu Kyi\u2019s will offer them any respite. Words have been too little for them. They need urgent action.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Tej Parikh is a global policy analyst and journalist. He received his master’s degree from Yale University with a focus on state building, political economy and ethnic politics.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 atimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nobel Prize winner\u2019s silent expedience (Suu Kyi considers herself primarily a politician, not an activist) is outrageously Machiavellian, and inexcusable, given the nature of warnings emanating from her country. If Syria and Yemen weren\u2019t enough to illustrate the depressing state that global humanitarianism finds itself in today, look no further than Myanmar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nobel-laureates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}