{"id":83791,"date":"2016-12-05T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=83791"},"modified":"2016-12-02T18:59:57","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T18:59:57","slug":"confronting-genocide-in-myanmar-the-urgent-need-to-prevent-and-protect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/confronting-genocide-in-myanmar-the-urgent-need-to-prevent-and-protect\/","title":{"rendered":"Confronting Genocide in Myanmar: The Urgent Need to Prevent and Protect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interethnic divisions in a young democracy cannot be downplayed or wished away, and it\u2019s time Myanmar\u2019s government and the international community acknowledge strong evidence that genocide is being perpetrated against the Rohingya and act to end it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: AP<\/p><\/div>\n

2 Dec 2016 – <\/em>Violence in Myanmar\u2019s western Rakhine State escalated after a 9 October attack<\/a> on border guard posts, leaving nine officers dead.\u00a0Humanitarian assistance and media access to the area have been cut off for weeks while the Myanmar authorities conduct a counterinsurgency operation against allegedly Rohingya assailants.\u00a0Responsibility for the initial attack remains unclear, however.\u00a0More than a hundred people are thought to have died already, with 30,000 internally displaced adding to the 160,000 people who have been subsisting in squalid displacement camps since previous outbreaks of violence in 2012 and 2013.\u00a0Human Rights Watch has released satellite imagery<\/a> showing that over 1,200 buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed in the past month.\u00a0Government soldiers have reportedly gang-raped<\/a> Rohingya women and girls.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh, which for 30 years has permitted more than 230,000<\/a> registered and unregistered Rohingya refugees to shelter in its territory, has been turning people back<\/a> who seek refuge across the border. Thousands have already crossed<\/a> and continue to gather at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.<\/p>\n

These events mark a dramatic deterioration in what has long been a desperate situation for a minority that many have identified as among the most persecuted in the world.\u00a0Most of them are stateless, with the government designating them as \u201cBengalis\u201d or \u201cillegal immigrants,\u201d despite many having had citizenship in the past and having lived in the region for generations.\u00a0They have been subjected to forced labour and confined to displacement camps where they do not receive adequate food and medical care, leaving pregnant women and children particularly at risk<\/a> of agonising illness and death.<\/p>\n

Rohingya are subject to harsh restrictions<\/a> on marriage, family size and movement.\u00a0Their religious buildings have been destroyed, and those who flee on rickety boats to other countries such as Malaysia<\/a> or Thailand<\/a> have, in the past, been turned back to the open sea<\/a>s to die or suffer at the hands of traffickers or languish in indefinite detention.<\/p>\n

More on this: Busting the myth that Myanmar is a sanctions success story <\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A question that haunts Myanmar\u2019s government, and the international community, is whether what is happening to the Rohingya constitutes genocide. By now a credible claim can be raised that the internationally recognised crime of genocide is taking place in Myanmar.\u00a0Accordingly, based on international legal obligations, the Myanmar government and other nation states should be taking all necessary actions to stop and avert the gravest kind of humanitarian catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Under Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention<\/a>, which Myanmar has ratified, \u201cgenocide\u201d is defined as \u201c\u2026any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c)\u00a0Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;\u00a0(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Yugoslav tribunal has elaborated<\/a> further on Article II (c) that deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about a group\u2019s destruction can include \u201csubjecting the group to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and denial of the right to medical services.\u00a0Also included is the creation of circumstances that would lead to a slow death, such as lack of proper housing, clothing, and hygiene or excessive work or physical exertion.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little doubt that for years the Rohingya population has suffered the acts listed in Article II (a) \u2013 (d) of the Genocide Convention.<\/p>\n

On the intent requirement of the crime \u2013 that the acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic or religious group \u2013 courts have taken a highly contextualised, case-by-case approach, to determining whether intent can be inferred from factual circumstances.\u00a0Such an inference must be \u201cthe only reasonable one<\/a> available on the evidence.\u201d Additionally, as the Rwandan tribunal<\/a> has stated: \u201cThe offender is culpable because he knew or should have known that the act committed would destroy, in whole or in part, a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

This case-by-case approach to intent, along with the high burden of proof requiring the evidence to be \u201cfully conclusive<\/a>,\u201d renders genocide determinations unavoidably contestable.\u00a0Other analyses could suggest that the overall intent of perpetrators in Myanmar is better understood as \u201cethnic cleansing,\u201d which reflects the idea that the actual intent is to forcibly transfer or expel the Rohingya rather than physically destroy them.<\/p>\n

More on this: Can the Kofi Annan-chaired commission chart a path to peace and human rights for the Rohingya? <\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In the 2015 case of Croatia v. Serbia<\/em><\/a>, which also included evidence of killings, sexual violence, forced labour, and displacement, the International Court of Justice did not find genocidal intent on the part of the Serbs against the Croats in the context of the Yugoslav war.\u00a0Key considerations were that the conflict was seen as territorial and the Serbs had organised transportation for Croats to evacuate the territories that Serb forces had occupied.<\/p>\n

The difference in the Rohingya case is that there is no clear escape from the abject misery and high risk of death or extreme abuse at the hands of traffickers or by other countries\u2019 immigration authorities.\u00a0There are no systematic measures to officially deport the population, either through providing transportation or agreeing to formal arrangements with receiving countries.\u00a0Moreover, Rohingya are deterred from departing through restrictions on movement and punishments for leaving, such as by the removal from household lists, the extortion of family members left behind and imprisonment for \u201cillegal\u201d re-entry.<\/p>\n

Hundreds, possibly thousands of babies born in squalid camps have suffered preventable deaths<\/a> due to lack of food and medical care.\u00a0The overall conditions are such that those persons imposing them over a prolonged period either know or ought to know, that the eventual outcome will be the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part.<\/p>\n

The complexity of proving genocide is ill-matched to the urgency of preventing and responding to genocidal situations when they arise.\u00a0We could be waiting years for an international tribunal or a panel of experts to conclude authoritatively that genocide is or is not taking place.\u00a0This scenario would come as too little too late for the many victims and their families, not to mention the domestic political fallout and economic disaster which would ensue after the fact.\u00a0At the same time, the moral and political costs \u2013 the enduring stigma and potential criminal liability \u2013 of not <\/em>acting to stop genocide are severe.<\/p>\n

International law and institutions extricate us from this quandary through their emphasis on genocide prevention as an obligation that is at least as equally strong as protection.\u00a0The 1948 Convention obligates states to prevent and punish genocide. The widely affirmed Responsibility to Protect doctrine<\/a> requires states to prevent and protect victims from war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the absence of a meaningful government response.<\/p>\n

More on this: The US, the new Myanmar and the dragon in the background <\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

We can now draw on ample scholarship and case law to identify situations that look very much like genocide and compel robust responses to live up to these obligations to prevent and protect.\u00a0In 2015, the London-based International State Crime Initiative released a report<\/a> based on a social scientific study and concluded that, \u201cgenocide is taking place in Myanmar\u201d and warning of \u201cthe serious and present danger of the annihilation of the country\u2019s Rohingya population.\u201d\u00a0Others have made a legal case for genocide, or the high risk of genocide, such as scholars Zarni and Cowley<\/a>, Yale Law School\u2019s human rights clinic<\/a>, and former deputy prosecutor of the Yugoslav Tribunal<\/a>, Sir Geoffrey Nice, among others.<\/p>\n

Some might argue that the label for a crime should not matter, and in a sense they are right.\u00a0These crimes too often occur along a spectrum that, without corrective action, can lead to the same calamitous result; massive loss of life and destruction.<\/p>\n

We might think the responses would be the same, regardless of the words we choose to define the crime.\u00a0However, too many international conferences and diplomatic meetings over the years have lamented the long list of persecutions and suffering this group has endured over decades, resulting in responses that are disproportionately inadequate to the gravity of the Rohingya\u2019s plight.\u00a0Tepid policies toward Myanmar and the Rohingya betray a deep-seated reluctance to label these crimes as genocide for fear of subverting the narrative so many in the world have waited for; an enlightened democratic transition.\u00a0The notion of genocide in Myanmar risks turning the country back into an international pariah rather than an international darling.<\/p>\n

But the current violence painfully illustrates that interethnic divisions in a young democracy cannot be downplayed or wished away.\u00a0It is time for Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the United Nations and others to face facts, to confront the prospect of genocide being perpetrated against the Rohingya. They must be open to judgment for their inaction, or more hopefully, take action and commit the resources needed to save lives throughout the region and preserve Myanmar\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

\"katherine-southwick\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Katherine Southwick is a Visiting Scholar at George Mason University\u2019s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Interethnic divisions in a young democracy cannot be downplayed or wished away, and it\u2019s time Myanmar\u2019s government and the international community acknowledge strong evidence that genocide is being perpetrated against the Rohingya and act to end it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83791","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=83791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}