The never-ending Rohingya genocide

By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
The genocide against the (remaining) Rohingya in Myanmar is “ongoing” and the government has no interest in establishing a fully functional democracy. That was the conclusion of the most recent report published by the UN Fact-Finding Mission to Myanmar yesterday.
Though the UN report estimates 250,000 to 400,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine, precise numbers are not available as the Rohingya have officially not existed for decades. Access to the Rakhine region has also been shut off to external agencies, including the UN, for over a year so no independent assessment can be made.
However, Marzuki Darusman, Chair of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, made it very clear that “it is an ongoing genocide that is taking place” that has moved beyond mass killings to prevention of births, ostracization and displacement within camps.
So can we now expect a change of course from the international community? Unfortunately, despite the actions of the Myanmar being designated a genocide, Western leaders continue to expect Myanmar to hold its own internal enquiry.
Under Myanmar’s recent hybrid constitution, the Commander-in-Chief the de jure and de facto whip hand over the civilian government. The military can do whatever it wants in the areas under its power, without censure from any other institution of state, but the Commander-in-Chief retains a full and unconstrained veto over any initiative by the civilian government.
 Direct control
And, of course, there is nothing to stop the military simply re-assuming direct control over all aspects of the state, should they feel their position threatened.
Nevertheless, Western leaders continue to show their reluctant to exert too much pressure on Ms Suu Kyi for fear of undermining the little progress Myanmar has in fact made towards democracy and opening up to the world.
It is feared that if international pressure makes Ms Suu Kyi’s position untenable, this will make it more likely that the military will re-assert direct control over the country and move the country firmly within the sphere of influence of China.
For their part, China is likely to veto any referral to the ICC or Security Council resolution against Myanmar. China has grand designs for Myanmar. It is currently building a high-speed rail link across the entire country, as well as a deep-water port near Sittwe, to facilitate China’s Silk Road initiative.
Sittwe is the capital of the Rohingya home state of Rakhine, and continues to be home to a significant, but increasingly isolated Rohingya ghetto.
As within their own territory, China has little patience for any kind of ‘unrest’, and is fully supportive of Myanmar’s crackdown, in the hope that a categorical if brutal removal of the Rohingya from the region would enhance the security of its own economic and infrastructure concerns in the area.

International players

China’s backing has also inhibited the response of other international players. The UK government, for example, has taken up the baton of championing the humanitarian needs of the Rohingya from the US after the end of the Obama Administration, but has avoided bringing criminal charges against Myanmar at the International Criminal Court, citing primarily the expectation of a Chinese veto.
As things are stacked now, Aung San Suu Kyi will continue to happily soak international criticism, her government and China will continue to support the military’s actions and position, and the West and the UN will continue to complain but fail to take any meaningful and effective action beyond providing (barely adequate) humanitarian relief to the Rohingya who have made it to Bangladesh.
Yet it is not clear whether this situation is sustainable. Not least because neither Bangladesh nor the international humanitarian leaders seem willing to accept the reality that the Rohingya are quite likely there to stay in Cox’s Bazaar.
And the international community, especially the West, would accept their responsibility for their non-existent response so far, and agree to offer Bangladesh all the financial and logistical support it needs to achieve this, agree to help the Rohingya rebuild the refugee shanty towns around Cox’s Bazaar into liveable communities, as well as offer incentives and economic support to native Bangladeshis to develop shared economic ties with the emergent Rohingya towns.
This is something that Western leadership could achieve, and can afford to do. What is lacking on the part of our leaders is vision and interest. In the age of Trump, we seem to have lost the power of our conviction, and perhaps even the moral backbone, to take charge of the issue and help Bangladesh and the Rohingya build a sustainable and mutually beneficial future together.
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Azeem Ibrahim is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Policy and Adj Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. He completed his PhD from the University of Cambridge and served as an International Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a World Fellow at Yale. Over the years he has met and advised numerous world leaders on policy development and was ranked as a Top 100 Global Thinker by the European Social Think Tank in 2010 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He tweets @AzeemIbrahim.

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