What’s the UN doing to Stopping Genocide of the Rohingyas of Myanmar?
One of the sinister
methods employed to justify genocide has been to deny the history of the targeted
victims. And that is what the criminal Buddhists within the apartheid state of
Myanmar has been doing for nearly 70 years since earning independence from
Britain on January 4, 1948. Instead of carrying out their hideous elimination
process in one shot within a short period of time, however, the Buddhist
Myanmar has been doing it slowly stepwise as part of a very sinister national
project with full cooperation from top to bottom within the Buddhist community.
In spite of serious cases of genocide in various parts of our globe, the first time that the 1948 law was enforced occurred on 2 September 1998 when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide. Two days later, Jean Kambanda became the first head of government to be convicted of genocide.
The first state to be found in breach of the Genocide convention was Serbia. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war, but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect of General Ratko Mladic. On 22 November 2017, Ratko was sentenced to life in prison by the ICTY for 10 charges, one of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and four of violations of the laws or customs of war.
They termed Rohingyas as
outsiders and officially robbed their citizenship thereby effectively making
them stateless in the land of their ancestors, a crucial policy that would
create the official justification for ongoing violence and expulsion of the
targeted minority out of the country. The rape of women and wanton killing of
innocent Rohingyas, let alone relentless persecution were employed as tactics
to create an environment for forced exodus. The Rohingyas were denied each of
the 30 rights enshrined in the Universal of Declaration of Human Rights.
To erase the Rohingya
history, the names of historical landmarks were changed: Arakan was named the
Rakhine state, and its capital city Akyab changed to Sittwe. Muslim monuments -
mosques, shrines and madrassas that once dotted the Arakan coastal line was
systematically gutted and destroyed.
Sadly, even such destructive
measures were not considered enough by the Buddhist genocidal
perpetrators; they raped, killed and terrorized people; they pillaged,
burned and demolished Rohingya villages and towns.
History books were changed
to de-link the Rohingya from the soil of Arakan. And worse still, to mobilize
general Buddhist public against Rohingyas - who are mostly Muslims (and some Hindus)
- the latter were dehumanized through carefully crafted propaganda. The victims
were depicted as 'vermin', 'cockroaches', 'snakes', etc. to create the moral
justification for their total extinction or annihilation. Pseudo scholars
and academics with fascist leanings - like Aye Kyaw (now dead who taught
in a NY university) and Aye Chan (who teaches at Kanda
University of International Studies in Japan) - stirred up the Rakhine Buddhists and
others within Myanmar to distort history and delegitimize the Rohingya people,
thanks to Government incentives and supports that they received. The xenophobic
Buddhist monks played their hate cards in ways that the world has not seen in
decades. With active support from the government, its military and police, plus
Buddhist politicians - all hardcore racists and bigots - the genocidal
pogroms unleashed against the targeted Rohingya came easy and were perceived as
justifiable by the Buddhist public.
In genocidal pogroms of
1978 and 1991-92, more than half a million of Rohingyas were pushed out to
Bangladesh when not everyone was later welcome back. In the latest 2017 pogrom
alone, some 647,000 (and growing) Rohingyas have been pushed out. Thus, the Rohingya
minority that once comprised roughly 45-47% of the population (per
estimates made by area experts) before the current episodes (dating back to
June 2012) has been reduced drastically to perhaps less than half a million living
inside the Apartheid Myanmar. According to credible international agencies and
medical sources, at least 6,700 Rohingyas were killed and tens of thousands of
girls and women were raped by Buddhists of Myanmar - military and fascist
Rakhines. Hundreds of Rohingya villages have also been destroyed by them to
make return of the refugees impossible.
Sittwe, which used to be a
mixed-ethnic city has no resemblance of its rich past heritage of co-existence.
Rohingyas are interned in concentration camps with no access to the outside
world. The Jama mosque now stands disused and
moldering, behind barbed wire. Its 89-year-old imam is interned. All the Muslim
owned shops have been grabbed by Rakhines, who now falsely claim that Rohingyas
never owned any shop in the bazaar. Sittwe University, which used to enroll
hundreds of Muslim students, now only teaches around 30 Rohingya, all of whom
are in a distance-learning program.
Buthidaung,
close to the border with Bangladesh, the traditional home of many Rohingyas no
longer has anyone of their kind representing them in anything in the township
where they comprised 90% population. It is now represented by a minority
Rakhine, a hostile MP, who wants to push out the remainder Rohingyas to
Bangladesh.
Rangoon (now called
Yangon) whose majority population during the British era, esp. the 1930s, were
Muslims and Hindus – racially Indian, has now a very small community that feels
threatened, unsafe and insecure of their very existence. In the early decades
of Burma’s independence, a Rohingya elite thrived in Rangoon. Rangoon
University, the country’s top institution, had enough Rohingya students to form
their own union. One of the cabinets of U Nu, the country’s first
post-independence leader, included a health minister who identified himself as an
Arakanese Muslim.
Even under Ne Win, the
general, Burmese national radio aired broadcasts in the Rohingya language.
Rohingya, women among them, were represented in Parliament.
Now, under Suu Kyi,
everything is lost, and the days of hated dictator Ne Win, who robbed them of
their citizenship, are viewed as better days!
That is the
sad reality of the Rohingyas and other Muslims and Hindus still living inside Suu
Kyi’s den of intolerance and hatred called Myanmar.
In a report released in October, the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Myanmar’s security forces had
worked to “effectively erase all signs of memorable landmarks in the geography
of the Rohingya landscape and memory in such a way that a return to their lands
would yield nothing but a desolate and unrecognizable terrain.”
The United
Nations report also said that the crackdown in Rakhine had “targeted teachers,
the cultural and religious leadership, and other people of influence in the
Rohingya community in an effort to diminish Rohingya history, culture and
knowledge.”
What is so
grotesque is that Myanmar is one of the signatories of the 1948 Genocide
Convention, which vowed to prevent genocide. And yet, it is the worst violator
of our time!
The
Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” This includes
not only killing members of the group, but also causing serious bodily or
mental harm and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
As rightly
noted in the 70th convention on the International Day of
Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide by the UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “Genocide does not happen by accident; it
is deliberate, with warning signs and precursors.” “Often it is the culmination
of years of exclusion, denial of human rights and other wrongs. Since genocide
can take place in times of war and in times of peace, we must be
ever-vigilant,” he continued.
The
Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng
echoed similar sentiments, stating: “It is our inaction, our ineffectiveness in
addressing the warning signs, that allows it to become a reality. A reality
where people are dehumanized and persecuted for who they are, or who they
represent. A reality of great suffering, cruelty, and of inhumane acts that
have at the basis unacceptable motivations.”
Despite the
comprehensive definition of genocide in the Convention, genocide has recurred
multiple times, Guterres said. “We are still reacting rather than preventing,
and acting only when it is often too late. We must do more to respond early and
keep violence from escalating,” he said.
After a year
of investigation, the organization Fortify Rights and the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum said that there is “mounting” evidence that points to
a genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar with Burmese Army soldiers,
police, and civilians as the major perpetrators.
“The
Rohingya have suffered attacks and systematic violations for decades, and the
international community must not fail them now when their very existence in
Myanmar is threatened,” said Cameron Hudson from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum. “Without urgent action, there’s a high risk of more mass atrocities,”
he continued.
More than
half of Myanmar’s one million Rohingya have fled the country since genocidal violence
reignited in August. It has been the largest and fastest flow of destitute
people across a border since the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) said. “There was nothing left. People were
shot in the chest, stomach, legs, face, head, everywhere.” Eyewitness testimony
revealed that Rohingya civilians were burned alive, women and girls raped, and
men and boys arrested en masse.
“These
crimes thrive on impunity and inaction…condemnations aren’t enough,” said Chief
Executive Officer of Fortify Rights Matthew Smith.
Myanmar
government’s strict restrictions on Rohingya’s daily lives also point to signs
of genocide. In 2013, authorities placed a two-child limit on Rohingya couples
in two predominantly Muslim townships in Rakhine State.
Other
equally credible international agencies have also come forward to claim that
the crisis in Myanmar may constitute genocide such as UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein and the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs
Committee. “Considering Rohingyas’ self-identify as a distinct ethnic group
with their own language and culture – and [that they] are also deemed by the
perpetrators themselves as belonging to a different ethnic, national, racial or
religious group – given all of this, can anyone rule out that elements of
genocide may be present?” al-Hussein asked.
Though the
UN Human Rights Council recently condemned the systematic and gross violations
of human rights in Myanmar, the Security Council has failed to act on the
crisis. China, shamelessly, with its own history of on-going horrendous crimes perpetrated
against the indigenous Uighurs in Xinjiang (East Turkestan), has been
responsible for the UNSC inaction on the Rohingya crisis.
In spite of serious cases of genocide in various parts of our globe, the first time that the 1948 law was enforced occurred on 2 September 1998 when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide. Two days later, Jean Kambanda became the first head of government to be convicted of genocide.
The first state to be found in breach of the Genocide convention was Serbia. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war, but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect of General Ratko Mladic. On 22 November 2017, Ratko was sentenced to life in prison by the ICTY for 10 charges, one of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and four of violations of the laws or customs of war.
As the UN
appeals for the remaining 45 member states to ratify the Genocide Convention,
my question is what about states like Myanmar who are already party to the
document? Will the UNSC take action against war criminals in Myanmar only after
the last Rohingya is eliminated from their ancestral home?
Concerned UN
and world leaders ought to know that simply increasing the number of signatories
for the 1948 Convention beyond 149 members is not going to prevent genocide. The
Convention requires all states to take action to prevent and punish genocide.
Not only Myanmar, but the entire international community has failed to protect
Rohingya civilians from genocidal atrocities.
Just
complaining about the genocidal horrors and increasing membership to ratify the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide will not help. The
civilized world simply cannot let savages to run the show and get away with
their monumental crimes against humanity. If we are to avert a humanitarian
disaster like the Rohingya crisis, this horror will have to be matched by stern
action on the part of the international community. That means, trial and
punishing the monsters.
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