Genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar
In late 2018, a U.N. report recommended that top Myanmar government officials be investigated for recent genocide of the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority group (the country is majority Buddhist). Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled across the border to Bangladesh in the past two years.
The current crisis began when, in August of 2017, an armed Rohingya terrorist group attacked a Burmese military base. But the prejudices that caused the resulting violence have existed in Myanmar for a while. Because of Myanmar immigration law, the Rohingya people have been considered "stateless" since 1982, stripped of citizenship rights that would have protected them from persecution.
The violence has been brought to international attention in the past few years because of mass migration, but it has fermented in Myanmar for decades. By some estimates, about 140,000 Rohingya have been killed. Only now, after almost overwhelming evidence, is there even the recommendation of an investigation.
Over and over again, in the cases of genocides across the world (think Rwanda, the Holocaust, etc.), the U.N. has condemned after the fact, yet done nothing to prevent the violence. The Rohingya genocide is no exception. Though the U.N. council is a start, bureaucracy and other international priorities will prevent further action. Since Myanmar is not a member of the ICC (International Criminal Court), the U.N. Security Council must initiate and approve investigation into its government. China and Russia are not willing to do so, and the United States has only described the events as "ethnic cleansing". As long as the U.N. continues to lack its own backbone, resources, and influence, genocide will never be punished in time.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/investigator-myanmar-genocide-rohingya-ongoing-181025035804009.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/rohingya/568618/
Good blog post! It has continue to really bother me how countries and nations inlcuded the UN fail to enter when they have a clear amount of evidence showing how these genocdies are either occuring in certains nations. While I an understand their reasoning becuase they have certain connections iwth specific nations that stop them from being able to have any kind of intervention however I still think that morally there is some kin dof obligatoin that requires that there be intervention in these nations. The amount of deaths that have occured due to genocides that really oculd have been prevented is too high and at some point a lesson must be learned.
ReplyDeleteThis event to me is so similar to the Rwandan genocide that we are currently studying. Once again we are hesitant to intervene into a clearly tragic and desperate situation for millions of people. The Buddhists are committing unimaginable atrocities and everyone is reluctant to step in for the same reasons that kept us out of Rwanda for so long and with so little impact. I saw a short clip of journalists who went to Myanmar in order to try to capture the events. The government was suspicious and followed them around not allowing them to go near the fires and loud sounds that they heard off in the distance. At one point the snuck off and interviewed a little kid and such learning about the genocide that are going on in Myanmar.
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