Joe Biden's Government Orders Myanmar's Military To Carry Out Genocide Against Rohingya

Illustration of Rohingya refugees. (Wikimedia Commons/VOA/Zlatica Hoke)

JAKARTA - The United States administration under President Joe Biden has officially declared the violence perpetrated against the Rohingya minority by Myanmar's military to constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, US officials told Reuters, a move that advocates say should step up efforts to hold the regime accountable. which now runs Myanmar.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will announce the decision on Monday at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, US officials said. It comes nearly 14 months after he took office and pledged to conduct a fresh review of the violence.

Myanmar's armed forces launched a military operation in 2017 that forced at least 730.000 of its mostly Muslim Rohingya from their homes and into neighboring Bangladesh, where they recounted killings, mass rapes, and arson. In 2021, the Myanmar military seized power in a coup.

US officials and outside law firms gathered evidence in an attempt to quickly acknowledge the seriousness of the atrocities, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to make a decision at the time.

Secretary of State Blinken ordered "his own legal and factual analysis," US officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The analysis concludes the Myanmar army committed genocide and Washington believes a formal determination will increase international pressure to hold the junta accountable.

"This will make it more difficult for them to commit further violations," said a senior US State Department official.

Illustration of clashes between Myanmar citizens and military regime forces. (Wikimedia Commons/VOA News)

In this regard, officials at the Myanmar Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for the military junta, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Sunday.

Myanmar's military has denied genocide against the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar, saying it was carrying out operations against terrorists in 2017.

Meanwhile, a UN fact-finding mission concluded in 2018, the military campaign included acts of genocide, but Washington at the time called the atrocities ethnic cleansing, a term that has no legal definition under international criminal law.

"This is really a signal to the world and especially to victims and survivors within the Rohingya community, more broadly that the United States recognizes the gravity of what is happening," a second senior State Department official said of Blinken's announcement on Monday.

However, the determination of genocide does not automatically waive US punitive measures. Since the Cold War, the State Department has officially used the term six times to describe massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, and Darfur, ISIS attacks on Yazidis, and other minorities. And most recently last year, over China's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslims, something China denies.

In addition, Foreign Minister Blinken will also announce an additional USD 1 million in funding for the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), a Geneva-based UN agency that collects evidence for possible future prosecutions.

"This will improve our position as we try to build international support to try to prevent further atrocities and hold them accountable," the first US official said.

Separately, US Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who led congressional delegations to Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2017, welcomed the move.

"While this determination is long overdue, it is a powerful and very important step in holding this brutal regime to account," Merkley said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a visit to Indonesia. (Source: Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Foreign Minister Blinken's admission of genocide and crimes against humanity mainly refers to events in 2017, before last year's coup. The move comes after two State Department assessments, one starting in 2018 and another in 2020, failed to produce a decision.

Several former US officials have told Reuters they missed the opportunity to send a strong message to Myanmar's generals who then staged the February 1, 2021 coup. That was followed by the detention of top Burmese leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

The military regime cracked down on anti-coup protesters, killing more than 1.600 people and detaining nearly 10.000, according to the Myanmar-based Aid Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Reuters was unable to independently verify the figures from the AAPP. The junta said the group's numbers were exaggerated and that members of the security forces had also been killed in clashes with those opposed to the coup. The junta has not provided its own figures.

Activists believe clear statements by the United States that genocide was committed could increase efforts to hold generals accountable, such as the case at the International Court of Justice in which the Gambia accused Myanmar of genocide, citing Myanmar's atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

Myanmar has rejected accusations of genocide and urged the court judge to drop the case. The junta said Gambia acted as a representative for others, had no legal standing to file cases.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate court in The Hague, Netherlands is also investigating the deportation of Rohingya from Myanmar, and the IIMM in Geneva is gathering evidence that could be used in future trials.

Myanmar opposes the investigation and refuses to cooperate, insisting the ICC has no jurisdiction and that its decision to launch the investigation was influenced by "a grisly narrative of personal tragedy that has nothing to do with the legal arguments at issue."

In the matter of the Myanmar Coup, VOI editors continue to unify the political situation in one of the ASEAN member countries. Civilian casualties continued to fall. Readers can follow news about the Myanmar military coup by tapping this link.