Years after the state repression of the Rohingya Muslim population in Myanmar — according to the Doctors Without Borders at least 10,000 Rohingyas were killed by the state's military — it is only now that the United States may declare that the country's years-long violence against the minority community is a “genocide," US officials told Associated Press on Sunday, March 20. Myanmar is at present ruled by its military establishment, which took over the country in a coup against its democratically-elected government in 2020.
When does the US plan to make the move?
Officials who spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to make the long-anticipated designation on March 21 at an event at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The move has not yet been officially announced.
What is the expected impact of this?
One cannot definitively say how this is going to impact the military rule in Myanmar. Ever since the state-led violent campaign against the Rohingyas' genocide in 2017, multiple layers of US sanctions in the country's western Rakhine state are already in place. However, it may lead to additional international pressure on the military establishment ruling Myanmar as it is already facing accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
What is the background of the Rohingya crisis?
In August 2017, tensions escalated between Myanmar's Buddhist majority and the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority that lives mostly in the country's northwestern state of Rakhine. Before that, the small militant group of Rohingyas, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), had carried out a number of attacks on police stations and border posts. Now, this group emerged only in 2016 and insisted that it was acting in the best interests of the Rohingyas.
Why was this done and what followed next?
It is noteworthy that despite facing decades of oppression, a large number of Rohingyas had largely refrained from violence. ARSA, in 2016, remained firm that the retaliation against police officials was to send a message that Rohingyas can defend themselves if violence against them is not stopped. However, this backfired. The authorities of Myanmar used the full force of state power against thousands of Rohingyas and the situation escalated to a point that 7,00,000 Rohingyas fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.
What role does Facebook play in between all this?
To understand why this matters, it is important to note that in Myanmar, Facebook is equivalent to the internet. While the military operation was underway, a huge number of civilian posts appeared on Facebook calling for murder and violence against the Rohingyas. At the time, human rights organisations such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticised Facebook for not doing enough to prevent such hate speech. Facebook admitted its failures only in November 2018, when an independent commission set up by the company found, "Facebook has become a means for those seeking to spread hate and cause harm, and posts have been linked to offline violence."
