The accusations of genocide leave the military junta cold

In August 2017, the Myanmar military used great brutality against the Rohingya ethnic group. Washington has now classified this as genocide for the first time. This will not change anything about the brutal exercise of power by the military leadership in the country.

Antony Blinken in the exhibition «Burma’s Path to Genocide».

Kevin Lamarque/AP

Few places could be better than the Holocaust Museum in Washington US Secretary of State Antony Blinken the Myanmar military’s brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority as genocide. The exhibition “Burma’s Path to Genocide” can currently be seen there. Blinken said Monday night that the military responsible for the Rohingya genocide are those who have held power in Myanmar since the coup d’etat on February 1 last year. They used the same tactics as then, only with the difference that their violence is now directed not against an ethnic group but against all those who fought the military junta, Blinken added.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his speech at the Washington Holocaust Museum in Washington on Monday evening.

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In August 2017, the Myanmar military, also known as the Tatmadaw in the Southeast Asian country, cracked down on the Rohingya living in the state of Rakhine. It was a matter of legitimate “cleansing operations” against terrorists, it was said, playing it down. The reality was different. Up to 9,000 Rohingya are said to have been killed, and 750,000 people fled across the border to Bangladesh, where they are still living in inhumane conditions in refugee camps. The Tatmadaw is said to have tortured and raped during her “cleansing operations”.

In December 2019, the then democratically legitimized de facto head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi, defended the actions of the Myanmar military before the International Criminal Court in The Hague and rejected the accusation of genocide. However, she admitted that it could not be ruled out that there were individual actions by the Tatmadaw that were “disproportionate”.

Whether Suu Kyi had to take such positions under pressure from the Myanmar military remains to be seen. However, there is one interpretation of the coup a little over a year ago: Among the generals led by Min Aung Hlaing, the fear of ending up before the International Criminal Court was so great that they overthrew the democratically elected government.

The legal basis for classification as genocide is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948. These are acts committed against the members of a national, ethnic or religious group with the intention of destroying them in whole or in part.

Washington has had difficulty classifying the actions against the Rohingya as genocide, and has so far described them as ethnic cleansing. In the Trump administration, there was a balancing act between legal and political-strategic considerations. She faced a dilemma. By declaring it a genocide, it would have put Suu Kyi’s democratic government under pressure and possibly pushed it further into Beijing’s arms. The coup on February 1 last year, just a few days after Joe Biden’s inauguration, freed Washington from the dilemma. Biden and Blinken no longer had to be considerate.

According to the Reuters news agency the US State Department says that by formally committing to genocide, Washington wants to further increase international pressure on the military junta and hold them accountable for their actions. Biden Myanmar had already tightened the thumbscrews economically two months ago.

Measures are taken against all those who contribute to undermining the democracy movement by holding shares in Myanmar companies. Western corporations such as the French energy group Total or the Californian company Chevron are also saying goodbye to the Southeast Asian country. However, foreign countries should not expect too much from such sanctions. The Myanmar military leadership has shown in the past that it can live well with its role as a pariah state.

Blinken has Monday night at the Holocaust Museum fueled expectationsto bring the military junta before an international court. However, it is more of a symbolic act. It is almost impossible to catch the despots. On the contrary, the classification as genocide will strengthen their will to remain in power by any means necessary and to harass the recalcitrant people. The military junta knows what will happen to them at home if they lose this battle. Despite all the allegations of genocide, foreign countries remain the spectators.

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