US will not intercede, and Myanmar's
neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya
needed
By Maung Zarni, LONDON
The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly
passed a resolution calling the crimes committed by Myanmar security forces
against Rohingya Muslims a genocide. This was the right thing to do.
The U.S. lawmakers deserve to be applauded for trying to
turn “Never again!” into a concrete U.S. governmental policy, following the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s declaration that Myanmar is indeed committing
a genocide and crimes against humanity.
The House resolution states that “every government and
multilateral body (in the world) should call such atrocities (against Rohingya
people) by their rightful names of ‘crimes against humanity,’ ‘war crimes,’ and
‘genocide’.”
It contains a call that will resonate very well with many
in the rank-and-file of the Armed Forces of Myanmar unhappy with the Senior
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing: it adds the commander-in-chief to the list of military
commanders deemed responsible for these crimes.
Despite the much-reported decline of U.S. power globally,
the United States still retains unparalleled influence and reach, militarily,
institutionally, economically, and ideologically, vis-à-vis Russia and China.
Against this background, the unequivocal stance that U.S. lawmakers have taken
against the Myanmar genocide has enormous potential to really end the
unimaginable misery which 1.5 million Rohingya experience, both in refugee
camps in Bangladesh and in their own places of origin within the western
Myanmar state of Rakhine.
However, the calls for the UN Security Council to refer
the matter to the International Criminal Court or an ad hoc International
Criminal Tribunal on Myanmar, or even economic sanctions alone, will have no
appreciable impact on either the Myanmar military, which has institutionalized
the intentional destruction of Rohingya as a target population since the 1970s,
nor on the majority of the Myanmar public, who have been brainwashed to believe
UN or external allegations of atrocities as “fake news” concocted by the
liberal West and a Muslim conspiracy financed and coordinated by the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
That is, unless the United States is prepared to take
forward the idea of military intervention in Myanmar – like the U.S. Pacific
Fleet launching surgical missile-strikes from the international waters of the
Bay of Bengal on the military headquarters and residences of the senior
military commanders in Naypyidaw. The uses of military actions on grounds of
humanitarian intervention are not unprecedented. The NATO bombing of Slobodan
Milosevic’s palace and the “accidental” strike on the Embassy of China in
Belgrade springs to mind.
In fact, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad openly
suggested “going in” to end the atrocities, in a public talk at the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York a few months ago.
Unrealistic option
However, this may not be a realistic option for a number
of reasons: U.S. President Donald Trump has demonstrated absolutely no concern
about the news of Myanmar troops burning Rohingya infants and elderly people
alive. In fact, Trump has not even once tweeted the word “Rohingya,” let alone
drawn attention to the hellish conditions they are living in. Additionally,
sandwiched between India and China, which are vying for influence in Myanmar
through strategic, military, and economic collaboration, Myanmar may not be an
ideal place for U.S. drone or missile strikes, lest such acts draw these two
Asian rivals into the military action.
With respect to the impact of full and biting economic
sanctions, in the unlikely event that the United States eventually imposes such
severe sanctions, the four largest investors in Myanmar are China, Thailand,
Singapore, and Hong Kong, followed by the U.K. The targeted pinch on the
generals and the national economy will be significantly mitigated by these
countries.
None of these governments are likely to follow the U.S.’
leads in the current circumstances. China considers Myanmar, a country in its
backyard, an integral piece of its One Belt, One Road grand project whereby it
is striving to recreate the New World Order with Beijing as its imperial
center. Any talk of persuading China, or Russia, with deep military-to-military
ties with Myanmar, to support any punitive measures within the existing global
justice and governance mechanisms, including the UN Security Council, is
nothing short of delusional.
The rest of Myanmar’s neighbors, including even India,
base their Myanmar policies on commercial interests. India is no match for
China, how desperately it may try, to curb China’s sway over the Myanmar
military and civilian leaderships.
Desperate to find bilateral trade deals outside the EU
amid Brexit, Britain is single-mindedly pursuing British commercial interests
while serving as the “penholder” on Myanmar resolutions in multilateral bodies
by virtue of the historical fact that it was the country’s former colonial
master.
In a lengthy Dec. 12 interview with the local Mizzima
News Group, British Ambassador Daniel Chugg pussyfooted around the genocide and
stressed his ambassadorial goal. In Chugg’s own words, “we are the
fifth-largest investor ever in Myanmar, our total stock of investment here is
more than $4 billion, and our trade last year was about $500 million, which was
up 20 per cent from the year before. So, it's growing but it's still relatively
small in global terms and so I hope those figures will improve while I am
here.”
No matter how powerful it may still remain, U.S. measures
will come short of what is needed to end the genocide in Myanmar.
Steps to follow
Whether the Trump administration makes the legal
determination – as the U.S. House Resolution urges – that Myanmar is in fact
committing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes not only
against Rohingya but also against other ethnic and religious communities such
as the Kachin, Shan, and Ta’ang, is less consequential than what it will
concretely do if the determination is made.
The painful truth typically overlooked is that no
genocide has ever been committed by the perpetrating state alone, from the Nazi
genocide to Bosnia to Rwanda. There are always collaborating and “bystanding”
states. The real first-step towards ending the genocide in Myanmar will have to
be an international conference of states which have expressed their official
concerns about the nature of grave crimes that Myanmar is committing.
There are 47 member states which voted on the UN Human
Rights Council Resolution this fall calling for accountability for the Myanmar
perpetrators of international state crimes. Although the U.S. is no longer a
member of the council, considering the overwhelming concern about the genocide
in Myanmar as evidenced in yesterday’s vote at the House of Representatives, the
U.S. government is best placed to host such a conference in Washington.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has done
extraordinary work in genocide monitoring and research on the situation for
Rohingya, would be an ideal civil society partner to facilitate such a
conference.
One primary conference objective should be to forge a
coalition of governments that are prepared to pool their resources, strategic
influences, and even military assets to put sufficient pressure on both the
Myanmar military and Aung San Suu Kyi’s impotent leadership. Without sufficient
pressure, Myanmar -- that is, the civilian government and the military -- will
not accept the Rohingya as full and equal citizens, nor will they provide any
guarantee for the safety of the survivor communities.
As a matter of fact, the Myanmar genocide resolution
rightly states that “Myanmar’s civilian government, led by State Counsellor
Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, has not yet taken the necessary steps
to address the violence directed against the Rohingya and has failed to create
the necessary conditions for returns, including by actively impeding access to
northern Rakhine for UNHCR, UNDP, humanitarian organizations, and journalists.”
Having aligned the government with Beijing, Aung San Suu Kyi has shown
absolutely no sign that she will relent.
Against this scenario, only such a counter-alliance of
states broadly supported by civil society and human rights movements consisting
of Rohingya survivors can put enough concrete pressure on the perpetrating
regime and the genocidally racist society to allow Rohingya to live in peace on
their own ancestral land of Northern Rakhine.
[Maung Zarni is co-author of the “The
Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya” (Pacific Rim Law and Policy
Journal, 2014) and coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition.]