Karima Nishat examines whether the persecution of the Rohingya constitutes a genocide.

History has shown a continuous pattern that has been weaved time and again, and that is genocides against Muslims. The ongoing genocide waged against the Rohingya minority is a prime example, alongside those cases that mirror past genocides such as that in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995. This article seeks to analyse what constitutes genocide, what is Islamophobic in the discourse of genocide, and the refugee crisis and the international community’s response, focusing on the Rohingya genocide to argue that there is an historical pattern in the genocides waged against Muslims.

When analysing genocide is it imperative to develop a general definition by dissecting various definitions of the term to understand how grave atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority are acts of genocide. Lemkin (2005: 79) defines genocide as the “destruction of a nation or ethnic group” (Nishat, 2020: 10).  However, he cautions that this does not entail the immediate destruction of the nation or ethnic group and so is more about a “coordinated plan of actions” aiming to destroy the “foundations of the life of national groups” (Lemkin, 2005: 79; Nishat, 2020: 10).  This, according to Lemkin (2005; Nishat, 2020: 10), is done with the sole aim of annihilating the ethnic group.  The ongoing debate surrounding recognised versus unrecognised genocides begs the question of why there is hesitancy and reluctance by the international community to call acts of gross terror, human rights abuses and violations genocide. This can be explained by the limitations of the existing international definition. The legally recognised definition in international law can be found under Article Two of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948),

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948: 7)

This United Nations definition is severely limiting because it excludes social and political groups, which was intentional (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). This carries significant repercussions as it excludes those such as the Rohingya who are already being severely victimised.  Furthermore, there is no distinction made between violence that is centred on exterminating a group and attacks on group members that are non-lethal. Consequentially, this works in favour of the perpetrators, normally state actors, of genocide (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). In the case of the Rohingya as well as in other genocides against Muslims, the perpetrator is the state. The exclusion of social or political groups thereby enables states or other perpetrators to inflict what the UN defines as genocidal acts but they will not fall under the category of genocide. This has repercussions on social and political groups as the definition excludes them from the category of victims. Additionally, perpetrators victimise groups in ways that do not fall within the scope of the definition. Acts of genocide against these groups have been dismissed by the UN as genocide since the implementation of the Convention (Chalk and Jonassohn, 1990). A prime example of this is the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which both Tutsi and Hutu civilians were victimised and brutally slaughtered, yet due to the limitation of the UN definition it remains unclear on whether the Hutu can be legally recognised as victims of the genocide (Rombouts, 2004).

Moreover, as the definition is narrow with regards to mass crimes, if proven that the perpetrator does not have genocidal intent then this focus on intent would similarly call into question other crimes including massacre, murder, ethnic cleansing, and “crimes against humanity (Aydin, 2014: 441). Shifting the focus back on to the Rohingya as well as other concurrent genocides, the dilemma here is that whilst these criminal acts are synonymous with genocide, due to the lack of proven intent, genocide would be ruled out legally, which can maximise risk and further injustice towards these persecuted groups. This shows how the element of “intent” in the legal definition of what constitutes genocide could partly explain (among other factors) the lack of intervention from the international community and the United Nations, with respect to genocides waged against Muslims.

To reflect on the Bosnia-Herzegovina genocide which culminated as a result of the Bosnian War (1992‒5), witnessed the Serbian army’s actions escalate from scouring and burning Bosnian Muslim homes to detaining civilians in camps, beating and killing them, with 26,000 Muslims “systematically murdered” by the end of the war (Ching, 2008: 6). This is reminiscent of what is occurring in Myanmar, with the systematic persecution having also followed this pattern, albeit for decades rather than years. To be concise, this complex historical, religious and ethnic persecution of the Burmese against the Rohingya particularly after the colonial era and with military rule has evolved into a full-scale genocide, and is mainly due to deeply embedded-Islamophobia (Nishat, 2020).

With genocides waged against Muslims, Islamophobia is usually at the forefront, and, in this case, it has shaped the Rohingya genocide. Whilst there has been some attention on it in recent years, the Rohingya have in fact been subjected to a “state-sponsored process of destruction” since 1978 (Zarni and Cowley, 2014: 683). According to Green (2013) Islamophobia in Myanmar is deeply rooted and institutionalised within the Burmese nation. Religious strife has always been at the forefront of the nation’s politics. After Buddhism was made the state religion in 1960, and was followed by the coup in 1962, Muslims tended to be associated with the colonial period and seen as foreigners exploiting the country (Selth, 2013 in Green, 2013: 95; Nishat, 2020: 20). As a consequence, the Rohingya were banned from working as civil servants, running for public office, or joining the security forces. Restrictions were imposed on mosques, Muslim cemeteries were destroyed, and madrasas were closed (Selth, 2013 in Green, 2013: 95; Nishat, 2020: 20).

Policies such as the “Burmese Way to Socialism” begun in 1962 (Woodman, no date, in Cook, 1970: 260; Haque, 2017) or the Nationalisation Law in 1963, which nationalised industry (Cook, 1970: 260) only fuelled the exclusion and alienation of Muslims. The Rohingya were given foreign identity cards as opposed to the national registration cards given to citizens, which meant that they were prevented from pursuing equal career and education opportunities (Al Jazeera, 2018). The 1982 Citizenship Act was a further step in legalized Islamophobia (Zarni and Cowley, 2014), which served to specifically prevent the Rohingya from gaining nationality and Islam as a religion was no longer in conformity with citizenship. Haque’s (2017) examination found that the legislation eradicated Rohingya Muslim identity and stripped them of rights to citizenship, which to this day is still in effect; simply put, the Rohingya are not accepted as an ethnic group that existed prior to the historic colonisation of Myanmar.

Bakali and Munir (2020) identify the Rohingya genocide as structural Islamophobia, as a systematic process spanning years. This is when the state produces anti-Muslim racism (Bakali, 2019) and its policies are aimed at vilifying Islam and oppressing Muslims (Beydoun, 2018 in Bakali, 2019). Although Islamophobia has many forms, the Rohingya genocide manifests as the most horrific “consequences of unchallenged structural Islamophobia” (Bakali and Munir, 2020). The Rohingya are effectively denied basic human rights through these policies such as the legal ban preventing Buddhist women marrying Muslim men and the two-child policy imposed on the Rohingya (Ibrahim, 2018). Therefore, it is evident that the persecution against the Rohingya goes beyond just ethnic cleansing to a genocide fuelled by Islamophobia at the forefront of it all (Nishat, 2020: 24).

Since 1978, there has been the forced exodus of the Rohingya, the first of which known as “Operation Dragon King” led to the huge internal displacement of people, with over 200,000 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar and becoming refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh (Mattern, 1978 in Farzana, 2017: 50; Nishat, 2020: 21). Over 250,000 more fled from the Rhakine State to Bangladesh in 1991 and 1992 respectively, escaping the religious persecution including forced labour and rape by the Burmese army (Human Rights Watch, 2000). Between 1993 and 1997, around 230,000 were repatriated, with the Burmese state conceding that no more refugees would be accepted after August 1997 (Human Rights Watch, 2000). As of March 2022, for the first time, the number of displaced Rohingya in Myanmar has exceeded one million (OCHA, 2022) and there are over 925,000 refugees residing in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazar (UNHCR, 2021, in World Food Programme in Reliefweb, 2022). The Rohingya refugee crisis is perhaps one of the worst cases of mass exodus in recent times, as with this comes more issues including insufficient aid, legal protection, poverty, human rights abuses amongst refugees, restrictions, and human trafficking.

Whilst the Myanmar state is solely to blame for perpetuating and committing the genocide, including the complicity of Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration in maintaining silence and working in collusion with the Tatmadaw (military) in reinforcing persecution (Nishat, 2020: 49), the international community also has a hand in the genocide. The international community’s response or lack of thereof has been evident to see. That is not to say that there has not been any intervention at all: there have been humanitarian interventions and the UN’s condemnation of Myanmar for the genocide through its fact-finding mission report (Human Rights Council, 2018). This report subsequently held the state’s military junta accountable for genocide against the Rohingya as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity and minorities (Ellis-Peterson, 2018). Yet, that does not compare to the systematic failures of the UN Security Council’s lack of support as found in Rosenthal’s (2019) inquiry into the involvement of the UN in Myanmar in 2010-2018. These failures and the slow response also parallel what happened after the Bosnian genocide.

Both Ramcharan (2002) and Kuper (1982) agree that the Security Council is engaged in power politics and this is most evident in the profitable economic and political deals that international governments are making (Green, 2013: 93). Both China and Russia, members of the UN Security Council, have vetoed any interventions against Myanmar (Islam, 2019), with China protecting Myanmar, obstructing UN efforts and any international intervention. China is also expanding her investment in Myanmar while other states have cut funding (Human Rights Watch, 2019). The geopolitical interests of China and India has seen both nations selling arms to Myanmar and investing economically (Motaher, 2019), with China investing $20 billion in Myanmar over the past three decades alone (Islam, 2019). Of course, there is more to this as an agreement was signed on the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (Human Rights Watch, 2019). Despite the International Court of Justice ordering Myanmar to prevent the genocide, the Security Council demonstrated great weakness in not providing a statement (Al Jazeera, 2020). What is significantly noteworthy and ironic is that the aforementioned states are currently embroiled in the persecution of Muslims in India and China) and genocide, as can be seen with the religious oppression of Muslims in India, the mass detention of the Uyghur in China, and the most recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia in which acts of genocide and gross terror are being committed.

To conclude, the Rohingya genocide is a clear-cut example of genocides being waged directly against Muslims on a large scale. This is due to the fact that there has been a systematic process leading culminating into a mass genocide that is still ongoing. Islamophobia is not only rampant but deeply embedded into Myanmar’s whole state and societal infrastructure in what can be described as a historical continuum in which atrocities and the mass persecution of Muslims has evolved into full destruction. On top of this, the Myanmar genocide is synchronised with other genocides being waged against Muslims globally. Past interventions have been too little or too late, and it seems that this inhumane approach is being repeated once again as the world watches idly whilst states continue their mission to exterminate Muslim minorities.

Karima Nishat is part of the Ayaan Institute’s Research Associate Programme. The programme provides training and mentoring in many areas for Associates and offers them the chance to write an article for publication through conducting their own research.

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