Genocide is one of three atrocity crimes defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC, 1998). It is ‘an extreme form of identity-based crime,’¹ involving the systematic elimination of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. 

Preventing genocide requires early intervention. However, progress towards addressing it while it is imminent or ongoing has been slow, and often stalled by political considerations and debates about determination. There is also a tendency to trade accountability for perpetrators agreeing to end the violence, at the expense of ensuring justice for victims and providing a measure of deterrence. 

Consequently, despite regular articulations of ‘Never Again,’ genocide has reoccurred, including in Myanmar.  

In 2017, the Myanmar army launched pre-planned violent operations in Rakhine State against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya minority. A massacre of men, women and children ensued, along with the burning of homes, schools and mosques, deliberate burning to death of people in their homes, mass rape, torture, extrajudicial execution, forced labour, blocking of aid and forcible displacement. Nearly half the Rohingya villages were destroyed and over 9,000 Rohingya killed.  

More than one million Rohingya are currently refugees in neighbouring countries, with 960,000 living in flood-prone camps in Cox’s Bazar, a border area in Bangladesh. Approximately 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar facing ongoing violations in circumstances some have labelled ‘apartheid.’  

As with every genocide, this was not a solitary event, but a process requiring time and planning.  

The US Holocaust Museum points out that while every genocide is unique, most share some key conditions, namely, instability, ideology, discrimination and violence against groups, dangerous speech, armed groups, and armed conflict. 

Further, in 2014 the UN developed a Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes to assist Prevention, which lists Common and Specific risk factors.    

Common Factors are armed conflict or other instability; a record of serious human rights and humanitarian law violations; weak State structures; motives or incentives; capacity to commit atrocity crimes; absence of mitigating factors; enabling circumstances or preparatory action, and triggering factors. All apply in the Myanmar context, where the genocide was conducted by a military regime that violates international human rights and humanitarian norms consistently, provoking ethnic insurgencies. 

Applicable Specific Risk Factors include intergroup tensions or patterns of discrimination; signs of an intent to destroy an ethno-religious group in whole or in part; signs of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians; signs of a plan or policy to attack civilians, and serious threats to people protected under international humanitarian law, such as medical and religious personnel. 

Root causes can be traced back to the military takeover in 1962, when an extreme nationalism based on Burman ethnicity and Buddhist identity was imposed by successive military regimes, which used Buddhism as a political tool, recognising it could confer legitimacy. As generals embarked on public displays of piety, military intelligence infiltrated the Buddhist religious authorities. 

For decades the state promoted fear of non-Buddhists, leaving space for the spreading of anti-Muslim and anti-Christian hate speech by radicalised monks through preaching tours, newspapers, magazines, and television. The advent of social media provided fresh avenues for disinformation and hateful rhetoric. 

A 1982 Law stripped the Rohingya of citizenship, despite their centuries-old presence in Myanmar. 

State-sponsored hate speech and incitement eventually fostered widespread anti-Muslim violence, with the transition towards a fragile quasi-democracy increasing, rather than diminishing, the influence of Buddhist nationalism. 

In 2012 Buddhist mobs armed with machetes burnt thousands of Muslim homes, leaving hundreds dead and forcing 125,000, mostly Muslims, to flee. 

In 2013 a three-child limit was imposed on the Rohingya, amidst claims it would help ease tensions because the Buddhist population grew at a slower rate. 

Recommendations 

It is now over six years since the start of ‘clearance operations’ against the Rohingya, conducted by the current military leader; consequently, their situation remains grave. Meanwhile bombings, beheadings and widespread rape continue across Myanmar, and violence with genocidal intent is occurring elsewhere in the world.  

There is an urgent need internationally for the prioritisation of atrocity prevention in policy and diplomatic dialogues, and whenever necessary, effective and timely actualisation of the Responsibility to Protect, including through stringent, timely sanctions. 

Myanmar specific recommendations include: