Rohingya Genocide

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“	Four years ago, I witnessed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh by foot with only the clothes on their backs. They described in disturbingly consistent detail the tactics of the Myanmar military: surrounding villages, setting fires, and shooting people as they fled. The U.S. State Department, among many other organizations, has collected a mountain of evidence since. [Secretary of State Anthony Blinken] should hesitate no longer in making a genocide determination.	„
	~ Daniel Sullivan, the current Refugees International Senior Advocate for Human Rights.

The Rohingya Genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions by the Myanmar military of the Muslim Rohingya people.

The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution.

Background

The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s. Since then, the Rohingya people have been persecuted on a regular basis by the government and nationalist Buddhists. The tensions between the various religious groups in the country were often exploited by past military rulers of Myanmar. 

Amnesty International notes that the Rohingya suffered human rights violations under both the Ne Win and State Peace and Development Council dictatorships since 1978, and many of them have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result. In 2005, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees assisted with the repatriation of Rohingyas from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps threatened this effort. In 2015, 140,000 Rohingyas remained in IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps after communal riots in 2012.

In late 2016, Myanmar's armed forces and police started a major crackdown on the people in Rakhine State in the country's northwestern region. The Burmese military were accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide by various United Nations agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups, journalists, and governments. 

The UN found evidence of wide-scale human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings; summary executions; gang rapes; lootings; arson of Rohingya villages, businesses, and schools; and infanticides. The Burmese government dismissed these as "exaggerations". Using statistical extrapolations based on surveys conducted with a total of 3,321 Rohingya refugee households in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, a study estimated in January 2018 that the military and local Rakhine population killed at least 25,000 Rohingya people and perpetrated gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against 18,000 Rohingya women and girls. They estimated that 116,000 Rohingya were beaten, and 36,000 were thrown into fires.

The military operations displaced a large number of people, and created a refugee crisis. The largest wave of Rohingya to flee Myanmar happened in 2017, which resulted in the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War. According to UN reports, over 700,000 people fled or were driven out of Rakhine State, and took shelter in neighbouring Bangladesh as refugees as of September 2018. In December 2017, two Reuters journalists who were covering the Inn Din massacre were arrested and imprisoned. Foreign Secretary Myint Thu told reporters Myanmar was prepared to accept 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November 2018. Subsequently, in November 2017, the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a deal to facilitate the return of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State within two months, which drew mixed responses from international onlookers.

The 2016 military crackdown on the Rohingya people drew criticism from the UN (which cited possible "crimes against humanity"), the human rights group Amnesty International, the U.S. Department of State, the government of neighbouring Bangladesh, and the government of Malaysia. The Burmese leader and State Counsellor (de facto head of government) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was criticised for her inaction and silence over the issue and did little to prevent military abuses. Myanmar also drew criticism for the prosecutions of journalists under her leadership.

The August 2017 persecution was in response to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacks on Myanmar border posts. It has been declared as ethnic cleansing and genocide by various UN agencies, ICC officials, human rights groups, and governments. The UN described the persecution as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

In late September 2017, a seven-member panel of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal found the Burmese military and authority guilty of the crime of genocide against the Rohingya and the Kachin minority groups. Suu Kyi was again criticised for her silence over the issue and for supporting the military actions. 

In August 2018, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that Burmese military generals should be tried for genocide. On 23 January 2020, the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya minority and to preserve evidence of past attacks.

Following the February 1, 2021 coup and the establishment of the State Administration Council military junta (headed by Min Aung Hlaing), continued persecution of the Rohingya has been reported. The genocide remains ongoing.