Rohingya’s Ordeal: Ethnic Cleansing or Genocide

The Author, Prableen Kaur Chandhok, is a 4th year Law student at Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS), GGSIPU.

Abstract

The Britishers ruled Myanmar for most part of the 19th century and left a wedge between the Buddhist nationals and Rohingya Muslims. The term Rohingya is connoted differently by authors, international communities as well as the Myanmar government which led to their inhumane and unjust treatment. The year 2017 was Myanmar's annus horribilis, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked outposts in Bangladesh and the Myanmar's military response to the same was unprecented and brutal.

The paper aims to decipher whether the acts committed on the Rohingya amount to Genocide or Ethnic cleansing. Further, the paper focuses that if the acts are genocide why have they not been recognised as such by the member states under the Geneva Convention, 1948 of which Myanmar is a member.

Introduction

Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) gained its independence from British colonial rule in 1948 and has since faced ethnic division and conflict. For decades, a range of ethnic groups including the Rohingyas have sought for their political, economic and most importantly their human rights against the Myanmar authorities and Buddhist majority even as the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) asserts its mission to protect their countries sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity. The gravest challenge since independence has been the majority- minority ethnic relations along with distribution of power and resources. The country’s mission would be to achieve mutual trust and a system of governance which would be agreeable to the diversity of Myanmar population. ^[1] 

Etymology of Rohingya

The term “Rohingya” is derived from the Arabic word Rahm which means mercy. The story goes that a ship of Arab traders arrived on the shores of Ramree Island in the 18th century, wrecked the Burmese coast and the survivors asked the king for Rahm. The king allotted a piece of land allowing them to settle there. Over time Rahm changed to Rhohang and eventually to Rohingya.^[2]

The difficulty lies in the term Rohingya itself. It has been connoted differently by the Myanmar Government and the International community at large.

The Myanmar government, state media and official documents refer to the Rohingya as Bengali, a racist local reference, illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. ^[3] They are considered as a ‘threat to national security’ which is the general perception of the Myanmar people. ^[4]

In contrast, the international community continues to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group of borderland Muslims whose ancestry is in Arakan or Rakhine along the postcolonial borders of today’s Myanmar.^[5] Their identity as an ethno linguistic group was recognized under successive Burmese regimes after independence but was systematically erased by the increasingly anti-Muslim military-controlled governments since 1962. ^[6] 

Background on the Rohingya Crisis

Over the past thirty-five years, the government of Myanmar has intentionally formulated, pursued, and executed national and state-level plans aimed at eliminating the Rohingya people in Western Myanmar.^[7]

The evidence of the intent to destroy can be witnessed through assaults on their identity, killings during multiple pogroms, physical and mental harm, deliberate infliction of conditions of life designed to bring about the group’s destruction, and measures to prevent births.^[8]

Burma was occupied by the British from 1824 up until 1948, and in the years between 1940 and 1947, Buddhist fundamentalist extremism was on the rise.^[9] After independence in 1948, the anti-Rohingya campaign persisted, marked by discrimination and denial of their citizenship rights. In 1962, Myanmar launched state sponsored persecution under ‘Operation Dragon King’ targeting the Rohingya people. Regarded as illegal immigrants, the government designated the Rohingyas as troublemakers who did not belong in Burma.

In the 1970s, the Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF) (including the rival Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front) was formed in response to the government oppression.

In 1978, following ‘Operation Clean and Beautiful Nations’ thousands began fleeing the province, and by mid-July more than 200,000 refugees were packed into ramshackle camps on the Bangladeshi side of the Naaf River.^[10]

The oppression from 1978 to 1979 became infamous when the Burmese military began its Naga Min (Operation Dragon King) campaign of murder, rape, and torture against the Rohingya community designed to drive the "foreigners" out of Burma and "back to" Bangladesh. The army burned villages, destroyed mosques, and herded people into fenced stockades. ^[11]

Up until 1978 most Rohingyas held de facto citizenship in the form of national registration cards. The military junta began exchanging those documents. 

Soon after, Myanmar passed the 1982 Citizenship Law that denied citizenship to Rohingyas, decreeing an estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in North Rakhine stateless. The act resulted in non recognition of Rohingya as a national race even if they were born in the country.

The categories are citizens; Full citizens, associated citizens; natural citizens; and resident foreigners. Full citizens are those belonging to one of 135 national races that settled into the territory before 1823. Associate citizens may have one grandparent or ancestor before 1823 that was a citizen of a foreign country. Naturalised citizens are those that can provide conclusive evidence that his/her parents entered and lived in Burma before independence in 1948. Finally, resident foreigners have no citizenship rights at all. They cannot move freely around the country, they cannot enrol in higher education. They cannot hold government positions. Rohingyas were not considered one of the country's 135 official ethnic groups and thus, denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982.

In 1989 the military government began exchanging the old national registration cards (which the Rohingyas held) with new colour-coded ones (pink for full citizens, blue for associate citizens, green for naturalised ones and white for foreigners). The Rohingyas had de facto been rendered stateless in this process. ^[12]

In 2012, after being charged with raping and killing a Buddhist woman Myanmar targeted the Rohingyas in which more than 200 people were killed. More than 150000 Rohingyas were evicted from their homes, their land confiscated, and their villages and houses attacked by Myanmar's military.^[13]

For decades Rohingyas have borne the brunt of state discrimination and persecution without resorting to organised violence. Until very recently, there were few, if any, signs of radicalisation, especially among local Rohingyas.

In August 2017^[14], the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked 30 security outposts along the border with Bangladesh on August 25, 2017, killing over a dozen Burmese police officers, and at least one Tatmadaw soldier. In response, ARSA was officially declared a terrorist organization and the Tatmadaw deployed about 30,000-35,000 soldiers into Rakhine State leading to more than 620,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing to Bangladesh to take shelter in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Research Problem

The heinous acts committed by the Myanmar government on the Rohingya are considered inhumane and unjust in the developed world. I wish to decipher whether these acts by the state of Myanmar amount to Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing.

Moreover, I also wish to look into the fact that if the Myanmar government is held accountable by the rest of the world for the acts they committed which amounted to genocide on the Rohingya people then, what is the consequence for the other members of the Genocide Convention who turned a blind eye to this violation.

Hypothesis

The acts committed on the Rohingya people which amount to Genocide have not been called so by the member states due to an increased responsibility under the Genocide Convention, 1948 of which Myanmar is also a member.

Methodology

I have adopted a doctrinal approach to analyse the research problem of whether the acts committed by the state of Myanmar amounted to Genocide or Ethnic Cleaning, by looking at various primary and secondary sources of data available across journals, magazines, books and memoirs. I also looked at the dictionary meanings of both these terms and tried to draw a parallel between them and the said acts, which led me to the conclusion.  The Geneva Convention acted as a base for my in-depth analysis, looking at historical events, I could ascertain the nature of these acts.

Objectives of the Study

This study analyses the origin of the ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the history of the crisis which led to mass killing of a substantial number of the Rohingya population and the others fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh. The study will bear the following specific objectives:

1. To understand the concept of ‘Genocide’ and ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ in the International sphere.
2. To know whether the acts committed on the Rohingya people amount to genocide or ethnic cleansing.
3. To understand the basis of the preliminary order of the International Court of Justice rendered on 23^rd January 2020.
4. To provide a brief background as to the reasoning behind the member countries failure to recognise the acts as genocide.
5. To analyse the situation of Rohingya and its impact on international law.

Literature Review

The treatment meted out to the Rohingya whether classified as genocide, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity cannot be allowed to be perpetrated, being unjust and inhumane. The principle of Responsibility to Protect lies on each country including Myanmar to protect its citizens from such acts. The treatment of the Rohingya has intersection with the International Law including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Updated Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity mandating upon the member countries to protect its people and bring the perpetrators to justice.^[15]

Further the treatment can be categorised as being genocide, which is systematic slaughter of the minority of the country. The author characterises the situation by explaining it with the reference to five stages. The denial of citizenship and labelling as ‘Bengali’ or ‘an illegal immigrant’ is stigmatisation. Harassment took the form of job discrimination by excluding them from taking key positions in the Government and attacks by the state security. Next is isolation, which can easily be viewed as the Rohingya were herded in camps or their villages cut off. Fourth is systematic weakening by barring them from travel, restrictions on marriage and childbirth, denial of voting rights. The last stage, annihilation which according to the author had not yet occurred but would be evident given the gradual intensification of the violence.^[16]

The author differentiates between the term genocide and ethnic cleansing on the basis of the motive for the act. The former focuses on annihilation while the latter merely on removal from a given territory. He says, the perpetrators divide the groups into “us” and “them”.  Discrimination on religious basis has led to genocide in Myanmar.^[17]

The United Nations in September 2018, published the Report of the Fact Finding Mission which highlighted that the offence of genocide has been committed on the Rohingya population wherein four out of five of the acts under Article II of United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide have been carried out by the military forces.^[18]

The author on a voyage to highlight the distinct characteristics of genocide and ethnic cleansing has focused on the lack of a clear and precise definition of the term ethnic cleansing which has led to conflicts and debates on the nature of acts which can be characterized as the same. Further he states that the migration of the Rohingya population from Myanmar to Burma is considered as ethnic cleansing by some while few non-governmental organisations urge the identification of the crime as genocide.^[19]

In 2015, Queen Mary University of London's Global State Crime Initiative released a report, Countdown to Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar, which concluded according to social scientific frameworks that genocide was taking place against the Rohingya. And then in 2018 released a report Genocide Achieved, Genocide Continues: Myanmar’s Annihilation of the Rohingya concluding that genocide was being committed in Myanmar on the Rohingya Muslims.^[20]

Main Paper

1. Factors leading to Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar forcing the Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.

• Rule of British

1. War Related

The first incident that can be said to have led to communal violence against the ethnic group of Rohingya occurred in 1930, when the anti-Indian riots were started because of a labour issue at the Yangon port. The workers of Myanmar blamed the Indian workers for their loss of jobs leading to a riot which rapidly spread throughout Myanmar, targeting Muslims.^[21]

Then in 1938, again anti-Muslim riots broke out in Myanmar for anti-British and nationalistic sentiments before World War II erupted during the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia and Arakan became the frontline in the conflict. The advance by the Japanese set off communal conflict between the Buddhists and Muslims in the region. The Muslims fled from the Japanese controlled Buddhist majority region to British controlled northern Arakan. ^[22]

Then during the British colonial period, the divide and conquer strategy towards the Buddhist nationals led to increasing hatred for Rohingya Muslims.

2. Historical

Migration theorists in a robust textual analysis of Arakanese, Bengali, Burmese, Portuguese, and Dutch historiography, claim that Rohingya as a race or ethnicity never existed. Neither the British census conducted in 1824 nor the Census of India, 1921 (Burma),  included the ethnonym Rohingya as noted by Khin (1993), Chan (2005) and Maung Tha Hla (2009); well-known authors like Maurice Collis, J.F. Cady and British Colonial Officers  had no mention of this term in their writings as well.^[23]

Only in 1795 Buchanan, a British physician, took note of the peculiar language of the Arakenese Muslims and referred to it as “Rooinga”. The term was never used as an ethnic category by the British administrators, as the Muslims themselves never used it as an ethnonym. In 1799, the rediscovery of Buchanan’s article was quoted as proof of the existence of the ethnic community – “Rohingya”. ^[24]

Yet none of the British Colonial Officers recorded the name 'Rohingya, neither in the Indian Subcontinent nor in Burma nor did any history books, literature, encyclopaedias and other publications published before 1953 written by foreign scholars In fact, people of Burma had never heard of the word "Rohingya" until the late 1950's.^[25]

The inexistence of the term “Rohingya” paved the way for the Myanmar authorities to enact the discriminatory Citizenship Act, 1948 and subsequently the Citizenship Act, 1982.

• Citizenship Act, 1982

The Citizenship law of 1948 enacted by the then Myanmar government was already exclusionary, and the military which seized power in 1962 introduced the Citizenship Act, 1982 which led to denial white identification cards to temporary residents thereby denying them full citizenship and rendering them stateless. The 1982 Citizenship law can be considered to be the linchpin for the whole set of laws and policies which have helped the Myanmar government discriminate between the Rohingya and Buddhist nationals leaving the Rohingya extremely vulnerable. Naturalised citizens are those that can provide conclusive evidence that his/her parents entered and lived in Burma before independence in 1948. The act resulted in non recognition of Rohingya as a national race even if they were born in the country; instead they were persona non grata and officially declared foreigners or illegal immigrants.

The government has also restricted their rights to marry, own property, and move freely—rights guaranteed to non-citizens as well as citizens under international law.^[26]

• 2012

The violence in June 2012 between Rohingya and Rakhine (Buddhist) in Rakhine state initially started with a rape, robbery and murder of a young Rakhine woman by three Muslim youths in Yanbe on 28^th May and subsequently killing of 10 Muslim males in a passenger bus in Taun gup on 3^rd June. Following the two incidents, riots broke out between the two communities in three different townships in Sittway, Maungdaw and Buthidaung. Angry rioters on both sides torched and destroyed homes, shops, guest houses, and engaged in a killing spree.

Despite the government’s claim that it had taken the necessary measures to prevent the recurring violence, violent conflict broke out again on 21 October, 2012.^[27]

• 2017 Violence

2017 was Myanmar’s annus horribilis. The year was dominated by the Rohingya crisis. In August 2017^[28], the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked 30 security outposts along the border with Bangladesh, killing over a dozen Burmese police officers, and at least one Tatmadaw soldier. In response, ARSA was officially declared a terrorist organization.

The Myanmar military’s response was brutal and unprecedented in scale and impact. A combination of indiscriminate killings, torture, mass rapes, and the burning of entire villages, drove hundreds of thousands – possibly up to 700,000 – of ethnic Rohingyas beyond the border with Bangladesh in one of the largest exoduses in modern times.

With any significant presence in Myanmar now wiped out, Rohingya refugees are sheltered in the world’s largest refugee camp near the Naf river (marking the Bangladesh-Myanmar border), in proximity of the city of Cox’s Bazar. After suffering from decades of discrimination and persecution, Rohingyas were targeted in what has been described by United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein as a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing.”

2. Ethnic Cleansing

The term ethnic cleansing is a translation of Serbian etnicko ciscenje (cleansing of region). The original idea behind this Greek connotation, ethnos is associated with shared descent and lineage.^[29] “Ethnic cleansing is the systematic annihilation or forced removal of the members of an ethnic, racial or religious group from a community or communities in order to change the ethnic, racial or religious composition of a given region.”^[30]

At the most general level, ethnic cleansing can be understood as a deliberate policy designed and pursued under the leadership of a nation or ethnic community or with its consent with a view of removing an undesirable population from a given territory on an apparent basis of its ethnic, national or religious origin or a combination of these through the systematic use of force and intimidation.^[31]

“Ethnic cleansing has resulted in innumerable tragic events in terms of large-scale displacement of people, persecution of women, men and children; and destruction of properties and culturally important monuments of the targeted people.”^[32]

Scholars and human rights organizations such as the Irish Center for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch have identified the plight of the Rohingya as crimes against humanity.^[33] A U.N. official described the Myanmar government’s “ultimate goal” as the “ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar.”^[34]

3. Genocide  and Rohingya

Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe coined the term “genocide” which can be understood as genos meaning race or tribe and cide meaning killing. Later he led the campaign to have genocide recognised and codified as an international crime which led to the the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or Jus cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is allowed.

Article I of the Genocide Convention obligates the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide. Article II^[35] defines the crime of genocide which includes two main elements:

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
   • Killing members of the group
   • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
   • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
   • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
   • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

1. Mental Element

The term mental element can also be understood as the mens rea for the commission of the crime. The intention to produce that particular act against a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group is necessary in order to establish the offence. An intention to merely disperse a group does not qualify as genocide and only amounts to ethnic cleansing. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. ^[36] The target must be the group and not some specific individuals of a particular group. The Rohingya can be categorised as an ethnic group even though they are not recognised as such by the people and government of Myanmar.

The Rohingya speak their own language, which is distinct from other languages spoken in the region. They generally live in a concentrated region—Rakhine State—within the country, and they typically reside in Rohingya-only villages or Rohingya-only areas within mixed villages.^[37] Though the specific intent to destroy is difficult to prove as it is not shown outward by the act but the treatment meted out by the Buddhist majority calling them Bengali (racist term) and their nationality stripped away indicates this intention.

2. Physical Element

• Killing members of the group – The act of killing the members of a particular group must be intentional but not necessarily premeditated.^[38] The various reports of the Human Rights Watch, UN and Fortify Rights have reported mass killing of substantial number of Rohingya Muslims.
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group – The Rohingya women have been subjected to rape and sexual violence, houses looted and the supply of essential goods terminated. They have been denied the right to move around freely and some have been put into guarded camps having limited access to food and medicines. This has caused serious bodily and mental harm to the ethnic group of Rohingya.
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - The Rwanda Tribunal stated that this expression implies “inter alia, subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement.”^[39] As already mentioned, the houses are being burnt and looted, medical and food supply is limited.
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group – The measures to prevent births could include forced birth control, prohibition on marriage, sterilisation process and/or abortion. The Rohingya Muslims are required to obtain permission before marriage and have been restricted from having more than two children. All this leads to the conclusion that these measures are imposed to put a break in the increasing number of Rohingya Muslims in the territory of Myanmar.
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group – This is the only act among the five enumerated under the Genocide Convention which has not been committed or no signs of its commission has come to light.

4. Ethnic cleansing v. Genocide

• Magnitude: mass killing is a characteristic of the crime of genocide, while ethnic cleansing can be committed even without deaths in such a huge number. Ethnic cleansing is relatively milder than the crime of genocide.
• Intention: Another difference is that aim of genocide is the partial or total extinction of a minority group however, in case of ethnic cleansing the aim is only to displace the targeted community. The intent of genocide is extinction while that of ethnic cleansing is to homogenise the community by transferring the members of other groups from the specific territory. ^[40] "The motive of ethnic cleansing is not annihilation but removal."

The acts by the Myanmar government and the Myanmar military (the Tatmadaw) fulfil all the essential ingredients of Article II of the Genocide Convention. There is existence of a specific intention necessary to constitute the crime of genocide - dolus specialis. Along with the mental element, the existence of the physical element cannot be denied as already explained in the previous section.

5. To provide a brief background as to the reasoning behind the member countries failure to recognise the acts as genocide.

Myanmar which shares a border with both India and China seem to be on the same page against the violent attacks and are lending strong support to the Myanmar government. Their response can be explained due to their economic interests in the region and fear of upsetting the Aung San Suu Kyi government. Both India and China have huge infrastructure projects in Rakhine – the India-funded Kaladan multi-modal project designed to provide a sea-river-land link to its remote northeast through Sittwe port and the China-funded Kyauk Phyu port, which is to be the starting point of an oil-gas pipeline and railroad link to Yunnan State in China.^[41]

“We stand by Myanmar in the hour of its crisis, we strongly condemn the terrorist attack on August 24-25 and condole the death of policemen and soldiers, we will back Myanmar in its fight against terrorism,” said a statement of the Indian ministry of external affairs the day after an ARSA attack, which the Myanmar army says triggered its ruthless counter-attack that has driven more than half a million Rohingya into Bangladesh. It must be noted that the Indian statement made no mention of the military’s retaliatory attacks. ^[42]

The Chinese foreign ministry said "We condemn the violent attacks which happened in Rakhine state in Myanmar. We support Myanmar's efforts in upholding peace and stability in the Rakhine state. We hope order and the normal life there will be recovered as soon as possible. We think the international community should support the efforts of Myanmar in safeguarding the stability of its national development".^[43] 

India and China are key regional powers and both have acted cruelly towards the Rohingya at the behest of Myanmar. China blocked attempts to meaningfully address Myanmar’s abusive treatment of the Rohingya at the United Nations Security Council, using its veto to create stronger diplomatic ties with the Myanmar regime. India, meanwhile, which is deepening military engagement with Myanmar as a bulwark to Chinese influence, had announced its will to deport 40,000 Rohingya who had fled to India for asylum. The actions of India are in clear violation of international law. According to customary international law, the principle of non - refoulement explicitly prohibits a state from returning an individual or group of refugees to a territory where the refugees might be subjected to persecution.

In contrast, the international community’s response to the outbreak has been grossly inadequate but not as callous as Myanmar’s immediate neighbours. Standard condemnation has been issued by the United Nations, the United States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Indonesia being the most active and sent their foreign minister for urgent talks with Myanmar.^[44]

The sweeping interests of most of the countries in Myanmar’s territory has led to their lack of interest in holding the Myanmar government and its military accountable for the acts of the crime of genocide.

Another reason for the same can be understood to be the principle of Responsibility To Protect which would lie upon each member country including Myanmar to protect its citizens from such acts and to hold those in violation accountable for the acts and be punished.

The treatment of the Rohingya intersects with the International Law including the UHDR and the Updated Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity mandating upon the member countries to protect its people and bring the perpetrators to justice.^[45]

Recent Developments – Preliminary Order^[46]

In the preliminary order by the International Court of Justice issued on 23^rd January 2020, the court examined the contentions of The Gambia with respect to the violation of Article I, III, IV, V and VI of the Genocide Convention 1948. The Court recognizing the Rohingya as a protected group under Article II of the Convention noted that its duty at the provisional stage is not to ascertain the existence of a genocidal intent but to establish whether the acts complained of are capable of falling under the gambit of the Genocide Convention. In the view of the court, the acts namely the right of protection to the Rohingya from acts of genocide and the right of Gambia to seek compliance from Myanmar of its obligations are capable of falling within the realm of the Genocide Convention.

The court indicated in its order the following provisional measures:

1. 1. 1. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar shall in relation to the members of the Rohingya group within its territory take all necessary steps to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the Genocide Convention.
      2. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar shall in relation to its military and other armed groups which are in its direct control, influence or direction, do not commit the acts as specified in (a) above, or conspiracy or attempt to commit or of complicity in genocide.
      3. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar shall forbid from acts of destruction and ensure the preservation of all evidence relating to the commission of acts enumerated in Article II of the Genocide Convention.
      4. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar shall submit a report on all measures taken giving effect to the order of the Court within four months, and thereafter every six months till the final decision of the court. 

Suggestions

The crime of genocide is a serious offence whether committed in times of peace or time of war. Crimes are committed by individuals, who must be held accountable, regardless of “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals”. The phrase “never again” is an empty one and history highlights that the omissions occur mostly by the signatories. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) must not be allowed to become empty and the offending country in accordance with Article I must be punished for its omission to protect its own nationals.

The Myanmar government must focus their attention to transforming their policy towards the minority by acknowledging their sequential history, abolishing the discriminatory Citizenship law including restrictions imposed on their movement, marriage, holding posts in government office among others.

The movement of refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh has negatively impacted the agro-economical, healthcare, and various other sectors. The neighbouring countries including India, China must intervene for the welfare of the Rohingya to reduce the burden on Bangladesh and to provide the Rohingya the human rights to which they are entitled. Historical events like the case of Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh), dispute between Tamilians and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, and forceful takeover of the Tibetan land by the Chinese, must be remembered to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Conclusion

The act of discrimination between the Buddhist majority and Rohingya Muslim (minority) through the Citizenship Act, 1982 could have been nipped in the bud but it grew with the anti nationalist movements and speeches which further aggravated the abhorrence of the Buddhist towards the Rohingya. Then again ominous signs were visible in 2012, 2016 and in 2017 but to no avail. The indifferent attitude of the member countries towards the mass killing and fleeing of Rohingya to Bangladesh gave the Myanmar government a seal of approval to continue such acts without imposition of any penalty/punishment and impact on its trade and economy.

The countries should view the acts of genocide as heinous crime towards humanity and punish the country acquiescing to such conduct. The offending party must be brought to face justice before the International Criminal Court and the other member countries must not shy away from their duty only because it imposes greater responsibility and obligation to speak up and not turn a blind eye towards the act of genocide.

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