The United States, which has so far described the Myanmar military's atrocities against the Rohingya minority merely as mere ethnic cleansing, has finally acknowledged that they constitute genocide. It was during a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington the other day that the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken declared that the Myanmar military's atrocities against the Rohingyan minority in 2017 was genocide. The announcement by the US government comes somewhat late and much after a thorough study of all documents following the initiation of prosecution of Myanmar in the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2019. In 2017, more than 6,000 people were killed in the very first month of massacres, gang rapes and looting by the army in the Rakhine region, thickly populated by the Muslim minority. Eight-and-a-half lakh Rohingya who were victim to horrific racial attacks sought refuge in Bangladesh. As they remain a question mark before the conscience of humanity while living in extremely miserable circumstances of refugee camps, thousands loft their lives in land and sea. There are Rohingya camps in other countries like Malaysia and Thailand too.
As many as 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have been denied citizenship and are still living in Myanmar like living corpses. The Myanmar military, which overthrew and replaced the civilian regime of Aung San Suu Kyi last year and took full control of the country, has categorically denied any ongoing or past attacks on the Rohingya. In the regime's view, there were only 'counter-terrorism' measures in place. The UN fact-finding mission and human rights groups such as Amnesty International that visited Myanmar in 2018 had pointed out that what happened in Myanmar was nothing short of genocide. But even Suu Kyi's democratic government, probably under pressure from the military, did not admit the truth or condemn the brutal atrocities perpetrated by Buddhist monks. Moreover, the Rohingya were even denied citizenship. This was done by completely excluding them from the 2014 census.
Will the belated acknowledgement and declaration on the part of the United States help mitigate the plight of the Rohingya? Will it force the Myanmar military to reconsider its position? Will even the United Nations be prepared to take exemplary action in the case of these hapless people? The answer to these questions remains to be seen. The United States has previously used the term genocide in connection with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur in Sudan, and in the case of IS which committed ruthless attacks against Yazidis and other minorities. While it was right in the case of some, it led to criticism that they were part of political approach in the case of others. Even the fact that the Biden administration was prepared to view the brutal and inhuman attacks on the Rohingya by the Myanmar government and military as racial enmity, has opened the door to criticism that the US reproach is motivated by the propaganda value in putting China, its arch-enemy in Asia, on the dock for continuing its relations with Myanmar. In fact the truth has already been proven for every one to see. It is becoming clear day by day that the approach of nations is based on national interests and profit and loss analysis and not on basic humanitarianism or real sense of justice. Although there are about 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India living like animals in Jammu, Delhi and Hyderabad, the approach of our government and society towards them is not that humane either. Or what else can be expected in the new context of democratic India where even the citizenship of those who have been born and raised in India and working for millennia is being questioned on the grounds of racism?