Over 100,000 displaced people, nearly 5,000
burned houses and a death toll of at least 78 people (probably many more) was
the result of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State only in June 2012. It seems that
the victims were mostly members of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic group, although
this is also far from clear as there were also several Rohingyas involved in
violence against ethnic Rakhines. This perceived one-sidedness of the conflict has
led some journalists and activist groups to label this outbreak of violence as ‘genocide’.
But how apt is this categorisation? This blog will argue that the term genocide
is misused in this case, but will then go on to explore what the future dangers
of genocide occurring in this conflict are.
Classification as genocide not appropriate in June's Rakhine State violence
To begin with I should clarify what I
understand ‘genocide’ to be. The best definition I have come across in my
research was written by two scholars Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn in their
1990 book The History and Sociology of Genocide: they define genocide as “a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other
authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are
defined by the perpetrator.”
At a first glance this definition may well
fit the Rohingya case – the Rohingyas are a Muslim minority in Myanmar and have
long been discriminated against by the central Burmese state. The government of
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has denied the 800,000 Rohingyas in the
country citizenship rights, claiming they are illegal settlers from Bangladesh.
Thus the group is clearly defined as the Muslim Rohingya group and has a
history of being targeted for discrimination. Furthermore, the violence was perceived
as primarily one-sided, and this is why most observers have chosen to label the
conflict genocidal.
But this alone is not enough to constitute
genocide. In Myanmar it does not appear that there is any intention on the part
of the government, the ethnic Burmese majority or the security forces to
actually destroy the Rohingyas. Their aim is to undermine their presence in
Myanmar and push these people into Bangladesh, where the government claims they
have emigrated from. To be clear, the aim is not to annihilate them all but to
transfer the population elsewhere. While it is reprehensible to kill tens of people
in order to scare the rest away, this does not constitute genocide itself. The
government has demonstrated in the past that if it actually wanted to kill all
Rohingyas it would have the capacity to target a lot more than those killed in
June. This is naturally could be a ploy not to displease the international
community, while testing the international reaction.
The theoretical risk of genocide in Myanmar
While I cannot agree to calling this a
genocide, history has shown that it is out of situations not unlike this that
genocides have emerged. I will now illustrate some previous research on when
genocides occur and investigate how likely a Rohingya genocide could therefore
be in the future. Several factors have been mentioned in the genocide academic
literature and I will pick out the five most important ones, evaluating how
Myanmar holds up.
First, genocide have so far exclusively occured
in pluralistic societies, societies
in which there are strong ethnic and political divisions. This criterion most
certainly applies to Myanmar, as the government recognises 135 distinct ethnic
groups in its territories which form eight major national groupings.
Furthermore, the ethnic splits within society are deep, demonstrated by years
of numerous civil wars between the Burmese central state and ethnic rebel
groups.
Another major characteristic of genocidal circumstances
is major political upheaval, such as
a revolution. While popular revolutions have been brutally suppressed in the
past (such as the 1988 uprising), Myanmar today has seen a period of
unprecedented change since former General Thein Sein came to power in March
2011. The speed of reform has surprised even the most optimistic analysts and can
tentatively be seen as a time of political upheaval, with all sides still
unsure what democracy could bring to the country. Given that all dissent in the
past has been successfully and brutally put down, this change of heart is truly
a revolution from above.
Furthermore, genocides are mostly found in
the context of war. While Thein
Sein’s government has negotiated ceasefires with eleven rebel groups in the
country’s twelve civil wars within the last year, the divisions are still deep,
military skirmishes continue and the result of the peace processes remain open.
Even if Thein Sein manages to bring the last remaining violent civil conflict
with the Kachin Independence Army to a ceasefire, it is hard to see how he will
manage to negotiate lasting peace deals with all other groups. It is possible
and Thein Sein is investing significant political clout into this, but should
some more ceasefires break down, the country could see more armed conflict than
with just the Kachin in the future.
The penultimate circumstance which provides
a conducive environment for genocide is a suitable ideology, most prominently demonstrated in the anti-Semitism of the
Holocaust. Maltreatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar goes beyond state-led
discrimination to a deep-seated societal hatred. The exclusion of the Rohingya
goes so far that even many pro-democracy activists do not recognise their
citizenship rights or their right to live in Myanmar. The grande dame of the
political opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, known for taking on the thorniest
issues, has repeatedly refused to broach the subject as she recognises how
widespread negative attitudes are, even within her own movement. This
anti-Rohingya sentiment certainly prepares the ground for a potential genocidal
scenario.
Lastly, there must be some kind of impetus for genocide to ensue, a spark
which will set the genocidal fire alight. This can be if the victim group
becomes seen to have provoked the perpetrators, or if politicians see their
chance to win political capital from the genocide, for instance be rallying
their ethnic kin closer around them. The recent anti-Rohingya riots were
sparked by rumours of two Muslims having raped and murdered an ethnic Rakhine
woman. Such incidents and further rumour-spreading could, in future, spark even
wider violence.
High risk of genocide is compensated by lack of incentive by elites
This article has demonstrated that while
the riots of 2012 in Rakhine State should not be labelled genocide, there is
certainly the fundamental background situation for genocide to occur in the
future. Taking the insight of academic scholarship and historical cases one
sees soberingly that the theoretical conditions for genocide are mostly evident
in Myanmar. This does not, however, mean that genocide will occur, particularly
as genocide is inherently authority-led and the government and other community
leaders at this time has no incentive to turn on the Rohingyas. Thein Sein is
too intent on securing Western reconciliation with his country to jeopardise
this with genocidal action. However, the foundations are laid in Myanmar and it
is a situation that the global community must carefully monitor in the years to
come and civil society actors capable of bringing about a transformation of the
conflict must actively engage with stakeholders in the country.