Returning to Silence: Genocide in Myanmar

LEWISBURG — Almost two years ago I wrote an article (link here) for Tarasque, the Lewisburg High School magazine, about a world leader whom I admired for her leadership in issues of representational democracy and human rights around the world. In the article I detailed a short biography of Myanmarian de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and praised her for the work she had done for the advancement of human rights and democracy in Myanmar. Specifically, I referenced the importance of Suu Kyi’s contributions to Myanmar’s National League of Democracy and her spurring of the development of economic and social programs for the people of Myanmar.

Now, I fear the worst about the state of Myanmar and the National League of Democracy in power there. Suu Kyi and the Myanmar military have come under intense scrutiny from countries around the world for demonstrating the “hallmarks of a genocide,” as stated by United Nations special envoy on human rights in Myanmar (The New York Times). The New York Times, Washington Post, and multiple bodies of the United Nations have reported that Myanmar has begun a campaign of genocide, not unlike the actions of Hitler in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and former Serbian leader Radovan Karadžić during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia from 1992 to 1995.

In recent months Myanmar has been a place of fear, destruction, and war as nearly three-quarters of a million Rohingya muslims from the state of Rakhine have fled violence and persecution and entered the country of Bangladesh (The New York Times), known for its “ political instability, poor infrastructure, [and] endemic corruption,” as outlined by the CIA World Factbook.

There have even been reports of the burning of villages and babies and the creation of mass graves by the Myanmar military with no regard for the dignity and worth of human life. With the incredible influx of refugees from Myanmar, the Bangladeshi government is struggling to provide water, food, and shelter to the migrants, resulting in even more deaths of this muslim minority (Reuters).

The Rohingya are not new to these forms of ethnic cleansing. In fact, as recently as 1991 250,000 Rohingya fled violence and religious persecution in Myanmar as the army “tried to restore order to Rakhine.” Additionally, in 1948 the leadership of the Rohingya people expressed interest in being absorbed into muslim-majority Pakistan, causing retaliatory actions by the Myanmar government and the rise of a number of short-lived insurgencies. (Wall Street Journal)

The following image is graphic and shows a mass grave of murdered Rohingya men in Myanmar, some readers may wish to skip it:

Image - Mass Grave of Murdered Rohingya Men

“Reuters obtained this picture of the slain Rohingya men from a Buddhist elder. Reuters shared the photo with Luis Fondebrider, a forensic anthropologist. He said injuries on two of the bodies were consistent with “the action of a machete or something sharp.”

In my previous article I praised Suu Kyi for two things, one of them being her importance as a whistleblower and “voice in a chorus of silence” for the oppressed people of Myanmar. My other praise related to her promise to help save Myanmar from its decades-long military dictatorship. However, her response to this genocide while in a position of de facto has been nothing short of disheartening and disgusting.

Publicly, Suu Kyi has refused to mention the word “Rohingya” and government and military leaders have continued to assert that 0 civilian Rohingya have died in the disaster. Suu Kyi’s failure to respond to the mass murder of the Rohingya people is again instituting silence and oppression in Myanmar and recreates the environment experienced by the Myanmar people prior to the rise of the National League of Democracy. In response to this silence, last week the National Holocaust Museum, after reviewing the evidence of Suu Kyi’s inaction on the Rohingya crisis, has decided to rescind the honor they had bestowed upon her in 2012 for her outstanding work in the area of human rights - The Elie Wiesel Award, yet Suu Kyi has still continued to remain silent, neither halting nor acknowledging the horrors of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people only miles away from the capital Naypyidaw.

What does this inaction mean for Suu Kyi and her legacy? Why has she remained so silent when her past lends itself to assuming she would speak out? One can only guess, but what is certain is that the world must immediately respond to the refugee crisis in Bangladesh by increasing aid and charitable donations. Additionally, countries must agree to send United Nations Peacekeepers to inspect and halt this growing genocide. Finally, all democracy loving nations must denounce Suu Kyi and call on her to either take action or forfeit her Nobel Peace Prize.

The personal effect felt by the breadth of this genocide can be described in the following quote from a Rohingya woman Rehana Khatun, whose husband was murdered in the ethnic cleansing of their town in Myanmar.

“I can’t explain what I feel inside. My husband is dead,” said Rehana Khatun. “My husband is gone forever. I don’t want anything else, but I want justice for his death.” (Reuters).

Sources

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-holocaust-rohingya.html

2. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rakhine-events/

3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-un/myanmar-forces-may-be-guilty-of-genocide-against-rohingya-u-n-says-idUSKBN1DZ14J?il=0/

4. https://www.ushmm.org/information/about-the-museum/the-elie-wiesel-award

5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing

6. https://www.history.com/topics/bosnian-genocide

7. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naypyidaw

9. https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/12/23/timeline-a-short-history-of-myanmars-rohingya-minority/