[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] There has been some resistance to labelling the attacks against the Rohingya in Myanmar as genocide.
Yes, some approximately 1 million Rohingya population in the north-western Rakhine state had been pushed over the border by a concerted attack by the Myanmar armed forces, but the death-toll was rather smaller than we expect in a typical genocide: just over 10,000 or so. For this reason, more circumspect observers have preferred the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the events.
But death-toll is not the only relevant factor here. A genocide, as defined under international law, is not merely when a large group of people is killed, but also when an ethnic or religious identity is systematically attacked with a view to destroying it.
That is what makes the Rohingya situation unambiguously a genocide: their Burmese attackers deny the very existence of the Rohingya identity as a people indigenous to the region of north-west Myanmar, and claim that they are but illegitimate Bangladeshi immigrants.
And in fact, it is not just the attackers that do this: even Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, refers to them as “Bengali Muslims”.
But the Myanmar authorities have not limited themselves to merely denying the Rohingya their identity in the public political discourse. Evidence is emerging that during the “clearing operations”, the Myanmar army was deliberately and systematically targeting the educated and the community leaders among the Rohingya, village elders, teachers, religious leaders, and simply killing them.
In other words, not only do the Burmese deny the existence of the Rohingya, but any Rohingya who could articulate a defence of the identity of the group and could pass on the shared history and identity to the next generations were to be killed first.
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