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The hidden heterogeneity of Rohingya refugees
Nursyazwani and Elliot Prasse-Freeman – 12 JUN, 2020 And Susan Hutchinson is a PhD scholar in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.
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As the battle against COVID-19 rages in Malaysia, a new population has become collateral damage: Rohingya refugees. A terrified public, instigated by political opportunists, has endorsed numerous anti-refugee online petitions that have gained well-distributed support across Malaysia’s ethnic spectrum. Although Malaysia once embraced these survivors of Myanmar’s genocidal regime, Rohingya refugees are now being called ungrateful, uncivilized and backward leeches. This public outcry has led to mass support for Malaysia turning away boats carrying Rohingya asylum seekers. Given that many Malaysians assume that all refugees from Myanmar are Rohingya, the petitions have supported Malaysia’s detention of thousands of undocumented migrants—even those holding UNHCR registration cards—whose fates are unclear.
Perceptions of Rohingya refugees as indolent and, more recently, as virus carriers emerge from simplistic discursive representations that materialize from and circulate far beyond Malaysia. A number of entities unwittingly mutually reinforce reductive depictions of Rohingya. Myanmar nationalists vehemently deny that Rohingya belong to the polity, since the latter are perceived to be different—Rohingya “look South Asian” and are Muslims in a Buddhist country. International media have incentives to tell (and sell) simple stories, while humanitarian agencies achieve efficiencies in aid delivery when they can treat every Rohingya as a replicable token of a common type. Rohingya elites themselves have reason to present a common and distinct Rohingya identity, as this contests the Myanmar state’s assertion that the Rohingya are simply interlopers from Bangladesh (“Bengalis”).
In the academic world, fieldwork with Rohingya documents significant internal differentiation. But this reality has been obscured by the lack of sustained study of the group, particularly because northern Rakhine (Arakan) state, the area to which Rohingya are indigenous, has been largely inaccessible to researchers. Academics have mostly only considered elite debates or recapitulated stories of misery in Burma.
Will Canada take Myanmar to the ICJ for genocide?
Susan Hutchinson is a PhD scholar in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.
We have now passed the anniversary of the ‘clearance operations’ that saw nearly a million of Myanmar’s Rohingya flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The violence included rape, other forms of sexual violence, arson, torture and a range of physical violence and harassment that amounted to genocide of a unique ethnic and religious group. Prospects for individual, criminal accountability for the genocide seem slim. But a movement in Canada is seriously agitating for their government to take the government of Myanmar to the International Court of Justice to hold the state accountable for its role in the genocide.
Because Myanmar isn’t a state party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and China and Russia have been acting to prevent the Security Council referring the matter to the ICC, no individuals can be charged with genocide at that court. The ICC is only able to pursue related investigations into forced deportation. But that doesn’t mean States Parties to the Rome Statute can’t prosecute Burmese nationals for genocide under the principle of universal jurisdiction in their own national courts. The work of the new Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar would make this easier. But such cases cannot be tried in absentia, and the countries most likely to pursue such prosecutions have implemented sanctions that involve travel restrictions against key leaders of the Tatmadaw.
However, the obligation to prosecute the crime of genocide predates the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to the much older Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which contains not only individual responsibility, but also state responsibility. In their final report, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, specifically stated that “acts of the Tatmadaw and other security forces of Myanmar, as well as acts of their subordinate units during security operations, are attributable to the State and incur State responsibility.”
