Rohingya: The Forgotten Genocide

Praise be to Allah (SWT) and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

All committed muslims are but brothers [of each other]. Hence, [whenever such conflict occurs] reconcile your two brothers and avoid Allah [His corrective power presence] so that you may be blessed. [Al Hujurat, 49:10]

Last Tuesday, August 25th, marked seven years since the Rohingya Muslim people, citizens of Myanmar, were forced to leave their own country to flee one of the deadliest genocides of the past decade. Despite general indifference to the atrocious situation they lived through, young Rohingyas have stood up to say no to their status as refugees. Nearly 300,000 children have become teenagers, others adults, with no tomorrow, no future.

Muhammad (saw) reminds us:

“Whoever wakes up in the morning and does not care about the Ummah is not one of us.”

Meanwhile, the United States once again demonstrated its hypocrisy. On the occasion of Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day this week, the United States and its European allies acknowledged that this was indeed a genocide — a term they use when it suits them.

Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day marks the beginning, in August 2017, of the ethnic cleansing by Myanmar, which forced more than 12 million Muslims to flee to Bangladesh and killed 30,000 people. On March 21, 2022, the United States formally recognized that the attacks constituted a genocide. This week they deployed a full arsenal of measures — refugee interviews, analyses, reports — all to demonstrate that these attacks violated the 1948 Genocide Convention. Compare this to the treatment of the victims of the genocide in Gaza, and you will understand the hypocrisy of the United States, which not only ignores the genocide of the Palestinians but arms the Israeli war criminals, despite condemnation by the United Nations.

O you who have committed [to Allah’s power]! Do not take the deniers of the truth [pertaining to Allah’s power and authority] for your allies in preference to the committed muslims! Do you want to place before Allah a manifest proof of your guilt? [An Nisaa, 4:144]

Looking back in history: it was in August 2017 that more than 740,000 Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee their country after soldiers of Myanmar’s Buddhist regime decided to exterminate them by shooting on sight and then burning their homes. They suffered every kind of torture — men had to flee, women were raped, children and the elderly were massacred. Not content with carrying out ethnic cleansing, the military junta pursued a scorched-earth policy, burning homes and plantations so that the Rohingya could never return to their land. According to Human Rights Watch, 200 villages were burned down and 13,000 Rohingyas were killed.

Today there are 890,000 of them in Bangladesh, in some forty refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar, Kutupalong, and elsewhere; 92,000 in Thailand; 21,000 in India; and 102,000 in Malaysia.

For young people and teenagers, life in these camps, fenced in with barbed wire, unfolds in idleness, with no access to schools, universities, or vocational training. A 2022 survey conducted in 11 camps revealed that more than 96% of young people are unemployed, stressed, and anxious. Life for girls and teenage girls poses an even greater challenge. They spend most of their time within the four bamboo walls of their overcrowded huts, with no opportunity to be educated. Some are forced into marriage at age 18, for reasons of safety. Even in these refugee camps, the Rohingya are not safe, facing risks of murder, kidnapping, and arson carried out by drug-trafficking networks.

Myanmar has always regarded the Rohingya as “Bengalis,” even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Since 1982, they have been stripped of their nationality under the Citizenship Law. Furthermore, the junta had declared Muslim-free zones in the country, modeled on South African apartheid.

In November 2019, Gambia, a member state of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), brought a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demanding that Myanmar end the genocide of Rohingya Muslims and be condemned for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.

In its ruling issued in January 2022, the International Court of Justice, unanimously among its 17 judges, found that Myanmar had caused irreparable harm to the rights of the Rohingya. The Court ordered Myanmar to commit to respecting Articles 1 through 4 of the Genocide Convention. Myanmar further committed that its military would not commit genocide nor conspire to commit genocide.

Another aspect of the Rohingya issue worth highlighting is the sale of weapons to Myanmar by Israel. In his best-selling book The Palestine Laboratory, journalist Loewenstein accused — with supporting evidence — Israel of selling weapons to Myanmar to massacre the Rohingya. He adds that the international press rarely mentions that arms manufacturers make enormous profits from ethnic cleansing. Other Israeli companies are also involved in military training in Myanmar.

O you who are securely committed [to Allah’s power]! Do not take the [political] Jews and the [political] Christians for your allies: they are but allies of one another — and whoever of you [politically] allies himself with them becomes, verily, one of them; behold, Allah does not guide an iniquitous multitude of people.  [Al Maidah, 5:51]

Over the past two years, the genocide in Myanmar has intensified, amid the indifference of international opinion. The roughly 600,000 Rohingya who remained in Rakhine State find themselves caught between two fires, with war raging between Myanmar’s military junta and the Arakan Army, which belongs to the Buddhist majority and claims to be fighting for its autonomy.

According to the British NGO BROUK, the genocide is intensifying in a coastal town where the Rohingya live. According to some reports, people searching for canoes to cross the river into Bangladesh to flee the violence were bombed. Hundreds of bodies littered the riverbanks. Many have been separated from their families, while others fear that family members who stayed behind may not survive.

Bringing together the other elements of a genocide, the military is subjecting the Rohingya to a slow death, depriving them, as in Gaza, of the resources essential for their survival — food, water, shelter, sanitation, and medical care.

Doctors Without Borders has confirmed that Rohingya are still arriving in Bangladesh, mostly wounded from the war, with more than 40% being women and children. It is clear, according to MSF, that safe spaces for civilians in Myanmar are shrinking.

As Muslims and part of the Ummah, it is our duty not to remain silent about the situation of the Rohingya. Moreover, it is our duty to denounce oppression wherever it comes from, and the oppressors, whoever they may be.

Muhammad (SAW) affirmed:

“The blood of a Muslim is more sacred than the Ka’bah and its surroundings.”

[…]; and never will Allah allow those who deny the truth to break through the committed Muslims. [An Nisaa, 4:141]