'Never again’ is not enough to stop the genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya

The Myanmar military has also launched air attacks against Rohingya homes, schools, marketplaces and other infrastructure. To make up for combat losses, it has forcibly conscripted Rohingya men. Meanwhile, the Arakan army has attacked Rohingya civilians in and around Maungdaw Township in southwestern Myanmar. Survivors of an Aug. 5 assault on that Rohingya population center said Arakan soldiers shot civilians trying to flee. Drones and mortar fire struck thousands of Rohingya who were trying to cross the Naf River into Bangladesh, killing about 180 people. Many others have drowned in the river, their bodies washing up on the Bangladeshi side.

Since the Arakan army and two other ethnic groups calling themselves the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched an offensive late last year, the rebels have made sweeping gains, including seizing military outposts and towns in border areas near China, Thailand, Laos and India. But the military remains entrenched in the capital, Naypyidaw, and the largest cities, including Yangon, so the civil war has settled into a bloody stalemate to which global public opinion has grown indifferent as crises elsewhere — especially Gaza and Ukraine — absorb diplomatic attention and humanitarian resources.

The 2017 campaign against the Rohingya came when the country was still ostensibly run by a civilian government under Aung San Suu Kyi, a former pro-democracy campaigner who was prime minister in an uneasy power-sharing arrangement with the armed forces. Despite withering international criticism — including from her fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates — she never spoke out against the military’s ethnic cleansing or in favor of citizenship rights for the Rohingya. The United States had invested heavily in Myanmar’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy and was loath to push her too forcefully. Finally, the armed forces commander, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, toppled Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, and he clings to power despite pressure from the rebels and rumors of internal military dissension.

The question is whether the United States and the world will respond any more effectively than they did in 2017, when 750,000 Rohingya were forced to flee into Bangladesh, creating what is still the world’s largest refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar. So far, despite the clear warnings from U.N. agencies and aid groups, the response has been mostly silence and inaction.

Allegations of genocide are being investigated separately by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. But the generals running Myanmar have rejected the charges and still enjoy diplomatic support from China and several of the Southeast Asian countries closely aligned with Beijing, including Cambodia and Laos.

The Biden administration could do more. First, there needs to be additional resources and support for the interim government in Bangladesh, which is hosting nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees despite its own internal political problems and struggles with natural disasters. In Myanmar, all sides in the civil war need to feel pressure from their neighbors and patrons, particularly China, to open humanitarian aid corridors. The United States should bolster the ICC by providing satellite imagery that could support charges against both Min Aung Hlaing and the Arakan commanders responsible for the ongoing campaign of violence.

Sanctions need to be further tightened against the ruling junta. Amnesty International recently reported that jet fuel, which keeps the junta’s air force flying — and bombing — continues to flow to the regime via Vietnam and China, often on Chinese-registered tankers and using middlemen based in Singapore. More pressure on all countries in the region could help plug the sanctions loopholes. No doubt there’s a limit to how much the United States and others can do to stop Myanmar’s crimes against humanity; so far, though, they aren’t even close to doing everything they could.