Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The Biden administration declared that the violence against the Rohingya by Myanmar’s military amount to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This statement was made to Reuters by U.S. officials. Advocates believe this should help to strengthen efforts to bring the junta in Myanmar to justice.

The decision will be made public by Antony Blinken, Secretary of State. Officials from the U.S. announced that the decision will be made at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The museum currently has an exhibit about the Rohingya’s plight. He took office nearly 14 months ago and promised to review the violence.

Myanmar’s Armed Forces launched a 2017 military operation to force at least 730,000 Rohingya Muslims from their homes. The soldiers then moved them into Bangladesh. There they told of mass rapes, murders, and arson. Myanmar’s military overthrew the government in a coup in 2021.

U.S. officials and a law firm outside the United States gathered evidence to quickly acknowledge the severity of the atrocities. However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused to give a definitive answer.

Blinken asked for his “legal and factual analyses,” according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity with Reuters. Washington feels that the official determination by the United States will intensify international pressure on the Myanmar junta to be held accountable for genocide committed by the Myanmar army.

According to a senior official at the State Department, “It will make it more difficult for them to continue to commit abuses.”

The Sunday email request for comment was not answered immediately by officials from Myanmar’s embassy at Washington or a spokesperson of the junta.

Myanmar’s military denies genocide committed against Rohingya. The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar.

U.N. Fact-finding Mission concluded that 2018’s military campaign contained “genocidal Acts,” however Washington called the atrocities “ethnic cleaning” at that time, a term which has no legal definition in international criminal law.

A second State Department official spoke out about Blinken’s Monday announcement, saying that it was “really signaling to world, especially victims and survivors from the Rohingya communities and more generally that the United States recognizes gravity of what’s occurring.”

The United States does not have to declare genocide in order to take punitive action.

Since the Cold War, the State Department has formally used the term six times to describe massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur, the Islamic State’s attacks on Yazidis and other minorities, and most recently last year, over China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslims. China has denied the claims of genocide.

Blinken will announce additional funding of $1 million for the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, a United Nations organization based in Geneva and gathering evidence for possible future prosecutions.

According to the U.S.’s first official, “It will enhance our position while we try to gain international support to try and prevent more atrocities”

FOCUS ON MILITARY

After complaining about fraud at the November 2020 election, won by Aung San Suu Kyi, democracy champion, Myanmar Generals led by Commander In Chief Min Aung Hlaing took power in Myanmar on February 1, 2021. There was no evidence that mass fraud had been detected by elections monitoring groups.

According to AAPP (an advocacy group), the Armed Forces crushed an uprising against their government’s coup. They also detained nearly 10,000 civilian leaders like Suu Kyi and killed more than 1,600 others.

Reuters could not independently confirm the AAPP figures. The AAPP figures have been denied by the junta. It also claims that some members of security forces were killed in fighting with the opposition to the coup. However, the junta did not provide its figures.

After receiving military and diplomatic support by Russia and China, the United States, along with allies from the West, sanctioned and supported the coup but were not able to convince generals that they should restore civil rule.

Blinken recognizes genocide as well as crimes against humanity, but that is only in reference to 2017, prior to the 2016 coup. This is after two State Department inspections, one in 2018 and another in 2020 failed to yield a conclusion.

Reuters heard from former U.S. officials who said that those messages were not sent to the Myanmar Generals.

The activists believe that a statement from the United States stating genocide occurred could help to strengthen efforts to hold generals accountable. For example, there is a case at the International Court of Justice, where The Gambia accused Myanmar of genocide. It cites Myanmar’s atrocities towards the Rohingya state.

The Myanmar government has rejected the accusation of genocide, and asked the judges to dismiss the case. The junta claims that The Gambia acts as a proxy to others, and therefore has no legal standing for a case.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is also looking into the Rohingya deportation from Myanmar. The IIMM at Geneva is collecting evidence which could be used for future trials.

Myanmar has refused to cooperate with investigations. It claims that the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction over Myanmar and that the ICC made the decision to open a probe based on “charged narratives about harrowing personal tragedy which do not relate to the legal arguments.”

John Sifton (Asia advocacy director, Human Rights Watch), stated that Myanmar’s military faced few real consequences for atrocities it committed against Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar.

Sifton suggested that in addition to imposing economic sanctions on the government, the United States should push for an U.N. Security Council resolution which would send all military’s crimes to International Criminal Court. He said that if Russia or China oppose a resolution as it is probable, Washington should take the lead in U.N. General Assembly.

He said, “Condemnations against Myanmar must be accompanied by concrete actions.”

Officials debated the possibility that blaming Myanmar’s military for atrocities, instead of its government, could hinder U.S. support to the country’s democratically elected forces.

According to the second top official, the State Department chose to blame the military.

According to the official, it was not known how much control the civilian leadership exercised over the actions in Rakhine State.

Suu Kyi, who was forced to join the ranks of the generals, went to the International Court of Justice 2019 in order to refute the accusations of genocide brought up by The Gambia.

While she stated that the country will prosecute soldiers who are found guilty of abuses but not to genocide levels, the allegations did not reach the point where the government would be prosecuting them.

After they took power, Suu Kyi was brought before the Generals in nearly 12 cases. She could be sentenced in excess of 100 years. She continues to be held in detention.