US declares Myanmar military crackdown on Rohingya a “genocide”

On Monday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken officially classified the Burmese military’s crackdown on the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 as “genocide”.

“It has been confirmed that members of the Burmese army have committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya,” Blinken said, according to AFP.

He added, during a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, where an exhibition entitled “Burma’s Path to Genocide” is being held, that the evidence shows “a clear intent behind these mass atrocities. The intent to eliminate the Rohingya in whole or in part.”

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled since the military crackdown began in 2017, and more than 6,000 people were killed in the first month of the massacres.

A case regarding Myanmar was filed with the International Court of Justice in 2019.

A civilian government was running the country when the army launched its campaign, but the army seized power in a military coup in 2021.

The Rohingya, who numbered one million before the attacks, are one of the minorities living in Rakhine.

The government of Myanmar, where the majority of the population is Buddhist, refuses to grant them citizenship, and excluded them from the 2014 census, refusing to consider them a national minority.