Genocide Designation for Myanmar Tests Biden’s Human Rights Policy
Three years ago, American investigators produced a 15,000-page analysis of atrocities committed in 2017 against the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority group in Myanmar. The report documented survivors’ accounts of gang rapes, crucifixions, mutilations, of children being burned or drowned and of families locked inside their blazing homes as Myanmar’s military sought to exterminate them.
That was not enough to convince the State Department during the Trump administration that the United States should officially proclaim the Rohingya to be victims of genocide and crimes against humanity.
But now that the military, the Tatmadaw, has overthrown Myanmar’s civilian government, current and former American officials and human rights activists are demanding that President Biden do what the Trump administration would not: Formally hold the country’s military accountable for genocide and compel international protection of the Rohingya.
Lara Jakes
