The United States federal government has officially concluded that Myanmar's military forces committed genocide against a Muslim minority in Rohingya during an attack in 2017 that included mass killings and rape.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to publicly announce the determination at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The decision will rule what various human rights groups have been advocating for in the last few years.
Myanmar's Genocide in Rohingya
Prior to the determination, the United States government has avoided declaring the atrocities made against the Muslim minority in the Rohingya population a genocide. The brutal attacks have forced nearly a million people to flee their homes with the United Nations recommending that top military officials of Myanmar face genocide charges.
In a statement on Sunday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, praised United States President Joe Biden's administration for the decision. He said that, while the determination has been long overdue, the decision is now a powerful and critically important step in holding the brutal regime accountable for its actions, as per CNN.
Blinken's expected announcement comes roughly 14 months after he took office where he pledged to conduct a new review of the brutal violence. Various American officials worked with an outside law firm to gather evidence in an attempt to acknowledge the seriousness of the atrocities.
However, at the time, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to make a determination over the killings. One senior State Department official said that the U.S. government's determination will make it more difficult for the Myanmar military to conduct further abuses in other regions.
According to Reuters, officials at Myanmar's embassy located in Washington and a junta spokesperson did not immediately reply to requests for comments regarding the situation. In 2018, a UN fact-finding mission concluded that the Myanmar military's campaign included "genocidal acts." However, at the time, Washington referred to the actions as "ethnic cleansing," which is a term that has no legal definition under international criminal law.
Combatting Future Atrocities
Another senior State Department official said that the U.S. government's determination signals to the world and especially to the victims and survivors of the atrocities in Rohingya that America recognized the gravity of what was happening.
On the other hand, Myanmar's military junta has repeatedly denied committing genocide against the people of Rohingya, who have been continuously denied citizenship in Myanmar. Officials said that they were only conducting an operation against terrorists during the 2017 attack.
The U.S. State Department has formally used the term genocide six times since the Cold War to describe massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, and Darfur, the Islamic State's attacks on Yazidis and other minorities, and China's treatment of its Uyghur minorities.
Blinken is also expected to announce $1 million in additional funding to support the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM). It is a United Nations body based in Geneva that is responsible for gathering evidence for potential future prosecutions. One U.S. official said that the government was going to enhance its position to build international support, CNBC reported.
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