U.S. Determinization of Genocide in Myanmar: Part Two, What’s Next? - Transcript

Intro [00:00:02]

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Terese Gagnon [00:00:10]

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Terese Gagnon and I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. And I will be your host today. Joining me today is Kyaw Zeyar Win. Wind is a project coordinator at the International Republican Institute. He is an expert in politics, international relations and human rights with a focus on Myanmar. He holds a master's in international relations from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he was an Open Society fellow. He has previously worked at organizations including Voice of America and Amnesty International. He is the author of the book chapter Securitisation of Rohingya in Myanmar. From the book Myanmar Transformed People, Places and Politics. This is part two of a two part episode discussing the securitisation of Rohingya in Myanmar with Kyar Zeyar Win. And he will be speaking with us today, particularly about the US government's long awaited determination of genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar, which was delivered in March 2022. So in this conversation we will hear from, they are about the roots of the Rohingya genocide, which happened in 2017 in relation to the long history of securitisation of Rohingya in Myanmar. And we will also discuss the possible implications of the government's termination of genocide for post-coup Myanmar, as well as current issues and challenges facing Rohingya communities inside and outside of Myanmar. Welcome to the podcast, Zeyar.

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:01:44]

Thank you very much for giving me this chance. Really honoured to contribute to this podcast. Thank you.

Terese Gagnon [00:01:52]

Thank you. So to go back to the US's determination of genocide, we know that it's been a very long road to the US making this determination and even after the UN described the actions by the Myanmar military against Rohingya as a, quote, textbook case of ethnic cleansing in the quote and with many rights organizations advocating almost from the beginning for the determination of genocide, it still took the US government five years to actually come to that conclusion, which we can understand on the one hand, because it's a long process of reviewing evidence and making a determination, but to provide our readers with perhaps a little more insight, could you walk us through that process a bit and share any information you might know about what that process was like?

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:02:40]

Yeah, sure. Honestly, I do not know too much about the United States State Department position and consideration on this, I guess. And sometime I participate in the panel discussion and I learned the declaration or this the determination of genocide is related to the Burma Fever School. I believe that. So I see that the Burma refers to was kind of the US foreign policy to Burma failure like mean failure of the US foreign policy to Burma because this group revealed that the United States government doesn't have a Plan B even to throw the billions of money since the political opening in Burma in 20 1011. You know, United States support a lot of times of money, but without any plan B, if the military step back, what we can do. So this is the obviously. So I think based on that United States take this action as much as possible. And that's why they decided to declare this the genocide against the Rohingya. But this is one of the reason, I think, and because of the State Department decision, the United States government will have the moral and also legal authority to prevent the situation from carrying wolves and also moral and legal authority to support for their resettlement and rehabilitation and government, and also the fostering peace and communal peace in the region. So this is a good thing, I think, based on this declaration and also because of this determination of the genocide, the United States and the partner countries and also the partner pro-democracy actor in Burma can have leverage to counter the long lasting Monga like warmonger. This is the military junta. That military junta killed not only the Rohingya, but also millions of ethnic minorities, including the Burma majority. Also, they killed their own citizens. They killed their own people. They kill their own taxpayer. They buy with our tests and they killed their taxpayer. This is terrible. And this is just against military. But now, because of this declaration is we can have the leverage to overcome, to oppose and to counter the military dictator who have been killed for decades now. So this is another situation for the restorative justice and the transitional justice. That's why I think the United States decided to recognize the Rohingya genocide and on the other hand, think internationally, China and US relationship is currently not really good and increase in tension. We observed that. So United States started considering for the whole war like situation with China. So should you. US government will consider for the containment policy that will contain China. So to do so, Burma is one of the periphery country. I can contain China. So if Burma is a strong Democratic leader and United States will definitely need a partner with Burma or otherwise the United States will strong support to the opposition that will unstable the China periphery. This is another possibility. And because of this declaration, United States can draw a good budget to support the pro-democracy actor. And last week I saw that the US just passed 170 million for the Burma and Bangladesh times of Rohingya issue. So we see the fruit of this declaration now. Still, this is not enough and we still need a lot more stuff. But this is a good development thing. Did I answer your question?

Terese Gagnon [00:07:16]

You did think that really helps us understand a bit about the process of the genocide determination and also what other factors and considerations might be at play which think you shed some really important light on and things that think a lot of people are maybe not aware of.

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:07:35]

Can I also add that because of the declaration, I believe that the pro-democracy ETA like energy or other pro-democracy ETA, they will have also more support from the United States and also will have leverage to oppose against a hunter. But in this case, I also asked the question, if there was no coup in Burma, what the United States stands for. If the United States decided to recognize this terrible situation as a genocide or maintain the relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi or government like the De. So this is a good question, and that's why I suspect that the declaration is good. But this is not enough. We need to see the implication by this declaration, unless any further action follow this declaration of the Rohingya genocide. Rohingya are still treated as a tool for the country's political agenda. So I'm totally against Islam, and refugees should not be utilized as a tool for our political agenda or our political goal. They are already suffering people. They are already suffer. They lost everything. So we should focus on their suffering rather than utilizing tools in their political conflict.

Terese Gagnon [00:09:09]

Yeah, You make such a good point. They are. And think it's also frustrating to to see that the US and other nations didn't act and didn't condemn what happened in Rakhine in 2017 more strongly than for the sake of Rohingya people themselves. And now we see things being discussed in terms of the larger situation in Myanmar, which is very important, but oftentimes that kind of overshadows the effect that Rohingya individuals and communities have faced themselves and think it can be quite problematic or a slippery slope. Because if we're only thinking about the fact that the lack of action or lack of genocide determination immediately then maybe enabled the larger coup situation, yes, that may be true. But also what about just thinking about the experiences and rights of Rohingya people themselves and not just seeing that as like something that's playing a part and then affecting everyone else, including Burma majority people in Myanmar?

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:10:07]

Yeah.

Terese Gagnon [00:10:08]

Yeah. Just to pursue a little bit more what you already speaking about with this determination of genocide, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about his own family history, including relatives who were sort of survivors of the Holocaust. And he said the day will come when those responsible for these appalling act will have to answer for them. But we can ask the question is that they likely to come soon? As you spoke about, there are some actions that have been taken, but they're still far from enough, as many would say. So it's not exactly clear what immediate effects this decision may have. It seems quite open ended. So from your perspective, could you tell us what actions, if any, the US government might continue to take in the future as a result of this determination? You mentioned both a moral and a legal responsibility and justification for taking such potentially strong actions, and then what might be some implications of any future actions on the junta's control or lack of control in Myanmar? And also for the Rohingya communities that you mentioned, living both in Bazar, Bangladesh, and those who are still living in camps within Myanmar?

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:11:17]

Yeah, that's a good question. It's a very big question actually, because, as I said, I believe that the issue is not an issue that can be resolved through a linear approach or single solution and believe that this is a multifaceted issue. And for example, for the refugee to return a refugee issue alone for their return and there must be a favorable environment in the Rakhine state where these people originally live to receive their return with safe and dignified return. So I can say easily in this valley, but this is really difficult in reality to implement this situation based on the given context. So to do so first, the United State or the international observer or the authority mass listening, the Rohingya twice and the Rohingya, the victim must include in the resolving to process to overcome that situation. This is the first and important thing. And even if they are not capable to fight for their authentic rights, we need to build them. We need to build capacity, equip them with the knowledge and capacity to talk for themselves, to work with other stakeholders. Otherwise these community will be go down and go extreme. So this is the first one. And second, United States must talk and collaborated with the neighboring country and neighboring stakeholders like Bangladesh, India and even China. This is a neighboring country, not only the Burma Burmese Authority, but also the Bangladesh, India or Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia. These countries also suffer from Rohingya problems. Rohingya fled to Malaysia, Indonesia with boat and some boat thrown in the sea and hundreds of Rohingya with die every year. So this is not only the localized issue, this is the regional issue. These issues threaten not only the regional, but also the United States Regional Security and United States alliance, US alliance security, also US economy, security and US strategic interests security. These issue threaten India's way. So we need to think thoroughly and approach ceed as you do in this approach very clearly, and we need to understand the individuality of the problem. So in this case, we need to understand at least five things that I listed out there. So, as I said. The Rohingya issue is overall two major issues. Citizenship and identity issue. The rest of the problem are derivative from these two issues like current operation or killing or genocide. Everything is based on these two issues citizenship and the identity issue. So to this end, because of lack of citizenship, they also lost their political rights. They cannot vote. They cannot represent their own community. And also they lost their fundamental rights and also a lot of suffering that presented before. So based on that, we need to recognize these Rohingya population inside Burma is previously more than 1 million population. So this population is much bigger than many ethnic minority in Burma. So some minority are just hundred, a few thousand, but they are still recognized as a Burmese national. But why much bigger community is excluded? This is the causes of the problem. We should rethink in the national identity and we should rethink in the nation building approach. If we let them integrate in the majority, then they will be a good national who can contribute the country's development, who can contribute a country peace. So otherwise we the problem cannot end resolve and the situation is getting worse. So we need to consider the population. Another thing is the context preceded like for example, when the Burma independent, then the Rohingya were recognized as one of the ethnic group in Burma at that time, you know, they were recognized as a kind indigenous group of Burma. But after they came in power, then these communities were excluded from the list. So that's why they have precedent. So we need to restore their already enjoying status. They already enjoying in the past. So this is precedent. This is a new thing. This is not a new thing. This is not a new thing. They have precedent. So we need to restore their rights. And this is second point. That point is the current context. Current context. The military, this military kill Rohingya and police military killed its own national its own people, ethnic people. Now we see who is the real enemy of the state, the real enemy of the people. Who is the real cause or real issue in this country. So based on this context, we need to understand who should be our ally, who should be our enemy. This is the context we need to consider. And then the fourth is, I would argue that based on the human nature, I believe that human love, freedom, love, liberty, we want they freely and we want to live with autonomy. We want self-determination. I identify myself. This is neutral. Burma needs to accept this very fundamental rights. Regarding the Rohingya issue, this is one of the issue. But Burmese authority, Burmese government and even Burmese majority does not recognize this fundamental right of self-determination or self-identification. We need this approach as a human nature to treat others as I wanted to. So like this way, the fourth is conflict resolution perspective. I'm also interested in peace and conflict violence study. So from the conflict perspective, we need to broaden the political sphere in order to shrink the conflict and violence. So we need to broaden the political sphere. That means we need to let them participate in the country's political process. Hey, let them vote. And they started involved, participate in this political process. And then we need them to be built up and work with the majority country's population. Otherwise it will be something arsa or gangrene it cannot cure by some oilman. No, it needs cancer. It needs chemotherapy. It needs a radical expression. Whatever. More bigger operations. We need to think thoroughly in this five area. Five point then. We need a holistic approach to see this. Otherwise, the situation and the declaration is just a declaration, just a history. Nothing happened or nothing is changed in the fighting population. This is what would answer to this question.

Terese Gagnon [00:19:28]

Excellent. Thank you, Zeyar, for leaving us with those five points, which are incredibly important, all the way from the root of the issue and thinking about citizenship and national belonging to the final points that you made about political inclusion and shrinking the sphere of violence. Think those are very, very important takeaways for all of us to leave with. I think that we will end it there. But thank you so much for speaking with us. Zeyar. Thank you for sharing these really important insights with us.

Kyaw Zeyar Win [00:19:58]

Thank you very much.

Terese Gagnon [00:19:00]

My name is Terese Gagnon and I have been speaking with Kyaw Zeyar Win and thank you to our listener for joining the Nordic Asia podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia.

Outro [00:20:15]

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