As a responsible Government, you don’t just go around hollering ‘genocide.’ You say that acts of genocide may have occurred and they need to be investigated.

David Rawson, United States Ambassador to Rwanda 1

The Rohingya in Myanmar have by all accounts – save for those of the Myanmar government and military – been on the receiving end since at least 2012 of consistent, widespread, presumably organized, and arguably sanctioned acts of violence amounting to crimes against humanity. Take your pick of alleged crimes: persecution, rape, murder, forcible transfer, deportation, extermination, arbitrary detention and imprisonment, and arguably, apartheid. The full treatment.

Ethnic cleansing with tinges of genocidal acts seems to be the obvious goal, or more ominously put, the desired solution: to expel and, if necessary, eradicate the Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Meanwhile, the international community and those most expected to speak loudly and repeatedly contently wait, naively or apathetically, for the criminal acts against the Rohingya to dissipate, for their plight to be resolved. Wishful thinking based in part on willful blindness.

Current events show that the Myanmar government and military not only lack the political and moral will to act responsibly, but that they are also comfortable with accepting the commission of purported “acts of genocide” against the Rohingya. Appallingly, the storm of intolerance and indifference that has already stripped the Rohingya of their human dignity, the enjoyment of their inalienable rights, their property, their places of worship, their freedom, and, in far too unacceptable numbers, their lives, is brewing and picking up steam. Time is against the Rohingya. Time to face the ugly and inconvenient facts.

Before I discuss the ongoing events, a few words about the Rohingya in Myanmar.

Northern Rakhine state (the name commonly given to the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung) is located in the west of Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh. It is populated mainly by the Rohingya, but also by other ethnic minorities such as the Rakhine Buddhist. The Rohingya have faced decades of repression and discrimination. The Myanmar government does not recognize them as one of the ethnic groups of the country. Instead, the Rohingya are regarded as mere refugees from Bangladesh.2  The 1982 Citizenship Law effectively denies the Rohingya the possibility of acquiring Myanmar nationality.3 Being stateless, they lack legal protection by the government, which results in severe restrictions on their movement, impacting their ability to access healthcare, education, and livelihood opportunities.4

In 2012, religious and ethnic tensions between the Rohingya Muslims and the Rakhine Buddhists escalated into widespread rioting. Since then, ongoing conflicts have forced the Rohingya to flee, though they are often rejected (equally unwanted) by neighboring Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.5

The situation in northern Rakhine state has deteriorated significantly since 9 October 2016 when unknown assailants attacked three police outposts in northern Rakhine state, killing nine Border Guard police officers and seizing weapons and ammunition. The authorities responded by initiating a major security operation, conducting sweeps of the area to find the perpetrators.6

The United Nations (“UN”) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that since early November 2016 almost 27,000 people have fled across the border from northern Rakhine state into Bangladesh.7 Government officials in Myanmar have repeatedly denied reports of human rights violations by security forces. Conversely, journalists and NGOs describe the actions of the state forces in the region as ethnic cleansing and genocide, and have reported murders, mass rape and beatings, burning villages, and other human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity.8

Shockingly, our Buddhist brothers and sisters in Burma have lost the virtue of Buddhism. 9

Most recently, a video surfaced showing officers beating members of the Muslim Rohingya during a security operation. This appears to have gotten the attention of the international community. The selfie-style video showed the brutality of officers kicking and beating civilians and the impunity they feel. And as the saying goes, the evidence never lies. Finally, the government had to confront what it has known and neglected, if not outright encouraged. The government’s past failures to acknowledge, condemn, and act against this cycle of violence has nurtured a culture of impunity.

In the recent Interim Report of the Investigation Commission on Maungtaw, the Investigation Commission established by the government to investigate the attacks on 9 October 2016 dismissed the allegations of genocide: “[T]he increasing population of Mawlawi, mosques and religious edifices are proof that there were no cases of genocide and religious persecution in the region.”10

Characterizing crimes as genocide is often over the top, hyperbolic. Whenever there are large-scale atrocities, the knee-jerk reaction is to claim that genocide is occurring. And then there is the reverse action by some governments: best not to come out and claim that genocide is occurring – even when rather obvious – for fear that action (boots on the ground) may need to be taken to halt it. We saw this in the case of Rwanda. Better to punt and claim that only “acts of genocide” are taking place, a policy articulated by the Bill Clinton administration.11 Message to those who were perishing or about to: help will be on its way if the situation intensifies to genocide. Comforting. Years later Clinton would get teary-eyed as he admitted his failure to act in the face of overwhelming evidence of what was happening in Rwanda.12

What are acts of genocide? It is like saying that a woman is a little pregnant. It may make for clever diplomatic speak, but it is just a vacuous phrase. Look beyond the phrase. Where a group (Rohingya Muslims) is being targeted as such, and the intent – as deduced from the actions taken – is at a minimum to maim, permanently expel from Myanmar, and kill them, because of who they are as members of that group (Rohingya Muslims), are there not sufficient hallmarks of genocide (or at the very least traces of extermination) present to merit immediate condemnation and action at the national and international level?13

The Lady speaketh not

What of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?14 Silence.

Should not the residents of Myanmar, the Rohingya, and the international community, expect more than her purposeful silence, her occasional drab demur, or her belated request for an international commission? As the de facto head of state,15 and having promoted herself as the doyenne of human rights activists in Myanmar,16 one would think that she would be front and center in condemning these cruel, inhumane, and, yes, genocidal acts.

Is Aung San Suu Kyi’s position so tenuous that she would suffer politically were she to speak out against this systematic violence against the Rohingya? Is she afraid of any backlash from the military, the police, and those who support, incite, and carry out the physical acts of violence? Is she just being pragmatic – as any politician of her position should be?

Aung San Suu Kyi’s deafening silence and lame rationalizations give aid and comfort to the perpetrators. Some argue that she needs a bit more time and space. Take, for instance, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s most recent statement. Selected to the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, he made the following remarks: “I think there are tensions, there has been fighting, but I wouldn’t put it the way some have done…. [The international community should give Aung San Suu Kyi’s government] a bit of time, space and patience.”17 Tensions? Is Annan serious?

How much more time and how much more space does Aung San Suu Kyi need? If she can use the bully pulpit to garner votes for her party to win the elections, she can certainly use the bully pulpit to condemn these ongoing acts of crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya.

But is it really a matter of having more time and space, or is it about clinging to and coveting more power? Aung San Suu Kyi may wish to recall and reflect upon her own thoughts on power and the fear of losing it – which seems to be the case with The Lady.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. 18

Footnotes:

1. As quoted in Douglas Jehl, Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings ‘Genocide’, NEW YORK TIMES, 10 June 1994.

2. For more on the 2012 Rakhine state riots and the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis, see Report Documents ‘Rohingya Persecution’, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2013; Human Rights Watch Report, “All You Can Do is Pray”: Crimes against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arkan State, 2013; Jared Genser, Democracy on a Leash, US News, 12 November 2015; Rohingya Boat People: Myanmar’s Shame, The Economist, 23 May 2015.

3. Burma Citizenship Law, 15 October 1982, Chapter 2, para. 3: “Nationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine or Shan and ethnic groups as have settled in any of the territories included within the State as their permanent home from a period anterior to 1185 B.E., 1823 A.D. are Burma citizens.” Even for those Rohingya whose families settled in the region before 1823, the onerous burden of proof has made it nearly impossible to provide evidence of their lineage or history of residence, making them ineligible for any class of citizenship. For more on this law, see Human Rights Watch, Discrimination in Arakan, available at https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/burma/burm005-02.htm.

4. Rohingya Boat People: Myanmar’s Shame, The Economist, 23 May 2015; Report Documents ‘Rohingya Persecution’, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2013.

5. Rohingya Boat People: Myanmar’s Shame, The Economist, 23 May 2015; Amnesty International, Bangladesh Pushes back Rohingya Refugees amid Collective Punishment in Myanmar, 24 November 2016.

6. President’s Office website, Brief description of the violent attacks commenced on 9th October in Maungdaw district, Rakhine State, 17 December 2016; Interim Report of the Investigation Commission in Maungtaw, 3 January 2017. See also Mike Ives, Myanmar Holds Officers After Video Purports to Show Police Beating Rohingya, The New York Times, 3 January 2017; Myanmar says ‘No Evidence’ of Rohingya Genocide, BBC News, 3 January 2017.

7. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA Update – Humanitarian Situation in the Northern Part of Rakhine State, Myanmar, 13 December 2016, available here.

8. Rohingya villages ‘destroyed’ in Myanmar, images show, BBC News, 21 November 2016; Amnesty International, Bangladesh pushes back Rohingya refugees amid collective punishment in Myanmar, 24 November 2016; Rohingya Myanmar: Nobel winners urge action over ‘ethnic cleansing’, BBC News, 30 December 2016; Charlotte England, Burmese government denies ongoing genocide of Rohingya Muslims, Independent, 5 January 2017.

9. Kyaw Win, the Executive Director of the Burma Human Rights Network, as quoted by Mike Ives, Myanmar Holds Officers After Video Purports to Show Police Beating Rohingya, New York Times, 3 January 2017.

10. The Interim Report of the Investigation Commission on Maungtaw, 3 January 2017, published in the Global New Light of Myanmar, Vol. 3 (263), 4 January 2017, p. 2, para. 10.

11. See Douglas Jehl, Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings ‘Genocide’, New York Times, 10 June 1994; Rory Corroll, US Chose to Ignore Rwandan Genocide: Classified Papers show Clinton was aware of ‘Final Solution’ to Eliminate Tutsis, The Guardian, 31 March 2004, noting that “the State Department and the National Security Council have drafted guidance instructing spokesmen to say merely that ‘acts of genocide may have occurred.’”

12. See Bill Clinton: we could have saved 300,000 lives in Rwanda, CNBC, 13 March 2013, where Clinton is quoted saying that “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost…it had an enduring impact on me.” See also Dana Hughes, Bill Clinton Regrets Rwanda Now (Not So Much In 1994), ABC News, 28 February 2014.

13. Article II of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide provides: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Statutes of the international courts and tribunals incorporate Article II of the Genocide Convention. See Article 4 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Article 2 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Article 4 of the Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers, and Article 6 of the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court.

14. Daw, literally meaning “aunt”, is not part of her name but is a honorific for any older and revered woman, akin to “Madame” or “Lady”.

15. The post of State Counsellor of Myanmar was specially created for Aung San Suu Kyi because under the Myanmar Constitution, she could not become the President as her late husband and two children are of British nationality. For more, see Euan McKirdy, New Government Role Created for Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, CNN, 7 April 2016.

16. Aung San Suu Kyi spent much time between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest because of her efforts to bring democracy to then military-ruled Myanmar, which her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. For more, see Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi, BBC News, 5 December 2016.

17. Kofi Annan Downplays Claims of Myanmar Genocide, BBC News, 6 December 2016.

18. Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear (Penguin Books 1991).

At this moment, a genocide is happening in Myanmar of which most of the world is unaware. On 9 October 2016, three border posts were attacked in Western Myanmar by an unknown armed group, killing nine policemen. Following the attack, Myanmar government forces have been conducting a coordinated attack on the civilian population which includes mass killing, rape, torture and the burning of houses and crop fields. Because security forces have locked down the whole area, it is difficult to verify the reports of violence. Utilising independent sources, Voice of America has reported that the death toll could be 150 to 300 so far. Based on satellite imagery, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has observed that 1,250 houses or buildings have been destroyed as of 18 November.

As a result of the military crackdown, thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes; many are attempting to enter neighbouring Bangladesh by crossing the Naaf river. However, the Bangladeshi government has refused to accept more Rohingya, stating that the highly-populated country is already hosting half a million Rohingya who have fled the previous violence.

The attacks on the Rohingya people in Myanmar are not a new phenomenon. The Rohingya have had an uneasy relationship with the state since Myanmar's independence in 1948. The Rohingya are an ethno-linguistic-religious minority group in Myanmar. They are followers of Sunni Islam in the Buddhist-majority state. The northern Rakhine State (formerly Arakan) where most Rohingya people live is in the middle of South East Asia and South Asia. The Myanmar government argues that the Rohingya people have migrated from neighbouring Bangladesh and so denies them citizenship rights. However, the Rohingya people can trace their origin in the Rakhine State back for hundreds of years. Rakhine State was once an independent Arakan kingdom comprising north-western Myanmar and south-eastern Bangladesh before being taken over by Burma in 1784.

Within an independent Burma/Myanmar, the Rohingya people have faced widespread persecution in 1978, 1991-92, and 2012. This is in addition to continued discrimination and the denial of basic rights including freedom of movement, the right to livelihood, education, childbirth (the Rohingya are restricted to two children per family), and many aspects of everyday life. As a result, many of the Rohingya have left home and undertaken dangerous journeys in search of safe shelters. There are a significant number of Rohingya people in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. Some have reached as far as Australia by boat though many died on the journey there. Still, there are 1.1 million Rohingya people left in Myanmar and the government wants to drive them out. A recent study by the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School demonstrates that the actions and inactions of the government satisfy the criteria for genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide. 

Another study by Human Rights Watch in 2013 found strong evidence of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya committed by the Burmese authority, local Arakanese people, and Buddhist mobs. The report notes an incident on 23 October 2013 where at least 70 Rohingya were killed in a massacre in Yan Thei village in Mrauk-U Township by Arakanese mobs; state security forces indirectly helped in the massacre rather than protecting people. The death toll included 28 children who were hacked to death, including 13 under the age of 5.

A research article published in the Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal in 2014 also concluded that there is a slow burning genocide in the Rakhine State. Of the five acts of genocide mentioned in the 1948 Convention on Genocide, four have been committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar since 1978. The article concludes that: “the ruling Burmese, both the Buddhist society and the Buddhist state, have committed the first four acts, including intentional killing, harm to body and mind of the victims as a group, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and preventing births.” Researchers from the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary University of London School of Law, after months of field work in the Rakhine State last year, also concluded that “Myanmar state’s policies are genocidal.”

It’s clear that there’s an ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people in Myanmar. The state has not only failed in their duty to protect but also occasionally participated in the atrocities. However, that has not stopped powerful states and large corporations boosting business ties with Myanmar. The Myanmar state counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has clearly failed to stop the mass destruction of people and take any action against the military forces.

The international community has done little to stop the suffering of the Rohingyas. They have criticised Myanmar for human rights violations and asked for an independent investigation. However, it’s naïve to ask authorities to investigate the very crimes they support or even perpetrate themselves. Once the Rohingya people took arms to solve their problems. However, the post-9/11 'war on terror' has made armed Muslims guerrilla-terrorists in the eyes of global media and western states. In consequence, there is currently no strong movement among the Rohingya people. Myanmar’s neighbours and regional powers, such as China and India, are busy securing the country’s untapped market. 

The UN and human rights organisations focus on the humanitarian aspect of the problem: urging the Bangladeshi government to provide shelter to the fleeing Rohingyas. However, these organisations often lack the strong voice needed to deal with the violence in Rakhine state. Myanmar will not heed calls for human rights if such calls aren't backed by credible hard power. The regional and global players are not sincere enough to engage with Myanmar strongly. Perhaps the only remaining solution lies in the hands of the people, who can put pressure on their governments to take immediate and serious action.

Singapore continues to encourage all parties, including the Myanmar government and the international community, to work together to foster a long term-solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.

This is so that the affected communities can rebuild their lives, he added.

Dr Balakrishnan was responding to parliamentary questions from Mr Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC) and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap (Aljunied GRC) about Singapore's response to the plight of Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

The operation was launched after attacks on police posts in October last year.

Singapore's position is that every government must ensure the safety and protection of all its people regardless of race or religion, said Dr Balakrishnan.

At the same time, it is also the right and responsibility of every state to secure its borders and maintain internal security, the minister added. He noted that issues of race, language and religion are sensitive and complex everywhere, including in Singapore.

And in the Rakhine state, inter-communal relations have deep historical roots and are highly complicated, he said.

"These issues are not going to be resolved easily or quickly in the short term. Patience, restraint and time will be required to build trust among the different communities, to foster racial harmony, and to restore peace and stability for the long term," he added.

Last month, Singaporeans raised more than $350,000 for humanitarian support to affected communities in the Rakhine state, as well as those affected by the earthquake in Aceh.

"The funds for the Rakhine state will be channelled through Myanmar-based organisations to assist all affected communities, regardless of ethnicity or religion," said Dr Balakrishnan.

But he stressed the need for a political solution. "Having any area in South-east Asia where there is an unresolved festering conflict, especially one that involves race, language or religion, poses an immediate and urgent threat (not just) to the country, but also to South-east Asia as a whole," he said.

Dr Balakrishnan also updated MPs on the Asean foreign ministers' informal meeting he attended in Myanmar on Dec 19 last year, during which Myanmar's State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi briefed her counterparts on the Rakhine situation.

He said the meeting was open, frank and constructive, and was timely and useful in helping Asean to better understand Myanmar's efforts in addressing the sensitive and complex situation.

The discussions focused on making sure that humanitarian aid would reach the communities in need, said Dr Balakrishnan.

He added that after the meeting, the Myanmar government indicated it would grant the necessary humanitarian access and continue to keep Asean informed of developments in the Rakhine state.

By Haikal Mansor

RB Analysis

January 10, 2017

The 1988 Rohingya Extermination Plan was first proposed by Col. Thar Kyaw who was an ethnic Rakhine and the first chairman of National Unity Party (NUP), a proxy party of Burmese military and former Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) formed to compete against National League for Democracy NLD during the 1990 general election.

The plan was adopted by the Burmese junta’s State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1988 and continued under State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). 

The successive military regime has carried out the 11-point extermination blueprint against Rohingya Muslim minority.

1. The Muslims (Rohingya) are not to be provided with citizenship cards by identifying them as insurgents

2. To reduce the population growth of the Rohingyas by gradual imposition of restrictions on their marriages and by application of all possible methods of oppression and suppression against them

3. To strive for the increase in Buddhist population to be more than the number of Muslim people by way of establishing Natala villages in Arakan (Rakhine State) with Buddhist settlers from different townships and from out of the country

4. To allow them temporary moment from village to village and township to township only with Form 4, and to totally ban them travelling to Sittwe, the Capital of Arakan State

5. To forbid higher studies (university education) to the Rohingyas

6. No Muslim is to be appointed in government services

7. To forbid them from ownership of lands, shops and buildings. Any such properties under their existing ownership must be confiscated for distribution among the Buddhists. All their economic activities must be stopped.

8. To ban construction, renovation, repair and roofing of the mosques, Islamic religious schools and dwelling houses of the Rohingyas 

9. To try secretly to convert the Muslims into Buddhism

10. Whenever there is a case between Rakhine and Muslim the court shall give verdict in favour of Rakhine when the case is between Muslim themselves, the court shall favour the rich against the poor Muslim so that the latter leaves the country with frustration

11. Mass killing of the Muslim is to be avoided in order not to invite the attention of the Muslim countries.

Since its inception, the blueprint is a driving force for the military regime, Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government and even Aung San Suu Kyi led NLD government in persecution of Rohingya.

The ongoing “clearance operations” in northern Maungdaw is an example of deep-rooted decades-long extermination campaign against the marginalized Rohingya. 

The blueprint still remains one of many institutionalized policies largely instrumented against the entire community.

January 8, 2017 

Buthidaung, Arakan – Two Rohingya women from Maung Gyi Taung village tract in Buthidaung Township were raped by the Myanmar Military. 

Today, January 8th, 2017 at 12 noon soldiers from Light Infantry Unit 564 raped two Rohingya women from Maung Gyi Taung village tract. The women were 45-years-old and 35-years old. One was gang raped by two soldiers and the other was raped by one soldier, according to local villagers. 

On January 7, 2017 at 11am a Rohingya a 20-year-old Rohingya youth named Fayaz, son of Nasir, was arrested by soldiers from LFU 564 and Border Guard Police and was taken to Police Battalion 3. He was reportedly tortured while he was in custody as authorities tried to extract information about weapons they believed Rohingya were hiding. Fayaz reportedly had no connection to any weapons or fighting but the security forces were reported to have continued to abuse him while he was in custody until he finally told them that there was a hiding place with weapons by a river nearby to make the torture stop. 

Today on January 8th, 2017 at 10am Fayaz was brought in handcuffs to the river located in Myit Nar hamlet of Maung Gyi Taung village tract by soldiers from LFU 564. One they arrived there it was obvious that Fayaz had made up the location earlier as he was trying to make his torture stop and he jumped into the river to try to escape but was caught by a villager and handed back to the soldiers. He was beaten severely on the spot. 

Some soldiers then took him back to the LFU 564 and another group of soldiers entered the village and were reported to have raped two women while they were there. When the soldiers entered the village the men fled fearing arrest or torture. The soldiers then forced children to leave from the houses and raped two women who were neighbors at this time. Both of the women are married and have children. 

(RB News does not publish the names of victims of rape or sexual assault in order to protect their dignity, safety and privacy)

As a “campaign of rape, killings and arson” proceeds, anti-Rohingya forces hail the election of Trump.

While the world remains distracted by President Elect Donald Trump’s deranged antics, President Barack Obama has quietly lifted a set of sanctions of the Myanmar government last month. The move represents a major step towards the normalization of relations with a regime openly involved in destroying one of the most marginalized groups in the world.

Over the past four years, the Burmese government, in cahoots with xenophobic Buddhist nationalist movements, has committed severe atrocities against the minority Muslim Rohingya population, displacing thousands and claiming the lives of dozens of innocent civilians. In the recent spat of violence, human rights groups have accused the Burmese army of having “conducted a campaign of rape, killings and arson” against the Rohingya.

Regarded as a courageous champion democracy and human rights by Western elites, Burmese State Counselor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi banned the use of the term Rohingya last year in a clear attempt to appease anti-Muslim elements in the country.

The Obama administration announced on December 2 the lifting of a ban that previously withheld American aid to the Buddhist majority country (receiving close to no coverage in mainstream press), justifying the move by asserting the country had made “substantial improvement in improving human rights”. The claim is perplexing considering the ongoing violent onslaught against the Rohingya people.

The American business lobby is also desperate to see trade sanction removed wherever possible. According to John Goyer, director for Southeast Asia at the US Chamber of Commerce told the Financial Times that with free and fair elections taking place and an allegedly “free media”, trade sanctions were no longer applicable.

“These were all benchmarks that the United States identified as key to moving the relationship forward,” he told the Times in May. “Those benchmarks have been met, and in our view, it is time to normalize the relationship”

Since diplomatic relations with Burma and the US resumed in 2012 after Burma’s first successful democratic election in 2011 after decades of military rule, Obama’s government has regularly collaborated with the Burmese government to boost corporate business ties between the two countries. This included the recent formation of the US-Myanmar partnership, a multi-sector corporate trade agreement announced in September this year when Suu Kyi was on her visit to the US.

According to a media note put out by the US State Department on November 15, an American delegation that arrived in Burma in to hash out the details of the initiative made no mention of the Rohingya but simply alluded to “exchanging views” on place around “Rakhine state issues”. The meeting took place at the height of the conflict, around the time the Burmese state suspended aid to Rohingya refugees provided by the UN.

Obama’s economic outreach to Burma is part of his pivot to Asia, a move encapsulated by the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) (Burma is not a member of the TPP), an ambitious trade agreement that under the incoming administration is as good as dead. Obama insistence on the TPP is a push against China’s assertiveness and posturing in East Asia as they consolidate their influence in the region.

Charles Rivkin, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs in an interview told the LA Times in August that Burma’s strategic location made it an ideal country to bolster trade relations with “its geography is going to be, by 2025, within 5 hours of half of the world’s consumer”. “It's a $63-billion economy, but it really could be the crossroads between Southeast Asia and South Asia. And so is it open for investment? The answer is yes” he told the Times.

Meanwhile, human rights advocates witnessing the Rohingya crisis are unlikely to be enthused by Obama’s pro-corporate, pro-business overtures to Burma.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) head John McKissick at Cox Bazar in neighbouring Bangladesh recently called the purge by the Burmese government an ‘ethnic cleansing’ in progress, and that security forces were "killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing these people to cross the river" .

An investigation by the UN was recently called when after allegations of grave crimes committed by the Burmese forces unleashing a deadly crackdown on the Rohingya - after an attack on three security posts took place on October 9, allegedly by Rohingya “terrorists”.

Collective punishment under the watch of Aung San Suu Kyi

The UN’s own work providing aid to the Rohingya has been hindered by the Burmese government over the past two months since the hostilities began, as the Aung San Suu Kyi-led administration suspended relief to some 160,000 people displaced in recent years by the ongoing conflict.

“We appeal for calm and for humanitarian access to assess and meet the needs of thousands of people who have reportedly been displaced from their homes by the ongoing security operation,” said Adrian Edwards, a UNHCR spokesperson last month. “The affected population is believed to be in urgent need of food, shelter and medical care”.

Thousands of Rohingya have fled the violence prone region, with as many as 21,000 people escaping into neighboring Bangladesh in recent months. Though some camps have been setup to accommodate the incoming Rohingya, the Bangladesh army pushed back on the incoming Rohingya. According to Amnesty’s South Asia director Champa Patel, “The Rohingya are being squeezed by the callous actions of both the Burmese [Myanmar] and Bangladesh authorities”.

“Fleeing collective punishment in Burma, they are being pushed back by the Bangladesh authorities” Champa added. “Trapped between these cruel fates, their desperate need for food, water and medical care is not being addressed.”

Despite UNHCR’s pledge to help the Bangladeshi government to accommodate the fleeing Rohingya, the response has been less than compassionate. Bangladesh’s reluctance likely arises from their previous dealings with the Rohingya where over 200,000 Rohingya entered the country in 1978 fleeing the repressive policies of the then Burmese government. In 2012, Bangladesh Prime Minister adamantly said the Rohingya issue was not the Bangladesh government’s responsibility due to the country being overpopulated itself.

While the Burmese government is justifying its actions in the alleged pursuit of Islamic militants, this claim is suspect at best.

“There is absolutely no credibility in the claim made by Aung San Suu Kyi government,” Maung Zarni told me. Zami is a longtime critic of the Burmese government and an advisor to the Center for the Study of Extremism in Cambridge, UK. According to Zarni, men “armed with only sticks, swords and homemade guns, attacking 3 armed border guard posts” did not amount to terrorism by any definition.

However, he cautioned against “possible future terrorist attacks” that maybe imminent as the situation becomes “fully visible to the Islamic world, as well as the larger international community of world citizens”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) asserts the government has consistently denied independent analysts and journalists access to the affected areas. According to Brad Adams of HRW, “A government with nothing to hide should have no problem granting access to journalists and human rights investigators”.

However, the Burmese government's harping on about Islamist terrorism are hardly surprising and wholly predictable. In the post 9/11 era, states (such as China, India and Israel) at odds with their Muslim minority populations often invoke the Islamophobic Muslim terrorism threat to mask their own oppressive overtures against Muslims.

While atrocities against the Rohingya carry on endlessly, world powers remain largely preoccupied, as the civil war in Syria and the election of Trump dominate the headlines.

As for Burma’s de facto leader Suu Kyi, her position on the situation in Rakhine only seems to harden as the situation worsens.

“Show me a country that does not have human rights issues” she said at press conference in October. In an interview with Channel NewsAsia, the anchor pointedly asked her about the Rohingya but she refused to use the group’s name in her response and instead equated the Rohingya’s suffering with that of Rakhine Buddhists. Though Rakhine Buddhists have certainly suffered in the violence that has ensued, the devastation faced by the Rohingya is unprecedented, especially since the group is officially an illegal entity in the country.

Furthermore, in the same interview she seemed to be providing cover to the xenophobic sentiment directed towards the Rohingya by asserting the alleged demographic threat many Buddhists in Rakhine fear from the presence of the Rohingya – a statement eerily similar to the rhetoric of the Israeli government about Palestinians.

Anti-Rohingya forces hail Trump

The coronation of Trump as the next president is almost unlikely to make any positive headway into resolving the issue. Trump has not made any known mention of the conflict previously - yet many anti-Rohingya forces are hailing his election.

“Public security is the most important consideration/Donald Trump is the real leader/People love him so much/Nationalism is the priority,” wrote Ashwin Wirathu, a prominent monk and leader of the xenophobic Buddhist nationalist group 969 on his Facebook account. “May US citizens be free from jihad. May the world be free of bloodshed” he added. Wirathu has also stated that the real estate billionaire was “similar to me”.

A representative for Myanmar President Htin Kyaw said he thought relations between the two countries would improve with Trump in the White House.

“I believe that the relationship between the USA and Burma can only get better under President Trump,” said President Office’s Deputy-director Zaw Htay, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma.

Despite the international community’s lack of concern, human rights organizations and researchers continue raise the alarm over a situation that some say is on the brink of a genocide.

“Dehumanization through rampant hate speech, the denial of citizenship, and restrictions on freedom of movement…put this population at grave risk of additional mass atrocities and even genocide” said researchers in a paper published in 2015 on the conflict by the Simon-Skojdt Center For The Prevention of Genocide at the U.S Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. The report claimed that all the signs of genocide were present and an immediate need to address the issue was essential.

Now nearly two years onwards, the reports most freighting predictions are looking increasingly plausible.

Usaid Siddiqui is a Canada based freelance writer and researcher. He is a founding member of the consulting group 416LABS. He has previously written for Mic News, Washington Post, Al Jazeera America and others. He can be reached on Twitter at @UsaidMuneeb16.