A UN fact-finding mission concluded in 2018 that the military campaign included “genocidal acts,” but Washington at the time referred to the grubbing as “ethnic cleansing,” a term that has no legal definition under international criminal law.
A genocide determination does not automatically penalize U.S. action.
Blinken’s recognition of genocide and crimes against humanity refers mainly to events in 2017, before last year’s coup on February 1, 2021. The junta killed more than 1,600 people as they took power and almost 10,000 were arrested, including former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a campaign group, and started an uprising.
Since the Cold War, the State Department has formally used the term six times to describe massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur, Islamic State attacks on Yazidis and other minorities, and most recently last year on the treatment of China of Uyghur and others. Muslims. China rejects genocide claims.
Blinken will also announce $ 1 million ($ 1.35 million) of additional funding for the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), a United Nations body based in Geneva that is gathering evidence for potential future charges.
In response to the 2021 coup, the US and Western allies sanctioned the junta and its business interests, but could not persuade the generals to restore civilian rule after receiving military and diplomatic support from Russia and China.
Activists believe a clear US statement that genocide was committed strengthens efforts to hold the generals accountable, such as a case in the International Court of Justice where Gambia accused Myanmar of genocide, Myanmar citing its grim reassurance against Rohingya in Rakhine state . .
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Myanmar has rejected the accusation of genocide and ordered the judges of the court to leave the case. The junta says the Gambia acts as a proxy for others and has no legal standing to make a case.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate court in The Hague, is also examining the deportation of Rohingya from Myanmar.
Myanmar is opposed to the investigation and has refused to cooperate, claiming that the court has no jurisdiction and that its decision to launch an investigation is due to “charged narratives of horrific personal tragedies that have nothing to do with the legal arguments in question” to do.
Suu Kyi, forced to share power with the generals, traveled to the International Court of Justice in 2019 to dismiss the charges of genocide brought by Gambia.
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She said the country itself would prosecute all soldiers found to have been abused, but argued that the alleged violations did not rise to the level of genocide for which the specific intent to destroy a group must be proven.
When they seized power, the generals sentenced Suu Kyi to nearly a dozen cases, which could see her sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. She remains in custody.
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