Last week, the government of Myanmar began paying real prices, due to its lack of interest in convincing accountability of its security services, which committed systematic violence against the minority Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State, at the end of 2017. On February 26 last year, German Development Minister Gerd Muller announced Berlin has suspended development cooperation with Myanmar as a result of the "ethnic cleansing" it committed against the Rohingya. Muller said that this stay will remain in effect until Myanmar confirms its commitment "to ensure the safe return of the 700,000 Rohingya minority who fled their homes in fear for their lives to Bangladesh at the end of 2017, and to protect the Rohingya who still live in Myanmar."

Although Mueller did not specify the financial costs involved in this suspension, he also announced an additional contribution of 15 million euros from the German government to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Financial costs

Muller noted that the financial costs imposed on Myanmar, because of the failure to hold the wrong leaders of the security services, and the failure to secure the appropriate conditions for the voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees, will increase continuously if Myanmar refuses to comply with what is required of it. Muller spoke of additional sanctions against Myanmar aimed at punishing it for what he called "its unacceptable crimes" against the Rohingya. These sanctions included restrictions on the issuance of visas to members of the Myanmar government and military officials, as well as other trade sanctions.

These German moves are a stark reminder of the Myanmar government and its president, Aung San Suu Kyi, that there is an increasing sense of frustration by the international community, over the actions of Myanmar, its failure to acknowledge its responsibility for the massacres of the 2017 Rohingya minority, and the failure to take the necessary steps towards the return of refugees. Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh to escape the mentioned massacres.

Myanmar has refused to hold accountable government or military officials involved in the killings, gang rape, murder and mutilation, and forced displacement imposed by the security forces on the Rohingya minority. The violence, led by the government, has killed about 10,000 people, left many in permanent disability, and has caused the largest number of civilians to flee since Rwanda's brutal massacres.

challenge

However, Myanmar has always demonstrated its challenge to demand that the international community carry out logical accountability of perpetrators of crime continuously. In its response to the official complaint submitted by the Gambia, which talks about Myanmar's violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, Myanmar said in its statement on November 13 to the International Criminal Court that the Gambia's allegations were based on a "misleading and incomplete picture of the reality of the situation in Rakhine State.

It was this narration that was promoted after the Myanmar Army’s long-held narrative that lacked credibility, in which he said that his activities in Rakhine State during August 2017 constituted legitimate “cleansing operations”, in response to attacks by the police by the army forces Rohingya Liberation. Aung San Suu Kyi told the International Court of Justice last December that the events that occurred in North Rakhine in 2017 were “an armed internal conflict that started as a result of comprehensive and coordinated attacks by the Rohingya Liberation Army, to which the armed forces of Myanmar responded.”

However, the International Criminal Court criticized the army’s narration and San Suu Kyi on January 23 by supporting the Gambia’s request to take urgent action to protect the Rohingya population, while the court would pledge to look closely in the long term, the Gambia’s allegations of genocide in the Rohingya people.

During the past week, there were indications of increased support for the case brought by the Gambia to the International Court of Justice, in which it accused Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. On February 25, the Maldives announced that it would submit a "written declaration of intervention" in the International Court of Justice, in support of the Gambia case, in which Myanmar is accused of genocide. The Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Maldives, Abdullah Shahid, said that the intervention, whose details have not been released publicly yet, shows the extent of his country's support for "the efforts now underway to ensure that those responsible for the genocide against the Rohingya people are held accountable."

Other countries are likely to make similar interventions in the International Court of Justice in the next few weeks, including Canada and the Netherlands, as their governments announced last December that they plan to "jointly assist Gambia in the International Criminal Court", while at the same time the Gambia complaint The International Court of Justice is just one of many judicial processes that Myanmar will face in the months and years ahead.

On November 13, human rights organizations of the Rohingya people, and in South America, filed a case in the Argentine court against the government of Myanmar and its military officials, under the principle of universal jurisdiction that allows the arrest, prosecution and conviction of persons involved in serious international crimes, other than their own. The case in the Argentine court demands "criminal penalties for the perpetrators of the genocide, their accomplices, and those who cover them up."

Exactly the next day, the International Criminal Court announced that it had permitted a formal investigation into the violations of the Myanmar government against the Rohingya people in 2017 on the basis of acceptance that “widespread and systematic violence that may have amounted to a crime against humanity may have occurred, from deportation across the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh are persecuted on the basis of race and / or religion against the Rohingya people. ”

Previous efforts had been complicated to push the International Criminal Court to start its investigations into the bloodshed, given that Myanmar was not a signatory to the Rome Convention that established the International Criminal Court. International efforts aimed at launching the investigations of the International Criminal Court were blocked by the UN Security Council resolution, following opposition from China and Russia.

Collect evidence

The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, set up by the United Nations, began its official operations in September 2019 to collect evidence of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya ethnic minority, which has included what the Rohingya have experienced in the past eight years.

Germany and the Maldives' initiatives to bring the Rohingya to justice have sent a very clear message that other countries that devote themselves to the rule of law, human rights and the protection of vulnerable minorities must raise their voices to defend these ideals. The message is that Myanmar must stop hindering the efforts to achieve justice for the Rohingya, otherwise it will pay the price and become a pariah.

Willem Caen: Former director of the Human Rights Watch branch in Asia

Previous efforts were complicated to push the International Criminal Court to start its investigations into the bloodshed, given that Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Convention that established the International Criminal Court. Efforts to launch the International Criminal Court's investigations were hindered by the UN Security Council resolution, following opposition from China and Russia.

On November 13, human rights organizations of the Rohingya people, and in South America, filed a case in the Argentine court against the government of Myanmar and its military officials, under the principle of universal jurisdiction that allows the arrest, prosecution and conviction of persons involved in serious international crimes, other than their own. .