Reuters quoted US officials on Sunday as saying that the administration of President Joe Biden has formally concluded that the violence committed by the Myanmar army against the Muslim Rohingya minority amounted to genocide and crimes against humanity.
The same sources said that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will announce this decision tomorrow, Monday, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, which is currently hosting an exhibition that sheds light on the tragedy of the Rohingya.
The decision comes nearly 14 months after Blinken took office and pledged to conduct a new review of Myanmar's military practices against Rohingya Muslims.
Myanmar forces launched a military campaign in 2017, which led to the flight of at least 730,000 Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh, where survivors spoke of killings, gang rapes and arson.
In 2021, the Myanmar army seized power in the country.
US officials and a law firm were collecting evidence in order to quickly determine the extent of these atrocities, but then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - in the administration of former US President Donald Trump - refrained from taking a decision in this regard.
US officials told Reuters that current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ordered a "legal and factual analysis" of him, and the analysis concluded that the Myanmar army was committing genocide, and that Washington believed that this official conclusion would increase international pressure to hold the military accountable.
repercussions of the decision
A senior State Department official said this would "make it difficult for them to commit further abuse."
Another State Department official told Reuters that the decision that Blinken will announce "would send a message to the world - especially the victims, Rohingya survivors and others - that the United States understands the seriousness of what is happening."
However, a US declaration of genocide does not automatically lead to punitive measures.
Since the Cold War, the US State Department has used this term only 6 times, to describe the killings in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Darfur and ISIS attacks on Yazidis and other minorities.
Blinken will also announce an additional $1 million in funding for the Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar, a UN panel in Geneva that collects evidence for possible future trials.
The Myanmar army denies committing genocide against the Rohingya, who are deprived of citizenship in the country, and says that it launched a campaign against "terrorists" in 2017, as he put it.