{"id":266293,"date":"2018-06-11T10:30:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T14:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/canadas-response-rohingya-crisis-falls-short\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:07:07","slug":"canadas-response-rohingya-crisis-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/06\/canadas-response-rohingya-crisis-falls-short\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s response to Rohingya crisis falls short"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the intensification of Myanmar\u2019s violence against the Rohingya in August 2017, more than 700,000<\/a> Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh; 43,000<\/a> are feared dead; as many as 81,000<\/a> women and girls are believed to have been impregnated by rape; and more than 360<\/a> Rohingya villages have been completely or partially destroyed. For hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in camps, the arrival of monsoon season in Bangladesh threatens even greater misery and danger from flooding and mudslides.<\/p>\n

It is not only Myanmar\u2019s military that bears responsibility for these atrocities. Civilian branches of the government under control of Aung San Suu Kyi also bear responsibility for enabling the abuses (including the ministries of information, religious affairs, immigration, and foreign affairs).<\/p>\n

And yet, the state of Myanmar has been made to suffer few consequences. As a May 2018 report<\/a> from the UK Parliamentary Committee on International Development points out: \u201csanctions have not been re-imposed except on a small number of officers. . .development aid still flows in; the army seems to be more popular if anything; and Burmese military spending has risen markedly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada claims to be playing a \u201cleadership role<\/a>\u201d in the international response to the Rohingya crisis \u2013 but has pledged only half the amount of humanitarian aid<\/a> recommended by Canada\u2019s special envoy to Myanmar, Bob Rae and has placed sanctions on only one general<\/a> so far (two months after the United States did so<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Unlike France<\/a>, Canada has not even recognized the situation as a genocide \u2013 even though it is well-documented that the Rohingya have been subjected to almost all the forms of treatment listed in the UN Genocide Convention<\/a>: 1) killing; 2) serious bodily and mental harm; 3) infliction of conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group (tens of thousands of Rohingya have been confined<\/a> in camps for \u201cinternally displaced people\u201d in Myanmar, where they have been deprived of food, water, and medical care); and 4) the imposition of measures intended to prevent births (for example, Myanmar\u2019s \u201crace and religion protection laws\u201d of 2015, which impose restrictions<\/a> on Rohingya marriages and births).<\/p>\n

Canada claims to be playing a leadership role in the international response to the Rohingya crisis \u2013 but has pledged only half the amount of humanitarian aid recommended by Canada\u2019s special envoy to Myanmar, Bob Rae.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under international law, states are obligated to not only to prosecute genocide after it has occurred, but also to prevent<\/em> it as it occurs. According to the International Court of Justice<\/a>, \u201ca State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That threshold was passed long ago. Myanmar\u2019s atrocities against the Rohingya have been recognized as characteristic of genocide by the International Alliance to End Genocide<\/a> (since 2012), Yale Law School\u2019s Allard K Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School, for Fortify Rights<\/a> (2015), the International State Crime Initiative<\/a> at Queen Mary University of London (2015), an international experts\u2019 tribunal<\/a> on Myanmar (2017), the US Holocaust Memorial Museum\u2019s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide<\/a>, for Fortify Rights (2017), the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies<\/a> (2017), and the UN Special Rapporteur<\/a> on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (March 2018).<\/p>\n

The international failure to address the genocide perpetrated against the Rohingya people has not only emboldened<\/a> the Myanmar regime in its violence against other minority groups, but also undermines the international rules-based system.<\/p>\n

We call on Canada to recognize the Rohingya crisis for what it is \u2013 a genocide \u2013 and act commensurately by<\/p>\n