On Friday, the U.S. finally took more forceful action against Myanmar’s military for its brutal campaign against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. This is a step in the right direction, but it should not have taken the United States so long to respond to clear human rights violations.
The sanctions, announced by the Treasury Department, specifically target four Myanmar security officials and two entire military units for their role in the human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing that left thousands dead and forced about 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.
Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker is quoted in a statement saying, “Treasury is sanctioning units and leaders overseeing this horrific behavior as part of a broader U.S. government strategy to hold accountable those responsible for such wide scale human suffering.”
Explaining the sanctions, that statement cites that military forces have targeted ethnic minorities through “ethnic cleansing, massacres, sexual assault, extrajudicial killings, and other serious human rights abuses.”
Previously, the U.S. had only imposed sanctions against a single military commander in 2017.
Although U.S. officials have stopped short of calling the violence genocide or a crime against humanity, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is debating the use of the term ahead of the release of findings from a State Department investigation, according to leaked documents.
If the U.S. did declare the systematic violence against the Rohingya a genocide, the Trump administration would be obligated to take action. Under international law, specifically a convention on genocide signed by the U.S., genocide is “a crime under international law” that signatories “undertake to prevent and punish.”
By contrast, the current label, ethnic cleansing, while describing horrific acts, does not compel action based on current international law.
Last year’s campaign against the Rohingya comes after violence in both 2012 and 2016. In both cases, witnesses described rape, extrajudicial killings, and destruction of communities, although neither campaigns reached the levels of violence of 2017.
Facing international criticism, Myanmar’s government has claimed that the Rohingya who were denied citizenship in 1982 are illegal immigrants and that the government is only fighting extremism and terrorism.
Myanmar, also known as Burma by the democracy movement challenging the military’s power, is a Buddhist-majority nation where Rohingya Muslims have long been persecuted. The civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has yet to strongly condemn the military’s actions despite facing international pressure to do so. Neither Aung San Suu Kyi nor the top military commander face U.S. sanctions.
Despite forceful words from the U.S., in many ways, the new sanctions against the military are symbolic. They fall under the Global Magnitsky Act which allows the U.S. to broadly impose sanctions based on human rights violations by blocking assets and preventing U.S. businesses from working with them. These are likely to have little bite, however, as targeted commanders have few assets or business opportunities in the U.S.
Moreover, the U.S. also doesn’t have the greatest track record with enforcing even its current sanctions against Myanmar’s military. Apparently, even though they should not have been able to obtain U.S. visas, the government was granting these documents to the children of blacklisted military officials.
Although the latest sanctions are a step in the right direction, the violence and ethnic cleansing should have brought forceful sanctions earlier. The United States should not remain silent while clear and ongoing ethnic cleansing takes place.
