The View From Here

2020-09-19

Rohingya would have a greater hope for justice if the West cared to defend the international legal order which it says it supports

By Fareed Khan & Raiss Tinmaung

The past two weeks saw news of multiple developments relating to the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. But hope among Rohingya refugees remains fleeting.The New York Times released videos of two Myanmar army deserters who provided testimony that their chain of command gave orders to "Kill all ‘kalars’ including babies". In their testimony the two former soldiers implicated by name and rank 19 officers and six senior commanders.

In addition, the governments of Canada and the Netherlands jointly announced their intention to intervene in support of the Gambia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case against Myanmar for crimes it committed in the Rohingya genocide. As well, Amnesty International released a damning report naming western corporations with international investors that pay dividends to members of Myanmar's military leadership.

To put matters into context, it is important to understand Myanmar's history – one that has been rife with persecutions of ethnic minorities for decades. A simple internet search would show reports of mass murders, rapes, forced labor, and forced disappearances of Rohingya, Kachin, Karen, Shan and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar.

It was only recently that the world started paying attention to the crimes of the Myanmar regime when in 2017 its military and security forces conducted so-called "clearance operations" of Rohingya communities. This final stage of Myanmar’s decades long genocide agenda against the Rohingya resulted in the complete destruction of nearly 400 Rohingya villages, the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees to neighbouring Bangladesh (creating the largest refugee camp in the world), the mass murder of tens of thousands of Rohingya civilians (including babies), and the gang rape by Myanmar soldiers of tens of thousands of Rohingya women and girls.

Numerous human rights organizations have declared Myanmar’s brutal clearance operation of the Rohingya as a clear case of genocide. But the first spark of hope that the West was going to take action to defend the Rohingya minority didn’t occur until a year after the atrocities were revealed. In Canada both houses of Parliament unanimously adopted motions in September 2018 that declared the atrocities committed by Myanmar as a genocide. While that acknowledgement was well received within the Rohingya diaspora, it did little to change the reality on the ground.

It wasn’t until November 2019, when the Gambia, backed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, filed a case at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention against Myanmar for its crimes against the Rohingya that they felt a real sense of justice being done. The same year, the International Criminal Court also decided to conduct a preliminary investigation into the actions of Myanmar’s leaders for the crime of forced deportation of Rohingya to Bangladesh.

In spite of all the above, Myanmar continues to commit campaigns of mass atrocities against its minority communities as is evidenced by the fact that its army is currently in the process of undertaking new “clearance operations” in Rakhine State where it is employing its standard tactics of terrorizing civilians, torching communities, and gang raping women and girls from minority communities. It is clear from these actions that Myanmar’s leaders care little about international condemnation for their brutal campaigns against their minority communities, and that they have not learned anything from being brought before the ICJ for the horrific crimes they committed against the Rohingya.

Canada’s announcement that it intends to intervene in the Rohingya genocide case at the ICJ along with the Netherlands is a step in the right direction. Its announcement that it will focus on the sexual and gender based crimes of the genocide is important given the prolific use of rape by Myanmar as a method to terrorize Rohingya civilians. However, unlike the year-long wait to recognize the Rohingya genocide, this expression of intent by Canada needs to be turned into action quickly.

Alongside these efforts Canada should also undertake efforts at the United Nations, European Union, ASEAN and other international bodies to impose targeted sanctions against multinational corporations who invest in the business ventures controlled by Myanmar’s military leaders. Furthermore, Canada should push for a complete arms embargo against Myanmar, in light of the fact that military hardware sold to the regime is used primarily to terrorize the nation’s ethnic minorities.

Canada's intention to intervene at the ICJ is an indication that it is willing to defend the Genocide Convention, a document which it was involved in drafting after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed. For the 1.3 million Rohingya who now languish in refugee camps in Bangladesh, or the Rohingya who live in fear in the few surviving Rohingya villages of Myanmar, it is at least a hope for seeing justice done. But a greater effort is required by Canada and other Western nations which claim to be committed to defending the international legal order, if the Rohingya are to see justice done and the perpetrators of genocide in Myanmar brought to justice.

Fareed Khan is the Director of Advocacy and Media Relations for the Rohingya Human Rights Network.

Raiss Tinmaung is the Founder and Chair of the Rohingya Human Rights Network.

2020-09-11

Lament For The Unremembered Dead: Why Are the Lives of 9/11 Victims Valued More Than of Those of Muslims Killed In The ‟War On Terror”

By Fareed Khan

I wrote the following on September 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC, and emailed it to my list of email contacts in the hope that it would generate meaningful discussion.

For the vast majority of people September 11th will always be remembered for the images of planes flying into the World Trade Center. For many of us, we will always remember where we were when the World Trade Center towers came crashing down.

There have been many events and actions that have taken place related to the issue of terrorism since that sunny September morning in 2001, and much has been written about this tragic event and its aftermath. Some of what has taken place include the following: the United States launched its "war on terror" and invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq as a consequence; the threat of terrorism has been used to justify violating the civil liberties and human rights of Muslims in the U.S., Canada and many other western democracies; the American and other Western governments have spied on their citizens by monitoring their phone and Internet use using the threat of terrorism as a justification; the U.S. implemented a campaign of attacks by armed aerial drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and other Muslim majority nations in pursuit of terrorists despite the fact that thousands of innocent people died as a result; and more than a million innocent men, women and children have been injured and killed as a result of U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere.

While some of the numbers and statistics have changed, the words I wrote in 2006 are even more relevant today than they were when I wrote them. Except now we are aware of the lies that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq. We have seen hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the military campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- money which could have wiped out the national debts of the most impoverished nations in the world. And we have seen the threat of terrorism used to justify a lot of unjust and illegal actions by governments around the world.

Source: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/charts-cost-iraq-war

As you read what I wrote fourteen years ago, I ask you to question why it seems that the lives of those in western countries seem to have greater value than those of people in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. I ask you to question at what point will the deaths of the 2,977 victims who died on September 11, 2001 finally be avenged. And I ask you to challenge the rhetoric by the leaders of western nations about the sanctity of human life when their actions have led to the death and injury of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent Muslims in far off lands whose daily concerns and desires are no different than those of the average person living in the west.

Furthermore, consider that the annual recognition of 9/11 victims while ignoring the million plus Muslim victims of the US led war on terror is the epitome of western exceptionalism and Islamophobic bigotry. Because it shows that the American victims of this crime are more valued than the million plus innocent Muslims who were killed in the years that followed by the US and its allies in their wars of vengeance.

Those innocents killed by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere were victims of a racist US foreign policy that destroyed nations, destabilized the Middle East and North Africa, created terrorist breeding grounds, led to the creation of ISIS, and caused a refugee crisis not seen since World War 2.

It's beyond time to recognize all the dead that resulted from 9/11 and not just the 2,977 Americans who died 19 years ago. Because to only memorialize the 9/11 victims and not the killing of more than a million brown people at the hands of western nations is criminal racism exemplified.

*********************

Lament For The Unremembered Dead

Why Are the Lives of 9/11 Victims Valued More Than of Those of Others Killed In The ‟War On Terror”

For the rest of our lives most of us will remember where we were on that September 11th morning in 2001 when we learned of the terrorist attacks taking place in the United States. We will remember the images, we will recall our horror, and we will think of the sadness we felt for the innocent lives lost on that day. And every year on the anniversary of that occasion, as the media gives us coverage of the memorial events and replays the images, we will be reminded again and again of what happened in New York City and Washington D.C. on that day.

But what about the innocents in other parts of the world who have have been killed since the 9/11 attacks as a result of the response by the U.S. and other western nations to the terrorist attacks – what about the ‟unremembered” dead?

The people I refer to are the hundreds of thousands innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries who have died as a result of the ‟war on terror” -- those who are antiseptically referred to by western politicians and military leaders as “collateral damage”. Those who died days or weeks after they were injured due to attacks by military forces, government security forces, insurgents or terrorists. Those who didn’t have access to medical attention to treat their injuries or who no longer had access to clean water or electricity.

What about these people?

These are innocent victims who will get no memorials. Their deaths and life changing injuries are not and will not be an occasion for special annual media events or poignant documentaries. There will be no commemorative speeches about them by political leaders. We will not see the faces of their family members as backdrops for speeches by politicians. And there will be few in the west that will remember them let alone mourn for them.

It is conservatively estimated that the west's effort to combat terrorists has directly resulted in the deaths of over 60,000 people world-wide (a gross underestimation according to some), created 4.5 million refugees, and cost the United States more money than it would take to pay off the national debts of every poor nation on earth. This cumulative body count does not include those who have died due to the suffering caused by the destruction of civilian infrastructure (i.e. water/sewage treatment facilities, power generation plants, hospitals, etc.).

In Afghanistan conservative estimates for innocent civilian deaths range from 4,500 to over 15,000 in the military campaign to overthrow the Taliban and maintain support for the current Afghan government. The fact that the Taliban were deposed has been a positive thing for Afghans but the fact that the blood of thousands of innocents was spilled in the process should be something that must be remembered no less than we remember the victims of 9/11.

In Iraq the website Iraq Body Count puts the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at between 41,650 and 46,318 since the beginning of the U.S. invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003. Where are the stirring memorials for them? Where are the emotional speeches? Where are the TV news specials that talk about the plight of the families of these victims?

All of these numbers do not include the injured taken home by their families who died weeks or months later due to their injuries. If these numbers were to be added then the casualty figures would be in the hundreds of thousands.

So why is it that deaths of these innocent people do not register on the collective consciousness of society in the west?

On the surface the answer seems simple enough. Unlike on 9/11, there are rarely cameras present to record the tragic deaths of these people. And when there are cameras around, these images hardly ever make it into the news stories that we tune into on a daily basis. Or the images are not dramatic enough to make an impact on our imagination. After all what images from Afghanistan or Iraq can compete with the drama and the horror of planes crashing into skyscrapers, or of 110 story office towers collapsing.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-checkpoint-killings-american-troops

But the true explanation may be more disturbing than most in the west care to admit. The fact is that most in the west don’t want to know or be reminded of these other victims because to acknowledge and commemorate their plight and suffering would mean taking a long, hard look at ourselves. Conducting this self-examination would make us see our own deep character flaws, admit that there is a racist tinge to public support for the war on terror, and might cause us to realize that western society is not as civilized as we believe it to be.

After all, how could a civilized society not be incensed when government policies or societal attitudes paint a whole culture or a world-wide faith as terrorists. How can a civilized society not empathize with all victims of violence, whatever their ethnicity, nationality, culture or faith? How can a civilized society only acknowledge and commemorate the 2,977 victims of one act of criminal violence while relegating the other 60,000 plus victims to the dark corners or our collective memory?

Yes . . . today is once again September 11th. And yes, we should remember the victims of a horrific and criminal act by a group of zealots. But let us also remember the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of victims of this so-called ‟war on terror”.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/pictures/image/0,9731,-10304812318,00.html

SOURCE: The Guardian

Let us remember the face of a 12 year old Iraqi boy who lost his limbs as well as his parents and extended family when his family home was ‟accidentally” bombed by U.S. forces in 2004.

Let us remember the scores of people killed in a wedding party in southern Afghanistan in 2002 when the celebration in their village was mis-identified as a gathering of Taliban insurgents and bombed.

And let us try and acknowledge the suffering and anguish of the tens of thousands of families in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries in that region of the world who mourn their dead in anonymity, without the attention of news cameras, without special ceremonies, without the presence of high powered politicians.

If we as a society can do this, then and only then can we rightfully claim the designation of a society that is compassionate, just, and civilized.

Related Articles & Links:
* Collateral Murder
* Photos: Nine Years of War in Iraq
* Child Victims of War
* Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey
* Iraqanalysis.org
* Iraqi Children:Deprived Rights, Stolen Future
* In Harm's Way

NOTE: All links in this article were current and working at the time of posting. If any links no longer work please post a note and the problem will be corrected as soon as possible.

© 2020 The View From Here. © 2020 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

2020-08-29

OP-ED -- Does the Canadian government really care about stopping genocide?

By Fareed Khan

Aug. 25, 2020

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/khan-does-the-canadian-government-really-care-about-stopping-genocide

https://www.thesudburystar.com/opinion/khan-does-the-canadian-government-really-care-about-stopping-genocide

The international legal order and the human rights of vulnerable minorities around the world are under assault by autocratic regimes like never before as two foundational documents of the United Nations go ignored: the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As we mark the third anniversary this week of the atrocities which commenced the final phase of the Rohingya genocide by Myanmar, we have to question whether Canada truly believes in standing behind these two instruments which it signed, and whether it cares about stopping genocide.

Canada was intimately involved in drafting both of these documents, so it follows that as a democratic nation committed to the rule of law, Canada would be one of the nations that would ensure their enforcement. In fact, Canadians have often heard Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland state that Canada is a rule of law nation, supports the international legal order, and is a defender of human rights.

But such political rhetoric is meaningless without actions to back it up.

In the fall of 2017 when the scale of atrocities committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya was front page news, many Canadians implored our government to designate the crimes as genocide and invoke the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group:

a) Killing members of the group.

b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

e) Forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.

However, instead of taking action, the government waited two months before it appointed a “special envoy” to study the matter. Five months later when he issued his recommendations, the government proceeded to ignore most of them.

When Canada did finally become the first nation to officially recognize the genocide by unanimous resolutions of both houses of our Parliament – a full year after the atrocities began – it did nothing more to hold Myanmar accountable, despite repeated calls by parliamentarians, human rights scholars, activists, and members of the Canadian Rohingya community. Arguably, as a state party to the Genocide Convention that recognized the Rohingya genocide, Canada is now duty bound to act to try to stop it and help prevent its recurrence.

Rather than Canada, it was the tiny West African nation of Gambia that became the white knight for the long suffering Rohingya when it filed a complaint under the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice on Nov. 11, 2019.

Canada’s lack of action in living up to its treaty obligations to defend the international legal order isn’t new. Canada failed to act in the case of the Rwandan genocide and in the Balkans genocide in the 1990s (despite the presence of Canadian troops on the ground in both instances). It was silent, along with the rest of the world, as the Darfur genocide unfolded and as Myanmar’s genocide agenda came to light in the 2000s. It has done nothing to respond to the genocide of the Uyghurs in China, and what appears to be the start of a genocide in India-occupied Kashmir.

As it fails to live up to its obligations, the Canadian government also refuses to admit its hypocrisy of claiming to be a defender of human rights and the international legal order while doing little to nothing to defend it. It adds to that hypocrisy every year by intoning the mantra “never again” on Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the death of millions at the hands of the Nazis. Such hypocrisy is not lost on the international community and arguably contributed to Canada’s failed attempt to gain a seat on the UN Security Council.

During a year which marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, and the 75th anniversary of the UN itself, it is time for the Justin Trudeau government to finally put actions behind its rhetoric. Because as it is, his government is losing all credibility on the international stage by claiming to be a defender of the international legal order and of human rights while its manifest failure to act demonstrates otherwise.

Fareed Khan is the director of advocacy and media relations at the Rohingya Human Rights Network.