GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR

COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION: GENOCIDE IN MYANMAR
The systematic, targeted weakening of the Rohingya through mass violence, enforced isolation, disenfranchisement,
illness and hunger, and the regime’s discriminatory and persecutory policies against the
Rohingya amounts to what Maung Zarni and Alice Cowley describe as a ‘slow-burning genocide.’ 21
Genocide cannot occur without preparation and commitment to an exclusionary ideology, the primary
purpose of which is to garner support for action that the state will carry out at a later stage. 22 An exclusionary
ideology dehumanises victims in the minds of the perpetrators, 23 enabling the latter to cope with
the former’s destruction. Dehumanisation of victims is necessary because a genocidal policy depends
on the complicity or participation of citizens – if the other group is not human, then killing them is not
murder. 24
Once the target group has been classified and is clearly identifiable, enabling a distinction between
‘us’ and ‘them’, the state uses other techniques of dehumanisation, including propaganda, coercion and
terror, to gain the complicity of the population. This is an important step as, in addition to a high level of
cooperation between the military and state bureaucracy, the participation and complicity of the majority
of the local population is a necessary prerequisite for genocide. 25
The process of dehumanisation, including the use of propaganda, agitation and incitement, paves the way
for mass annihilation to occur. 26 Perpetrators become indoctrinated to the point where they genuinely
believe they are doing what is best for society, through purification and elimination of those seen as less
than human and who therefore pose a threat to the common goal.
The analysis used in this report draws on the seminal work of Gregory H. Stanton 27 and Barbara Harff
and Ted Robert Gurr. 28 The findings are benchmarked against the stages of genocide outlined in the work
of Daniel Feierstein. 29 The following table is adapted from Feierstein’s periodization of the genocidal
process. While it is expressed as six essential and apparently sequential stages, these stages are not
necessarily linear and frequently overlap.
21 Zarni, M and Cowley, A, ‘The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya’, Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 23(3),
June 2014, pp. 681 – 752. Further supporting the view that the physical and social violence and discrimination against the
Rohingya amounts to genocide, on 21 September 2015, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide listed
Myanmar as the country with the highest risk of a future episode of mass killing, ahead of the Central African Republic,
Nigeria and Sudan. Their assessment was based on an early warning statistical tool aimed at forecasting the risk of
state-led mass killings. See: http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/how-to-prevent-genocide/early-warning-project.
22 Vetlesen, A, ‘Genocide: A Case for the Responsibility of the Bystander’, Journal of Peace Research, 37(4), July 2000, p. 524.
23 Kuper, L, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 85.
24 Stanton, G, ‘Could the Rwandan Genocide have been Prevented? Journal of Genocide Research, 6(2), 2004, p. 214.
25 See, for example: Mukimbiri, J, ‘The Seven Stages of the Rwandan Genocide’, Journal of International Criminal Justice, 3(4),
2005, pp.823-826; Jamieson, R, ‘Genocide and the Social Production of Immorality’, Theoretical Criminology, 3(2), 1999,
p. 140.
26 Dadrian, V, ‘Patterns of Twentieth Century Genocides: The Armenian, Jewish and Rwandan Cases’, Journal of Genocide
Research, 6(4), December 2004, p. 515.
27 Stanton, G. H., ‘The 8 Stages of Genocide,’ Genocide Watch, 1998: http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/
8stagesofgenocide.html. Accessed 10 October 2015.
28 Harff, B and Gurr, T. R., ‘Toward Empirical Theory of Genocides and Politicides: Identification and Measurement of Cases
Since 1945’, International Studies Quarterly, 32(3), September 1988, pp. 359-371.
29 Feierstein, D, Genocide as Social Practice.
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