Failing humanity

Will the world sit aside and watch as the Rohingya are killed in what can easily be said to be a genocide? This is the only question left to ask as the atrocities committed by the Burmese government against the Rohingya people continue. There have been no renewed calls from any international actor for a joint global response. Just last week, the MSF pled for intervention as it reported that over 6,500 Rohingya had been killed in just a month. At least 20 had been burned alive, while 40 Rohingya villages have been burned down since October. This is all in addition to the horror of hundreds of women having been reportedly raped. The world does not suffer from a lack of human tragedies but the Rohingya are the ones that no one has time for. At least 655,000 of them have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh where they remain unwanted. These refugee camps themselves have become sites for child abductions, since over half the populations in these camps are children.

If nothing else, some parts of the world at least like to pretend they care. In the UN, the hope is that there exists an institution that would step in to save some of the most vulnerable populations in the world at their time of need. Instead, we are aware now that the UN itself has been giving into demands put forth by the Burmese state over its human rights record. There are calls for a war crimes tribunal to be initiated that goes to the very top of the Myanmar government, which might even claim Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu-Kyi. Despite the condemnation that she has received, it seems there are some that remain convinced that it is worth sacrificing almost a million Rohingya to ensure Myanmar’s democratic transition. The price is clearly too high, and this is clearly not a democratic transition. There needs to be a solution for the Rohingya people. Ideally, it lies within Myanmar, but that would require a major UN-led intervention. In the current circumstances, it is the fate of hundreds of thousands of refugees that must be secured without the traditional wrangling between states. Already, Bangladesh has come to an agreement with the Myanmar state over repatriating Rohingya refugees to face the unspeakable atrocities being committed against them. The world is failing itself. The Rohingya are a mirror for how shallow our commitment to humanity is.