The UN Convention on Genocide and recent persecution of the Rohingyas: A review

Abstract

The UN has termed Rohingyas as the most persecuted ethnic group of the world. Rohingya is an ethno-religious group which mostly lived in the Rakhine state of Myanmer. Though they have a long history of inhabitation there, Myanmar authority labeled them as ‘illegal migrants’ from neighboring Bangladesh. After the independence of Burma (now Myanmar), Rohingyas faced a series of difficulties created by the state. Amid violence in different phases, hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh as refugees. In 2017, Myanmar authority launched a ‘counter terrorist’ operation, and drove away Rohingyas to the Bangladesh border. There are lots of controversies which respect to these actions. The UN has termed the Myanmar activities against the Rohingyas as ‘the textbook example of ethnic cleansing’. Many other academics and Journalists claimed that what is happening in Rakhine state should be considered as genocide. In this paper, I have tried to find out the nature of the latest atrocities and violence against the Rohingyas in Rakhine state and diagnosed, whether the Myanmar Authority committed genocide or not in the light of the UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).