A genocide by another name

The sun is shining through a window of your small home as the birds call out from the canopies of the dense jungle.

Your neighbors’ voices, who, like you, are Kachin, rise and fall as they discuss the new Chinese hydropower plant being built in the north.

The birds go silent, replaced by the clack-clack of AK-47s spitting death into your family and friends.

If you can picture this, then you are able to see a possible scenario in the ongoing “ethnic civil war” in Myanmar (formerly Burma), which is being fought between the Burmese military, under the central government, and the Kachin ethnic group’s military.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “Ethnic civil war? That sounds like a vague statement made by politicians avoiding the ‘G’ word.”

You would be correct.

I would throw “ethnic civil war” in the same pile as “ethnic cleansing,” which sounds so much better than genocide.

Have a growing Kachin infestation? Is their desire for autonomy getting on your last nerve? Wipe them out with ethnic cleansing (or at least push them into China).

This ongoing problem, which was reignited after a 17-year ceasefire, is another example of how the ambiguous definitions of genocide allow for international organizations and governments to avoid intervention in areas where massive human rights atrocities and war crimes are being committed.

Let’s say for a minute that it’s actually a civil war, and not the Burmese government’s way of eliminating an ethnic group.

It would still be genocide, because the Kachin are an ethnic group that the Burmese government is, even if inadvertently, destroying in whole or in part.

Also, where genocidal action is taking place, there are generally other human rights violations occurring.

A human rights expert at the United Nations submitted a report in March 2011 to the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for an investigation to take place in Myanmar. He stated that basic freedoms are not being allowed and that “political opposition parties and ethnic minorities were excluded from (last year’s general parliamentary elections).”

Oh, did I mention that President Thein Sein, “Myanmar’s first civilian president in nearly 50 years” following military rule, is a former general.

Notice a pattern?

Such discrepancies in relation to definitions inhibit governments, such as the U.S., to make decisions regarding other states and what their policies should be in regards to such states which willingly violate international law.

Either a less ambiguous definition needs to be written or the international community needs to move swiftly to investigate allegations of genocide and other human rights violations.

This is clearly a case that is pushing for an international community that can respond quickly and aggressively to such instances or be empowered to prevent such atrocities from taking place.

Such a move would deeply involve the U.S., seeing as how it is a powerhouse in the U.N.

­— nsobecki@indiana.edu