Who can help save the Rohingya? Canada
The conclusion is now tragically clear: a genocide is taking place in Burma
It is chilling to see how many times the word “genocide” is now being used to describe the humanitarian tragedy affecting Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority. But like the endless Syrian civil war, this is a deepening crisis of historic proportions to which much of the world now seems largely indifferent — in spite of the warnings.
There was the warning this week from the UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, that Burma’s military appears to have committed “acts of genocide” against the Rohingya people.
There was the warning last weekend in The New York Times from journalist Nicholas Kristof, who has just visited the country. “I saw a genocide in slow motion,” was the headline, as the military “continues to kill its Rohingya” by denying them health care and food.
And there was the warning last month from Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2003, that Aung San Suu Kyi, also a Nobel laureate and Burma’s discredited de facto leader, must be held personally responsible for “geno- cide” of Rohingyas under her watch.
In the past six months, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Burma (also known as Myanmar) for Bangladesh to avoid what the UN describes as a classic case of ethnic cleansing by the Burmese military — including the burning of villages and raping of women.
There are plans to send Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh back to Burma but UN officials said this week that widespread violence against them is continuing in Burma.
The global mood in the era of Trump is cynically inward and self-serving. Does that apply to us?
Similar warnings have come from former Liberal leader Bob Rae, who was appointed Canada’s special envoy for the crisis. In a powerfully written interim report in December, he outlined the scale of the “humanitarian crisis,” the need for “accountability for potential crimes against humanity” and the urgency for “action by all governments.”
Rae’s final report will be presented to Canada’s Parliament in a few weeks, and he will recommend “actions that Canada and others need to take.”
And that, for Canadians and for our prime minister, will be when the ball will be back in our court — coming at a time when the rest of the world’s attention is focused on a multitude of other global crises.
Given that, in the face of possible genocide, what should Canada do?
Fortunately, we do have history to guide us. This is not the first time that Canada has been confronted with a profound global challenge that the rest of the world ignored.
Let us not forget the brutal Ethiopian famine in 1984. Canadians saw on their television sets the immense horror of a hidden famine that was killing hundreds of thousands. And what happened next was unforgettable.
Led by Canada’s new prime minister Brian Mulroney and Stephen Lewis, Canada’s ambassador to the UN, Canada spearheaded an international rescue effort in Ethiopia that became part of the greatest single humanitarian relief mission in history.
I remember that experience very well because, with Brian Stewart, I was pro- ducer of the CBC news team that provided those first reports out of Ethiopia.
These two dramas are obviously different in nature, but there are some lessons we can apply from Ethiopia in 1984 to the Rohingyas of 2018. Three come to mind:
We need to understand the gravity. That happened in 1984, and it can happen now. This makes Rae’s final report essential reading.
Doing nothing is not an option. Canadians, by the millions, decided not to turn their backs on Ethiopia in 1984 even though much of the world did, at least at the beginning. Today is no different. Who else but Canada? The global mood in the era of Trump is cynically inward and self-serving. Does that apply to us?
What better time for the Trudeau
government to remind the world that Canada is indeed different.
Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com.