Claims of the Rohingya Genocide: View from Genocide Victims

Since the 1970s, the Rohingyas have endured systematic discrimination and escalating persecution. Myanmar security forces carried out genocidal acts, including mass killing, rape, torture, and domicide. These acts led to the widespread displacement of the Rohingyas into Bangladesh. The genocide claim has been brought by Gambia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and is currently awaiting a final decision. Yet, genocide victims’ voices are less heard and prioritised within the legal-political framework, which ultimately determines the genocidal claim and its recognition. Drawing on 70 intensive evidential narratives collected from Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasanchar, this chapter argues that genocide victims should be prioritised within legal and geopolitical dynamics. It pays particular attention to how genocide victims conceptualise genocide amid their lived experience. This chapter explores two issues: (1) understanding the Rohingya Genocide from genocide victims by presenting intensive evidential narratives to substantiate their claim, and (2) examining the legal and geopolitical dynamics that do not prioritise victims’ voices in the determination of genocide and its recognition. It applies a theoretical framework comprising the 1948 Genocide Convention, Galtung’s concept of ‘structural violence’, and three models of genocide by Waller, Stanton, and Feierstein. The lived experience of the Rohingya victims suggests that specific intent and acts of destroying, killing, causing bodily and mental harm, and imposing certain conditions of life were conspicuous. These are sufficient to substantiate the Rohingya genocide claim according to the 1948 UN Genocide Convention and the 1998 Rome Statute. This chapter argues for a more victim-centred approach to reframing international legal holdings and reorienting the geopolitical matrix for genocide claims and recognition.