Exposing Myanmar’s Genocide Denial and the Silence of the Muslim World

News:

Myanmar told the International Court of Justice that genocide claims over its 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya are “unsubstantiated,” insisting the operation was a legitimate counter-terrorism response to insurgent attacks. The Gambia, however, presented evidence of mass killings, rape, and systematic abuses, arguing these acts showed clear genocidal intent. Over 1.17 million Rohingya now live in crowded camps in Bangladesh. The case, closely watched for its implications on similar proceedings against ‘Israel’, will continue until Jan 29, with judges set to review victim testimonies before issuing a ruling that could take months or years. (Source)

Comment:

Myanmar’s claim at theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) that allegations of genocide against the Rohingya are “unsubstantiated” is a blatant denial of atrocities that have been extensively documented by the UN and international human rights organisations. The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2018 clearly concluded that the Myanmar military committed acts that meet the legal threshold of genocide, including mass killings, systematic rape, the burning of hundreds of villages, and the destruction of Rohingya identity. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have likewise presented strong evidence—from satellite imagery of destroyed villages to survivor testimonies describing the killing of infants, extrajudicial executions, and the forced displacement of more than one million Rohingya to Bangladesh.

These facts render Myanmar’s narrative of a “counter-terrorism operation” nothing more than propaganda designed to mask state-led crimes that amount to one of the largest ethnic cleansing campaigns in the modern era. Yet this tragedy also exposes a deeper weakness within the Muslim world. It is striking that the country that brought the Rohingya genocide case to the ICJ was not a major Muslim-majority power, but Gambia—a small nation with fewer than three million people.

This stands in stark contrast to the Muslim world’s collective strength: more than 50 countries, nearly two billion people, and vast economic and military resources. The inability of these states to take decisive, unified action in the face of atrocities against fellow Muslims reflects profound political fragmentation. There has been no coordinated embargo, no consolidated diplomatic pressure, and even public condemnations remain divided by national interests. The fact that the Muslim world was outperformed by the moral courage of a single small nation is a sobering indictment of global Muslim solidarity. It reveals that without unity and strong leadership, the Muslim community continues to struggle to protect oppressed groups such as the Rohingya and the Palestinians.