The Inefficacy of Naming Genocide in Contemporary Southeast Asia

Annie Elizabeth Pohlman

doi:10.22146/jh.54488

The Inefficacy of Naming Genocide in Contemporary Southeast Asia

https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.54488

Annie Elizabeth Pohlman^(1*)

(1) The University of Queensland
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

This article examines two cases of ongoing persecution in Southeast Asia and the problems of naming either genocide. Specifically, I discuss the politics of naming the decades’ long persecution of the Rohingya in Burma and West Papuans genocide. Both cases highlight some critical points of contention within the field of genocide studies which revolve around competing conceptions of how and what genocides destroy. Often separated into liberal and post-liberal camps, or those which conceive of genocide as a crime or as a process, these competing views create deep divisions over what cases of mass violence can be named genocide, or not. I take up some of these highly politicized and moralistic debates around the naming of genocide in light of these two contemporary Southeast Asian cases; that of the Rohingya which arguably has been recognised as a case of genocide since the latest wave of violence in 2017; and the case of West Papua, which remains very much at the fringes of genocide studies. I also draw on the work of a range of scholars who question the “effectivity” of naming genocide. I argue that, in these two contemporary Southeast Asian cases, naming (Rohingya) and not-naming (West Papua) cases of ongoing persecution genocide has had little effect whatsoever.

Keywords

Southeast Asia; Rohingya; West Papua; genocide

Full Text:

PDF

References

Adams, S. (2019). ‘If not now, when?’: The Responsibility to Protect, the fate of the Rohingya and the future of human rights. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Occasional Paper Series, No. 8, January. Retrieved from http://www.globalr2p.org/media/files/occasionalpaper_rohingyafinal.pdf.

Amnesty International (2018). Remaking Rakhines State. ASA 16/8018/2018, London: Amnesty International, 12 March 2018. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA1680182018ENGLISH.PDF.

Anderson, B. (2015). Papua’s insecurity: State failure in the Indonesian periphery. Policy Studies Washington, 73, 1-75.

Arcaro, P., & Desaine, L. (2008). La junte Birmane contre “l’ennemi intérieur”: La régime militaire, l’écrasement des minorités ethniques et le désarroi des réfugiés Rohingya. Paris: L’Harmattan.

Asian Human Rights Commission (2013). The neglected genocide: Human rights abuses against Papuans in the central highlands, 1977-78, Asian Human Rights Commission report, co-published with Human Rights and Peace for Papua, the International Coalition for Papua, Hong Kong, September 2013. Retreived from: http://www.tapol.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/pdfs/NeglectedGenocideAHRC.pdf.

Aspinall, E., & Berger, M. T. (2001). The break-up of Indonesia? Nationalisms after decolonization and the limits of the nation-state in post-Cold War Southeast Asia. Third World Quarterly, 22(6), 1003-1024.

Barta, T. (1987). Relations of genocide: Land and lives in the colonization of Australia. In I. Wallimann and M. N. Dobkowski (Eds.), Genocide and the modern age: Etiology and case studies of mass death (pp. 237-251). New York: Greenwood Press.

Becker, A. (2008). Penser et nommer les génocides: Raphaël Lemkin. Paper presented at Terror and the Making of Modern Europe: Transatlantic Perspectives on the History of Violence, Stanford University. Retrieved from http://stanford.edu/dept/france-stanford/Conferences/Terror/BeckerFrench.pdf.

Beech, H., & Nang, S. (2018). Myanmar rejects U.N. findings: ‘No ethnic cleansing or genocide in our country’. The New York Times, 14 March 2018. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/world/asia/un-myanmar-rohingya-genocide.html.

Bloxham, D., & Moses, A. D. (2010). Introduction: Changing themes in the study of genocide. In D. Bloxham & A. D. Moses (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of genocide studies (pp. 1-15). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brass, P. R. (2003). The Partition of India and retributive genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47: Means, methods, and purposes 1. Journal of Genocide Research, 5(1), 71-101.

Brundige, E., King, W., Vahali, P., Vladeck, S., & Yuan, X. (2004). Indonesian human rights abuses in West Papua: Application of the law of genocide to the history of Indonesian control, Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School, 2004. Retrieved from: https://law.yale.edu/system/files/documents/pdf/news/westpapuahrights.pdf.

Budiardjo, C., & Liong, L. S. (1988). West Papua: The obliteration of a people, (3rd ed.) London: TAPOL.

Callahan, M. P. (2013). Making enemies: War and state-building in Burma. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Caryl, C. (2017). In 2017, no one has fallen further than Aung San Suu Kyi. The Washington Post, 20 December. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/12/20/in-2017-no-one-has-fallen-further-than-aung-san-suu-kyi/?utm_term=.14f7f0425c6f.

Chauvel, R. (2005). Constructing Papuan nationalism: History, ethnicity, and adaptation. Policy Studies Washington, 14. Washington D.C.: East-West Center.

Cheesman, N. (2017). How in Myanmar ‘national races’ came to surpass citizenship and exclude Rohingya. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 47(3), 461-483.

Cheesman, N. (2015). Opposing the rule of law: How Myanmar’s courts make law and order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, 78 U.N.T.S. 277 (entered into force 12 January 1951).

Cotton, J., & Pohlman, A. (2011). The Responsibility to Protect in Viet Nam: Challenges, opportunities and cases for implementation. Working Paper on Viet Nam, The Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 28 May 2011. Retreived from https://r2pasiapacific.org/filething/get/1347/VietNam_Final_Report%202011.pdf.

Darroch, G. P. (2009). Portraying Papua: Activist representations of Indonesian Papua 1969–2009. (Unpublished MPhil thesis). The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Dikötter, F. (2010). Mao’s great famine: The history of China’s most devastating catastrophe, 1958–62. London: Bloomsbury.

Docker, J. (2015). A plethora of intentions: Genocide, settler colonialism and historical consciousness in Australia and Britain. The International Journal of Human Rights, 19(1), 74-89.

Doctors Without Borders (2017). Myanmar: International humanitarian access to Rahkine state must be permitted. Doctors Without Borders Press Release, 18 September 2017. Retrieved from https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/myanmar-international-humanitarian-access-rakhine-state-must-be-permitted.

Edwards, N. (2017). The Biak massacre Citizens’ Tribunal and the disputed Indonesian region of West Papua. In A. Byrnes & G. Simms (Eds.), Peoples’ Tribunals and international law (pp. 209-229). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Elmslie, J., & Webb-Gannon, C. (2013). Slow-motion genocide: Indonesian rule in West Papua. Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity, 1(2), 142-165.

Elmslie, J. (2010). West Papuan demographic transition and the 2010 Indonesian census: ‘Slow motion genocide’ or not? Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Sydney, CPACS Working Paper No. 11/1, September 2010. Retrieved from: https://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/working_papers/West_Papuan_Demographics_in_2010_Census.pdf.

Gidley, R. (2019). Illiberal transitional justice and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gravers, M. (2015). Disorder and order: The ethno-nationalist struggle of the Karen in Burma/Myanmar – A discussion of the dynamics of an ethnicized civil war and its historical roots. Journal of Burma Studies, 19(1), 27-78.

Gravers, M. (2014). Politically engaged Buddhism – Spiritual politics or nationalist medium? In M. Gravers & F. Ytzen (Eds.), Burma/Myanmar – Where now? (pp. 293-322). Copenhagen: NIAS Press.

Gravers, M., & Ditlevsen, M. (2014).The religious dimension. In M. Gravers & F. Ytzen (Eds.), Burma/Myanmar – Where Now? (pp. 279-283) Copenhagen: NIAS Press.

Green, P., MacManus, T., & de la Cour Venning, A. (2015). Countdown to annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar. London: International State Crime Initiative, Queen Mary University.

Greenawalt, A. K. A. (1999). Rethinking genocidal intent: The case for a knowledge-based interpretation. Columbia Law Review, 99, 2259-2294.

Grundy-Warr, C., & Wong, E. (1997). Sanctuary under a plastic sheet: The unresolved problem of Rohingya refugees. IBRU Boundary and Security Bulletin, 5(3), 79-91.

Grünfeld, F., & Vermeulen, W. (2009). Failures to prevent genocide in Rwanda (1994), Srebrenica (1995), and Darfur (since 2003). Genocide Studies and Prevention, 4(2), 221-237.

Hernawan, B. (2017). Papua. The Contemporary Pacific, 29(2), 347-354.

Hernawan, B. (2018). Torture and peacebuilding in Indonesia: The case of Papua. New York: Routledge.

Hoey, B. A. (2003). Nationalism in Indonesia: Building imagined and intentional communities through transmigration. Ethnology, 42(2), 109-126.

Hoffstaedter, G. (2017). Dominant discourses of refugees, recognition, and othering in Malaysia. Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, 10(2), 27-44.

Human Rights Watch (2013). ‘All you can do is pray’: Crimes Against Humanity and ethnic cleansing of Rohingya muslims in Burma’s Arakan state. Human Rights Watch, 22 April 2013. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/all-you-can-do-pray/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-rohingya-muslims.

Human Rights Watch (1996). Burma: The Rohingya muslims – ending a cycle of exodus. Human Rights Watch, Rep. No. 1079–2309, 9th ed. Vol. 8. New York: Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/legacy/summaries/s.burma969.html.

Human Rights Watch (2015). Something to hide? Indonesia’s restrictions on media freedom and rights monitoring in Papua. Human Rights Watch, 10 November 2015. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/11/10/something-hide/indonesias-restrictions-media-freedom-and-rights-monitoring-papua.

ICC (2019). Preliminary examination: Bangladesh/Myanmar: Situation in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh/Republic of the Union of Myanmar. International Criminal Court, ICC-01/12. Retrieved from www.icc-cpi.int/rohingya-myanmar.

Irvin-Erickson, D., La Pointe, T., & Hinton, A. L. (2013). Introduction: Hidden genocides: Power, knowledge, memory. In A. L. Hinton, T. La Pointe & D. Irvin-Erickson (Eds.), Hidden genocides: Power, Knowledge, memory (pp. 1-20). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

International Criminal Court (2011). Elements of Crime. The Hague: ICC, ICC-PIDS-LT-03-002/11_Eng; UN Doc. PCNICC/2000/1/Add.2 (adopted 30 June 2000).

International Criminal Court (2018). Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Mrs Fatou Bensouda, on opening a preliminary examination concerning the alleged deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Retrieved from https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=180918-otp-stat-Rohingya.

International Crisis Group (2002). Indonesia: Resources and conflict in Papua. ICG Asia Report 39, 13 September 2002. Retrieved from https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/39-indonesia-resources-and-conflict-in-papua.pdf.

International Crisis Group (2006). Papua: Answers to frequently asked questions. ICG Asia Briefing 53, 5 September 2006. Retrieved from: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4517d6884.html.

Jahan, R. (2009). Genocide in Bangladesh. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Century of genocide: Critical essays and eyewitness accounts (3rd ed.), (pp. 245-266). New York: Routledge.

Leider, J. P. (2016). Competing identities and the hybridized history of the Rohingyas. In R. Egreteau & F. Robinne (Eds.), Metamorphosis: Studies in social and political change in Myanmar (pp. 151-178). Singapore: NUS Press.

Lemkin, R. (1944). Axis rule in occupied Europe: Laws of occupation. Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Lindblom, A., Marsh, E., Motala, T., & Munyan, K. (2015). Persecution of the Rohingya Muslims: Is genocide occurring in Myanmar’s Rakhine state? – A legal analysis. New Haven: Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School.

Luban, D. (2006). Calling genocide by its rightful name: Lemkin’s word, Darfur, and the UN report. Chicago Journal of International Law, 7(1), 303-320.

Macleod, J. (2015). Merdeka and the morning star: Civil resistance in West Papua. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press.

Mayersen, D. (2013). ‘Never again’ or again and again: The Genocide Convention, the responsibility to protect and mass atrocity prevention. In D. Mayersen & A. Pohlman (Eds.), Genocide and mass atrocities in Asia: Legacies and prevention (pp. 177-196). New York: Routledge.

Melvin, J., & Pohlman, A. (2018). A case for genocide: Indonesia, 1965–1966. In K. McGregor, J. Melvin & A. Pohlman (Eds.), The Indonesian genocide of 1965: Causes, dynamics and legacies (pp. 27-46). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Moreton-Robinson, A. (2003). I still call Australia home: Indigenous belong and place in a white postcolonizing society. In S. Ahmed (Ed.), Uprootings/regroundings: Questions of home and migration (pp. 23-40). New York: Berg.

Moses, A. D. (2002). Conceptual blockages and definitional dilemmas in the ‘racial century’: Genocides of indigenous peoples and the Holocaust. Patterns of Prejudice, 36(4), 7-36.

Moses, A. D. (2018). Raphael Lemkin, culture, and the concept of genocide. In D. Bloxham & A. D. Moses (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of genocide studies (pp. 19-41). New York: Oxford University Press.

Muller, A. (2017). Troubling history, troubling law: The question of indigenous genocide in Canada. In S. W. Murray (Ed.), Understanding atrocities: Remembering, representing, and teaching genocide (pp. 83-106). Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Murdoch, L. (2017). ‘Shameful tactic’: Myanmar bars top UN investigator from entering the country. The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 December 2017. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/world/shameful-tactic-myanmar-bars-top-un-investigator-from-entering-the-country-20171220-h089ew.html.

Murray, S. W. (Ed.). (2017). Understanding atrocities: Remembering, representing, and teaching genocide. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.

Note to correspondents: Statement by Adama Dieng, United Nations Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, on his visit to Bangladesh to assess the situation of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. United Nations Secretary-General, Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, 12 March 2018. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2018-03-12/note-correspondents-statement-adama-dieng-united-nations.

OHCHR (2017). Mission report of OHCHR rapid response mission to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 13-24 September 2017. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 11 October 2017. Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/CXBMissionSummaryFindingsOctober2017.pdf.

Penders, C. L. M. (2002). The West New Guinea debacle: Dutch decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Philpott, S. (2018). This stillness, this lack of incident: Making conflict visible in West Papua. Critical Asian Studies, 50(2), 259-277.

Pohlman, A. (2016). Indonesia and the UN Genocide Convention: The empty promises of human rights ritualism. In D. Mayersen (Ed.), The United Nations and genocide (pp. 128-132). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Powell, C. (2004). Civilization and genocide. (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada).

Powell, C. (2007). What do genocides kill? A relational concept of genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 9(4), 527-547.

Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar. UN Doc. A/HRC/39/64 (Advance Unedited Version) (12 September 2018). Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM-Myanmar/A_HRC_39_64.pdf.

Robinson, I. G., & Rahman, I. S. (2012). The unknown fate of the stateless Rohingya. Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, 2(2), 16-20.

Rosenberg, S. P. (2012). Genocide is a process, not an event. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 7(1), 16-23.

Rutherford, D. (1999). Waiting for the end in Biak: Violence, order, and a flag raising. Indonesia, 67, 39-59.

Saltford, J. (2002). The United Nations and the Indonesian takeover of West Papua, 1962–1969: The anatomy of betrayal. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Sardiña Galache, C. (2014). Rohingya and national identities in Burma. New Mandala, 22 September 2014. Retreived from http://www.newmandala.org/the-rohingya-and-national-identities-in-burma/.

Saul, B. (2001). Was the conflict in East Timor ‘genocide’ and why does it matter? Melbourne Journal of International Law, 2(2), 477-522.

Schaller, D. J. (2011). Genocide in colonial South-West Africa: The German war against the Herero and Nama, 1904-1907. In S. Totten & R. K. Hitchcock (Eds.), Genocide of indigenous peoples: A critical biographic review (pp. 37-60). New Brunswick: Transaction.

Schwirtz, M. (2018). U.S. Holocaust Museum revokes award to Aung San Suu Kyi. The New York Times, 7 March. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-holocaust-rohingya.html.

Shaw, M. (2015). What is Genocide? (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Polity Press.

Shelton, T. (2019). Myanmar’s military ‘unleashes campaign of violence’ in Rakhine state, Amnesty International warns. ABC News, 29 May 2019. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-29/new-report-details-war-crimes-and-abuses-in-myanmars-rakhine/.

Short, D. (2016). Redefining genocide: Settler colonialism, social death and ecocide. London: Zed Books.

Simpson, B. (2003). Power, Politics, and Primitivism: West Papua’s Struggle for Self-Determination. Critical Asian Studies, 35(3), 469-475.

Southwick, K. (2015). Preventing mass atrocities against the stateless Rohingya in Myanmar: A call for solutions. Journal of International Affairs, 68(2), 137-156.

Stone, D. (2008). Introduction. In D. Stone (Ed.), The historiography of genocide (pp. 1-6). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wing, J., & King, P. (2005). Genocide in West Papua? The role of the Indonesian state apparatus and a current needs assessment of the Papuan people. Sydney: CPACS, University of Sydney.

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387-409.

Yang Su (2011). Collective killings in rural China during the Cultural Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Yegar, M. (1982). The Muslims of Burma. In R. Israeli (Ed.), The crescent in the East: Islam in Asia Minor (pp. 102-139). London: Curzon Press.

Zarni, M., & Cowley, A. (2014). The slow-burning genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya. Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 23(3), 683-754.

Zavis, A. (2014). Myanmar orders Doctors Without Borders to cease operations. LA Times, 28 February 2014. Retreived from http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-myanmar-orders-doctors-without-borders-to-cease-operations-20140228-story.html.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.54488