AN ‘OBLIGATION TO PROTECT LIVES’: WILL CANADA IGNORE THE ROHINGYA?

‘OUR FIRST OBLIGATION IS TO PROTECT LIVES,’ MYANMAR HUMANITARIAN CRISIS REPORT SAYS

It is sober reading, as you might imagine. Released Tuesday under the title “Tell them we’re human: What Canada and the world can do about the Rohingya crisis,” the 12,963-word final report by former Liberal foreign affairs minister Bob Rae, appointed Special Envoy to Myanmar last October, is a study in surrender.

This is not to say Rae’s assessment of the agonies endured by Myanmar’s brutally persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority is the work of a coward, or an exercise in appeasement, or a capitulation in the face of ongoing atrocities that “bear the hallmarks of genocide,” according to another report, this one tabled only three weeks ago by the United Nations’ own Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.

Rae is as solid as it gets (I should probably get this out of the way right here: he and I are both senior fellows with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights), and he did not shirk his onerous duty. He travelled throughout the region. He met with survivors and community leaders and humanitarian workers. Rae traversed the convulsing human landscape on Myanmar-Bangladesh borderlands by helicopter. He was permitted to venture, although under guard, deep into Rakhine State, the military terror zone from which more than 670,000 Rohingya Muslims have been ethnically cleansed, by fire, mass rape, terror and murder, since last August.

Rae’s report is of the quality, detail and sophistication you would expect from at least a year’s worth of effort by a team of investigators.

And yet still, if mostly between the lines, what emerges from his report is the cold and merciless reality of what has transpired in Myanmar over the past few months. It is a reconstruction of the civilized world’s abject surrender in the face of war crimes, crimes against humanity and all the rest of those “never again” promises we don’t even pretend that we mean to keep anymore.

It’s just the way the world is. So we have to make do with the primitive tools that we’ve got, and we can only do so much. “I think we’re living in a world without adult supervision at the moment,” Rae said during an appearance on the CBC’s Power and Politics on Tuesday. “We got into the habit after 1945 of looking to the Americans for leadership, or others, for a long time the British, and so on. Those days are gone ... it’s a different world.”

It is in the pitiful context of that different world, then, the miserable, brutish, grasping world of China’s Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and America’s Donald Trump, that Rae crafted a series of innovative, improvised, make-do recommendations. “Our first obligation is to protect lives,” he writes. And we might even be able to save a few. That’s what it’s come to.

It might be all we can do, and to that end, Rae proposes that Canada should hike its paltry $46-million relief commitment in the region to a mostly humanitarian $150 million a year over the next four years. That outlay should also include the “necessary work on accountability and the gathering of evidence” for possible prosecution of the Myanmar officials culpable for the bloody pogroms and complicit in the brutal expulsion of the Rohingyas from their homelands.

“This evidence has to be collected, and we need to find a way to move forward to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice,” Rae writes, suggesting that the targeting of more individuals for sanctions under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act would be one way to go. Two months ago, following the lead of the U.S. State Department, Canada listed Myanmar’s MajorGeneral Maung Maung Soe under the Act. Which means Soe can’t visit Canada and any assets he might have in Canada are to be frozen.

Another route Rae suggested was a collaborative effort with like-minded countries to encourage the International Criminal Court to consider an investigation. That seems unlikely, though. Myanmar never signed the Rome Statute establishing the court. Then there’s the option of Canada leading an effort to set up a Myanmar version of the International Impartial and Independent mechanism (IIIM) looking into war crimes in Syria. But that’s maybe not the best model.

The UN General Assembly established the Syrian IIIM in December 2016. Mass murders proceed apace. Headed up by former French jurist Catherine Marchi-Uhel, the Syrian IIIM issued a report last Thursday pointing out that it still doesn’t have regular budget funding, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad won’t allow investigators into the country and IIIM researchers can’t keep track of all the war crimes being committed anyway.

Canada should work with the UN High Commission on Refugees to process the displaced Rohingyas for resettlement, and Canada should open its arms to Rohingya refugees, Rae proposes. For now, at least, repatriating any Rohingyas from Bangladesh back to Myanmar is out of the question, he concluded. Only three weeks ago, the UN’s assistant secretary-general for human rights, Andrew Gilmour, reported that by resort to a “campaign of terror and starvation,” Myanmar is continuing its ethnic cleansing of the remaining Rohingyas in Rakhine. “The government of Myanmar is busy telling the world that it is ready to receive Rohingya returnees, while at the same time its forces are continuing to drive them into Bangladesh.”

Canada should take the lead in establishing an International Working Group on the Rohingya crisis, Rae urges. Canada could push the Rohingya issue higher on the agenda of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting set for April 18 in London. We could also use the opportunity of the G7 presidency, which Canada holds for 2018. There is also the upcoming gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Council of Foreign Ministers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, next month.

Canada should lead, Rae said. After all, nobody else is.

After Rae turned in his report on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked him warmly. “This report brings much-needed awareness to the grave humanitarian crisis and gross violations of human rights faced by hundreds of thousands of people including Rohingya communities, other religious and ethnic minorities, and women and girls.”

It will be a while before we know how much of Rae’s insights and proposals will get picked up. “Canada is determined to help respond to this crisis,” Trudeau said. “In the coming weeks, we will assess the recommendations in this report and outline further measures we intend to take.”

CANADA SHOULD LEAD, RAE SAID. AFTER ALL, NOBODY ELSE IS.

JOE FREEMAN / AFP / GETTY IMAGES Rohingya Muslims gather in March behind Myanmar’s border lined with barbed wire fences in Maungdaw district, located in Rakhine State bounded by Bangladesh.