Myanmar Spring Chronicle – January 21 Scene
January 22, 2026
The Rohingya Genocide and Myanmar Politics
Issues related to ethnicity, religion, and minority rights have never been simple matters in Myanmar politics. They are at once cultural issues and the products of outdated thinking, conservatism, the sense of superiority held by a dominant ethnic group over weaker ones, differences in perception among communities of different faiths, deeply ingrained views and attitudes formed over generations, misunderstandings, conflicting interests, and recurring conflicts. To expect that such entrenched problems can be easily transformed within a short period of time simply through rapid political change would be overly optimistic.
In 2017, following attacks by the ARSA armed group in areas of northern Rakhine State bordering Bangladesh, the Myanmar military launched so-called “clearance operations.” As a result, thousands of civilians—including children and the elderly—were killed, and at least 700,000 to as many as around one million people fled to neighboring Bangladesh. In connection with these events, The Gambia filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Myanmar of committing genocide. The case has now reached its third round of hearings, with the Court examining and hearing key evidence.
When the hearings began in 2019, they caused significant upheaval within Myanmar’s political sphere. At that time, there were intense debates among activists, organizations, political partners, and groups over whether NLD government leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should go to the ICJ to defend the military against accusations of killings. Views such as denying the existence of the Rohingya, claiming they were merely “Bengalis” who had illegally entered from a neighboring country, arguing that they should not be granted citizenship rights, warning that rapid population growth would overwhelm local ethnic communities, and invoking ideas about protecting race, religion, and Buddhism rooted in the independence-era thinking of the 1920s were widely held. On the basis of these views, many supported the decision to defend Myanmar at the ICJ.
During that period, some Myanmar media outlets as well as certain human rights and democracy activists themselves accepted and re-circulated the military’s statements and the government’s repeated echoes of those narratives regarding what had happened in northern Rakhine State. Journalists who exposed the Inn Din village massacre were arrested and prosecuted by the military under the Official Secrets Act, and even some people who were not military supporters expressed approval of those arrests.
About a year later—counting from late 2019 to early 2020—Myanmar experienced the military coup. After that, as opponents of military dictatorship reassessed the military’s actions, they came to understand more clearly the scale of the 2017 atrocities in northern Rakhine: mass killings, the burning of homes, the destruction of villages whose residents had fled to neighboring countries, and the deliberate erasure of those villages by bulldozing and leveling the land.
At that point, some people began to apologize to the Rohingya for the military’s actions, and to acknowledge that supporting the government and military during the 2019–2020 ICJ proceedings had been a mistake. Those who offered apologies included politicians, activists, and even some armed PDF groups. During that time, voices advocating broader-minded views, equality toward minorities, and prioritization of minority rights were heard across Myanmar society. Many interpreted this as a turning point—a major shift in Myanmar’s social consciousness. It was widely concluded that the public’s change in awareness was remarkable, and that the military coup had rapidly fostered unity, solidarity, and more progressive ideas among anti-dictatorship forces.
However, recent ICJ hearings have shown once again how difficult it is to change a culture or a deeply rooted way of thinking. Alongside renewed historical disputes over whether the Rohingya exist as a people, disagreements have re-emerged among anti-military forces over broader issues of citizenship and ethnic rights.
Within Myanmar’s revolutionary forces and their supporters, two contrasting views are now evident: one that Myanmar should lose its case at the ICJ, and another that if Myanmar loses this case, the harm will not fall on the military alone but could affect all Myanmar citizens.
When these points are carefully examined, it becomes clear that views, positions, standards, and values concerning the Rohingya issue—and attitudes toward ethnic and religious diversity more broadly—remain deeply divided. Even among those who hate the military and are actively resisting it, there is still no shared consensus, common understanding, or firm, unified position on the Rohingya issue.
In Myanmar politics, every major turning point in time seems to give rise to tests over how ethnic and religious views—what might be called nationalism—are interpreted and embraced.
To withstand such tests and to build resilience, it is crucial, in my view, for political parties and revolutionary forces to become organizations with clear, firm political principles, well-defined processes, and concrete, practical policies—and to demonstrate these convincingly in practice.