Introduction
Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation, gained independence from British administration on 4 January 1948. It is home to more than 135 unique ethnic communities (Ibrahim Reference Ibrahim2016). The Rohingya are an ethno-religious community living in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, previously known as Arakan State (Albert and Maizland Reference Albert and Maizland2020). The persecution of the Rohingya escalated significantly in the 1960s with the rise of the military rule in Myanmar (Hossain Reference Hossain2021; Human Rights Watch 2018). However, major acts of violence occurred between 1974 and 1978, in 1997 and 2001, and from 2012 to 2017 (Bearak Reference Bearak2017; Hossain Reference Hossain2021). On many occasions, the military or police intervened to stop clashes between the Rohingya and Buddhist fanatics, while their actions towards the Rohingya were consistently condemned of violating human rights. Allegedly, most of these incidents included large-scale killings, rape and sexual violence targeting women and girls, severe physical assaults, illegal detentions and pillaging of personal belongings (International Court of Justice 2020; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2019). The villages, mosques, schools, livestock, businesses and villages, inhabited by the Rohingya in certain areas of Rakhine State, were also destroyed by fire (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2019).
The Rohingya experienced a significant surge in violence starting on 25 August 2017, initiated by the Tatmadaw, the official military of Myanmar. As a result, more than 700,000 Rohingya people were compelled to seek refuge in Bangladesh (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2022b). Many of these individuals arrived within the initial three months of the military operations, adding to the existing population of over 300,000 Rohingya who had already sought shelter in under-resourced camps in the Cox’s Bazar region, which shares a border with Myanmar (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2022a). A significant number of individuals also sought refuge in other nearby countries in the region, including India, Indonesia, Nepal and Thailand (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2022a). As of 11 February 2022, over 600,000 Rohingya individuals were residing in Myanmar, with around 148,000 of them being displaced and living in villages, camps and displacement sites (Human Rights Watch 2020a; United Nations 2022). It is worth mentioning that the events of violence against the Rohingya, particularly those that occurred in 2017, are still denied by the Myanmar Military Junta (Maizland Reference Maizland2022).Footnote 2 See Table 1 for abbreviations and acronyms used in this article.
Table 1. List of abbreviations and acronyms used in this article
The International Criminal Court (ICC) launched an investigation into the alleged “crimes against humanity”Footnote 3 following the increase of violence in 2017. This investigation specifically focuses on the forced displacement of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh, and other crimes that have occurred within the territory of Bangladesh (International Criminal Court 2018).Footnote 4 The Gambia, a country in West Africa, has taken legal action against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over allegations of “genocide”Footnote 5 against the Rohingya (van den Berg Reference Van den Berg2019).Footnote 6
Hossain (Reference Hossain2021) suggests in his study that by doing a thorough examination of the historical origins, socio-political factors, and testimonies and witness accounts of the Rohingya refugees residing in Bangladesh, one can adequately evaluate the course of violence against the Rohingya as genocide. In a subsequent study, he highlights the diverse range of actors involved in the commission of genocide and other atrocity crimes against the Rohingya (Hossain Reference Hossain2023). These include military leaders, members of the military and security forces, paramilitaries and vigilantes, all of whom played different roles in carrying out these crimes.
In early October 2017, Amnesty International released a report detailing the systematic burning of Rohingya villages (Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission 2018). The report was based on a combination of fire-detection data, satellite imagery, photographs and videos from the ground, and testimonies from the Rohingya themselves. On 18 December 2017, it was reported that 354 villages of the Rohingya people in the Rakhine State of Myanmar had been destroyed, either fully or partially, since 25 August 2017. However, the Myanmar government asserted that the Rohingya were responsible for burning their own villages and attacking the Myanmar security forces (Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission 2018). Not only that, but the government also made deliberate efforts to suppress the evidence to impede investigations into the atrocities committed against the Rohingya (Human Rights Watch 2020b).
Human Rights Watch (2020a) has revealed that the investigations conducted by the Myanmar government into the 2017 attacks have inadequately addressed the human rights violations committed against the Rohingya. Furthermore, the South China Morning Post (2018) reported on 25 October 2018 that the government declined to cooperate with independent international investigations concerning the purported atrocities inflicted upon the Rohingya people. Similarly, despite claims made by some high-level United Nations (UN) officials, including a UN Fact-Finding Mission, the political leaders of Myanmar have consistently denied any allegations of mass atrocities being committed against the Rohingya people (Head Reference Head2019). It thus appears that Myanmar has employed a “denial and defiance” defence to evade international prosecution of those responsible for the genocide and other atrocities committed against the Rohingya people.
As an initial means of securing a robust foothold for transitional justice (TJ) in the face of denials about the genocide and other crimes committed against the Rohingya, it is appropriate to emphasize the specific TJ mechanisms. TJ is conceptualized as an approach of “justice associated with periods of political change, characterized by legal responses to confront the wrongdoings of repressive predecessor regimes” (Teitel Reference Teitel2003:69). With TJ’s development, people traditionally speak on its four pillars: truth-seeking, prosecution, reparations and institutional reforms (Jones, Parmentier and Weitekamp Reference Jones, Parmentier and Weitekamp2012; Parmentier Reference Parmentier2003; Parmentier and Weitekamp Reference Parmentier and Weitekamp2007).Footnote 7 This article only examines “truth-seeking” as one of the key TJ mechanisms in the context of the alleged denial of genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.Footnote 8
Scrutinizing Scholarship on Criminology and Truth-Seeking
Truth-seeking (also called “truth-telling”) plays a crucial role in establishing the tradition of moral or legal accountability. Typically, it is achieved through truth commissions or trials – for example, the Nuremberg trials (1945–1946) (Elster Reference Elster1998).Footnote 9 As Freeman and Hayner (Reference Freeman, Hayner, Bloomfield, Barnes and Huyse2003) claim, it promotes the “right to truth” of the victims and their families and the states’ duty to investigate situations of atrocity crimes to provide them with an adequate remedy. Mendeloff (Reference Mendeloff2004:356) argues that it promotes justice, endorses communal and emotional healing, facilitates reconciliation and deters future offences.
Bickford presents official truth commissions and unofficial truth projects as the commonly used mechanisms to investigate the truth about past abuses (Bickford Reference Bickford2007). Hayner (Reference Hayner2001) refers to Honduras, Northern Ireland and Rwanda and finds that semi-official and unofficial inquiries help investigate human rights violations. Olsen, Payne, and Reiter (Reference Olsen, Payne and Reiter2011) claim that the truth commission – first used in Argentina and arguably made famous in South Africa – is a sui generis development of post-conflict societies.Footnote 10
This article focuses on only truth commissions as a tool of truth-seeking, and thus, limited its discussion to this tool only. A truth commission primarily denotes an official (internal and external) body aiming to uncover the truth about past abuses (Teitel Reference Teitel2003). Both Teitel (Reference Teitel2003) and Hayner (Reference Hayner2001) define it as a temporary body empowered by states to investigate, document and report upon past events of a specified period. Pointedly, irrespective of its critical aspects (Brahm Reference Brahm2007; Lawry-White Reference Lawry-White2015),Footnote 11 it is useful to resolve a dichotomy between truth and justice that has emerged (Hayner Reference Hayner1994; Teitel Reference Teitel2003). Teitel (Reference Teitel2003) explains that while criminal trials involve complications concerning offences, offenders and victims, a truth commission is likely to explore broader historical aspects of human rights abuses instead of simply providing judgements in separate cases.Footnote 12
It is pertinent to note what Ignatieff (Reference Ignatieff1996) argues, namely that having a minimum level of democracy in states is a pre-condition for sustaining public truth and debates. Consequently, a truth commission’s effectiveness depends on “free access to historical data and free debate about its meaning”, and some arrangement of an “apology” and “restitution”, as described in the following section (Freeman and Hayner Reference Freeman, Hayner, Bloomfield, Barnes and Huyse2003).
Truth Commissions
McEvoy, Dudai, and Lawther (Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017) argue that post-conflict or post-transitional societies need to utilize perpetrator-focused TJ mechanisms (but ones that have been crafted with restorative justice emphasis) if they want to uncover the truth of perpetrators’ acts (Freeman and Hayner Reference Freeman, Hayner, Bloomfield, Barnes and Huyse2003). Accordingly, their criminological views interconnecting perpetrators and TJ tools, particularly “amnesties” and “disarmament, reintegration and rehabilitation” (DDR) programmes, have strong roots in restorative justice (McEvoy et al. Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017:10). Implementing these tools often advances victims’ needs because it provides the foundation for a truth commission to operate, ultimately allowing the truth of the victims’ suffering to be revealed – a truth that may have been denied for years. To clarify, the discussion that follows focuses on the concepts and impetuses of restorative amnesty and DDR programmes, as well as the impact of denialism, which involves denying or justifying an incident.
Amnesty
Amnesties were being used throughout the 20th century, but, in the background, there was a developing sense by those working on international human rights law that, drawing from the experience with the Nuremberg trials, accountability was necessary and “blanket amnesties” (Sarkin Reference Sarkin2017)Footnote 13 were a barrier to lasting peace (Slye Reference Slye2002). When the Cold War ended, owing to the inconsistent practice of the states, pressure from victims and civil society groups and hesitance by international organizations like the UN, using blanket amnesties for the international crimes became controversial during the 1990s (Collins Reference Collins2010; Freeman Reference Freeman2009; Laplante Reference Laplante2008).Footnote 14
Nevertheless, “conditional amnesties” or amnesty-like actions associated with TJ mechanisms, such as truth-seeking and reparations, are still found (Bois-Pedain Reference Bois-Pedain2011; McEvoy et al. Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017). For example, McEvoy (Reference McEvoy2001:331–2) refers to Northern Ireland’s post-conflict context, where peace negotiations were arguably materialized by some form of amnesty being considered in the agreements. He draws upon the same illustration to show amnesty’s importance for creating peace agreements in his later publication, in which he adds the instances of post-conflict transition in Sierra Leone and the 52-year-long conflict in Colombia (McEvoy et al. Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017).
Braithwaite (Reference Braithwaite2002) and Jeffery (Reference Jeffery2014:176–7) argue that, in some cases, amnesty should be viewed from a restorative justice perspective. For instance, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC) indicates that amnesty can be considered justice if we do not view justice only from the retributive aspect (South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1998). Additionally, for truth recovery, the SATRC emphasizes that “amnesty in return for public and full disclosure … suggests a restorative understanding of justice” (South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 1998:117–18). Critically, Hayner (Reference Hayner2001) observes that granting amnesty for politically motivated crimes was the most critical innovation of the SATRC and the most controversial of its powers. It was evident that the “truth-for-amnesty” offer was accepted by those who reasonably feared prosecution (Hayner Reference Hayner2001). Remarkably, the SATRC required “neither an apology nor any sign of remorse” to grant amnesties (Hayner Reference Hayner2001).
In contrast, Braithwaite (Reference Braithwaite2002:153) advocates a “restorative amnesty”, which requires two essential elements – namely, the amnesty must “contribute to ending a war”, and the offenders need to “show public remorse for their crimes and to commit to the service of the new nation and its people and repair some of the harm they have done”. Notably, while the traditional criminal justice system observes crimes as a violation of the law against the state (or the populus of the state or of multiple states), restorative justice contemplates crimes as harms caused to an individual by another, affecting relationships between them and their families and communities (Gude and Papic Reference Gude and Navarro Papic2020). Kirkwood and Hamad (Reference Kirkwood and Hamad2019) suggest that through empowering communities, restorative justice addresses both the perpetrator and the victim’s interests. Thus, Braithwaite (Reference Braithwaite2002) and McEvoy et al. (Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017) emphasize that an amnesty should be designed to engage the victims, as in the case of the Colombian peace agreement, and their families and communities.Footnote 15
DDR
DDR programmes are mainly designed to enable societies to reintegrate perpetrators and secure lasting peace through the elimination or demolishment of weapons and/or demobilization of armed groups (Patel, de Greiff, and Waldorf Reference Patel, de Greiff and Waldorf2009). Many authors have assessed the effectiveness of TJ measures in reducing violence and re-offending (See, e.g. Backer Reference Backer2010; Dancy Reference Dancy2010; Thoms, Ron, and Paris Reference Thoms, Ron and Paris2010), but literature on DDR is still underdeveloped. Two significant approaches can be found within criminological desistance literature concerning DDR: “restraint” and “rehabilitation” (Özerdem Reference Özerdem2012). “Restraint” stresses self-rehabilitation by the individual ex-combatant/prisoner and does not provide any material assistance for their re-entry into society (Özerdem Reference Özerdem2012). Conversely, “rehabilitation” focuses on building relationships between the individual ex-combatant/prisoner and the community and arranges psycho-social support for the former to develop their non-violent attitudes (McSparron Reference McSparron1980:233).
However, it is argued that the primary weakness of DDR programmes is the assumed passivity of the perpetrators (Gormally, Maruna, and McEvoy Reference Gormally, Maruna and McEvoy2007; McEvoy and Shirlow Reference McEvoy and Shirlow2009). As Rolston (Reference Rolston2007) explains, DDR programmes often fail to recognize the leadership (or agency) abilities amongst the ex-combatants/prisoners. Hence, McEvoy et al. (Reference McEvoy, Dudai, Lawther, Liebling, Maruna and McAra2017) suggest that evaluating the effectiveness of both Braithwaite’s restorative amnesty and of DDR programmes to “contribute to ending a war” requires providing opportunities to the ex-combatants/prisoners to exercise their leadership (and agency). Accordingly, Parmentier, Vanspauwen, and Weitekamp (Reference Parmentier, Vanspauwen and Weitekamp2008:347) argue that if the ex-combatants/prisoners participate in the truth recovery processes and share their truth, it may “allow them to gain back the control over their position and their role in the conflict and later also their place in the community”.
Denialism
As regards framing, presenting and re-presenting the history of human rights abuses by a truth commission, Cohen (2001:103–12) notes that the regimes of past abuses usually deny their acts, e.g. torture, killing, rape, disappearances, etc., or try to restructure public perception of such actions. He describes three forms of denial – namely, “nothing happened” denial (or literal denial), “interpretative denial” and “implicatory denial”. “Nothing happened” denial signifies a literal denial of the fact of any abuses, while “interpretative denial” accepts that violations occurred but asserts that the acts were unauthorized, isolated or not committed by a state agent. Remarkably, “implicatory denial” involves claims from state authority that the acts were justified for the protection of national security or other state interests.
Thus, in TJ’s context, a truth commission can play a role in countering these forms of denial by categorizing the past events through social, political and judicial spectrums to establish the factual truth (Cohen Reference Cohen1995). For illustration, first, establishing the truth requires exploring how the past events are socially constructed and recollected (Wilson Reference Wilson2001:36). Then, from the political and judicial aspects, a truth commission may be required to interpret the accountability of the military/paramilitary forces as state accountability (Jamieson and McEvoy 2005). Besides, a truth commission can help the victims collectively know the truth as a “national narrative”, or individual victims know the truth about what happened in their cases and to their loved ones, their villages, etc. (Cohen Reference Cohen1995).
Research Design and Methodology
Methodological Approach and Sampling Design
For this study, a “qualitative research approach,” which is defined as a process of collecting, analysing and interpreting non-numerical data, has been employed (Mason Reference Mason2002:62–3). This approach has offered three specific benefits. First, the primary data generated by “in-depth interviews” with participants have allowed the accumulation of participants’ experiences and viewpoints on Myanmar’s Rohingya persecution and the likelihood of undertaking a truth commission to address denial of this phenomenon. Second, the data collected from multiple secondary sources have simplified the logical chain of evidence, allowing the distillation of different episodes of human rights violations and atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar. Last, this approach has enabled organization of the data and identification of correlated components to assess the usefulness of TJ in the Rohingya case by accentuating relationships between variables and drawing comparisons.
The study’s sample consists of 50 Rohingya participants: 25 males and 25 females, who belong to the Rohingya community and are residing in sub-camp no. 12 of the Kutupalong Refugee camp located in Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The participants’ age ranges from 18 to 35 years. As of 30 June 2021, this sub-camp was a home to a total of 5443 households or families, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2021). The sample size of this study is 359 households of sub-camp no. 12, which is determined by calculating the minimum number of samples needed to accurately determine proportions.Footnote 16
The “simple random sampling” method was used in this study to choose the participants. First and foremost, every one of the 5443 households was given a distinct number between 0001 and 5443. Afterwards, the “random number table” method was employed to identify 359 households out of the 5443 households in sub-camp no. 12. The 359 households that were selected were then assigned individual numbers, such as 001, 002, …, 358, 359. Afterwards, the members of the 359 households were divided into two separate lists based on gender – one for males and one for females. The lists only included individuals classified as “young adults” within the age range of 18 to 35 years (Kogan Reference Kogan1979).Footnote 17 A total of 50 participants who fulfilled the criteria were chosen from 5% of the enlisted young adult members of the 359 households, employing the “random number table” technique.
This study sample also includes five key informants: two civil society representatives (CSRs), a law professor, a criminology professor and an independent researcher. Key informants are abbreviated as KIs, and, if singular, he or she is referred to as KI. Table 2 represents the KIs’ occupation, special focuses of their interviews and their pseudonyms.
Table 2. Information pertaining to key informants
CSR, civil society representative; KI, key informant; TJ, transitional justice.
Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
The collection of qualitative data in this study has been conducted in two distinct phases. First, empirical data were gathered in the summer of 2022 through semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom video conferencing with KIs (Archibald et al. Reference Archibald, Ambagtsheer, Casey and Lawless2019).Footnote 18 Second, primary data were collected by conducting “in-depth interviews” with the Rohingya participants throughout the winter of 2023. While interviewing the participants and the KIs, a set of open-ended questions was followed. Considering the specific responses of the participants and KIs, and their individual experiences, they were asked follow-up questions for clarification, which varied from participant to participant. The interviews were conducted in the Rohingya language with the Rohingya participants and in the English language with the KIs, and each interview continued for 45–60 minutes.
All participants and KIs signed consent forms before participating in the interviews. At the beginning of each interview, the objectives, methods, end-use and possible risks of this research were explained to them. “Thematic analysis” was used as a method of coding and studying the transcripts. Pseudonyms of the KIs were used (see Table 1), as well as Rohingya participants being kept anonymous to protect their identities confidential.
Besides, this research uses scholarly books and papers, reports by governmental and non-governmental organizations, news articles and information presented on websites. It also considers the statements of victims, eyewitnesses and Rohingya camp visitors, recorded by news television/YouTube channels, representing the victims’ greater voice. The statements have been thoroughly examined for their appropriateness, and their application in confirming or rejecting a specific set of hypotheses has been assessed.
Data Analysis and Discussion of Findings
This section presents and analyses the data collected empirically and from secondary sources. It primarily examines particularly those data that seem useful in designing and implementing a truth commission to address the decades-long denial of genocide against the Rohingya community. The data analysis is aligned with the discussion of findings, which are presented under three themes: motivations for forming a truth commission, uncovering truth and combatting denialism through restorative amnesty, and prospects of implementing DDR programmes for perpetrators.
Motivations for Forming a Truth Commission
Establishing a truth commission is often paralleled with “doing nothing at all” to address human rights abuses (Aciru Reference Aciru2017). It is, however, undeniable that it complements other TJ tools (Andrews Reference Andrews2016). Concerning the Rohingya persecution, since the 2017 wave of violence, notwithstanding the presence of over a million Rohingya in the refugee camps in Bangladesh, the Myanmar Military Junta have resolutely denied the commission of atrocity crimes against them (Pennington Reference Pennington2018). This denial and the manifest failures of two formerly created “commissions” – namely, the Rakhine Inquiry Commission (RIC) (Republic of the Union of Myanmar 2013)Footnote 19 and the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State (Advisory Commission on Rakhine State 2017)Footnote 20 in 2012 and 2016, respectively – have shaped the motivation to recover the truth about violations against the Rohingya (Southwick Reference Southwick2014).Footnote 21
In this study, Table 3 presents the Rohingya participants’ emotional impacts ranging from negative to positive about the importance of establishing the truth of atrocities that happened against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Table 3. Establishing the truth about atrocities against the Rohingya (n = 50)
M, male; F, female.
Note: Analysing the data above considers the variables associated with different levels of participants’ emotional impact, ranging from “negative” (“It would not make me feel better at all” + “It would not make me feel better”) to “positive” (“It would make me feel better” + “It would make me feel much better”). Please also note that the questions and options of responses referred to this table are inspired from Parmentier et al. (Reference Parmentier, Rauschenbach and Weitekamp2014).
According to the data presented in Table 3, an estimated 48.0% of the participants (26.0% + 22.0%) were reluctant to share their personal experiences of atrocities with the wider public. On the contrary, an overwhelming majority of participants, amounting to 74.0% (46.0% + 28.0%), conveyed their intention to inform the global community regarding the true nature of the atrocities. A Rohingya man, aged 23 years, who fled to Bangladesh subsequent to the largest violence that erupted on 25 August 2017, detailed the distressing ordeals he and his family endured in Myanmar:
Due to the military attack, we were compelled to escape from Myanmar after 25 August 2017. I trust that the United Nations and other countries will become aware of the truth of the violence perpetrated against us and take measures to safeguard our rights, uphold justice, ensure equality and promote peace.
This statement provides a clear account of the deliberate persecution faced by the Rohingya community, including the relentless violence, loss of life and unimaginable suffering that compelled them to escape Myanmar and seek safety elsewhere. A 19-year-old Rohingya male, who entered Bangladesh in September 2017, recounted:
Our village’s young people were killed and burned by the Myanmar military. Since Myanmar is our home, I struggled to manage my emotions in Bangladesh. The Myanmar Military’s atrocities stayed with me. Over time, I am forgetting those traumatic events and returning to normalcy.
The testimonies provided by the respondents above not only describe the various forms of oppression experienced by the Rohingya in Myanmar, but also shed light on their journey to Bangladesh. They also serve the purpose of where the Rohingya specifically lived in the Rakhine region which can be vital in case the issue of repatriation is raised in future.
A notable result is seen in Table 3 that a considerable number of participants, i.e. 54.0% and 58.0%, respectively, expressed an urge to understand the reasons behind the atrocities they experienced in Myanmar. Additionally, they also expressed a strong interest in raising awareness among the international community about these reasons. A 25-year-old Rohingya man expressed:
The reason for our forced displacement by the Myanmar government was solely due to our identity as Muslims. We are thankful to the international community and Bangladesh. We hope that international organizations will continue to assist us on a larger scale in repatriating to our homeland, Myanmar, while also ensuring our rights are protected.
This statement suggests that the Rohingya people were specifically targeted because of their religious affiliation as Muslims and their practice of Islam. This can be seen as a prejudice against the fundamental concept of human rights, which states that all human beings are entitled to these rights simply by virtue of being human.
Remarkably, among all the participants, only one person seemed uninterested in finding out what happened to their missing loved ones. On the other hand, a significant majority of participants, totalling 96.0% (64.0% + 32.0%), showed a strong desire to discover the truth regarding the whereabouts of their missing loved ones. A 19-year-old Rohingya woman narrated:
Military forces kidnapped and tortured my paternal uncle. He never returned. The Myanmar government’s atrocities are beyond description, yet we want our loved ones back.
Similar to this participant, it is crucial that other Rohingya individuals who have suffered the loss of their loved ones are provided with accurate information regarding the actions taken, the events that occurred, and the current whereabouts of their family members.
In terms of investigating the atrocities against the Rohingya, according to Table 3, a combined total of 52.0% (22.0% + 30.0%) of the participants expressed reservations of investigating the human rights violations suffered by the Rohingya domestically by Myanmar. However, only 10% (4.0% + 6.0%) of the participants have expressed reservations for an investigation with the support of the international community. Most of the participants, i.e. 60.0% + 26.0% = 86%, indicate a preference for seeking the truth about the human rights abuses through international help rather than relying on domestic efforts.
When the truths are not immediately collected, recorded and preserved, people tend to forget what happened during the time of atrocity (McIntosh Reference McIntosh2020). Since there has been no record of the true incidents that happened in Myanmar, it is likely that people might be forgetting about what happened to them, especially the current generation of Rohingya children who are now growing up in the refugee camp of Bangladesh.
The investigative body can seek truth primarily through the sharing of the stories of actual victims and survivors of atrocities. The information it collects should be useful in determining why a specific victim community is being targeted. As a result, it is critical that the truth be gathered from the first generation of victims so that subsequent generations are aware of the tyranny that led to their life as refugees and may voice their demands for justice. In the case of the Rohingya, their religion, in addition to their ethnicity, played an important role in Myanmar’s persecution of them. In fact, the reason for the persecution is critical to ensuring that, even if the Rohingya are returned to Myanmar in the future, there are no chances of recurrence because the state’s pattern of action could help the international community to foresee the danger of such persecution.
Uncovering Truth and Combatting Denialism
Writing prior to the latest coup d’état in Myanmar, Higgins (2018) found that the two major political authorities – namely, the Tatmadaw and the National League for Democracy (NLD) – seemed reluctant to undertake any TJ measures for addressing the Rohingya crisis. Here the question of including “amnesty” in a truth commission arises in order to understand if it is a pragmatic approach to deal with the Tatmadaw, who are the alleged perpetrators of the Rohingya persecution.
In Myanmar, “blanket amnesty” was incorporated in its Constitution in 2008 and granted to all leaders of the military government.Footnote 22 Although granting blanket amnesty – which in that case, also seemed “self-amnesty” – is illegitimate under international law, this practice shows that amnesty is not entirely abrupt for Myanmar (Reuters 2016). However, regarding the Rohingya persecution, KI-1 questioned the application of amnesty, stating as follows:
What motivates the Myanmar military to come forward if there is an amnesty? They will be shamed publicly, their families will know that they were involved in terrible acts, and there is no credible threat to them.
As noted above, however, there are two partly opposing approaches to amnesty. While Braithwaite’s restorative amnesty requires the perpetrators to show public remorse for their crimes and repair some of the harm they have caused, the SATRC’s truth-for-amnesty overlooked this requirement, rather focused more on truth recovery (Braithwaite Reference Braithwaite2002:203; Hayner Reference Hayner2001). Hayner (Reference Hayner2001) argues that one of the reasons for the SATRC’s success in recovering truth concerning politically motivated crimes is that most of the perpetrators, who applied for amnesty, had already been arrested and imprisoned. Consequently, they already had a credible threat of prosecution. However, this is not the case with Myanmar’s military. Therefore, KI-3 of this study relayed the following:
If the perpetrators come forth with public and full disclosure of the truth, they should not be unaccompanied by formal trials. Because if we consider the atrocities committed against the Rohingya, giving an amnesty in exchange for information would be an effortless way out and would not lead to justice.
Here, it is important to note what Olsen, Payne, and Reiter (Reference Olsen, Payne and Reiter2010:997) argue: “Trials and amnesties together contribute to improvements in human rights and democracies with or without truth commissions.” Yet, Teitel (Reference Teitel2003) contends that trials comprise complications concerning crimes, perpetrators and victims, and thus, we should think about truth commissions to uncover the truth about past abuses rather than invoking trials as the only solution.
Concerning the Rohingya situation, KI-2 acknowledged a potential compromise, describing the circumstances as follows:
As long as the Rohingya victims live as refugees in Bangladesh, they would want the truth to be told and the offenders to be accountable. They would also want their livelihoods and homeland back. If an amnesty couples with these benefits and a public expression of the military’s regret for their crimes, I can envision a scenario in which some concessions with regard to amnesty would be accepted.
Likewise, in their respective studies, Thoms et al. (Reference Thoms, Ron and Paris2010) and Olsen et al. (2010) observed the effects of TJ measures on national and political atmospheres. They offered that combining trials and amnesties creates a relatively positive impact on establishing traumatic truths in divided societies and meeting victims’ needs in part.
Hossain (Reference Hossain2021:216–17) finds that “the total number of the Rohingyas killed during the ongoing genocide [i.e. 2017 wave of violence] has never been precisely determined, [while] the government currently blames the Rohingyas for burning their own villages and for having attacked the Myanmar security forces”. The government also justified the military operations as “counter-terrorism” measures and blocked both national and international media from reporting the violence against the Rohingya (Bashar Reference Bashar2019; International Crisis Group 2017). Therefore, a truth commission can establish a “national narrative” concerning what happened to the Rohingya and their villages.
From the interviews and supporting research, three primary findings emerge. First, the perpetrators of the Rohingya persecution do not have any credible threat of prosecution at present. Second, there needs to be a combination of programmes of amnesties and criminal trials associated with any truth commission, and, last, the amnesties should be restorative, requiring not only recovery of truth but also a demonstration of public remorse for the crimes and reparations for some of the harms the perpetrators caused to the Rohingya victims.
Regarding the first issue, doing nothing to address the Rohingya genocide appears to be the obvious choice for Myanmar’s military as they are the ones who would possibly be held accountable. From the other two findings, it can be concluded that the likelihood of a truth commission’s effectiveness, especially from the victims’ perspective, would depend on its approach to striking a balance between restorative amnesties and the prosecution of perpetrators.
Analysis of the interviews and research also highlights different forms of denial operating within the context of the Rohingya persecution. Efforts to justify and rationalize the military’s violent operations against the Rohingya as counter-terrorism responses to attacks on security outposts by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) – a Rohingya insurgent group – amount to an “implicatory denial” (International Crisis Group 2017). By contrast, evidence tampering and systematic intimidation of witnesses and journalists to obstruct reporting of the actual causalities and damage of the military operations reflect an effort to engage publicly in “literal denial”. Accordingly, it may be concluded that both Cohen’s (2001:103–12) concepts of “implicatory” and “literal” denial of facts are present in the case of the 2017 wave of violence against the Rohingya. Both forms of denial may be addressed by a truth commission.
Prospects of Implementing DDR Programmes for Perpetrators
Two new trends of the current conditions in Myanmar can help us envisage the prospects of DDR programmes in the country. First, in the days and weeks following the coup in 2021, there has been a monumental change in the tide of support for the Rohingya. It is not just that people who were previously indifferent started to care, but that people who actively were taking anti-Rohingya positions and refusing to use the term Rohingya are now backing the Rohingya (Hölzl Reference Hölzl2021). KI-3 also states that:
While doing my recent research,Footnote 23 I have observed that a democracy re-achieving movement is continuing after the coup on both online and offline platforms. And there is a virtual solidarity among young people, especially Twitter users, of Myanmar’s local [majority Buddhist and ethnic] communities and the Rohingya group.
This suggests that the broader underlying attitudes of the majority Buddhists and other ethnic groups about the Rohingya might change in due course.
Second, as per KI-5’s observation, many Myanmar people now demand that the military should fall under the civilian government’s control. She explains that:
As Myanmar military’s weapons have coupled with money, they have become a formidable power. So, Myanmar people now desire democracy and want the military to fall.
In this situation and as suggested by reports of military defectors attesting to crimes against the Rohingya (Attwood, Aung, and Henschke Reference Attwood, Ko Aung and Henschke2022), if democracy is established in Myanmar, it is likely that some people from Myanmar would come forward to participate in the truth commission’s processes and unveil the truth about the Rohingya persecution. DDR programmes also would help demolish military weapons, demobilize armed groups, and enable all combatants to restore their place in the community – perhaps – through the criminological desistance-focused “rehabilitation” approach (Patel et al. Reference Patel, de Greiff and Waldorf2009).
Considering that Myanmar’s recent coup has intensified its ethnic conflicts (International Crisis Group 2022), it can be acknowledged that even if a truth commission exclusively for the Rohingya could be established, its reconciliatory role would be greater if it positions the military on one side and others (the Rohingya with ethnic minorities and potentially now also pro-democracy actors) on the other. However, unlike other contests where DDR is imposed after a singular fight between two sides, a significant issue with DDR in Myanmar is whether it would only apply to Rakhine State or it would take a broader bite out of the military.
Conclusions and Discussion
The data analysis and findings of this study clearly indicate that a truth commission has the potential to play a vital role in collecting and revealing the truth about the Rohingya genocide. This study is the initial attempt to explore how criminological viewpoints may be utilized in the establishment of a truth commission specifically focused on the Rohingya situation. The analysis has focused on truth-seeking, particularly through truth commissions, by examining scholarly research that connects relevant criminological perspectives with truth-seeking. It has realized that there are relatively limited studies and approaches in this regard.
This study focuses exclusively on the applicability of truth commissions in the Rohingya situation, rather than providing a comprehensive analysis of all critical aspects of truth commissions. From the intersection between truth commission and criminological perspectives, it stands out that truth is uncovered mostly through perpetrators’ confessions, while the processes engage victims who often serve as witnesses. Hence, the amnesty scheme plays a significant role in motivating perpetrators to come forward and reveal information about their violent actions. In this study, all five KIs oppose providing blanket amnesty to the perpetrators of the Rohingya persecution. Concurrently, considering existing uncertainties involving the Rohingya crisis, they suggest that amnesty may be part of the negotiations for peace and uncovering truth about the past. Their proposition complements the criminological premise of “restorative amnesty”. This article also demonstrates that participation of the perpetrators and the victims in the truth commission’s amnesty programme can help the Rohingya deal with historical denialism since the truth commission would unveil how military operations against the Rohingya have “historically” and “socially” been constructed.
A crucial point that arises in this article is that given the numerous ethnic conflicts across Myanmar after the recent coup, traditional DDR seems very unlikely or at very least a late/last step. Thus, regarding any future truth commission, it can be concluded that if the truth commission utilizes restorative amnesties, broader TJ initiatives, potentially (and ideally) also encompassing DDR programmes affiliated with criminological desistance-focused rehabilitation approach, would need to be employed.
Another crucial point is that the likelihood of victims’ participation in a truth commission process would depend on a substantive balance between restorative amnesty and the prosecution of perpetrators. Conversely, perpetrators are driven to take benefit of restorative amnesty if they have a credible threat of prosecution, which is missing in Myanmar’s case. Hence, this article suggests that simply waiting to turn the tide against the military rule is the laziest response to help Myanmar regain its democracy, which is the precursor to building peace and undertaking TJ measures for the Rohingya. Instead, civil society organizations, regional and international actors, and third-party states should continue to demand acknowledgment of the truth.Footnote 24 This act should be accompanied by insistence that accountability be placed on the international and regional measures’ agenda for all levels of the Tatmadaw.
Additionally, “national consultation” involving local leaders from the Rohingya group, and all other ethnic groups of Myanmar should be the basis of the truth commission to demonstrate its legitimacy among the mass public (United Nations 2010). It will allow the Rohingya and the broader (including Rakhine) Buddhist community to express their concerns so that the goal of the Rohingya’s reconciliation and co-existence with local communities can be achieved. From the restorative justice perspective, their participation in the truth commission is particularly important to the perpetrators’ repair of their relationship with the local communities, including under any DDR programme.
Acknowledgements
I sincerely acknowledge the support provided by the East West University Centre for Research and Training (EWUCRT) for facilitating this research endeavour. I express gratitude to all the key informants and the Rohingya participants for their involvement in this research. I am grateful to Dr Andy Aydın-Aitchison for providing feedback on the literature review and data analysis of this article. I am deeply grateful to Nusrat Jahan Nishat and Amit Shuvro for their support during this research. I appreciate K. M. Radhit Ahmed Snigdho for assisting with proofreading this article. Research for this article has been funded by the EWUCRT, Dhaka, Bangladesh (reference no. EWUCRT (RP)-14(2)/2021).
Competing interests
No potential competing interests were reported by the author.
Mohammad Pizuar Hossain is a senior lecturer in law and criminology at East West University, Bangladesh, and a Chevening Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He offers expert advice to the Bangladesh Office of Asia Justice and Rights, Indonesia, and the Digitally Right, Bangladesh for different research projects. He served as a legal researcher at the Edinburgh International Justice Initiative in the United Kingdom. His research interests cover public international law, human rights, mass atrocity and genocide studies, criminology and criminal justice, and constitutional law. He has published papers in International Criminal Law Review, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, International Annals of Criminology, International Journal of Human Rights, Commonwealth Law Bulletin, Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law, Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law and Australian Journal of Asian Law.
