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Mong Palatino
July 25, 2013
It is common for
unpopular governments to be accused by their enemies of committing serious
human rights violations such as murder and kidnapping, but it is not often that
genocide is included in the charge sheet. Even notorious dictators who are
assumed to be guilty of committing the most heinous crimes against humanity are
rarely accused of genocide.
When various groups
denounce a government’s action or program as being genocidal, it immediately
gets global and media attention. Something evil must be really happening to
warrant the use of the term.
Two Southeast Asian
governments are currently facing such accusations. Myanmar is accused of
committing genocide against the ethnic Muslim Rohingya minority. Meanwhile, in
the Philippines, a former senator and the influential Catholic Church hierarchy
have warned the government that it could be held liable for genocide if it
implements the controversial reproductive health law. Really?
Fortunately, there
exists an international convention that can help us identify specific acts of
genocide. The convention states that genocide involves "acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group" through 1) Killing members of the group; 2) Causing serious
bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 3) Deliberately inflicting on
the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part; 4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group; and 5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
So, using this
definition, in the case of Myanmar, the genocide accusation seems solid.
Rohingyas have no citizenship rights because the government has still refused
to recognize them as a distinct ethnic group in the country. Rohingyas have no
government-issued identification cards, they cannot own land, and they are
barred from government employment.
In recent years,
riots between Rohingyas and other ethnic groups in the state of Rakhine have
displaced thousands of villagers, especially the Muslim Rohingyas who are
further discriminated against due to their religion. State forces are accused
of doing nothing when a mob attacks a Rohingya settlement. An estimated 125,000
Rohingyas are living in refugee camps in Myanmar in dire need of aid.
Recently, the
government imposed a two-child policy on the group in a bid to defuse ethnic
tension. This controversial measure finally elicited a response from opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who until then was criticized by many human rights
groups for her silence on the persecution of the Rohingya minority.
Almost all major
human rights groups in the world have already issued an alarm over the growing
repression of the Rohingyas. They are one in urging the Myanmar government to
review its laws and programs that curtail the basic rights of Rohingyas.
Unless the
government revamps its discriminatory and repressive policies against the
group, it will have a tough time convincing the international community that it
is resolving the communal riots and ethnic tensions involving the Rohingya with
utmost transparency and fairness.
While the
Rohingyas’ plight in Myanmar seems to warrant claims of genocide, in the
Philippines’ case the accusation seems flimsy. Early this month, Former Senator
Francisco Tatad appeared before the Supreme Court and petitioned for the
scrapping of the reproductive health law, which he rejected as an
unconstitutional assault against God and family. He argued that the government
will commit genocide because the law prescribes “state-mandated birth control”
that would lead to the slaughter of innocent souls.
The law, hailed by
women’s groups and health advocates as a landmark legislation, lays down the
framework for comprehensive reproductive healthcare in the country, principally
to prevent maternal deaths. It allows local health centers to provide birth control
services to the population in the face of fierce opposition from the Catholic
Church. The Philippines is the only Catholic-dominated nation in Southeast
Asia.
“That is not
freedom of choice at all. That is not protecting the family as foundation of the
nation,” Tatad saidof the birth control provisions provided under the law.
He added, “That is
not equally protecting the right of the mother and right of the unborn and this
is simply putting the family under state supervision and control…Have we become
a democracy only to submit to state supervision and control?”
But Tatad
conveniently forgot to mention that the law doesn’t force individuals or
couples to use artificial birth control measures. Filipino Catholics are still
free to practice natural birth control methods or other options approved by the
Vatican. The law simply provides for freedom of choice and consent.
For highlighting
the population control agenda of the government, Tatad’s critique deserves to
be studied. But for dismissing the law as an instrument of genocide, Tatad’s
petition should be outright ignored.
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