Statement By Fareed Khan
Rohingya Human Rights Network
To Mark Human Rights Day
And Respond To The ICJ Genocide Case
Against Myanmar In The Hague
Parliament Hill
Ottawa, Canada

(Check against delivery at following link: https://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/headline-politics/episodes/66121690/

December 10, 2019, Ottawa ON – Yesterday, December 9th, was the International Day of Commemoration for the Victims of Genocide. Today, December 10th, is International Human Rights Day. These two days commemorate the anniversaries of the ground-b reaking UN Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights which are 71 years old.

We are here to commemorate those days during a week when the International Court of Justice in The Hague will hear an application from the West African nation of Gambia to file charges against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention, for atrocities committed against the Rohingya under the leadership of disgraced Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Rohingya Human Rights Network has been calling for the Genocide Convention to be invoked against Myanmar since early 2018. This landmark treaty, which was the first to be drafted and ratified by the United Nations after World War 2, is the only mechanism available that can hold a state accountable for the crimes it committed, and the only tool that provides mechanisms for restitution for the victims of genocide.

However, when we began our campaign to invoke the Genocide Convention it was not Gambia, but rather the government of Canada that we were asking to file a case at the ICJ. After the atrocities came to light in September 2017 Canada showed leadership on the world stage by being one of the first nations to condemn the atrocities, by appointing a special envoy to explore options to help the Rohingya, by committing $300 million in humanitarian aid, by raising the Rohingya crisis at international forums like the G7 summit, and by passing two unanimously supported resolutions in Parliament last year which recognized that genocide was committed, becoming the first nation to do so.

For more than a year Canada provided hope to the Rohingya that justice would be done, and we were hopeful that Canada would be leading the effort. But that is where Canada’s leadership on the international stage stopped, and were Rohingya hopes were dashed.

Despite more than a year and a half of lobbying the government, despite repeated calls by our organization and other human rights voices to invoke the Genocide Convention, Canada failed to act. One third of the Senate, more than 125 human rights and civil society organizations, and MPs from all parties signed letters to the prime minister and foreign affairs minister calling on Canada to file a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. But the government seemed deaf to those calls. Our organization held a multitude of media conferences on Parliament Hill since 2018, and organized events in every major city across Canada calling on the government to take action at the ICJ, but we were ignored.

Even a petition that was delivered to the government with more than 45,000 signatures at the time calling on the government to invoke the Genocide Convention was ignored by the prime minister and foreign affairs minister. Today that petition has more than 77,000 signatures.

For the last four years both the prime minister and former foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland have repeated the phrase “Canada is a rule of law nation”, and claimed that Canada lives up to its international treaty obligations. Well, that’s obviously not the case. Because the Canadian government did neither when it came to taking action to stop the Rohingya genocide and seek legal sanctions under the Genocide Convention. Essentially, after giving hope to the Rohingya Canada failed them by not acting.

For more than eighteen months the Canadian government has refused to live up to its treaty obligations under the Genocide Convention by filing a case at the ICJ against Myanmar, despite admitting that the crime of genocide has been committed by Myanmar. Instead it’s the West African nation of Gambia that has shown leadership. It has picked up the cause of seeking justice for the Rohingya at the ICJ where Canada has apparently refused. Through its actions it has shown that it is now the leader on the international stage on the Rohingya crisis that Canada apparently isn’t.

Today Rohingya have travelled to The Hague from around the world to say thank you to Gambia, and to show solidarity for taking on the genocide case against Myanmar, and to stand in defiance of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who will defend her nation’s actions before the ICJ. Rohingya are in The Hague to show her and the world that they will not be silenced, they will not be intimidated, or forgotten, despite the horrors and atrocities that have been inflicted on them by the Myanmar government, recently and over the past four decades.

To quote Hafsar Tameesuddin, a young Rohingya woman I met in The Hague in June of this year: You may have tried in every possible way to erase our existence. But we exist and we will continue to strive and exist in honour of our people who have been murdered and who have lost everything. Our souls shall never rest until what has been taken away from us will be given back to us with dignity and respect."

There are also Rohingya Canadians who will be in that crowd in front of The Hague today and for the rest of this week. They are there to send a signal to the Prime Minister that if Canada wants to be a “rule of law” nation and defender of human rights, as he and Chrystia Freeland have so often stated, then they should take lessons from Gambia, which is living up to its legal responsibilities under the genocide convention and defending the human rights of the Rohingya. Where Canada has offered platitudes and slogans with no actions behind the words, Gambia is offering a real hope for justice.

However, Canada does have a path to redemption.

If the prime minister wants to show that Canada is truly a defender of the rules-based international order and human rights, then we ask him to sinstruct Canadian officials to have Canada become a party to Gambia’s genocide filing. We, and all those who have been lobbying the government to stop the genocide in Myanmar which continues today, still want Canada to participate in the genocide case, and put its legal expertise and international weight behind this prosecution in a substantive way.

Because, frankly, words are cheap, and we’ve heard far too many words from the Canadian government on this issue followed by tool little action.

It’s actions that matter. Especially when it comes to helping those Rohingya who have survived genocide, and those who continue to be subjected to it.

Sitting on the sidelines is not an option. Canada needs to show leadership and join Gambia in prosecuting the Rohingya genocide at the ICJ.

If Justin Trudeau truly wants Canada to be a leader on the international stage then now is the moment to act and demonstrate Canadian leadership in a case where justice for survivors of genocide is the goal.

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