Rohingya

With Myanmar’s military still controlling 25 percent of its parliament and a history of brutal crackdowns—not to mention the recent Rohingya crisis—COVID-19 is exacerbating the precarious balance between the military and civilians in power.

World Refugee Day is an appropriate time to reflect on how policymakers should address these challenges while ensuring refugees have religious freedom.

The most profound and powerful reasons for religious freedom are Christian reasons, and they extend not only to Christians but to all people. In my view this means that there is also a deep theological warrant for international religious freedom.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on several members of the Burmese military, Border Guard Police commanders, and two Burmese military units for their involvement in mass atrocities. More states should do the same.

While the work of the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom is vital, the ambassador is most effective when he or she influences the department and US policy as a whole. The combination of ambassador-at-large and religion is thus a difficult one at State, so having someone as politically experienced as Brownback in the role is vital.

President Trump’s purported remarks about “s—hole countries” have echoed off the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights—an echo being the usual response of a hollow institution.

The Burmese military is the primary perpetrator of violence against Rohingya. Villages in Maungdaw township on the border with Bangladesh are almost completely empty because Rohingya fled the brutal violence. The United Nations is calling it a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, and Human Rights Watch believes it may constitute crimes against humanity.

Bangladesh is building one of the world’s largest refugee camps to house the hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya people fleeing Myanmar. Here’s what you should know about what the UN Refugee Agency calls the fastest-growing refugee emergency in the world today.

Nations are inclined to raise their moral voices, even if the impact on other nations is limited. They should use their moral voices much more sparingly. In short, moral triage is called for.