At hearings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Rohingya genocide case filed by The Gambia, Professor Michael Newton, a leading expert on military operations and counter-terrorism, stated that Myanmar’s military campaigns in 2016–2017 reflected genocidal intent, not merely “ethnic cleansing.”

Addressing the judges, Prof. Newton rejected the characterization of the mass displacement of nearly one million Rohingya into Bangladesh as ethnic cleansing. Responding to questions from The Gambia regarding whether the targeted attacks on Rohingya civilians could be described as ethnic cleansing, he said the term was legally insufficient to capture the nature of the crimes committed.

He explained that ethnic cleansing refers primarily to the forcible removal of a population from a particular area. However, when such removal is accompanied by acts intended to destroy a group as such, the conduct exceeds ethnic cleansing and constitutes genocide.

Prof. Newton detailed extensive evidence of atrocities committed by the Myanmar military, including gang rapes—among them the rape of women in advanced stages of pregnancy—the killing of infants, children, and adults, the burning and destruction of entire villages, mass killings of Rohingya civilians while they were fleeing, and the systematic eradication of hundreds of Rohingya villages without leaving any trace.

According to Prof. Newton, these acts demonstrate not merely an intention to expel the Rohingya population, but a clear intent to destroy the group itself, which must be legally defined as genocidal intent.

He further noted that multiple internationally recognized indicators of genocide were clearly present in the Myanmar military’s operations. These include:

    – the repeated and prolonged commission of atrocities over time (repetition);

        – the consistent pattern of violence, including shootings, sexual violence, and arson (similarity);

            – the exclusive targeting of Rohingya civilians (targeting);

                – the sustained pursuit of a single objective to terrorize and eliminate the population (consistent purpose); and

                    – the systematic involvement of the military and allied forces, indicating state orchestration.

Taken together, Prof. Newton concluded, these factors demonstrate that Myanmar’s 2016–2017 military operations went far beyond ethnic cleansing and were carried out with the intent to commit genocide—a position he presented clearly before the ICJ judges.