Thread by @humeyra_pamuk

SCOOP: The Biden administration has formally determined that violence committed against the Rohingya minority by #Myanmar's military amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity, U.S. officials tell me & @Simondlewis

.@SecBlinken will announce the formal declaration -- which comes 14 months after he took office and pledged to conduct a new review of the violence -- tomorrow morning at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington

U.S. officials believe the formal determination will increase international pressure to hold the junta, which now runs Myanmar, accountable and it will "make it harder for them to commit further abuses."

Blinken's recognition of genocide and crimes against humanity refers mainly to events in 2017, before last year's coup. The step comes after two State Department examinations -- one initiated in 2018 and the other in 2020 -- failed to produce a determination.

Days after U.S. President Joe Biden took office, Myanmar generals seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, after complaining of fraud in a November 2020 general election won by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi's party. Election monitoring groups found no evidence of mass fraud.

Before Blinken made the decision this month, officials debated whether blaming Myanmar's government -- rather than specifically its military -- for the atrocities could complicate U.S. support for the country's deposed democratic forces, according to a source fam w/the matter.

Activists say a clear statement by Washington that genocide was committed could bolster efforts to hold the generals accountable, such as a case in the ICJ where The Gambia has accused Myanmar of genocide, citing Myanmar's atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.

Myanmar's military has denied committing genocide against the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar, and said it was conducting an operation against terrorists in 2017.

A genocide determination does not automatically unleash punitive U.S. action. Since the Cold War, the State Dept has formally used the term six times to describe massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Darfur, the Islamic State's attacks on Yazidis & over China’s treatment of Uyghurs.