Special rapporteur for
Myanmar to push for resolution at UN human rights council meeting next month
for investigation into reports of military atrocities
The UN should launch an
inquiry into military abuses of Myanmar’s minority Rohingya Muslims, because
the government is incapable of carrying out a credible investigation, the UN’s
rights envoy will tell the human rights council next month. Yanghee Lee, the UN
special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said that she will urge member
states to sponsor a resolution for a commission of inquiry when she presents
her report to the council in Geneva on 13 March.
“I will certainly be pushing
for an inquiry, definitely, on the Rohingya situation,” said Lee. Rights groups
have, over the past few years, been urging the UN to investigate reports of
abuses against the Rohingya, a mostly stateless minority. But the calls have
become more urgent since reports of mass rapes, killings, and other atrocities
began to emerge in October, when the military launched counterinsurgency
operations.
There is now unprecedented
pressure for a UN-backed inquiry, which could find evidence that Myanmar’s
military has committed crimes against humanity.
“A commission of inquiry
would have been unthinkable six months ago, but serious momentum is growing
daily,” said Matt Smith, chief executive officer of the human rights
organisation Fortify Rights, which has documented abuses of Rohingya. “The
special rapporteur plays an essential role in helping UN member states
understand what to do. They’ll strongly consider her recommendations.”
More than 69,000 Rohingya
have fled to Bangladesh since October, bringing with them horrific accounts of
soldiers attacking their communities in Maungdaw, a township on the border that
the military has kept under strict lockdown. Rohingya who made it to Bangladesh
have recounted their experiences to groups such as Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch, which also analysed satellite images indicating that the
military systematically burned villages.
A “flash report” issued on 3
February by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
added considerable weight to the push for an inquiry. Myanmar refused to allow
UN investigators into Maungdaw, but 204 survivors in Bangladesh recounted
harrowing experiences that allegedly included witnessing children being
“slaughtered with knives”.
Myanmar’s civilian government,
headed by Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has for months responded
to such allegations with outright denials. But her administration appears to
have softened its stance – if only slightly – in the wake of the OHCHR
findings. Spokespersons for the president’s office and the foreign ministry did
not answer phone calls, but on 9 February the government printed a statement on
the front page of the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper in
response to the OHCHR report.
“The government of Myanmar
considers the allegations contained in the report very serious in nature and is
also deeply concerned about the report,” said the statement, which added that a
government commission formed in December would investigate.
Few people outside the
government have faith in that commission, which is headed by Myint Swe, a former
lieutenant general who was only recently removed from the US sanctions list.
“It’s gone beyond the point
of depending on the government to do a credible investigation,” said Lee, who
met with the commission during her visit to Myanmar last month. “It didn’t even
have a methodology of approaching this investigation.” A UN commission would
include forensic specialists who would be tasked with determining whether
crimes took place or not.
Two questions loom large:
Will one of the 47 member states in the human rights council put forward a
resolution to form a commission of inquiry? And, if so, will Myanmar cooperate?
The military is unlikely to allow access to investigators who would probably
find evidence that its soldiers committed crimes against humanity, according to
a European diplomat who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the
situation. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government may be cooperative, but the military
has ignored instructions over the past few months from her administration to
allow independent investigators, the diplomat said.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s
administration has no control over the military, and her influence on military
matters is thought to be little – if any. The generals dissolved their junta in
2010, after almost half a century of unbroken military rule, and ushered in
sweeping reforms that allowed Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy
to participate in elections after being violently repressed for decades. While
the NLD won a majority in parliament, the military occupies key ministries in
line with the constitution it wrote in 2008, which also gives it authority to
carry out operations without civilian oversight.
However, the military would
be under intense pressure to cooperate with a UN-backed commission of inquiry.
Refusal by the government and military to cooperate with the UN would strip
away much of the credibility Myanmar has gained internationally over the past
few years through the reform process initiated by the generals themselves. “It
would put Myanmar back in time, to pariah state status,” said Lee.
That question of how Myanmar
reacts will be irrelevant if no human rights council member sponsors a
resolution. Although pressure is growing, it is by no means a given.
During the Barack Obama
presidency, the US was supportive of the reform process, while also frequently
speaking out against rights violations. But US policy under President Donald
Trump remains to be seen. A spokesman for the US embassy declined to comment on
the potential for a UN-backed inquiry, and instead focused on Myanmar’s
promises to investigate the OHCHR findings. “We hope the Myanmar government
will take the report’s findings seriously and redouble efforts both to protect
the civilian population and to investigate these allegations in a thorough and
credible manner,” said the spokesman.
Queries to four other
embassies, as well as Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, received no response. Lee
and other sources pointed to the European Union as one of the most likely
candidates to sponsor a resolution. The EU ambassador, Roland Kobia, appeared to
suggest it was a possibility. “The EU will continue to table a Myanmar-specific
country resolution in the UN [human rights council] as we have done in years
past,” said Kobia. “I would expect that the topic of the investigation … will
come up during the negotiations on the resolution text.”