Special rapporteur on human rights calls for
investigation into rights abuses following bloody crackdown against the Muslim
minority
 |
UN investigators say that during a military operation in
October women were gang-raped by soldiers and Rohingya
babies were slaughtered.
Photograph: Nyunt Win/EPA
|
Myanmar may be seeking to “expel” all ethnic Rohingya from its territory, a UN rights expert
has said, pushing for a high-level inquiry into abuses against the Muslim
minority community. https://www.theguardian.com/world/rohingya
The United Nations
special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said a full purge
could be the ultimate goal of the institutional persecution and horrific
violence being perpetrated against the Rohingya. https://www.theguardian.com/world/unitednations
The evidence “indicates the government may be trying to
expel the Rohingya population from the country altogether,” Lee told the UN
rights council.
 |
A Myanmar policeman kicks a villager in Kotankauk
during
a clearance operation in November last year.
Evidence of abuse against Rohingya
Muslims
by the army is growing. AFP/Getty Images
|
UN investigators say that during the military operation
women were gang-raped by soldiers and Rohingya babies were slaughtered.
Lee wants the rights council to establish the UN’s
highest-level probe, a Commission of Inquiry (COI), to investigate that
crackdown as well as violent episodes in 2012 and 2014.
The council could set up the commission before its
session ends later this month, but key players including the European Union
have not yet backed Lee’s call because of concern that a damning UN
investigation might threaten the country’s fragile democracy drive.
Speaking to reporters after her council appearance, Lee
said she believed support for a Commission of Inquiry was tepid, including
within the EU.
 |
| Aung San Suu Kyi |
Suu Kyi’s government, which took charge last year after
decades of oppressive military rule, has rejected Lee’s bid to set up a
Commission of Inquiry and insisted its own national probe can uncover the facts
in Rakhine.
Lee conceded to reporters that a full international probe
“could have a destabilising affect” in that it may implicate the military in
crimes against humanity, but she insisted it was in the government’s interest
to get the facts out.
She also told the council that the government’s internal
probe had already been proved inadequate.
Representatives from the EU, The Netherlands and Britain
all avoided the question of a Commission of Inquiry during Monday’s discussion.
Britain’s envoy to the council, Julian Braithwaite, said
the international community needed to “engage (Myanmar) without damaging the
delicate civilian/military balance”.