Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Myanmar’s Commission Accuses Rohingya Refugees of Fleeing Homes for no Reason

By Rohingya Vision
21-03-2017

Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh — The Myanmar Commission of Inquiry has accused the freshly arrived Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh of fleeing their homes in Myanmar for no reason, it has been reported. Read here: https://goo.gl/o6DNQp

The 10-11 member Myanmar Commission (set up by the Myanmar President Htin Kyaw on December 1, 2016, to apparently investigate into the reports of atrocity crimes against the Rohingyas in Maungdaw and Rathedaung) visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Kutupalong area on Sunday (Mar 19) and in Balukhali and Leda regions on Monday (March 20) accompanied by several international NGOs and heavy security personnel. The commission talked to several fresh influxes of the Rohingya refugees especially after the military attacks began in Maungdaw on October 9, 2016.

“We didn’t commit any abuses or tortures against you. Nor did our armed forces rape you. You have fled your homes for no reason”, said a Commission member to Ms. A (not real name), a raped victim originally from the village of “Ngar Sar Kyu” in Maungdaw, when she told the Commission on how she was abused and raped by the Myanmar military in October 2016.

After her interview with the Commission members, she was seen coming out of the place in tears and said that her claims of horrors in the hands of the Myanmar military were dismissed by the Myanmar Commission.

“To any sane people, a Commission composed of the government officials themselves complicit in the atrocity crimes against the Rohingya people makes no sense. It was formed to just whitewash the atrocity crimes by the Myanmar military; to discredit, in a brutally dishonest way, the international reports by the UN Rapporteur Ms.Yanghee Lee, the UN Human Rights Council (UN-HRC), and the Human Rights Groups; and to blindfold the international community.

“We wanted to protest and boycott against the so-called Myanmar Commission. But there were heavy securities deployed along with them”, said Mohammed Kabir, a Rohingya Refugee in Kutupalong.

Earlier, Dhaka Tribune has reported how the same Commission accused another fresh Rohingya Refugeein Kutupalong, Anwar Kamal, of lying after he described the atrocities he witnessed. In an interview with Dhaka Tribune, Anwar Kamal said “whenever a refugee would speak, they would interrupt and say they were lying.” Read here: http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/2017/03/20/rohingya-refugees-claim-myanmar-delegation-dismissed-tales-violence/

“I heard a delegation member say ‘These Rohingyas are making things up after fleeing to Bangladesh,’ which makes it clear that they’re just for show.”

Ironically, while the Myanmar government officials and the domestic media continue to spread propaganda in the country to drive the country’s Buddhist majority Buddhist population against the minority Rohingya by branding them as the illegal Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh, the same government sends a Commission to Bangladesh to interview the (recently arrived) refugees as a part of a so-called fact-finding mission and thereby indirectly accepting that the Rohingyas — no matter whatsoever name they are called with in Myanmar or their claims of atrocity crimes are accepted by the Myanmar government or not — are indeed from Myanmar, not from Bangladesh.