Aileen Thomson
Head of Office,
Nepal
11/04/2017
Last month, the UN
Human Rights Council decided to send an independent, international fact-finding
mission to investigate serious human rights violations in Myanmar. This is a
much-needed step toward combating impunity in the country. The new government
under Aung San Suu Kyi will have a choice – continue to deny the reality of
widespread abuses to placate the military or stand firmly on the side of
justice and victims by pledging full cooperation.
Though the
government has thus far rejected the international investigation, with both the
spokesman of the President’s Office and UN ambassador calling it “unacceptable”
and alleging it would worsen the situation in the country, there is still time
to reverse that policy.
It is fitting that
the Human Rights Council’s decision was reached on the International Day of the
Right to Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations. For decades,
successive Myanmar political and military leaders, including Suu Kyi’s, have
flatly denied what millions of their citizens know, that the military has
committed and continues to commit human rights violations. Even recently, faced
with mounting evidence including from the UN, Suu Kyi denied that ethnic
cleansing is taking place in Rakhine State, attributing problems to divided
communities instead of the security forces.
In 2012, the most
serious violence in years broke out against the Rohingya ethnic group in
response to rumors of crimes committed by them against Rakhine Buddhists,
another ethnic minority group living in Rakhine State. Since then, thousands of
Rohingya have been living in IDP camps in the state, with limited access to
food, medical care, education and livelihoods. Thousands more have left the
state in boats headed for Thailand or Malaysia, or crossed into Bangladesh to
live in unofficial refugee camps there.
Violence in the
state spiked in October 2016 after a group of apparently Rohingya men attacked
three border guard outposts, killing nine police officers and stealing weapons.
Investigations uncovered a new militant Rohingya organization of as-yet undetermined
strength. This was a pretext for months of what the military termed a
“clearance operation,” resulting in thousands of civilians fleeing to
Bangladesh and allegations that the military had burned down Rohingya houses,
beaten and raped Rohingya civilians and made hundreds of arbitrary arrests. The
tactics were immediately familiar to many members of other ethnic minorities in
Myanmar as similar to what they had experienced during decades of armed
conflict.
A key issue yet to
be determined is how broad the mission’s mandate will be. The UN resolution
describes it as to “establish the facts and circumstances of the alleged recent
human rights violations by military and security forces and abuses in Myanmar,
in particular in Rakhine State.” An investigation that focuses only on Rakhine
State may miss the enabling atmosphere of impunity in the country and alienate
victims of similar crimes in other parts of the country.
So far, the
government has not stated it would deny the mission entry into the country or
the affected areas altogether. But if the mission is given limited financial
and human resources, it may choose to focus its efforts entirely on Rakhine
State, given the geographic and logistic challenges of accessing and traveling
in some conflict-affected areas. This would fall short of revealing the full
scope of abuses and victims.
There is no doubt
that Suu Kyi is in a difficult position. She and her party, the National League
for Democracy, have chosen to try to work with the still-powerful military in
order to make progress toward sustainable peace. But forgiving past violations
in exchange for better behavior in the future, as Suu Kyi herself has proposed,
does not appear to be encouraging changes in military tactics. Instead,
violence against Rohingya has only increased — and the peace process in other
areas stalled, if not moved backward — since the party won elections.
Appeasement has sent the wrong message, that the military can act how it wants
so long as it cooperates minimally with the government.
The creation of the
fact-finding mission is an indication that the hoped-for improvement in respect
for human rights has not materialized under the new governing structures. It
represents a moment of truth also for Suu Kyi. Her strategy of cohabitation
with the military has not produced positive results. The mission provides her
with an opportunity for an arm’s-length inquiry that could strengthen demands
for reform and the political support to push them through. Failure to
cooperate, on the other hand, would send a profoundly negative message that
would rightly raise doubts about Suu Kyi’s credentials as a genuine defender of
human rights.
It would be naïve to
pretend that the issues are black-and-white and one has to recognize that the
choice facing Suu Kyi presents risks on both sides, but the test of real
leadership is captured in such moments of truth.