The Rohingya,
stripped of citizenship by Myanmar’s then-military leaders in 1982, are loathed
by many in the Buddhist-majority country
 |
Senior General Min
Aung Hlaing and National League for
Democracy party leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Photo: Reuters
|
Myanmar’s army on
Tuesday cleared itself of allegations that troops may have carried out ethnic
cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, but said a soldier had been jailed for taking a
motorbike.
More than 70,000
members of the persecuted minority fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after the
military launched a widespread crackdown late last year in the north of Rakhine
state to hunt down insurgents who attacked police border posts.
UN investigators who
interviewed hundreds of escapees documented reports of mass killings,
widespread rapes and horrifying accounts of babies being thrown into burning
houses.
In a report released
in February they said security forces may have committed atrocities so severe
they amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
But on Tuesday the
military said the results of its own investigation, led by army chief Aye Win,
showed those charges were “false and fabricated”.
“Out of 18
accusations included in the OHCHR report, 12 were found to be incorrect, with
[the] remaining six accusations found to be false and fabricated accusations
based on lies and invented statements,” said a report by the army’s “True News”
team carried in state media, using the abbreviation for the UN’s rights body.
One member of the
security forces was, however, sentenced to a year in jail and fined for taking
a motorbike without the knowledge of its owner, the statement said.
A village head and
several villagers were also whipped and two people sent to prison for failing
to help put out a fire.
Both the military
and the civilian government led by Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
have denied allegations of widespread atrocities against the Rohingya and
refused to allow in a UN fact-finding mission to investigate.
Amnesty
International warns Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya may amount to ‘crimes
against humanity:’ http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2055703/amnesty-international-warns-myanmar-treatment-rohingya-may
Instead the
government, police and military have launched their own probes into the
violence. These have been roundly criticised by rights groups as biased and
lacking credibility.
The army said its
investigators had interviewed 2,875 people from 29 villages, but did not say
whether they were ethnic Rakhines or the Rohingya Muslims who make up the
majority in northern Rakhine.
The Rohingya,
stripped of citizenship by Myanmar’s then-military leaders in 1982, are loathed
by many in the Buddhist-majority country, who claim they are illegal immigrants
from Bangladesh and refer to them as “Bengalis”.