The Army and security forces are accused of
raping Rohingya women, shooting villagers on sight and burning down homes
The Burmese government’s
inquiry into allegations of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during
a crackdown against the Rohingya Muslim minority last year has concluded no
such crimes happened.
Read more
about govt’s inquiry: http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Burma
Rohingya
babies and children 'being slaughtered with knives', UN warns Read more: https://lnkd.in/gA3QwHb
Rohingya militants
killed nine border guards in October, sparking a response in which the army was
accused of raping Rohingya women, shooting villagers on sight and burning down
homes, sending an estimated 75,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.
Raped by
Myanmar Army: https://lnkd.in/gu5tWeh
Rohingya
fleeing into Banglades: hhttp://www.independent.co.uk/topic/Bangladesh
A UN report in
February said security forces instigated a campaign which “very likely”
amounted to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing. This led to
the establishment of a UN probe which is being blocked by Burma.
The Burmese inquiry
accused the UN of making exaggerated claims in its report.
The country’s own
13-member investigation team – led by former head of military intelligence and
now Vice President, Myint Swe – has been dismissed by human rights monitors as
lacking independence to produce a credible report.
Speaking at the
release of the Rakhine Investigative Commission’s final report, Vice President
Myint Swe – a former general – told reporters on Sunday that “there is no
evidence of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing as the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights claimed”.
He added that “some
people from abroad have fabricated news claiming genocide had occurred, but we haven’t
found any evidence”.
He also denied
charges that there had been gang rapes by the military as it swept through
Rohingya villages in a security clearance operation. The army was reacting to
deadly attacks against border police posts by a previously unknown insurgent
group in October 2016 in the Maungdaw area of Rakhine.
Rohingya
mothers face persecution: https://lnkd.in/gfkfSXi
The panel said that
the report did not take into consideration “violent acts” committed by the
insurgents, instead focusing on the activities of the security forces.
Rights groups have
previously expressed their doubts over the commission’s work, saying it lacked
outside experts, had poor research methodologies and lacked credibility because
it was not independent.
Burmese
government denies ongoing genocide of Rohingya Muslims: https://lnkd.in/gppa33C
The commission’s
report did accept that some things might have happened that broke the law,
attributing it to excessive action on the part of individual members of the
security forces.
The Burmese
commission had received 21 reports from villagers of incidents of murder, rape,
arson and torture by the security forces, but, unable to verify their veracity,
it referred them to the authorities.
“We opened doors for
them to complain to the courts if they have evidence that they suffered human
rights abuses, but no one came to open a lawsuit until now,” Zaw Myint Pe, the
secretary of the panel said.
The commission
blamed the violence on the insurgents, accusing them of links to organisations
abroad, “set up to destabilise and harm Myanmar (Burma)”.
The treatment of the
roughly one million Muslim Rohingyas has emerged as majority Buddhist Burma’s
most contentious rights issue as it makes a transition from decades of harsh
military rule.
The Rohingya are
denied citizenship and classified as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh,
despite claiming roots in the region that go back centuries, with communities
marginalised and occasionally subjected to communal violence.
Source: https://lnkd.in/gcQa6ss