By @BBCJustinR
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, is determined that the
perpetrators of the horrors committed against the Rohingya face justice.
He's the head of the UN's watchdog for human rights
across the world, so his opinions carry weight.
Could Myanmar's leaders face genocide charges for the suffering of Rohingyas? UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein speaks exclusively to @BBCJustinR. https://t.co/HjfCqfUsFZ
It could go right to the top - he doesn't rule out the
possibility that civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the armed
forces Gen Aung Min Hlaing, could find themselves in the dock on genocide
charges sometime in the future.
Earlier this month, Mr Zeid told the UN Human Rights
Council that the widespread and systematic nature of the persecution of the
Rohingya in Myanmar (also called Burma) meant that genocide could not be ruled
out. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42234469
"Given the scale of the military operation, clearly
these would have to be decisions taken at a high level," said the high
commissioner, when we met at the UN headquarters in Geneva for BBC Panorama.
Myanmar's Rohingya: What you need to know about the
crisis http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41566561
Tales of horror from Myanmar http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41189748
That said, genocide is one of those words that gets
bandied about a lot. It sounds terrible - the so-called "crime of
crimes". Very few people have ever been convicted of it.
The crime was defined after the Holocaust. Member
countries of the newly founded United Nations signed a convention, defining
genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy a particular group.
It is not Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's job to prove acts of
genocide have been committed - only a court can do that. But he has called for
an international criminal investigation into the perpetrators of what he has
called the "shockingly brutal attacks" against the Muslim ethnic
group who are mainly from northern Rakhine in Myanmar.
For 4 months the world has watched as 646,000 #Rohingya have fled #EthnicCleansing by the #Myanmar (#Burma) authorities. The international community has a responsibility to protect (#R2P) them from atrocities and must act to halt the violence. https://t.co/MqlqlfK34u
But the high commissioner recognised it would be a tough
case to make: "For obvious reasons, if you're planning to commit genocide
you don't commit it to paper and you don't provide instructions."
"The thresholds for proof are high," he said.
"But it wouldn't surprise me in the future if a court were to make such a
finding on the basis of what we see."
By the beginning of December, nearly 650,000 Rohingya
- around two thirds of the entire population - had fled Myanmar after a
wave of attacks led by the army that began in late August. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/171212_iscg_sitrep_one_pager_final.pdf
Hundreds of villages were burned and thousands are
reported to have been killed.
There is evidence of terrible atrocities
being committed: massacres, murders and mass rapes - as I
heard myself when I was in the refugee camps as this crisis began. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/CXBMissionSummaryFindingsOctober2017.pdf
What clearly rankles the UN human rights chief is that he
had urged Ms Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, to take action to protect
the Rohingya six months before the explosion of violence in August.
He said he spoke to her on the telephone when his office
published a report in February documenting appalling atrocities committed
during an episode of violence that began in October 2016. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21142
"I appealed to her to bring these military
operations to an end," he told me. "I appealed to her emotional
standing… to do whatever she could to bring this to a close, and to my great
regret it did not seem to happen."
Video: The
Tula Toli massacre – BBC https://youtu.be/HRp0o0fzB2I
Ms Suu Kyi's power over the army is limited, but Zeid
Ra'ad Al Hussein believes she should have done more to try and stop the
military campaign.
He criticised her for failing to use the term
"Rohingya". "To strip their name from them is dehumanising to
the point where you begin to believe that anything is possible," he said -
powerful language for a top UN official.
He thought Myanmar's military was emboldened when the
international community took no action against them after the violence in 2016.
"I suppose that they then drew a conclusion that they could continue
without fear," he said.
"What we began to sense was that this was really
well thought out and planned," he told me.
The Myanmar government has said the military action was a
response to terrorist attacks in August which killed 12 members of the security
forces.
But BBC Panorama has gathered evidence that shows that
preparations for the continued assault on the Rohingya began well before that.
We show that Myanmar had been training and arming local
Buddhists. Within weeks of last year's violence the government made an offer:
"Every Rakhine national wishing to protect their state will have the
chance to become part of the local armed police." http://www.moi.gov.mm/moi:eng/?q=news/18/11/2016/id-9208
"This was a decision made to effectively perpetrate
atrocity crimes against the civilian population," said Matthew Smith,
chief executive of the human rights organisation Fortify Rights which has been
investigating the build-up to this year's violence.
Myanmar army report clears itself of blame for Rohingya
abuse http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41975331
Finding out the truth about Rohingya militants http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41521268
Seeing through the official story in Myanmar http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41222210
That view is borne out by refugees in the vast camps in
Myanmar who saw these volunteers in action, attacking their Rohingya neighbours
and burning down their homes.
"They were just like the army, they had the same
kind of weapons", said Mohammed Rafique, who ran a successful business in
Myanmar. "They were local boys, we knew them. When the army was burning
our houses, torturing us, they were there."
Who is burning down Rohingya villages? - BBC News https://youtu.be/9QIP5n15c9I
Meanwhile the Rohingya were getting more vulnerable in
other ways.
By the summer food shortages were widespread
in north Rakhine - and the government tightened the screws.
The programme has learnt that from mid-August the authorities had cut off
virtually all food and other aid to north Rakhine. https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000019264/download/?_ga=2.20364536.1912947025.1513089909-645355599.1513089909
And the army brought in reinforcements. On 10 August, two
weeks before the militant attacks, it was reported that a battalion had been
flown in.
The UN human rights representative for Myanmar was so
concerned she issued a public warning, urging restraint from the Myanmar
authorities. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21968&LangID=E
But when Rohingya militants launched attacks on 30 police
posts and an army base, the military response was huge, systematic and
devastating.
Rohingya exodus 'untenable' - Bangladesh https://youtu.be/S8T4ntz06pY
The BBC asked Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the
Myanmar armed forces for a response. But neither of them has replied.
Almost four months on from those attacks and Zeid Ra'ad
Al Hussein is concerned the repercussions of the violence are not yet over. He
fears this "could just be the opening phases of something much
worse".
He worries jihadi groups could form in the huge refugee
camps in Bangladesh and launch attacks in Myanmar, perhaps even targeting
Buddhist temples. The result could be what he called a "confessional
confrontation" - between Buddhists and Muslims.
It is a frightening thought, as the high commissioner
acknowledged, but one he believes Myanmar isn't taking seriously enough.
"I mean the stakes are so enormous," he said.
"This sort of flippant manner by which they respond to the serious
concerns of the international community is really alarming."