By Reuters
The United Nations’ independent investigator into human
rights in Burma has called for international pressure on China and Russia to
try to get them to oppose human rights abuses in Burma.
UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee, who was last week
barred by the Burmese government from visiting the country, singled out China
and Russia because they had failed to back some moves in the UN aimed at trying
to halt the Burmese military’s crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim community in
Rakhine State.
“I’d like to ask the international community to continue
to work with China and Russia to persuade them to stand on the side of human
rights,” Lee told Reuters in an interview.
Neither has joined the United States, the European Union,
and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in condemning the crackdown that
has led to the exodus of what aid agencies estimate to be 655,000 refugees into
Bangladesh.
In response to Lee, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman
Hua Chunying said that “external actors” adding pressure over human rights will
not help to resolve the issue, and may make it more complicated.
This would not be in the interests of Burma, its
neighbours or the international community, she said at a regular news briefing
in Beijing on Thursday. “We hope that countries or individuals external to the
issue can create a positive environment that is more conducive to Myanmar
resolving the issue for themselves,” Hua added.
The Russian foreign ministry did not respond to a request
for comment.
The Russian government has previously warned against
interfering in Burma’s internal affairs. Russia’s ambassador to Burma, Nikolay
Listopadov, has said it is “against excessive intervention, because it won’t
lead to any constructive results.”
The Burmese armed forces are accused by members of the
Rohingya community and human rights advocates of carrying out killings, rapes
and village burnings, in what top officials in the United Nations and United
States have described as ethnic cleansing.
The Russian and Chinese stance is particularly important
because either of them can block the UN Security Council from referring
allegations of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court in
The Hague. The ICC cannot act against Burma without a referral because Burma is
not an ICC member.
Burma has denied human rights abuses, saying its military
is engaged in a legitimate counter-insurgency operation. The military
exonerated itself of all accusations of atrocities in an internal
investigation, which published its findings on 13 November.
Burma’s foreign affairs ministry has said Lee was not
objective or impartial in a report she issued in July, and it wanted a fair
investigator.
Lee said there had to be a fair, partial and independent
investigation.
“The families of the victims have a right to know what
happened, and I think the people of Myanmar need to know what happened, because
we’re seeing, in front of our eyes, the worst humanitarian crisis.”
Surveys of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by aid agency
Medecins Sans Frontieres have shown at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in
Rakhine State in the month after violence flared in late August, the aid group
said last week.
The special rapporteur also criticised recent government
crackdowns on media in Burma, including the arrest this month of two Reuters
journalists who had reported on the crisis in Rakhine.
She said that the authorities were creating “a national
gag” that would prevent journalists from reporting what they see. “That will
have consequences on the general public too — people will not be able to speak
as freely.”
Burma has said the reporters “illegally acquired
information with the intention to share it with foreign media.”