By Lindsay Murdoch SMH
Bangkok: The United Nations investigator of human rights
in Myanmar has accused Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of “complicity” in the
slaughter of Rohingya Muslims, an event which has the “hallmarks of genocide”.
Yanghee Lee, a leading child rights expert appointed to
the UN post in 2014, said it is possible that Myanmar’s defacto leader could
eventually face charges relating to genocide or crimes against humanity in an
international tribunal.
“She cannot not be accountable,” Lee told Britain’s
Channel 4 News.
“Complicity is also part of accountability,” she said.
In the UN’s strongest condemnation yet of the one-time
hero of democratic rights, Lee said Suu Kyi is either in denial or far removed
from the Myanmar military’s atrocities against Rohingya in the country’s
Rakhine State, including mass killings, rapes and the burnings of children,
which have been extensively documented.
“I’m afraid she has been a role model for everyone,
including me, and an angel,” Lee said.
“And it is really disappointing.”
Lee said Suu Kyi should never have been put on pedestal.
“She was never a Goddess of democracy and human
rights…she was a politician and is still a politician,” she said.
Suu Kyi, the 72 year-old daughter of Myanmar’s
independence hero Aung San, has borne the brunt of international outcries over
the atrocities and been stripped of a welter of honours from her days fighting
for democracy.
Don’t miss to read “The UN has called the Rohingya
violence a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing," but Myanmar leader
Aung San Suu Kyi claims most Rohingya Muslim villages are intact.” https://www.facebook.com/trtworld/videos/1974612379475575/
On Friday Thailand awarded Myanmar’s army chief Min Aung
Hlaing a royal decoration despite ordering a brutal military crackdown on
Rohingya insurgents last August that prompted almost 700,000 of the stateless
minority to flee to squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Min Aung Hlaing posted a photograph to his official
Facebook page of him smiling alongside his Thai counterpart as he received the
“Knight Grand First Class of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant.” in
Bangkok.
The Royal Thai Armed Forces said in a statement the award
was to “show the long and close relations” between the two countries.
A Thai Defence Ministry spokesman said “it’s tradition to
give a royal decoration to supreme commanders of foreign countries.”
Thailand also invited Myanmar as observers to military
exercises in Thailand, prompting criticism from rights groups who questioned
why a military accused of ethnic cleansing was being given access.
Despite overwhelming evidence against Myanmar soldiers,
the Turnbull government has also refused to cut military ties with Myanmar or
to condemn its generals.
The ties include the hosting of two dozen Myanmar
military officers for training in Australia, as well as providing other
support.
In the interview with British television Lee, who was
banned from visiting Myanmar in January, after making previous visits, said
conditions are not safe for almost one million Rohingya in Bangladesh to return
to Rakhine.
Bangladesh on Friday handed over the first 8000 Rohingya
to Myanmar to kick-start a repatriation program agreed between the two
countries in November.
But Lee said Rohingya cannot be safely repatriated unless
Myanmar dismantles repressive and discriminatory policies against them, adding
that even if they return “you will see the same thing happen.”
Myanmar has for decades refused to grant Rohingya basic
rights such as citizenship and freedom of travel.
Lee also said she believes more mass graves will be
discovered in Rakhine in the coming months.
“I have received information,” she said.
More than 1.1 million Rohingya see Rakhine as their
homelands and have been living there for generations but Buddhist-majority
Myanmar regards them as interlopers from Bangladesh.