Pressure mounts as Security Council meets today to discuss
Rohingya
“It’s not too late for the Security Council to respond
with action,” said Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights. “The civilian and
military leadership in Myanmar are ensuring complete impunity for ongoing,
heinous crimes, and that’s precisely why international action is warranted and
overdue.”
In response to violent assaults on security forces by the
Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in October 2016 and again in August 2017, the
Myanmar Army led a brutal attack on the Rohingya civilian population, forcing
more than 775,000 refugees to flee to Bangladesh and causing a humanitarian
situation that U.N. Secretary General Gustavo Guterres described as
“catastrophic.”
In a report
published in November 2017, Fortify Rights and the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum documented Myanmar Army-led massacres, mass
gang-rapes, and arson attacks against Rohingya since October 2016. Based
primarily on hundreds of testimonies from eyewitnesses and survivors collected
during a yearlong investigation since October 2016, the report found “mounting
evidence” of genocide.
On November 24, 2017, the U.N. special envoy on sexual
violence Pramila Patten said the Myanmar Army’s widespread use of sexual
violence against Rohingya women and girls was “a calculated tool of terror
aimed at the extermination and removal of the Rohingya as a group,” adding that
she, too, documented the basis for characterizing the crimes as genocide.
In a statement during a Special Session of the Human
Rights Council on December 5, 2017, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein referred to the crime of genocide with regard to the
attack on Rohingya, saying, “[C]an anyone rule out that elements of genocide
may be present?” In a BBC film that aired later that month, High Commissioner
Zeid said that members of the military as well as the civilian government in
the country may be liable for genocide.
More recently, at a press conference on February 1, U.N.
Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee said the situation of Rohingya in Myanmar “bears
the hallmarks of genocide.” https://www.pscp.tv/w/1OwxWMeqwbMGQ
In 2015, a
legal analysis prepared for Fortify Rights by the Allard K. Lowenstein
International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School found “strong evidence”
that the government of Myanmar was responsible for genocide against Rohingya
Muslims. http://www.fortifyrights.org/publication-20151029.html
“Understanding the crime of genocide is not the exclusive
domain of international courts,” said Matthew Smith. “If we can ever hope to
prevent genocide, we have to be able to diagnose it when we see it. Enough is
enough. It’s time to stop tip-toeing around terminology and move towards
holding perpetrators accountable.”
Video: https://youtu.be/ly6TJDpmv98
"No Man's Land" - In November 2017,
Bangladesh and Myanmar negotiated an agreement to repatriate refugees back to
Myanmar. This film, based on interviews conducted with Rohingya refugees and
others in Bangladesh, highlights concerns with the plans.
The governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar recently made
preparations to repatriate
Rohingya refugees back to northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. The
governments did not consult Rohingya or the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
about the plan. The repatriation was scheduled to begin January 23, but has
been delayed. http://www.fortifyrights.org/video-20180122.html
Donor governments and humanitarian agencies should not
support the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar under the current
conditions, Fortify Rights said. Donor governments and the U.N. should instead
ensure that any repatriation in the future is voluntary, safe, and dignified in
accordance with international standards.
Rohingya families continue to arrive in Bangladesh,
fleeing persecution and ongoing human rights violations in Myanmar. The Myanmar
authorities also continue to confine more than 120,000 Rohingya to dozens of
internment camps in eight townships of Rakhine State—mostly survivors of
violent attacks in 2012—while denying all Rohingya in Rakhine State equal
access to citizenship, marriage, education, and employment and systematically
restricting their freedom of movement. The authorities also continue to deny the
existence of Rohingya.
Since August 2017, the Government of Myanmar has denied
lifesaving humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Rohingya in need,
particularly in the three townships of northern Rakhine State—Maungdaw,
Buthidaung, and Rathedaung townships—creating conditions of life designed to be
destructive, Fortify Rights said.
The U.N. Security Council met in September and again in
December 2017 to discuss the Rohingya crisis, failing each time to issue
action-oriented resolutions.
In addition to a referral to the International Criminal
Court, the Security Council should also implement a global arms embargo on
Myanmar and targeted sanctions against those responsible for mass atrocity
crimes, Fortify Rights said.
“The inexcusable international response to this crisis
borders on complicity,” said Matthew Smith. “The Myanmar authorities took their
cues from international inaction and committed several rounds of mass
atrocities. We can’t let this continue.”