International
development select committee also supports review of UK aid and application of
financial sanctions
By Patrick Wintour
Diplomatic editor
The UK must support
efforts to refer Myanmar’s regime to the international criminal court over
evidence of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Rohingya people and human rights
abuses, according to MPs on the international development select committee.
They also called for
a complete review of UK aid to Myanmar, which was worth £100m in 2018, saying
the sums were agreed at the time it appeared the country was on a transition to
democracy.
The committee
concludes that no such transition, or any genuine peace process, is under way,
adding they were barred from visiting the country to visit UK aid projects when
visas were denied by Myanmar authorities at the highest level at the last
minute.
Read also: Major changes in UK
Burma policy required following Rohingya crisis https://lnkd.in/gag8VsR
The idea of
collective action against the Myanmar regime has been stalled at the UN due to
opposition from China, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council.
But the committee
says the UK and allies should still seek to gather “support for the UN security
council to refer Burma to the international criminal court and to apply
targeted financial sanctions at all identifiable key figures”. Myanmar is not a
signatory to the ICC.
It welcomes a move
by the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to seek a ruling whether she can
investigate the deportation
of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh. https://lnkd.in/gPn4aVM
After ambassadors
from the UN Security Council visited
Myanmar last month, they called for the safe return of refugees, but
also recognised Myanmar’s sovereignty. More than 680,000 Rohingha have been
forced to flee Rakhine state since the violence started in August 2017. https://lnkd.in/g9Yyu5E
There has been a
tension within the UK’s Foreign Office over the degree to which Britain should
give Myanmar’s state counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, further leeway due to her
need to appease a military junta that still runs foreign policy and defence.
But the British
parliamentary committee says the former Nobel Prize winner and political
prisoner has become part of the problem. It accuses her of a “longstanding approach of
denying human rights abuses have taken place and seeking to obstruct
moves towards justice and accountability [and] failing to counter hates speech
through positive speech and messages of tolerance and restraint”. https://lnkd.in/g92v78G
The MPs point out
that, since the last British aid programme was prepared, “there has been ethnic
cleansing, the breaking of ceasefires, a closing of civil society space,
including restrictions on media freedoms and the persecution of journalists,
and a reduction in religious freedom”.
Following this bleak
assessment, the committee said the UK’s government’s language and actions
towards Myanmar needed to change dramatically, including by imposing targeted
sanctions.
The committee says:
“[Myanmar] must realise that there is a bill to pay for the actions of its army
and the inaction its government and society. The dramatic changes to the
situation in Burma must drive dramatic change in UK policy.”
The UK government
continues to promote trade links and provide technical assistance to the
Myanmar government. The only substantive change in its policy, according to the
committee, has been an end to funding for the Myanmar armed forces.
The committee’s
chair, Stephen Twigg, said: “British taxpayers must be assured that their money
is not being used to subsidise a government accused of crimes against humanity.
If there is nothing to report, we recommend suspending these programmes.”
Read also: 'Lives will be
lost': 700,000 Rohingya face cyclone season under tarpaulin https://lnkd.in/gWy-RS7
The committee, which
has twice before reported on the plight of refugees expelled from Rakhine
state, say they are now deeply concerned by the threat to the Rohingya’s
fraught and fragile foothold in Bangladesh as the monsoon season approaches.
The UK has provided
£70m in aid to help address the impact of the monsoon at Cox’s Bazaar, the main
refugee camp, including help to ensure the inhabitants have access to safe
drinking water.Bangladesh is already one of the world’s most densely populated
countries, and is home to 21 million people living precariously in extreme
poverty, vulnerable to natural disaster.
Twigg said:“This is
not a challenge which Bangladesh should face alone. The international community
should step up to provide a long-term plan for countries that carry out a
global ‘public good’ by hosting refugees, migrants or displaced persons.”