Politicians in Myanmar on Friday rejected international
pressure to hold the country’s powerful military accountable for a brutal
crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority group.
The government of Aung San Sui Kyi has faced mounting
pressure over the 2017 campaign that pushed more than 700,000 members of the
Muslim minority group to Bangladesh.
The Rohingya were also subjected to indiscriminate
killings, rape, and torture, and their villages were burned during a campaign
of violence that began on Aug. 25, 2017, in northern Rakhine state in response
to deadly attacks on police outposts by a Rohingya militant group.
The latest international figure to call for Myanmar
leaders to take action against top military brass that ordered the crackdown
was British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
“What is essential now is that the perpetrators of any
atrocities are brought to justice, because without that there can be no
solution to the huge refugee problem,” Hunt said in a statement issued
Thursday. “We will use all the tools at our disposal to try and make sure there
is accountability.”
That day, Hunt wrapped up a two-day visit to Myanmar
during which he met State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint
and toured northern Rakhine to meet with different groups who live in the
multiethnic state.
Hunt’s appeal was rebuffed by politicians across the
spectrum in Myanmar.
Zaw Htay, spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi, suggested that
foreign delegates who visit Myanmar put trade above the Rakhine issue, because
the country’s political situation will become more stable if there is a strong
economy, and vice versa.
“Now the government has to spend a lot of time and energy
only on this Rakhine issue,” he said. “For example, whenever we have an
international delegation, they raise the Rakhine issue first followed by other
important topics such as developing international ties and then trade.”
Request is 'unacceptable'
Nandar Hla Myint, spokesman of the opposition,
army-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), said Hunt’s
request that the government prosecute top military leaders is unacceptable.
“Right now, the international community has pressured us
to prosecute our military leaders,” he said. “It is the international community
that is flagrantly interfering in our domestic issues, and we can’t accept it.”
“It is important to resolve this problem without hurting
the country, the people, and the country’s stability and development,” he told
RFA’s Myanmar Service.
“The government shouldn’t do something whenever it faces
international pressure,” he said.
Nandar Hla Myint dismissed the Rohingya as “people from
the other country who cross the border illegally and live in our country,”
underlining the prevailing hard-line view of the ethnic group as Bengali
immigrants from Bangladesh.
Myo Nyunt, spokesman of the ruling National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, said that Myanmar's constitution does not allow the
government to prosecute top military leaders, as Hunt requested.
“The constitution says the military can determine and act
independently on military matters,” he said about the charter drafted in 2008
by a former military junta that ruled the government at the time.
“It means that the military acted [in Rakhine] according
to its constitutional rights, so it would be difficult for the government to
take action against it,” he said.
‘It will take time’
Hunt’s visit came just after a United Nations-mandated
fact-finding mission that investigated atrocities committed against the
Rohingya in Rakhine state issued a comprehensive report on Tuesday, providing
chilling details of violence by security forces and calling for the prosecution
of defense force commanders as well as the removal of the country’s military
from politics.
The mission also called for Myanmar commander-in-chief
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and other top leaders to be prosecuted for
genocide.
That same day, the chief prosecutor at the International
Criminal Court (ICC) opened a preliminary probe into whether Myanmar’s “forced
deportations” of Rohingya to Bangladesh can constitute war crimes or crimes
against humanity.
The ICC decided earlier this month that it has
jurisdiction over the alleged crime of deportation because Bangladesh is a
member of the international tribunal though Myanmar is not.
Tun Khin, chairman of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK,
suggested that the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) be
used as another way prosecutes military commanders responsible for the
atrocities.
The U.N. General Assembly set up the IIIM in December
2016 to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for
committing the most serious crimes in Syria under international law.
“But it will take time,” he said. “If we have
international support, we can do it quickly.”
Kachin group weighs in
Meanwhile, the World Kachin Congress on Friday welcomed
both the ICC probe and the U.N. fact-finding mission’s report on evidence of
genocide against the Rohingya as well as crimes against humanity committed
against ethnic minorities in Myanmar's Shan and Kachin states.
Fighting between ethnic armed groups and the Myanmar
military in the latter two states has displaced roughly 110,000 civilians, many
of whom have been unable to return to their homes as the conflicts continue.
Rights groups have accused Myanmar authorities of denying humanitarian access
to displaced people in the regions.
Moon Nay Li, general secretary of the Kachin Women's
Association of Thailand, told RFA that Kachin civilians in Myanmar have
suffered greatly at the hands of the military for decades.
“It is important for the military to stop offensive
attacks and remove its camps from ethnic areas,” she said. “If they do this,
then we can build more trust when we have peace talks and it will support
having the federal union that we want.”
RFA