By Arshad M Khan
Her iconic stature long gone, she made a public
appearance the day after the International Fact-Finding Mission released its initial 20-page
overview to the UN Human Rights Council on August 27, 2018.
The damning evidence of murder, rape, torture,
persecution, burned villages, landmines along escape routes reported on by NGOs
and news media over the past year had been confirmed. Elegant and patrician as
usual, Aung San Suu Kyi discoursed on poetry and literature. No mention of the genocide or the
UN report. No longer an icon, there have been calls to relieve
her of the Nobel Peace Prize.
There is an image engraved in our minds of a stoic,
reserved, elegant Aung San Suu Kyi unbending in her struggle against Burma's
generals for democracy, and we assumed for human rights. Last year, when the
refugees streamed out of her country in the wake of atrocities, it blocked all
UN agencies from delivering food, water and medicine to affected civilians; her
office accused aid workers of helping terrorists.
The UN group criticized her for her continued refusal to
condemn the genocide. The full report detailing unspeakable horrors in its 440-page account has now been
released (September 18, 2018). What might surprise people is a
simple shocking fact: This is not the first UN report on Rohingya massacres.
On February 3, 2017, the UN issued a detailed account of
the military's
operations in north Maungddaw with "the very likely
commission of crimes against humanity." It recounted the murders, rapes
and tortures that have now become the trademark of military operations against
the Rohingya.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein is quoted
as saying " ... what kind of hatred could make a man stab a
baby crying out for his mother's milk and for the mother to witness this murder
while she is being gang-raped by the very security forces that should be
protecting her."
There were no major consequences for Myanmar then and
what happened the following summer was the same magnified over Rakhine state.
As a result we have 700,000 refugees, and they are still coming -- "11,342 new arrivals as of
mid-June this year," Mr. Zeid has noted. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23324&LangID=E
Will this time be different? Following the UN
Commission's summary report, 160 British parliamentarians across party lines signed a petition
to Prime Minister Theresa May to refer the Myanmar military to the International
Criminal Court (ICC).
The UN report accuses the military of genocide, and identifies six generals,
singling them out for investigation and prosecution. They are, the senior
general who heads the military, the commander of the army, and four operational
commanders. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/27/myanmars-military-accused-of-genocide-by-damning-un-report
ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has now been
authorized to begin
a preliminary investigation to gather evidence before launching
a full investigation. https://www.dw.com/en/myanmar-world-court-opens-preliminary-probe-over-rohingya/a-45550063
Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Statute establishing
the ICC but Bangladesh hosting the refugees is, thus giving the court
jurisdiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
Marzuki Darusman providing details of massacres and
unmentionable atrocities said in reporting to the Human Rights Council,
"I have never been confronted by crimes as horrendous and on such a scale
as these." https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=23575&LangID=E
If the UN Security
Council is to be stymied by veto -- China preventing any action against Myanmar
-- will the ICC effort also fizzle out in practice if not in theory? Justice
remains tenuous for the weak and powerless in our world.
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