The United States
has imposed sanctions on Myanmar's military chief and three other top officers
over their role in the atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority group in
the Buddhist-majority country.
The US State
Department announced on Tuesday that army chief Min Aung Hlaing and two other
senior commanders, Brigadier Generals Than Oo and Aung Aung, were responsible
for the massacres of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
The US Government sanctioned 4 Myanmar military
generals, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, for gross human rights
violations against Rohingya. https://t.co/bwvNGGz3f6
The Department,
barring the military officials and their families from entering the US, said it
had found credible evidence that they had been involved in the violence that
took place two years ago and forced about 740,000 Rohingya to flee across the
border to Bangladesh.
"We remain
concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold accountable
those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there are
continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights violations
and abuses throughout the country," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said
in a statement.
Pompeo said a recent
disclosure that Min Aung Hlaing had ordered the release of Myanmarese soldiers
convicted of "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingya in 2017 was "one egregious
example of the continued and severe lack of accountability for the military and
its senior leadership."
The US Government
sanctioned 4 Myanmar military generals, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing,
for gross human rights violations against Rohingya. https://t.co/bwvNGGz3f6
The US State
Department has so far stopped short of calling the abuses against Rohingya
Muslims genocide, preferring instead to ethnic cleansing and a
"well-planned and coordinated" campaign of mass killings, gang rapes
and other atrocities.
PressTV-After long silence, US calls Myanmar
crimes ‘extreme’ http://presstv.com//Detail/2018/09/25/575155/US-Myanmar-survey-Rohingya-extreme-wellplanned
Myanmar’s western
Rakhine state came to global attention in 2017, when the army drove thousands
of ethnic Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh. Myanmar is facing growing
international calls for accountability over the Rakhine massacre.
Last year, a UN
fact-finding mission, said the campaign against the Rohingya was orchestrated
with "genocidal intent." It urged charging the army chief and five
other generals with the "gravest crimes under international law." The
International Criminal Court (ICC) has already opened a preliminary examination
into the violence.
PressTV- UN: Myanmar generals must be tried for
‘genocide’ http://presstv.com//Detail/2018/08/27/572376/UN-Asia-Myanmar-Bangladesh-Genocide-Reuters-Journalists
About 800,000
Rohingya Muslims are living in camps in Bangladesh after they were driven out
of Rakhine during the deadly campaign in 2017, which the United Nations has
described as ethnic cleansing.
Rakhine has been the
scene of communal violence since 2012. Many Muslims have been killed while tens
of thousands have been forced to flee as a result of attacks by Buddhists. The
refugees largely live in camps in dire conditions.
The Rohingya have
inhabited Rakhine for centuries, but most people in Buddhist-majority Myanmar
see them as unwanted immigrants from Bangladesh and the state denies them
citizenship.
Source: PressTV