By AFP
The fact-finding mission to Myanmar, set up
by the Human Rights Council, last year branded the army operations in 2017 as
"genocide" and called for the prosecution of top generals, including
army chief Min Aung Hlaing.
OHCR: #Myanmar’s #Rohingya Persecuted, Living
under Threat of #Genocide, #UN Experts Say https://lnkd.in/gEy3bsb
But in a damning report, the United Nations
team said the 600,000 Rohingya still inside Myanmar's Rakhine state remain in
deteriorating and "deplorable" conditions.
The maligned Muslim community has long been
subjected to tight movement restrictions, making it difficult or impossible to
access healthcare, work and education.
Rohingya Muslims remaining in Myanmar still
face a "serious risk of genocide", UN investigators said Monday,
warning the repatriation of a million already driven from the country by the
army remains "impossible".
Some 740,000 Rohingya fled burning villages,
bringing accounts of murder, rape and torture over the border to sprawling
refugee camps in Bangladesh, where survivors of previous waves of persecution
already languished.
Mobile network blocked in Rohingya refugee
camps in Bangladesh: https://lnkd.in/giTdprG
"Myanmar continues to harbour genocidal
intent and the Rohingya remain under serious risk of genocide," the
investigators said in their final report on Myanmar, due to be presented
Tuesday in Geneva.
The country is "denying wrongdoing,
destroying evidence, refusing to conduct effective investigations and clearing,
razing, confiscating and building on land from which it displaced
Rohingya", it said.
Rohingya were living in "inhumane"
conditions, the report continued, adding more than 40,000 structures had been
destroyed in the 2017 crackdown.
'War crimes'
The mission reiterated calls for the UN
Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or
to set up a tribunal, like for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
It said it had a confidential list of more
than 100 names, including officials, suspected of being involved in genocide,
crimes against humanity and war crimes, in addition to the six generals named
publicly last year.
The report also repeated calls for foreign
governments and companies to sever all business ties with the military, urging
a "moratorium" on investment and development assistance in Rakhine
state.
The Rohingya are denied citizenship in
Buddhist-majority Myanmar and are accused of being illegal immigrants from
neighbouring Bangladesh.
The army justified the crackdown as a means
of rooting out Rohingya insurgents.
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation
deal two years ago, but virtually no refugees have returned to date.
The investigators described conditions in
Myanmar as "unsafe, unsustainable and impossible" for returns to take
place.
Nearly 130,000 Rohingya have been trapped in
camps in central Rakhine since a previous bout of violence seven years ago.
Described as "open-air prisons" by
Amnesty International; people there remain reliant on humanitarian aid and are
rarely granted permission to leave.
Those outside the camps fare little better,
needing special authorisation -- and often hefty bribes -- to leave their
village boundaries.
Their homes flattened by bulldozers and land
commandeered, refugees in Bangladesh fear they will be subjected to the same,
or even worse, treatment if they return to the processing camps built by
Myanmar.
The UN team also accused the army of fresh
"war crimes", including forced labour and torture, against civilians
in the north of Rakhine state.
The area has once again become embroiled in
conflict as the military wages war on the Arakan Army (AA), rebels fighting for
the rights of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
Myanmar military spokesman Brigadier General
Zaw Min Tun rejected the team's findings, calling them "one-sided".
"Instead of making biased accusations,
they should go onto the ground to see the reality," Zaw Min Tun told AFP.
The UN investigators have never been granted
permission to enter Myanmar or access Rakhine.
The team has handed its report to an
investigative panel, which aims to build up evidence to support any future
prosecution.
"The scandal of international inaction
has to end," mission expert Christopher Sidoti said.
"Unless the United Nations and the
international community take effective action this time, this sad history is
destined to be repeated."
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