World must ‘cut off money supply’ to commanders accused of war crimes and genocide against Rohingya, say investigators
By Karen
McVeigh
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Women and children who
escaped Myanmar’s military crackdown on the Rohingya
await food distribution
at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Photograph: Paula
Bronstein/Getty Images
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The international community must cut off all
support to Myanmar’s military as part of efforts to hold army commanders to
account for crimes against humanity and genocide, UN investigators have said
following a fact-finding mission in the country.
In a statement, the UN said there had been no
progress in protecting the Rohingya minority, more than a million of whom have
fled military “clearance operations” in the Rakhine region.
“The situation is at a total standstill,”
said Marzuki Darusman, chair of the UN independent international fact-finding
mission.
Myanmar authorities in the Buddhist-majority
country have razed empty Rohingya villages, destroying criminal evidence of
abuses. About 120,000 people remain in displacement camps in fear of military
reprisals. The authorities should focus on the “real betterment of the
remaining Rohingya community in Myanmar,” Darusman said.
Myanmar security forces are accused of
killing, gang-rape and arson during a campaign of violence that drove 730,000
Rohingya people from Rakhine in 2017. More than a million Rohingya have now
been forced into exile.
Myanmar has persistently denied allegations
of human rights abuses, saying its security forces have not targeted civilians,
and rejected a report in September last year by the UN panel, which said top
military officers who conducted the campaign against the Rohingya should be
prosecuted for war crimes.
Christopher Sidoti, an expert member of the
panel and human rights lawyer, said the mission had found “no evidence” of
progress by the Myanmar government in resolving ethnic tensions that helped
fuel the crisis or facilitating the safe return of refugees.
“Due to the gravity of the past and
continuing violations, attention must be given to the political, economic and
financial ties of the Myanmar military – to identify who and what should be
targeted so we can cut off the money supply as a means of increasing the
pressure and reducing the violence,” Sidoti said.
“The situation demands an increase in
international pressure.”
The military had committed atrocities against
many ethnic groups living in Myanmar, the mission found. Investigators also
condemned ethnic armed groups for committing human rights abuses. The UN panel
is barred from entering Myanmar, but met with government and regional
officials, UN agencies and humanitarian representatives in the region, as well
as refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district earlier this month. Refugees
told them they needed justice, education, work and the ability to return safely
to their homes.
UN officials have described the actions of
the Myanmar military as ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Darusman said the operations conducted by
Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya in 2012 and 2017 were not isolated
incidents, but were rather “fuelled by the absence of a political and legal
system that is willing to accommodate diversity”.
In September, the fact-finding mission will
hand over its evidence to a new group, the Independent Investigative Mechanism
on Myanmar, set up by the human rights council to handle future criminal
prosecutions of violations of international law.
The international criminal court is
conducting its own investigations into the violence, and discussions are also
underway about the jurisdiction of the international court of justice under the
genocide convention of 1948.
Many western countries have imposed arms
embargoes and suspended training programmes over human rights abuses in
Myanmar. The US treasury has imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s security forces and
Washington has barred military officials involved in the Rakhine violence from
US assistance. Britain has also cut off some financial support.
Maj Gen Tun Tun Nyi, a military spokesman,
told Reuters the military would investigate allegations backed by evidence but
said the fact-finding mission had levelled false accusations at troops.
“Our country is an independent country, so we
don’t accept our matters being interfered with,” he said.
