ACCORDING to the medical charity MSF sources, at least some 6,700 Rohingyas got killed in the very first month of the Myanmar army’s crackdown on the ethnic minority in Rakhine State. But it appears Myanmar government is trying to deceive the world by avoiding to take back Rohingya refugees. It is clear it has signed the MOU just to befool the world without action. We must say time is running out the free world such as the USA and EU nations must roll out punitive actions like trying the generals responsible for genocide and economic sanction. Myanmar will not come to terms unless it is forced to understand that the world will not allow it to go unpunished. It will have to take the Rohingyas and for that it will have to create the safe environment in the ground first. The repatriation deal must be rewritten involving UNHCR to make repatriation process meaningful.
What has been uncovered by UN agencies appears staggering — in terms of the numbers of survivors reporting their family members deaths from violence, and the horrific ways in which they were tortured, raped, severely injured and murdered. This heinous crime against humanity cannot escape justice. Despite global calls for a credible investigation, the Myanmar government has blocked UN fact-finding team from visiting northern Rakhine State. Fearfully enough none can yet ensure whether violence to have stopped.
It is encouraging that the European Parliament on Thursday called for urgent targeted sanctions and punitive actions against individuals in Myanmar military and security services for perpetuating widespread human rights abuses. Moreover, it also called on the UN Security Council to impose a global comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar, suspending all direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer, including transit and transshipment of all weapons, munitions and other military and security equipment including the provision of training or other military and security assistance.
The million dollar question in this regard — when would the EP’s demands for action will be taken seriously? When the USA or the UN would pay heed and act accordingly to these shocking revelations? The international community must work together to investigate into the violence, bring all perpetrators to justice and make sure that Rohingyas will be able to return in safety with their national rights such as citizenship restored.
We must say North Korea like sanctions should be imposed on Myanmar to let it feel that crimes committed by its military generals will not go escort free. We have seen former Bosnian Serb and Croat generals were sentenced to various term for butchering hundreds and thousands of Bosnian Muslims. One general died in the dock taking poison but justice was nevertheless meted out to them for crime against humanity. Myanmar Generals committed similar crimes and even more by carrying out ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. It is not Dark Age; we are part of modern civilization and Myanmar generals must be similarly tried in the International Court in the Hague for their crimes.
