British Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field has said the gravity of the UN report on human rights violations in Myanmar warrants the attention of both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council. He said there cannot and must not be impunity for such acts, which the Mission has concluded warrants “the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.
“We will discuss options for bringing the report before the Security Council with other members once the Fact-Finding Mission have made their final presentation to the Human Rights Council in September,” he said in a statement. The British Minister said they commend the Fact-Finding Mission for its work and look forward to seeing the full report.
Mark Field said, the UN Fact-Finding Mission’s conclusions on human rights violations in Myanmar since 2011, in particular the truly horrific violence from August last year in Rakhine, come as no surprise.
“Anyone like myself who has been engaged directly in this terrible crisis, or has spoken to Rohingya refugees, knows the Burmese military is primarily to blame for such appalling human rights violations as the widespread rape and murder of the Rohingya people,” he said.
The Fact-Finding Mission provides yet more damning evidence of their culpability, according to the statement UNB received from the FCO.
There also remains an urgent need for domestic acceptance and accountability in Myanmar, he said.
“It’s now essential the Burmese government sets out how its Commission of Inquiry will be able to investigate these crimes with full impartiality and how it will be linked to a judicial process to hold those responsible to account,” he added. Meanwhile, British Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister of State at the Department for International Development Alistair Burt will visit Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar district on Wednesday morning.
The minister is already in Dhaka and will have important meetings with Bangladesh leadership on various issues of mutual interest, an official told UNB on Tuesday.
Burt was appointed on June 13, 2017 and entered Parliament for the first time in 1983 and was elected Conservative MP for north east Bedfordshire in 2001.
Alistair served as Minister of State for Community and Social Care at the Department of Health from May 2015 until July 2016. Previously, he served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office from May 2010 until October 2013.
