ROHINGYA refugees reaching Bangladesh said violence, including torture, persists against them in Myanmar and the overall environment remains “menacing” for ethnic and religious minorities. UN human rights investigators carried out the Rohingya’s plight after a five-day visit to the refugee camp of Kutupalong in Cox’s Bazar where they interviewed new arrivals among the more than 700,000 Rohingyas who have fled Rakhine State since an army crackdown last August. The arrival of new refugees reflects the continuing gravity of the human rights violations in Myanmar which is ignoring all warnings from the global community. Unless Myanmar ensures a friendly atmosphere with dignity, hopes, and citizenship in Rakhine, Rohingyas people could not be repatriated. Besides, trial of the perpetrators must be ensured and the state attitude to the ethnic group should be changed.
The United Nations struck an outline deal with Myanmar in May aimed at eventually allowing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Bangladesh to return safely and by choice. But the secret agreement offers no explicit guarantees of citizenship or freedom of movement throughout the country. In another development, a rights group said Myanmar’s military were engaged in extensive and systematic preparations for the bloody crackdown on Rohingyas, in a damning new report that it says justifies a genocide investigation. The UN and the US have called the campaign ethnic cleansing and a textbook example of genocide. Myanmar denies the accusations, saying it was responding to an attack by Rohingya militants. But Fortify Rights found that security forces disarmed Rohingya civilians and trained non-Rohingya communities to fight. The Myanmar army also cut off food aid from Rohingyas and removed fencing from their homes for a clearer line of sight.
Myanmar authorities made extensive and systematic preparations for the commission of mass atrocity crimes against indigenous Rohingya civilians during the weeks and months before Rohingya militant attacks on August 25, 2017. The report also said that deadly August attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Myanmar has cited as a reason for its counteroffensive, was a far more ad hoc operation than previously believed, and that crackdown plans were already underway. This is how genocide unfolds and this is how genocide has unfolded in Rakhine State. The civilized world must be united to ensure that a trial of the genocide occurs and give a clear guarantee to the Rohingya people that they would be treated as citizens in Myanmar. Bangladesh as the victim of the large exodus should highlight the issue in global forums and establish Rohingyas’ rights to enable them to return to their land with full citizenship rights.
The United Nations struck an outline deal with Myanmar in May aimed at eventually allowing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Bangladesh to return safely and by choice. But the secret agreement offers no explicit guarantees of citizenship or freedom of movement throughout the country. In another development, a rights group said Myanmar’s military were engaged in extensive and systematic preparations for the bloody crackdown on Rohingyas, in a damning new report that it says justifies a genocide investigation. The UN and the US have called the campaign ethnic cleansing and a textbook example of genocide. Myanmar denies the accusations, saying it was responding to an attack by Rohingya militants. But Fortify Rights found that security forces disarmed Rohingya civilians and trained non-Rohingya communities to fight. The Myanmar army also cut off food aid from Rohingyas and removed fencing from their homes for a clearer line of sight.
Myanmar authorities made extensive and systematic preparations for the commission of mass atrocity crimes against indigenous Rohingya civilians during the weeks and months before Rohingya militant attacks on August 25, 2017. The report also said that deadly August attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Myanmar has cited as a reason for its counteroffensive, was a far more ad hoc operation than previously believed, and that crackdown plans were already underway. This is how genocide unfolds and this is how genocide has unfolded in Rakhine State. The civilized world must be united to ensure that a trial of the genocide occurs and give a clear guarantee to the Rohingya people that they would be treated as citizens in Myanmar. Bangladesh as the victim of the large exodus should highlight the issue in global forums and establish Rohingyas’ rights to enable them to return to their land with full citizenship rights.
