Myanmar is to refuse entry to members of a UN investigation focusing on allegations of killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims, an official said yesterday.
The government led by Nobel laureate and Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi had already said it would not cooperate with a mission set up after a UN Human Rights Council resolution was adopted in March.
“If they are going to send someone with regards to the fact-finding mission, then there’s no reason for us to let them come,” Burmese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Kyaw Zeya said.
“Our missions worldwide are advised accordingly,” he said, adding that visas to enter Myanmar would not be issued to the mission’s appointees or staff.
Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been criticized for failing to stand up for the more than 1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine State.
Aung San Suu Kyi said during a trip to Sweden this month that the UN mission “would have created greater hostility between the different communities.”
The majority in Rakhine are ethnic Rakhine Buddhists who, like many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
About 75,000 Rohingya late last year fled Rakhine to Bangladesh after the Myanmar Army carried out a security operation in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents that killed nine border police.
A UN report issued in February, based on interviews with Rohingya refugees, said the response involved mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya, and “very likely” amounted to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar, along with neighbors China and India, dissociated itself from the March resolution filed by the EU, which called for a mission to look into the allegations in Rakhine, as well as reports of abuses in ethnic conflicts in the north of the country.
Indian Supreme Court advocate Indira Jaising was in May appointed to lead the mission. The other two members are Harvard-trained Sri Lankan lawyer Radhika Coomaraswamy and Australian consultant Christopher Dominic.
Myanmar insists that a domestic investigation — headed by Burmese First Vice President Myint Swe — is sufficient to look into the allegations in Rakhine.
“Why do they try to use unwarranted pressure when the domestic mechanisms have not been exhausted?” Kyaw Zeya said.
“It will not contribute to our efforts to solve the issues in a holistic manner,” he added.
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