China, which has been vying with Washington for influence in Myanmar, said on Tuesday that “unilateral criticism or exerting pressure” was not helpful in resolving the Rohingya issue. Findings of a US State Department investigation into Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya crisis are \u201cconsistent\u201d with those of a report by UN investigators released this week that called for Myanmar\u2019s commander-in-chief and other generals be tried for genocide, the US ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday. Addressing the UN Security Council, Nikki Haley said \u201cthe world can no longer avoid the difficult truth of what happened.\u201d She did not use the term \u201cgenocide\u201d and the State Department has said it had not yet concluded whether it shared the determination of \u201cgenocidal intent\u201d that Monday\u2019s UN report attached to the attacks on Rohingya Muslims. However, Haley said that of the more than 1,000 randomly selected Rohingya Muslims surveyed in the State Department\u2019s own report, \u201cfully one fifth\u201d witnessed more than 100 victims being killed or injured. She said 82 percent had seen a killing, more than half had witnessed sexual violence and 45 percent had witnessed a rape. The report identifies one group as the perpetrator of the overwhelming majority of these crimes: the Burmese military and security forces,\u201d Haley said, referring to the US report. She said the Security Council must hold those responsible for the violence to account and added, \u201cThe whole world is watching what we do next and if we will act.\u201d Haley\u2019s comments provided the first details of the State Department report compiled from 1,024 interviews at refugee camps in Bangladesh and completed in late April. It remained unclear when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo planned to issue the full US report, which could have legal implications of committing Washington to stronger punitive measures against Myanmar, particularly if Washington concluded there was genocide.<\/p>\n
The findings were originally due to be announced ahead of Monday\u2019s UN report but have been held up by internal deliberations. US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said \u201cgenocidal intent\u201d was \u201ca very specific legal designation.\u201d It is not one that is easily made,\u201d she told a regular news briefing on Tuesday. Critics have accused Washington of an overly cautious response to the Rohingya crisis, but a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the UN findings could increase pressure for tougher US action.<\/p>\n
The release of Monday\u2019s UN report marked the first explicit UN call for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya. It said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with \u201cgenocidal intent\u201d and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted. Washington, which had previously imposed sanctions on only one regional general over the crisis, targeted four more military and police commanders and two army units this month, but Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was again spared. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN meeting that the UN report deserved serious consideration and that accountability was essential for genuine reconciliation between ethnic groups in Myanmar. Also without using the word genocide, Guterres said the report by the independent UN experts found \u201c\u2019patterns of gross human rights violations and abuses\u2019 committed by the security forces, which it said \u2018undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.’\u201d He said international cooperation would be \u201ccritical\u201d to ensuring accountability. Myanmar\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations, Hau Do Suan, repeated his government\u2019s contention that the Myanmar military had carried out a \u201clogical response\u201d to Muslim militant attacks. He said action would be taken against anyone responsible for human rights violations if there was sufficient evidence. Guterres said the UN Security Council needed to continue to press for the release of journalists arrested for reporting on the Rohingya crisis, a reference to two Reuters reporters on trial in Myanmar. Haley said the United States expected to see the two, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, acquitted of all charges. Also on Tuesday, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Myanmar\u2019s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who Washington has championed as a voice of democratic change, could not be blamed for atrocities as she did not have the powers necessary to stop military actions.<\/p>\n
Haley made no mention of Suu Kyi, who the UN investigators said had failed to use her \u201cmoral authority\u201d to protect civilians. China, which has been vying with Washington for influence in Myanmar, said on Tuesday that \u201cunilateral criticism or exerting pressure\u201d was not helpful in resolving the Rohingya issue.
\nSome 700,000 Rohingya have fled the crackdown in Myanmar and most are living in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. Guterres said an international humanitarian appeal for the refugees remained significantly underfunded at 33 percent and more must be done to alleviate the threats to life from the current and impending monsoons. He said it was clear conditions did not yet exist for the safe return of the Rohingya and called on Security Council members to join him in urging Myanmar to cooperate to ensure access to UN agencies and partners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China, which has been vying with Washington for influence in Myanmar, said on Tuesday that “unilateral criticism or exerting pressure” was not helpful in resolving the Rohingya issue. Findings of a US State Department investigation into Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya crisis are \u201cconsistent\u201d with those of a report by UN investigators released this week that called for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40549,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40546\/revisions\/40549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}