Umer Beigh, Independent researcher and journalist/WION News
Myanmar government has rejected the recently released UN report that called for the prosecution of top generals for genocide, claiming the international community was making “false allegations” in the report.
In its response on August 29, Myanmar government said that since the government didn’t grant UN investigators permission to enter the country, they won’t accept any resolutions made by the Human Rights Council.
In its report, UN mission said that the scale, brutality and systematic nature of these violations indicate that rape and sexual violence were part of a deliberate strategy to intimidate, terrorise civilian population. Such a level of normalisation, the UN investigators found, was only possible when the state establishment made a climate of long-standing impunity.
Myanmar has rejected various investigations conducted earlier as well, such as the report titled – ‘They Gave Them Long Swords’, which had concluded that Aung San SuuKyi-led government paved way for security forces to carry out pre-planned systematic abduction, enforced disappearance, detention, rapes in military and police compounds, besides providing them immunity which now UN mission has described were done with “genocidal intention”.
Currently, the only option left with Myanmar, to do away with the UN report findings and demand for prosecution of key perpetrators of war crimes, was to challenge the authenticity and legitimacy of UN investigation, and the government spokesperson, Zaw Htay did exactly the same.
“If there is any case against human rights, just give us strong evidence, record and date, so that we can take legal action against those who break the rules and regulations,” Zaw said. Christopher Sidoti, the UN investigator, in his speech stated that the criminal execution is warranted focusing on top generals in relation to the three categories of crime under international law “genocide”, “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes”. He insisted that UN mission highly recommended the prosecution of involved six military generals that included Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Rights activists have shown agreement with the UN findings. They believe the UN report has helped the world see the reality. “I hope the United Nations has the ability to get us justice by making sure that the government of Myanmar can be questioned about what they did to us,” one of the victim told the UN investigator.
Ideally, Myanmar authorities should have welcomed the investigation and allowed further discussion over the crisis, if their approach on addressing atrocities and peace building was genuine. The government should have launched an independent probe to find out how gruesome crimes such as sexual slavery, mass killings, gang rapes were committed and used as a weapon of war.UN Security Council should refer the Myanmar commander-in-chief and five generals to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. Here, the role of the international community in supporting and ensuring safety of Rohingyas will also be deemed as critical.