Thursday, 02 February
2023 10:36 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 02 February 2023 10:43
AM ]
Thousands
of Rohingya have been left homeless after a massive fire broke out in their
refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on January 2022, burning down 300
shelters and damaging another 500. (File photo by UNICEF)
The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has
called on the international community to stand firm against Myanmar’s military
junta and to “do a lot more” to protect the vulnerable Rohingya population
in the country’s Rakhine State.
Tom Andrews,
the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, presented a critical report at a briefing at the UN Headquarters in New York
on Tuesday, the eve of the second anniversary of a coup in the country.
He called on the international
community to stand firm against military rule, create a coalition of member
states to enforce strong, coordinated sanctions, and support the so-called
National Unity Government of Myanmar.
Andrews warned that the same
forces who committed “those genocidal attacks” are now in control of the
country and “their priority is not the human rights of the Rohingya people,”
referring to a brutal campaign of genocide against the Rohingya about six
years ago.
Rohingya Muslims have suffered
decades of violence, discrimination and persecution in Myanmar. Beginning
in August 2017, Myanmar’s military launched brutal operations targeting them in
the northern Rakhine State. At the time, the junta torched entire
villages, killing thousands and forcing more thatn 700,000 people, half of
them children, to flee to Bangladesh, where almost one million Rohingya now
live in crowded refugee camps.
Andrews added that more than
600,000 Rohingya continued to live in Rakhine State, 130,000 of them in
makeshift internment camps, but “even those villages are surrounded.” “The
people are prisoners in their own home villages. They have virtually no rights
whatsoever,” he said.
New analysis released on the eve
of the coup anniversary by Andrews found there had been some 10,000
attacks and armed clashes between the military and opponents since the coup,
and violent incidents in at least 78 percent of townships between July and
December 2022.
“The unrelenting violence that it
unleashed on the people of Myanmar has created widespread human rights,
humanitarian, and economic crisis and galvanized nationwide opposition,” the
special rapporteur said.
Myanmar activists call for civil disobedience
In his report to the Human Rights
Council, Andrews described the coup as “illegal” and the military’s claim to be
the country’s legitimate government as “illegitimate.” He said a new,
coordinated international response to the crisis was “imperative” ahead of the
“sham elections” being planned.
Myanmar’s junta last month
outlined plans to hold an election later in the year.
He described the situation in
Myanmar as “the forgotten war” and accused the international community of
failing to address the crisis along with “the junta’s systematic crimes against
humanity and war crimes.”
Andrews said UN member states
“have an important responsibility and role to play in determining whether
Myanmar’s military junta will succeed in achieving its goal of being accepted
as legitimate and gaining control of a nation in revolt.”
Myanmar has been in chaos since
the military seized control in a coup on February 1, 2021, under the pretext of
widespread fraud in the elections in which Suu Kyi’s had party gained a
landslide victory. The UN estimates that some 14,000 people have been arrested
and at least 2,000 killed in the time span.
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