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Agence France-Presse

Myanmar must hold a “proper investigation” into alleged atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya, a UN Security Council envoy said on Tuesday at the end of the highest-level diplomatic visit to the conflict area.
Refugees and rights groups say Myanmar’s army and vigilantes systematically raped and murdered civilians and torched villages during “clearance operations” in Rakhine state ostensibly targeting Rohingya militants.
That campaign launched last August in the mainly Buddhist nation drove around 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
Watch: rape survivors share harrowing stories


During the trip to Myanmar UN delegates met both civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who heads an army accused by the UN of “ethnic cleansing”.
“In order to have accountability there must be a proper investigation,” Britain’s UN ambassador Karen Pierce told reporters, after envoys visited both the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh and Rakhine.
During his meeting late Monday with the UN envoys, the army chief denied his forces had committed rape and other sexual abuses during a crackdown which he ordered.
“The Tatmadaw [army] is always disciplined … and takes action against anyone who breaks the law,” he told the delegates, according to a posting late on Monday on his official Facebook page.
Rohingya women and girls in Bangladesh have provided consistent accounts of sexual violence – reports verified by conflict monitors – but Min Aung Hlaing said his forces have “no such history of sexual abuse.”
“It is unacceptable according to the culture and religion of our country,” he said, adding anyone found guilty of crimes would be punished.
He also repeated the official line that Myanmar was ready to take back the refugees who could be verified as residents, as per a repatriation deal with Bangladesh.

Several months after the deal was signed, no refugees have returned. They demand guarantees of safety, the right to return to their original villages and the granting of citizenship.
Another UN diplomat warned it will take “two or three years” for the refugees to be repatriated as the current time frame to implement the deal continues to slip.
“There is a need to speed up the process,” Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the UN, said, adding conditions must be “safe and dignified” for return.
Bangladeshi accuses Myanmar of buying time by pretending to cooperate over repatriation for the benefit of the international community.
Myanmar says its neighbour has only handed back 8,000 repatriation forms so far, many of them incomplete, delaying the return process.
Myanmar denies the Rohingya citizenship and accompanying rights. It has driven out two thirds of its roughly 1.5 million Rohingya population since 2012.


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Myanmar

Myanmar urged by UN Security Council to hold ‘proper’ probe into alleged atrocities against Rohingya

A Myanmar border guard near the Taung Pyo Letwe camp overlooking the border with Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters

In this April 30, 2018, image provided by Myanmar's State Counsellor Office Facebook page, Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, smiles during their meeting with ambassadors from the U.N. Security Council at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. The ambassadors from the U.N. Security Council probing Myanmar's crisis over its ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority met on April 30, with the country's leader and military chief after visiting Bangladesh, where about 700,000 Rohingya who fled military-led violence live in refugee camps. (Myanmar State Counsellor Office via AP)

Here’s the one man in Myanmar who can end Rohingya misery

Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing inspects troops. Photo: EPA

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Photo: AFP

epaselect epa05291371 Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (R)and Myanmar Foreign Minister and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (L) arrive to Naypyitaw International Airport in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, 06 May 2016. Myanmar president U Htin Kyaw, his wife Daw Su Su Lwin and Myanmar Foreign Minister and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and Minister of Information Dr Pe Myint left from Naypyidaw International Airport to Laos for the first time in a goodwill visit as Myanmar's new government. EPA/HEIN HTET

In this Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in the Myanmar village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and where pages from Islamic texts were seen ripped and left on the ground. (AP Photo, File)

epaselect epa06202499 Rohingya Refugees carry an old man towards the shore of Naf river as people arrive by boats, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, 13 September 2017. Many of the Rohingya fleeing the violence in Myanmar had travelled by boat to find refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. According to United Nations more than 300 thousand Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar from violence over the last few weeks, most trying to cross the border and reach Bangladesh. International organizations have reported claims of human rights violations and summary executions allegedly carried out by the Myanmar army. EPA-EFE/ABIR ABDULLAH

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During the trip to Myanmar UN delegates met both civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who heads an army accused by the UN of ethnic cleansing


Rohingya Muslims