Myanmar’s genocide against Rohingya is ongoing and Aung San Suu Kyi is in ‘total denial’, UN investigator warns
- Suu Kyi’s government rejected independent international investigations into the alleged abuses of Rohingya and commissioned its own probe
- Marzuki Darusman said the situation should be referred to the International Criminal Court and an arms embargo should be imposed
Genocide is still taking place against Rohingya Muslims remaining in Myanmar and the government is increasingly demonstrating it has no interest in establishing a fully functioning democracy, UN investigators said on Wednesday.
Marzuki Darusman, chair of the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, said thousands of Rohingya are still fleeing to Bangladesh, and the estimated 250,000 to 400,000 who have stayed following last year’s brutal military campaign in the Buddhist-majority country “continue to suffer the most severe” restrictions and repression.
“It is an ongoing genocide that is taking place at the moment,” he told a news conference on Wednesday.
Darusman said the requirements for genocide, except perhaps for killings, “continue to hold” for Rohingya still in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state. These include causing serious bodily harm, inflicting conditions designed to destroy the Rohingya, and imposing measures to prevent births, he said.
Myanmar’s UN ambassador, Hau Do Suan, called the fact-finding mission “flawed, biased and politically motivated” and said the government “categorically rejects” its inference of “genocidal intent.”