Despite claims by Burma of efforts to improve relations between Buddhists and Muslims, the facts prove otherwise. Another 11,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh the week of October 9 in the latest paroxysm of Burmese Buddhist hatred.
Burma and its de facto leader State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi have become pariahs in the human community.
The Oxford City Council has followed the example of Oxford University, which revoked the honorary doctorate awarded to Suu Kyi, and her college, St. Hugh’s, that removed her portrait displayed prominently in the foyer. On Tuesday, October 3, the vote at the City Council meeting was unanimous. It will hold a special meeting on November 27 later this year to strip Suu Kyi of the Freedom of the City of Oxford, an award bestowed on her in 1997. The city of London is to debate a similar Honorary Freedom she received there.
A new UN report based on 65 interviews with Rohingya who have arrived in Bangladesh finds repeated evidence of torture, killings and rape — even of children.
“Credible information indicates the government security forces purposely destroyed the property of the Rohingya, scorched their dwellings and entire villages in northern Rakhine State, not only to drive the population out in droves but also to prevent the fleeing Rohingya victims from returning to their homes,” the UN report charges.
Called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the campaign has been “well-organized, coordinated and systematic” starting with “creating a climate of fear and intimidation.” Thus a month ago Rohingya men under 40 were arrested and jailed.
The report quotes a 12-year-old girl from Rathedaung Township who said that security forces surrounded her house and started shooting. “It was panic. They shot my sister in front of me. She was only 7 years old. She cried and told me to run. I tried to protect her and care for her, but we had no medical help and she was bleeding so much she died after one day. I buried her myself.”
The girl’s father was jailed a month earlier and she doesn’t know what happened to him… or her mother and four brothers after they scattered.
Jyoti Sanghera is the head of the Asia and Pacific region of the UN human rights office. She is afraid if the Rohingya refugees return, they will be interned: “If villages have been completely destroyed and livelihood possibilities have been destroyed, what we fear is that they may be incarcerated or detained in camps.” She, too, has called on Suu Kyi, who remains deaf to all voices of reason, to stop the violence.
Sir Bob Geldof, the singer and peace activist, has now branded Suu Kyi “one of the great ethnic cleansers of our planet,” adding, “This is a disgrace.” He was addressing the “One Young World” development summit in Bogota, Columbia, where he shared the podium with four Nobel Peace Laureates. She “insults them all” he said, referring to the Laureates.
The question hanging in the air is who will pay for the crimes inflicted on the Rohingya. Burma is guilty of four out of five counts each of which amount to genocide as listed in the UN Convention on Genocide in force as international law since January, 1951. Why is the International Criminal Court silent on the issue?
Author’s note: This article first appeared on BuzzFlash at Truth-out.