Hellfire and Damnation in Myanmar: Ex-World Bank Country Head Recounts Rohingya Catastrophe Response

The Irrawaddy
David Scott Mathieson
March 16, 2024

Damned If You Do. Foreign Aid and My Struggle to Do Right in Myanmar by Ellen Goldstein

 

The crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State gripped the decade of the “democratic opening”, as state oppression of the Rohingya Muslim minority surged in 2012, culminating in the 2016 and 2017 mass expulsion that drove over 700,000 people into Bangladesh. The crisis severely affected many other parts of Myanmar in ways not fully appreciated at the time, much of it exacerbated by the cruel disregard of the military who perpetrated the ethnic cleansing, and by the obtuse arrogance of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD). The international community didn’t exactly shower itself in glory either, but as usual, found a way to exonerate its own complicity, corruption, cowardice and incompetence.

‘A catastrophe’: UN warns of intensifying violence in Myanmar

Aljazeera
11 Jun 2021

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet says military government is ‘singularly responsible’ for violence and ‘must be held to account’.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that multiple reports indicate that armed conflict is continuing, including in Kayah State, Chin State and Kachin State [File: Denis Balibouse/Reuters]

The United Nations human rights chief has warned that violence is intensifying across Myanmar, slamming the country’s military government for being “singularly responsible” for a “human rights catastrophe”.

The Rohingya could be facing another catastrophe

TRT WORLD 

CJ Werleman
2020.04.29

 

Rohingya Muslims have been discarded by the international community and are at high risk for contracting Covid-19 in crowded living spaces.

The fate of more than one million Rohingya genocide survivors has never looked so grim in the three years since they fled their villages for the safety of the Bangladeshi border.

When summarising the plight of the Rohingya, "survivor" becomes the operative word, given their ongoing physical and psychological injuries, with most having witnessed their homes destroyed, mass killings, and their wives, mothers, and daughters raped, many whom were later burnt alive or hacked to death.