Boris Johnson condemns Myanmar coup, but is silent on genocide

MIDDLE EAST EYE

Peter Oborne
12 February 2021

British inaction in the face of the Rohingya slaughter shows, yet again, that atrocities against voiceless Muslims count for little or nothing in the chanceries of the West 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks in London on 10 February 2021 (AFP)

Within hours of last week’s Myanmar coup d’etat, the denunciations came pouring in. Britain began considering new sanctions. US president Joe Biden pledged action against the military leaders who had directed the coup, which dislodged Myanmar’s Nobel-prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

In London, the British Foreign Office hauled in Myanmar Ambassador U Kyaw Zwar Minn, citing the need for “a peaceful return to democracy”. Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the “unlawful imprisonment” of Aung San Suu Kyi.

US hints at looking into Rakhine genocide, Rohingya repatriation: FM

Prothum Alo------  

UNB
Dhaka
Published: 26 Jan 2021, 

Migrants who were found adrift at sea in a boat are repatriated across the Bangladesh-Myanmar border at Ukhia on the outskirts of Cox's Bazar on June 8, 2015. AFP

Bangladesh on Tuesday said there are indications that the new US administration under President Joe Biden will look into the issue of genocide of Rohingyas in the Rakhine State and hopefully will proactively take action for their safe return to Myanmar.

"It's good news. There are indications," Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said, adding that Rohingya problem was created by Myanmar and its solution also lies with them.

He said Bangladesh is thankful of USA’s principled stand and steadfast humanitarian and diplomatic support to Bangladesh in dealing with the Rohingya crisis since August 2017.
                                                                             

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်း ရိုဟင်ဂျာတို့အပေါ် Genocide ကျူးလွန်မှု ရှိ-မရှိ စိစစ်ရေးကြီးကြပ်ဖို့ ကန်ဝန်ကြီးသစ် Blinken သဘောတူ

VOA
ဗွီအိုအေ (မြန်မာပိုင်း)
28 ဇန်နဝါရီ၊ 2021

အမေရိကန် နိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးသစ် Antony Blinken က အထက်လွှတ်တော် ကြားနာ စစ်ဆေးပွဲမှာ တုံ့ပြန်

အမေရိကန် နိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးသစ် Antony Blinken က သူ့ကို ရာထူး ရာထူး ခန့်အပ် ဖို့ အတည်ပြုရေး အ ထက်လွှတ်တော် ကြားနာ စစ်ဆေးပွဲမှာ ရိုဟင်ဂျာအရေးနဲ့ပတ်သက်ပြီး အခုလို တုံ့ပြန် ဖြေကြားခဲ့ပါတယ်။

Biden Administration to Probe Rohingya Genocide Claim

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
January 21, 2021

What would it mean for the U.S. government to officially declare the Myanmar atrocities “genocide”?

The incoming Biden administration is reportedly planning to launch an interagency review to determine whether Myanmar’s fierce persecution of its Muslim Rohingya minority amounts to genocide. The plan was revealed by incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this week, during which he said that if confirmed, he would oversee the review process.

The review would examine events that have taken place since August 2017, when the Myanmar army, or Tatmadaw, launched a brutal “clearance operation” in Rakhine State in the west of the country. Justified as a response to scattered attacks by Rohingya militants, the offensive saw soldiers and vigilantes torch villages, shoot civilians, and drive an estimated 750,000 desperate people over the border into Bangladesh.

There is compelling case to be made that the actions of the Myanmar military amount to genocide, as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines the crime as an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The United Nations’ human rights chief has previously described the military’s actions as possible “acts of genocide,” while formal charges of genocide were later brought against Myanmar by The Gambia in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. In January 2020, the ICJ declared that there was prima facie evidence of breaches of the Genocide Convention, warning that the estimated 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar were “extremely vulnerable” to attacks by the military.

Biden to review whether Rohingya persecution genocide

AA

Michael Gabriel Hernandez 

WASHINGTON 

20.01.2021 

Incoming president's pick to lead State Department says he would oversee process should he be confirmed by Senate 

Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to lead the State Department 

 

The incoming Biden administration will launch an interagency review to determine whether Myanmar's persecution of its Rohingya minority amounts to genocide, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to lead the State Department said Tuesday.

Antony Blinken said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that if confirmed, he would oversee the process.

British Banks Tied to A Military Accused of Genocide

BYLINE TIMES 

 Steve Shaw
24 December 2020

Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Archive/PA Images

Steve Shaw reports on the loans that connect British banks to a telecommunications firm that provides money for Myanmar’s military, which has been accused of genocide

Standard Chartered and HSBC have provided tens of millions in loans to Viettel Global Investment, a defence company owned by the Vietnamese Government and the biggest investor in Mytel, a telecommunications firm part-owned by Myanmar’s military. Along with being the biggest shareholder in Mytel, Viettel is authorised to provide Myanmar with “defence and security products”.

The Politics of Losing Home

The Daily Star  

Md Touhid Hossain
December 24, 2020

COLLAGE: Kazi Akib Bin Asad

In August 2017, the Myanmar military perpetrated a genocide on the Rohingyas, an ethnic group residing in Northern Rakhine. Large numbers of Rohingyas were killed, women and girls were raped, villages burnt and upwards of 800,000 men, women and children were driven out of their homes. They crossed the border into Bangladesh to save their lives and are now sheltered in camps in Teknaf and Ukhia, in the southern tip of Bangladesh.

Although this outrageous event was sort of a 'final solution', atrocities on Rohingyas have a long history. The first mass expulsion took place in 1977-78 when 250,000 were driven across the border. Most of them were sent back through negotiations. However, following the second mass expulsion in 1989-90, many of the 250,000 refugees could not be sent back. Meanwhile, the Burmese Citizenship Act of 1982 disenfranchised the Rohingyas of their citizenship. Under continued atrocities by the military and the local Rakhines led by extremist Buddhist monks, a slow exodus continued till 2016, when another 80,000 were expelled. At least 300,000 Rohingyas were displaced in Bangladesh before 2017.

More than 100 UK MPs want intervention in The Gambia’s Rohingya genocide case

The Daily Star 

Star Online Report
December 18, 2020

 

Photo: AFP/File 

More than 100 UK MPs have called on the British government to make an intervention supporting The Gambia's Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as human rights violations against the Rohingyas continue.

"Ending impunity is essential not only to ensure justice and uphold international law, but also to deter further international crimes by the military in Myanmar," according to a letter to the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Dominic Raab MP, issued on December 17.

Rohingya Woman Files First Complaint in Myanmar HRC After 'Genocide'

Reuters

12/Dec/2020

 

The woman has sought $ 2 million in compensation for the death of her husband, who was killed by government soldiers during a 2017 military crackdown in western Myanmar. 

File Photo: Rohingya refugees stretch their hands to receive aid distributed by local organisations at Balukhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 14, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo

A Rohingya woman is seeking $2 million in compensation for the death of her husband, who was killed by government soldiers during a 2017 military crackdown in western Myanmar, lawyers said.

Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) and an international law firm, McDermott Will & Emery, said they filed a complaint on Thursday with Myanmar’s human rights commission on behalf of Setara Begum, whose husband Shoket Ullah was killed at Inn Din village in Rakhine state.

Her claim is the first complaint related to the Rohingya known to have been filed through Myanmar’s human rights commission, according to LAW, a legal non-profit organisation based in Geneva.

Rohingya genocide survivors in severe mental health crisis

Dhaka Tribune 

UNB
December 10th, 2020

File photo of Rohingya refugees stand in a queue after they disembarked from a Bangladesh Navy ship to the island of Bashar Char in Noakhali on December 4, 2020 AFP

The report provides new evidence of the severe mental health toll that genocide, human rights violations, and violence has on survivors

Rohingyas in Bangladesh who survived genocide in Myanmar are experiencing a "severe" mental health crisis, according to data in a new report published on Thursday by Fortify Rights.

The report includes quantitative data on Rohingya experiences with human rights violations in Myanmar, traumatic events in Myanmar, symptoms of mental harm—including post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety—functioning difficulties, as well as Rohingya opinions on returning to Myanmar.

Myanmar ignoring Rohingya genocide trial measures, say activists

Eastern Eyes

November 26, 2020

The President of The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK), Tun Khin, poses in front of Argentine federal court in Buenos Aires on November 13, 2019. (Photo by JUAN MABROMATA / AFP)

Human rights lawyers and activists said on Monday (23) that Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UN’s top court.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Myanmar na ci gaba da musgunawa musulmin Rohingya- Lauyoyi

rfi 

Wallafawa ranar: 24/11/2020

'Yan Rohingya kusan miliyan guda ne yanzu haka ke gudun hijira a Bangladesh STR/AFP

Lauyoyin da ke kare mutanen da aka ci zarafin su a kasar Myanmar sun ce har yanzu gwamnatin kasar na cigaba da aikata laifuffukan yaki akan 'yan kabilar Rohingya Musulimi sabanin umurnin kotun duniya.

La Birmanie continue de persécuter les Rohingyas

[24] MODE
KEYSTONE/EPA
Publié: 23.11.2020,

Malgré l’intervention de la Cour internationale de justice, les exactions de l’armée birmane contre la minorité musulmane se poursuivent, rapporte une ONG.

L'icône de la démocratie Aung San Suu Kyi est critiquée à l'international pour les exactions commises contre les Rohingyas en Birmanie (archives).

 

Le gouvernement birman continue de persécuter la minorité musulmane rohingya, ont affirmé lundi des avocats et des défenseurs des droits humains. En janvier pourtant, la CIJ avait ordonné à la Birmanie de cesser ses exactions.

Pegiat HAM Sebut Genosida Rohingya di Myanmar Masih Terjadi

CNN

CNN Indonesia

Selasa,
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia
Bagikan : 24/11/2020

Ilustrasi pengungsi Rohingya. Pegiat HAM meyakini Myanmar masih melakukan genosida terhadap etnis ini. (ANTARA FOTO/Syifa)

 

Sejumlah pegiat hak asasi manusia menyebut pemerintah Myanmar tidak berhenti melakukan genosida atau pembersihan etnis Rohingya meski negara itu sudah digugat di Mahkamah Internasional (ICJ).

"Genosida masih berlangsung. Pemerintah dan militer Myanmar sudah memperhitungkan mereka tetap aman jika mengabaikan tindakan sementara dan tidak akan menghadapi konsekuensi apapun," kata Presiden Organisasi Burma Rohingya, Tun Khin, seperti dilansir AFP, Selasa (24/11).

In Birmania il genocidio contro i Rohingya continua

31 MAG.nl

24 Nov 2020

La Birmania, a maggioranza Buddista, sta continuando a perpetrare il genocidio contro la minoranza Rohingya, di fede musulmana, nonostante gli ordini delle Nazioni Unite. L’allarme è stato lanciato da attivisti e avvocati che si occupano di diritti umani.

A gennaio, il tribunale internazionale di giustizia ICJ ha respinto le argomentazioni della leader Birmana, Aung San Suo Kyi, che si è auto difesa alla corte dell’Aja. Il tribunale ha inoltre imposto misure temporanee ma urgenti sulla nazione.

La ICJ ha ordinato alla Birmania di fermare il genocidio, di non eliminare le prove dei crimini commessi contro i Rohingya e di presentare un resoconto alle UN ogni sei mesi.

Myanmar ignoring Rohingya genocide trial measures: activists

Frontier
MYANMAR

By AFP
November 24, 2020

 

Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, speaks to the press outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague on January 23. Tun Khin on Monday said Myanmar has failed to abide by a previous ICJ ruling in a case brought by The Gambia accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. (AFP)

 

Human rights lawyers and activists said on Monday that Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UN’s top court.

The International Court of Justice in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the nation.

Myanmar's genocide against Rohingya not over, says rights group

The Guardian

AFP in Yangon
Mon 23 Nov 2020

Lawyers and activists say persecution of Muslims is continuing despite UN action

Voters in Yangon this month. Rohingya citizens of Myanmar are not allowed to participate in elections. Photograph: Shwe Paw Mya Tin/Reuters

 

Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UN’s top court, according to human rights lawyers and activists.

The international court of justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

The ICJ ordered Myanmar to cease the commission of genocidal acts, prevent the destruction of evidence of crimes against the Rohingya and report back to the UN every six months.

Myanmar ignoring Rohingya genocide trial measures: activists

MailOnline

By Afp
Published: 23 November 2020

 

The International Court of Justice in The Hague rejected arguments made by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ordered the country to cease genocidal acts against the Rohingya

Human rights lawyers and activists said on Monday that Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UN's top court.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Myanmar ignoring Rohingya genocide trial measures: activists

AFP
23 November 2020,

 

The International Court of Justice in The Hague rejected arguments made by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and ordered the country to cease genocidal acts against the Rohingya

Human rights lawyers and activists said on Monday that Myanmar is continuing to commit genocide against Rohingya Muslims in breach of orders by the UN's top court.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January rejected arguments made personally by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in The Hague and imposed urgent interim measures on the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Myanmar Still Loves Aung San Suu Kyi, but Not for the Reasons You Think

The New York Times 

 By Min Zin
Mr. Min Zin is a political scientist.
Nov. 23, 2020

 

Credit...Ye Aung Thu/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

YANGON, Myanmar — The National League for Democracy, the incumbent party led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, secured another landslide victory in the general elections of Nov. 8. It did better even than in 2015, a landmark election, winning this year 396 of the 476 elected seats to be filled in both the lower and the upper houses. (Another 166 seats were reserved for military appointees.)

And the N.L.D. obtained this result despite the government’s weak performance on its key pledges during its first term in office — constitutional reform, national reconciliation and peace, socioeconomic improvement — and the rise of both ethnic minority parties and new challengers. In addition to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (U.S.D.P.), some 90 parties fielded candidates this year.

So what does the outcome say about what Myanmar’s voters really care about?