The UN committee on human rights believes that the Myanmar military’s violent operations against Rohingya Muslims were the massacre. In fact, the operations bear “the hallmarks of a genocide”, especially when 5 new mass graves discovered on Tuesday in Burma.
Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled their villages into Bangladesh since the Myanmar military’s crackdown following Aug. 25 attacks by Rohingya insurgents. The government of Myanmar has refused her entrance to the country. However, the latest details a massacre and 5 mass graves in the Myanmar village of Gu Dar Pyin show another point of view.
Yanghee Lee said that while she didn’t have specific details on the village, “you can see it’s a pattern” that has emerged with the Rohingya. She met with the press in Seoul, where Lee is based, that she couldn’t make a clear declaration about genocide. According to her, only a credible international tribunal or court is able to weigh the evidence. But “we are seeing signs and it is building up to that,” she added.
Myanmar: genocide or military operation?
Yanghee Lee’s briefing described her recent visit to refugee camps in Bangladesh and other areas in the region to discuss the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar. First of all, the government needs to launch the fact-finding mission to those areas in northern Rakhine state where the Rohingya live.
Lee added as well that Myanmar’s actions were “amounting to crimes against humanity” and were part of the ‘hallmarks of a genocide’.
“I think Myanmar needs to get rid of this baggage of ‘did you or did you not,’ and if proven that they did, then there has to be responsibility and accountability. No stones must be left unturned because the people, the victims, the families of the victims definitely deserve an answer,”
Yanghee Lee said during her briefing.
