Amnesty strips Aung San Suu Kyi of 'Ambassador of Conscience' award

Source AI, 12 Nov,

Amnesty revokes honour awarded when she languished under house arrest in 2009

Rohingya in Myanmar killed and tortured in campaign of ethnic cleansing

'We are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope' - Kumi Naidoo

Amnesty International announced today that it has withdrawn its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience award, from Aung San Suu Kyi, in light of the Myanmar leader's shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for.

Yesterday, Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty's Secretary General, wrote to Aung San Suu Kyi to inform her the organisation is revoking the 2009 award. Half way through her term in office, and eight years after her release from house arrest, Naidoo expressed Amnesty's grievous disappointment that she had not used her political and moral authority to safeguard human rights, justice or equality in Myanmar, citing her apparent indifference to atrocities committed by the Myanmar military and increasing intolerance of freedom of expression.

Kumi Naidoo wrote:

"As an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, our expectation was that you would continue to use your moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever you saw it, not least within Myanmar itself.

"Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defence of human rights. Amnesty International cannot justify your continued status as a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience award and so with great sadness we are hereby withdrawing it from you."

Perpetuating human rights violations

Since Aung San Suu Kyi became the de facto leader of Myanmar's civilian-led government in April 2016, her administration has been actively involved in the commission or perpetuation of multiple human rights violations.

Amnesty has repeatedly criticised the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya population in Rakhine State. During the campaign of violence unleashed against the Rohingya last year, the Myanmar security forces killed thousands of people, raped women and girls, detained and tortured men and boys, and burned hundreds of homes to the ground. Fleeing the violence, more than 720,000 Rohingya escaped to neighbouring Bangladesh. A UN report has called for senior military officials to be investigated and prosecuted for the crime of genocide.

Although the Myanmar civilian government does not have control over the military, Aung San Suu Kyi and her office have repeatedly shielded the security forces from accountability by dismissing, downplaying or denying allegations of human rights violations and by obstructing international investigations into abuses. Her administration has actively stirred up hostility against the Rohingya, labelling them "terrorists" and accusing them of burning their own homes and "faking rape". Meanwhile, state media have published inflammatory and dehumanising articles referring to the Rohingya as "detestable human fleas" and "thorns" which must be removed.

Kumi Naidoo said:

"Aung San Suu Kyi's failure to speak out for the Rohingya is one reason why we can no longer justify her status as an Ambassador of Conscience.

"Her denial of the gravity and scale of the atrocities means there is little prospect of the situation improving for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in limbo in Bangladesh or for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who remain in Rakhine. Without acknowledgement of the horrific crimes against the community, it is hard to see how the government can take steps to protect them from future atrocities."

Amnesty has also highlighted the situation in Kachin and northern Shan States, where Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to use her influence to condemn military abuses, to push for accountability for war crimes or to speak up for ethnic minority civilians who bear the brunt of the conflicts. To make matters worse, her civilian-led administration has imposed harsh restrictions on humanitarian access, exacerbating the suffering of more than 100,000 people displaced by the violence.

Attacks on freedom of speech

Despite the power wielded by the Myanmar military, there are areas where the civilian-led government has considerable authority to enact reforms to better protect human rights, especially those relating to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. But in the two-and-a-half years since Aung San Suu Kyi's administration assumed power, human rights defenders, peaceful activists and journalists have been arrested and imprisoned, while others face threats, harassment and intimidation for their work.

Aung San Suu Kyi's administration has failed to repeal repressive laws – including some of the same laws which were used to detain her and others campaigning for democracy and human rights. Instead, she has actively defended the use of such laws, in particular the decision to prosecute and imprison two Reuters journalists for their work documenting a military massacre.

Aung San Suu Kyi was named as Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience in 2009, in recognition of her peaceful and non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. At the time she was held under house arrest, which she was eventually released from exactly eight years ago today. When she was finally able to accept the award in 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi asked Amnesty to "not take either your eyes or your mind off us and help us to be the country where hope and history merges".

Kumi Naidoo said:

"Amnesty International took Aung San Suu Kyi's request that day very seriously, which is why we will never look away from human rights violations in Myanmar.

"We will continue to fight for justice and human rights in Myanmar - with or without her support."

The EU is considering sanctioning garment workers but has rejected sanctions against Min Aung Hlaing

Source BurmaCampaignUK, 29 Oct

When the United Nations Fact Finding Mission published its report into human rights violations in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States, it was quite clear who bore primary responsibility for violations of international law, including genocide – the Burmese military. In particular, their report called for action against the leadership of the military, including Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing.

To date the EU has not accepted either the findings or the recommendations of the UN investigation, which they themselves helped set up. Instead they have decided to look into sanctioning people who played no role in human rights violations against the Rohingya, Shan or Kachin. They have decided to look into sanctioning ordinary workers, mainly garment workers.

This week an EU delegation is visiting Burma as part of a review ordered by Cecilia Malmström, the EU Trade Commissioner. They are considering withdrawing 'Everything But Arms' trade privileges awarded to Burma, which reduces tariffs and makes Burma's exports more competitive than those from more developed countries. This is a sanction which will have virtually no impact on the Burmese military or on the government. Instead it risks putting tens of thousands of ordinary workers out of work.

The decision is even more extraordinary because the EU has made a specific and deliberate decision not to sanction Min Aung Hlaing. He is not one of the seven people the EU have banned from holidaying in the EU because of their role in the genocide of the Rohingya.

Here is a list of 15 things the EU has been asked to do, and which it has failed to do, all of which would be far more effective at applying pressure on the Burmese military and government than the withdrawal of trade privileges:

1. The EU decided not to support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court.
2. The EU does not support the creation of an alternative Ad Hoc Tribunal if support for an ICC referral cannot be secured.
3. The EU decided not to ban EU members from training the Burmese military.
4. The EU refuses to reveal which (if any) EU members are still training the military. (The EU ambassador to Burma, Kristian Schmidt, told Burma Campaign UK he would do so, then broke his word and now refuses to release the information.)
5. EU officials in Burma still back down to the demands of racists and largely avoid using the word Rohingya in public statements and meetings with the government.
6. The EU refuses to stop funding and training the military-controlled police force, which still uses torture and was responsible for arresting and framing the jailed Reuters journalists.
7. The EU refuses to stop European companies from supplying equipment to the military (apart from arms).
8. The EU does not ensure that the EAS/Commission and EU member states do not source goods and services from military owned and controlled companies.
9. The EU and member states have not imposed policies to ensure no EU aid goes to military owned and controlled companies for the supply of goods and services.
10. The EU refuses to impose sanctions limiting military owned and controlled companies' access to European financial markets and the use of the euro.
11. The EU has not supported the findings of the UN Fact Finding Mission.
12. The EU has not supported the recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission.
13. The EU refuses to review and consider ending direct and indirect financial and technical support to the Burmese government.
14. The EU does not support the imposition of a UN mandated global arms embargo.
15. The EU has not stopped channelling aid and development assistance to and through the Burmese government.

It makes absolutely no sense that the European Union is considering sanctions that will mainly impact ordinary people while at the same time rejecting sanctions that target Min Aung Hlaing and his military.

At present the only sanctions from the EU in response to genocide of the Rohingya, war crimes and crimes against humanity against other ethnic groups, and a huge range of other human rights violations by both the military and the government, has been to stop seven people, not including Min Aung Hlaing or senior military officers, from going on holiday in the EU. It is, therefore, not surprising that EU sanctions have not been effective in influencing the Burmese military or government.

The bizarre decision by the EU Trade Commissioner is just the latest in its long history of catastrophically bad decision making over its Burma policy.

Through its actions and inaction from 2012, the European Union contributed to the enabling environment whereby Min Aung Hlaing believed (so far correctly) he could get away with genocide of the Rohingya.

Burma Campaign UK submitted details of British government and EU complicity in this crisis to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament when it held an inquiry into what had taken place.

To date the European Union has done little to disabuse Min Aung Hlaing of the impression they'll keep letting him get away with violating international law, especially when they deliberately avoid sanctioning him. Does the EU seriously think that having given him a personal free pass, Min Aung Hlaing will be so concerned by the EU sanctioning garment workers that he'll change his behaviour?

As members of the European Burma Network pointed out in a joint statement: "Withdrawing these trade privileges will have a disproportionate impact on ordinary people who have played no role in human rights violations against the Rohingya and others, and in fact themselves suffer from a lack of human rights and genuine democracy in Burma."

Further, the impact of these particular sanctions on the military and government is likely to be limited compared to many other options available. It appears contradictory to impose sanctions which may predominantly impact garment workers, whilst at the same time still funding and otherwise supporting both the government and the military controlled police force.

There is a danger such sanctions could be blamed on the Rohingya, further hardening public sentiment against them. There is also a danger that these kind of untargeted sanctions and their impact on ordinary people will discredit all sanctions in the public mind and in the media, making it harder to secure support for sanctions that actually will have an impact.

Any sanctions imposed by the EU must predominantly target the military and its interests, and minimise as far as possible any impact on ordinary people in Burma.

No-one has been calling for the kind of sanctions Cecilia Malmström is now considering. Burma Campaign UK is also not aware of any EU member state supporting the withdrawal of these trade privileges. So far it appears none have been willing to publicly say so. This has to change. Cecilia Malmström may have the technical power to go ahead with these sanctions without the support of member states, but it is not a power she should use.

This review should be stopped immediately, and instead EU member states need to look again at targeted sanctions on the military, including supporting ICC referral or an alternative ad hoc tribunal. Punishing garment workers for the actions of the military is completely unacceptable, and EU member states must say so.

Perhaps the one thing we can be grateful to Cecilia Malmström for is exposing just how hopeless, contradictory and illogical the EU approach to Burma is.

 

Mark Farmaner is Director of Burma Campaign UK

 

Rohingya crisis: UN warns of ongoing genocide

Source Aljazeera, 25 Oct

The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has briefed the Security Council on the results of its investigation into the deadly violence perpetrated by the country's military against Muslim-majority Rohingya

by James Bays

25 October 2018 :6 hours ago

Watch : Rohingya crisis: UN warns of ongoing genocide | Video IAl Jazeera English

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UN investigators say Muslim-majority Rohingya in Myanmar are still facing genocide.

The head of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar told the UN Security Council that up to 400,000 Rohingya who remain in Myanmar face severe restrictions and repression.

Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from the UN.

Nine U.N. Security Council members ask to discuss Myanmar inquiry

Source Reuters, 17 Oct

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The chair of a United Nations inquiry that accused Myanmar's military of genocide is likely to brief the Security Council this month after Britain, France, the United States and six other members requested the meeting, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The move comes as global pressure mounts on Myanmar to act on accountability after a Myanmar military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine last year drove some 700,000 of the largely stateless minority over the border into Bangladesh.

The crackdown followed attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts. Myanmar has denied committing atrocities against the Rohingya, saying its military carried out justifiable actions against militants.

The U.N. inquiry's report, released in August, called for the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, impose targeted sanctions and set up an ad hoc tribunal to try suspects or refer them to the International Criminal Court.

Diplomats say council veto powers China and Russia are likely to protect Myanmar from any push for such measures.

However, they cannot block the briefing on the U.N. report because a minimum nine of the 15 council members support the move, which cannot be vetoed. Diplomats say China and Russia believe the report should first be addressed by the U.N. General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with human rights.

The letter requesting the briefing was signed by Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Peru, Kuwait, Ivory Coast and the United States.

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Myanmar's U.N. Ambassador Hau Do Suan wrote to the Security Council on Tuesday to object to the chair of the inquiry being invited to brief the body, warning that it "will only exacerbate mistrust and polarization among different communities in Rakhine" state, where the military crackdown occurred.

"Putting accountability above all else without regard to other positive developments is a dangerous attempt that will face utter failure," he wrote.

The U.N. inquiry, established by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with "genocidal intent." Myanmar rejected the findings as "one-sided" and said it was a legitimate counterinsurgency operation.

The European Union is considering trade sanctions on Myanmar over the Rohingya crisis, potentially stripping the country of tariff-free access to the world's largest trading bloc, three EU officials said earlier this month. The EU has already imposed travel bans and asset freezes on several military members.

The United States imposed sanctions on four military and police commanders and two army units in August. New sanctions are under consideration for half a dozen other individuals and at least two military-run businesses, U.S. officials have said.

"Unilateral coercive measures without regard to the situation in Myanmar and imposition of politically motivated external pressure will be detrimental to the existing good will and cooperation of the Myanmar Government with the international community," Myanmar's U.N. envoy wrote to the Security Council.

Separately, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has begun examining allegations of forced deportation of Rohingya to Bangladesh. Myanmar has said it wants to repatriate Rohingya who fled. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by Paul Tait)

Australia must demand Myanmar war crimes tribunal, says investigator

Source brisbanetimes, 30 Sept

The Morrison government should use its regional clout to demand a peacekeeping mission and war crimes tribunal in response to humanitarian crimes in Myanmar, says a top Australian investigator.

Michael Stefanovic, an Australian seconded to the US State Department's Myanmar inquiry, said he was horrified by the evidence he had gathered.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is grappling whether to use the term genocide to describe the Myanmar military's attack on members on the Rohingya ethnic minority.

But Mr Stefanovic said the term was appropriate.

To underscore the shocking nature of the atrocities, Mr Stefanovic described the story of a man forced by an officer with the Tatmadaw, the country's military, to select a woman from a crowd of Rohingya villagers to be gang raped in public.

Mr Stefanovic has held senior posts at the UN and has previously investigated war crimes in the Balkans and Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

He described the evidence gathered by the US State Department – which had interviewed more than 1000 Rohingya – as the most harrowing he has ever encountered.

"It needs to be acted on. [The] Australian government has a lot of weight in this area of international humanitarian law and I think it needs to throw it around," he said.

War crimes investigator Michael Stefanovic. Photo: Simon Schluter

Mr Stefanovic is also calling on Australia to consider severing ties with Myanmar's military.

The pending release by Mr Pompeo of the final conclusions of the US inquiry will supplement a summary of the State Department's "factual" findings released last week, which accused Myanmar's military of waging a coordinated campaign of mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

UN investigators estimate 10,000 Rohingya have been killed.

The investigation

In May, Mr Stefanovic conducted interviews with dozens of Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh, where almost 700,000 Rohingya are living as refugees.

Rohingya refugee women wait in their line as the men in their line run past for a meal provided by a Turkish aid agency.Photo: Kate Geraghty

The interviews helped inform the State Department's findings that Myanmar's military engaged in attacks in Rakhine State that were "extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorising the population and driving out the Rohingya residents".

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Little hope for home

The first randomly selected survivor Mr Stefanovic interviewed described "no less than three significant massacres, one of which involved hundreds of bodies floating in a waterway".

When Mr Stefanovic, a former homicide detective with Victoria Police, debriefed with his inquiry team after his first day on the ground in Bangladesh, his fellow investigators told similar stories.

"Often … it takes a while before the crimes of that extent emerge," he said. "But everyone had hit the ground running with a fairly horrendous account of what had occurred in Myanmar."

"I had got to that point of my career where I was sort of a fairly cold, objective, dispassionate, detached… a cold bastard," Mr Stefanovic said. Yet the accounts of the Rohingya moved him.

He said one story more than others had stayed with him. A man who fled from Myanmar in October 2017 described being forced by a military official to select a woman from a crowd of Rohingya villagers.

The man said she was then raped by several soldiers in front of horrified villagers. When a fellow villager protested, he was executed by a Tatmadaw commander.

"He was a broken man," Mr Stefanovic recalls of the survivor.

Report findings

The State Department's summary "factual" report describes a "well-planned and coordinated" military operation to terrorise the Rohingya. It documents the use of public gang rape as a military weapon, as well as the murder of toddlers. Some people were buried alive in a military campaign prompted by attacks by Rohingya insurgents in August 2017.

Mr Pompeo is now weighing whether to declare the acts a genocide, a move that would increase pressure on the international community to act but which might be resisted by Russia and China and be contrary to President Donald Trump's desire for the US to step back from its role as a global watchdog.

Mr Stefanovic said the evidence that a genocide has occurred is compelling.

"There were mass killings, there were atrocities that were committed with a view to terrorising a population to force them out of the country and that all qualifies as genocide," he said.

In August, a United Nations investigation described the "genocidal intent" underpinning the military's campaign. The UN report called for six high-ranking military officials, including commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, to be prosecuted for genocide.

Mr Stefanovic said he was speaking out about his work with the State Department – which usually communicates via senior diplomats and press releases – to urge Australia to respond more forcefully to the humanitarian catastrophe.

Australia must act

Australia's newly appointed foreign affairs minister Marise Payne recently said the government was "considering its options, including targeted sanctions" in response to the UN findings.

Ms Payne is expected to meet Mr Pompeo this week and discuss the Myanmar report.

On Saturday, she told the UN General Assembly that Australia was deeply disturbed at the reports of atrocities and was "working with Myanmar and with ASEAN and regional partners ... to find long-term solutions to this complex crisis".

Mr Stefanovic said the release of the State Department report was cause for Australia to act, using its standing in the region to champion a peacekeeping force and a tribunal .

"Someone needs to get in there and intervene, provide stability to enable the return of the Rohingya into Myanmar [and] to set up methods to ensure they have got national recognition, they've got citizenship and that there's some form of justice mechanism put in place."

Mr Stefanovic also called for targeted sanctions of military officials and a review of the support given by Australia to the Tatmadaw, which in the last financial year reportedly included $400,000 for training.

"It needs to be definitely looked at with the view to being cut."

Limited expectations

Mr Stefanovic said resistance by the Russian and Chinese governments may stymie any US-led intervention and Australia may be more successful if it led efforts to form a regional coalition.

"This is where the Australian government can come in. Some sort of regional approach might be more palatable and much quicker to come to bear."

"I think Australia could bring its experience from [the Solomon Islands], Bougainville and other places to help drive that."

He is not hopeful that those responsible for genocidal acts in Myanmar will ever be fully held to account.

"You don't dwell on it too much," he said.

"I'll do my work, assemble it, put it towards people who can develop the appropriate policies and appropriate global responses to these things and I'll park it for a while and move on to the next [war crimes inquiry].

"I actually want my children when they grow up to understand what it is that I've done. I want them to understand what the nature of these horrific crimes are and what's out there and how lucky they are to be in Australia where they don't have to contend with horrific events like that.

• MYANMAR

Nick McKenzie

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Nick McKenzie is a leading investigative journalist. He's won Australia's top journalism award, the Walkley, seven times and covers politics, business, foreign affairs and defence, human rights issues, the criminal justice system and social affairs.

Rohingya crisis declared genocide, MPs unanimously agree

Source ctv, 20 Sept

Watch : Parliament recognizes Rohingya genocide

Parliament recognizes Rohingya genocide The parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs Andrew Leslie rises in the House to recognize the...

OTTAWA – Thursday, members of Parliament unanimously agreed to pass a motion recognizing the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as genocide.

The motion was brought forward by Liberal MP and foreign affairs parliamentary secretary Andrew Leslie. Specifically the motion called for MPs to agree to:

• Endorse the findings of the UN fact-finding mission in Myanmar that crimes against humanity were committed;
• That these "horrific acts' be sanctioned;
• Recognize that these crimes constitute genocide;
• Call on the UN Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court; and that
• Senior Myanmar military officials be investigated and prosecuted for the crime of genocide.

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Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic minority refugees scuffle for food rations distributed by Bangladeshi volunteers near Cox's Bazar's Gundum area, Bangladesh on Sept. 3, 2017. (AP / Bernat Armangue)

After the motion was read, MPs clapped and agreed to adopt the motion.

Speaking from Washington, D.C., Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland called it a "very important statement by Canada."

She thanked all MPs for their work in recognizing "this atrocity."

Canada has publicly condemned the violence and has committed $300 million over the next three years to help refugees fleeing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the southeast Asian country.

Since August 2017, roughly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar's Buddhist-majority Rakhine state for refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh amid widespread violence that the United Nations has labelled "textbook ethnic cleansing."