The heat on the government of Myanmar and the Tatmadaw is growing. After strong international pressure and condemnation of the country due to its actions against the Rohingya Muslims, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is finally stepping in. On 18 September, the ICC’s prosecutor opened a preliminary probe into Myanmar’s alleged crimes against the Rohingya.
Myanmar's army has used unfathomable levels of violence against minority Rohingya, United Nations (UN) investigators said Tuesday, calling for the military to be removed from politics and top generals to be prosecuted for genocide.The UN report, which laid out in meticulous detail a vast array of violations committed by the country's powerful military, came just hours before the International Criminal Court's prosecutor announced a preliminary probe into crimes against Rohingya
For the first time, the United Nations (UN) have officially called for top Myanmar military officials to “be investigated and prosecuted” for genocide of the Rohingya people in the northern Rakhine state as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law.
With a repatriation plan in tatters and funding evaporating for a million refugees with ever-growing needs, Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh face a grim future one year after the latest eruption of a decades-old conflict.Raids by Rohingya militants on 25 August last year across Myanmar's Rakhine state spurred an army crackdown which the United Nations (UN) has likened to "ethnic cleansing".Around 700,000 of the Muslim minority fled by foot or boat to Bangladesh,
Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday it was up to Bangladesh to decide how quickly Rohingya refugees would return to Myanmar, appearing to blame Dhaka for the delay.More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to Bangladesh after a brutal military crackdown on the stateless minority almost a year ago.The two countries last November signed a deal to repatriate them but it has stalled.
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on four commanders and two military units in Myanmar over their involvement in alleged ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya Muslim population.The sanctions against Myanmar, also known as Burma, will freeze the United States (US) assets of the military officials and prohibit American citizens and businesses from engaging in business with them.
The biggest state-sponsored mass statelessness in Southeast Asia was triggered in 1982, when Myanmar rolled out its Citizenship Law that outright deprived the Rohingya of citizenship. Under this law, full citizenship is awarded based on membership of eight national indigenous races representing 153 groups. These groups were considered to have settled in the country before the first occupation by the British in 1824.
Cross-legged in a windowless, almost pitch-black bamboo shack, the investigator pressed record on a video camera and asked the young Rohingya woman to describe the night the Myanmar soldiers came."They broke down our door. They took my husband outside and shot him," recalled the 20-year-old, one of around 700,000 Rohingyas driven from Myanmar into Bangladesh a year ago."Then they killed my son.
Myanmar said that a request at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to probe the mass deportation of Rohingya Muslims from the country was "meritless" and should be rejected.Some 700,000 Rohingya were violently expelled from their homes in Myanmar's Rakhine state in a military crackdown that started almost a year ago after insurgents attacked border guard posts.The stateless minority fled to Bangladesh where they recounted widespread rape, murder and the burning of villages a
Last week, Myanmar seemingly made steps towards being accountable for the Rohingya crisis that has been ongoing for the past year. The country established a new Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in the Rakhine state. This move is a long time coming as criticism of the government’s inaction in the crisis has been growing. The Commission of Inquiry will comprise of four people – two Burmese and two international members.
Faced with dwindling tourist numbers from the West, Myanmar is pulling out all stops to woo visitors closer to home. It relaxed visa rules to visitors from China, South Korea and Japan and aims to bring half a million of them over to Mandalay this year.Beginning 1 October, the country is waiving visa requirements for visitors from Japan and South Korea for one year, as a trial run. Visitor growth from these two countries had been stagnating.
When the National League of Defence won the general elections in 2015, paving the way for Myanmar’s first non-military president in over half a century, many farmers sensed a renewed hope for the nation. In fact, Aung San Suu Kyi’s pledge to tackle the issue of land grabbing and to protect farmers in the country was one of the reasons for her victory.
