UNITED NATIONS, United States, Oct 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The UN Security
Council is scheduled to hear a briefing next week from the head of a UN fact-
finding mission that has accused Myanmar’s military of atrocities against
Muslim Rohingya, diplomats said Thursday.
Nine countries including the United States, Britain and France requested
the briefing that is likely to be opposed by China, which has friendly ties
with Myanmar’s military.
The meeting was scheduled for October 24 despite objections from Myanmar,
which has rejected the findings of the UN inquiry.
The fact-finding mission released an explosive report last month that
called on the council to refer the Myanmar situation to the International
Criminal Court in The Hague, or to create an ad hoc international criminal
tribunal, as was done with the former Yugoslavia.
The report said that Myanmar’s top generals, including Commander-in-Chief
Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine
State.
Myanmar has rejected accusations that its military committed atrocities in
the crackdown last year that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over
the border to Bangladesh.
Myanmar’s Ambassador Hau Do Suan said in a letter to the Security Council
this week that his government “strongly objects” to the request to hear the
chairman of the mission.
Britain, France, Peru, Sweden, Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Poland, Kuwait
and the United States requested the meeting that could still be blocked by a
procedural vote.
If there is no move to block the meeting, the council will hear from
Marzuki Darusman, an Indonesian lawyer who was appointed last year by the UN
Human Rights Council to chair the mission.
In its report, the mission said there were reasonable grounds to believe
that the atrocities were committed with the intention of destroying the
Rohingya, warranting the charges of “genocide.”
Myanmar maintains that the violence in Rakhine was triggered by Rohingya
extremists who attacked border posts in August 2017.