UN demands ‘full, unfettered’ access to Myanmar

GENEVA: UN human rights investigators on Tuesday said they needed “full and unfettered” access to Myanmar to probe a grave and ongoing crisis, but the government renewed its rejection of the investigation.

“It is important for us to see with our own eyes the sites of these alleged violations,” the head of the UN-backed fact-finding mission, Marzuki Darusman, told the Human Rights Council.

“There is a grave humanitarian crisis underway that requires urgent attention,” he added, asking for “full and unfettered access to the country.”

The council set up the mission in March to investigate possible violations across Myanmar, with a particular focus on alleged crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly denounced the UN probe as unhelpful and vowed that her government would not cooperate with it.

Myanmar’s UN ambassador Htin Lynn re-asserted his government’s “position of disassociating itself from the resolution” that set up the fact-finding mission.

“We continue to believe that instituting such a mission is not a helpful course of action in solving the already-intricated Rakhine issue,” he told the council.

Darusman later told reporters that — Lynn’s comments notwithstanding — he understood Suu Kyi’s speech as a de facto invitation for the UN mission to come to Myanmar.