Pope sidesteps Rohingya crisis in Myanmar address
UN seeks report on rapes, deaths of Rohingya women
NAYPYIDAW/GENEVA: In a keenly watched address in Myanmar on Tuesday, Pope Francis refrained from any mention of the Rohingya while a UN women’s rights panel called on the country to report within six months on rapes and sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls by its security forces in northern Rakhine state.
The pope called for respect for rights and justice, but failed to mention about the allegations of ethnic cleansing that has driven huge numbers of the Muslim minority from the country.
Sharing a stage with Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw, he did not address the Rohingya crisis head-on, instead tip-toeing around the unfolding humanitarian emergency.
Peace can only be achieved through “justice and a respect for human rights,” he said in a broadly framed speech that also called for “respect for each ethnic group and its identity.”
The word “Rohingya,” an incendiary term in a mainly Buddhist country where the Muslim minority are denied citizenship and branded illegal “Bengali” immigrants, was entirely absent from his speech. Francis has repeatedly defended the group, some 620,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh since August. Rights groups had urged him to tackle Myanmar on its treatment of the minority during his four-day visit.
Rights panel
Meanwhile, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has asked authorities to provide details on women and girls killed in the violence since the army crackdown began in late August.
The campaign, which followed attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents, has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh and left their villages burned to the ground. The rare request for an “exceptional report” from a country was only the panel’s fourth since 1982.
The UN watchdog panel, composed of 23 independent experts, set a six-month deadline for the government to submit the report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“The committee requested information concerning cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls by state security forces; and to provide details on the number of women and girls who have been killed or have died due to other non-natural causes during the latest outbreak of violence,” it said in a statement.
The experts requested information on “investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentences or disciplinary measures imposed on perpetrators, including members of the armed forces, found guilty of such crimes.”
The UN says more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world’s largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that the UN and Washington have said clearly constitutes “ethnic cleansing.”