Tillerson to deliver warning
WASHINGTON: In the face of widespread “atrocities” against ethnic Rohingya people in Myanmar, the United States has been cautiously stepping up pressure on that country’s army, while taking care to avoid endangering the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
As the US takes a more active role in the region, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to travel to Myanmar tomorrow to meet Ms Suu Kyi, the nation’s leader, as well as army chief Gen Min Aung Hlaing.
Mr Tillerson is expected to adopt a firm tone with military leaders there, whom he has deemed “responsible” for the crisis facing the Rohingya.
The embattled Muslim minority has seen more than 600,000 of its members flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in the past two and a half months.
In the name of putting down a supposed Rohingya rebellion, the army has since late August waged a sweeping military campaign in the western state of Rakhine, burning villages and sending thousands into what has become the largest exodus in today’s world.
Recently returned from Myanmar and the overflowing refugee camps in Bangladesh, Simon Henshaw, the State Department official responsible for refugee and migration issues, said the scene in the camps was “shocking”.
“The scale of the refugee crisis is immense,” he said, adding: “The conditions are tough. People are suffering.”
“Many refugees told us, through tears, accounts of seeing their villages burned, their relatives killed in front of them,” Mr Henshaw said.
“The world can’t just stand by and be witness to the atrocities that are being reported in that area,” Mr Tillerson said last month.
But it is unclear what steps the US might take.
Up to now, it has merely strengthened a few punitive measures aimed at Myanmar’s army.
The i nitial condemnations were “important”, Sarah Margon of the organisation Human Rights Watch said, “but they stopped and there has been very little concrete action since then”.
She called for targeted economic sanctions meant to bring an end to “some of the most brutal and horrific atrocities that have been seen in years.”
The State Department has not ruled out supporting further sanctions.