Myanmar govt bans UN rights envoy from visiting country

geneva — The UN’s rights envoy for Myanmar said on Wednesday the government had banned her from the country, adding her exclusion suggests something “awful” is happening in Rakhine state.

UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee had been due to visit Myanmar in January to assess the state of human rights across the country including in Rakhine, which was plunged into crisis by a military crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim community in late August.

Some 655,000 of them have fled for Bangladesh since then, with accounts of arson, murder and rape at the hands of soldiers and vigilante mobs in the mainly Buddhist country.

The UN has accused troops of ethnic cleansing and possible “elements of genocide” against the Rohingya — charges the government vigorously denies as it faces intense global outrage. “I am puzzled and disappointed by this decision by the Myanmar government,” said Lee, who is required to go to the country twice a year in order to report to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly.

“This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in Rakhine,

This declaration of non-cooperation with my mandate can only be viewed as a strong indication that there must be something terribly awful happening in rakhine Yanghee Lee, UN Special Rapporteur

as well as in the rest of the country,” she added.

The South Korean academic said she was told the decision was based on a statement she made after her last visit to Myanmar in July, in which she sharply criticised the government’s rights record and its treatment of the Rohingya. At the time the government criticised the statement as “biased and unfair”. —