In Myanmar, 5 steps to halt ethnic cleansing
Sona Mia was home when the shootings began in August, part of the Myanmar army’s grotesquely lopsided retaliation against the already persecuted Rohingya people for an attack on security forces. His family had to flee, but his adult daughter, Rayna, had a disability and could not walk or speak. One of Mia’s sons tried to carry Rayna on his shoulders, but the shootings were getting closer. Desperate, they hid Rayna in an abandoned house, promising to get her when the coast was clear.
“After arriving on the hill, we spotted the house where we left her,” Mia, 77, told Amnesty International researchers on the border with Bangladesh. They watched the soldiers burn all the houses in the village. After the military left, Mia’s sons went down and found their sister’s burned corpse in the ruins.
Mia’s family joins more than 530,000 Rohingya who have fled from Myanmar security forces executing a scorched-earth campaign against them in just a few weeks. That is comparable to the population of Atlanta running for their lives. In addition to the massacres, the military also systematically raped and tortured those who tried to escape.
About a million Rohingya Muslims are in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country. In our most detailed analysis yet, Amnesty International has identified, for the first time, specific military units responsible for committing these attacks, which amount to crimes against humanity.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, has shown no signs of acting. It is time for America and the international community to take these steps to hold them accountable:
Cut off all military cooperation with the Myanmar military by immediately suspending the transfer of weapons, munitions and other security assistance.
Impose an arms embargo as well as targeted financial sanctions against senior Myanmar officials responsible for human rights abuses.
Pressure the Myanmar authorities to provide immediate unfettered access to the northern Rakhine state for a United Nations fact-finding mission, which is essential to investigate independently the human rights violations and abuses committed by all sides.
Demand that Myanmar halt the severe restrictions on aid organizations. While we welcome America’s recent contribution of $32 million in humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and those who are internally displaced within Myanmar, the United States should play an international leadership role by increasing aid.
Urge the government to end the long-standing systematic discrimination against the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship under law despite having resided in Myanmar for decades.
The Rohingya can wait no longer while the global community stands by.
The Myanmar military continues to commit crimes against humanity with impunity. For nearly two months, the world has watched the execution of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. If the international community does not come together now to protect refugees and human rights, when will it?