Myanmar fires Rohingya crackdown general after EU, Canada sanctions

luxembourg/yangon — The European Union and Canada imposed sanctions on seven senior military officials from Myanmar on Monday, including the general in charge of an operation accused of driving more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.

Within hours of the EU announcement, the Myanmar military announced that one of the sanctioned generals had been fired on Monday and another had left the army last month after being removed from his post.

The seven face asset freezes and are banned from travelling to the EU, after the bloc extended an arms embargo and prohibited any training of, or cooperation with, Myanmar’s armed forces. The EU sanctions also mark a shift in diplomacy by the European bloc, which suspended its restrictive measures on Myanmar in 2012 to support its partial shift to democratic governance in recent years.

The crackdown on the Rohingya in northwestern Rakhine State, which the UN denounced as “ethnic cleansing” by the military, has soured relations. Myanmar rejects almost all accusations of wrongdoing and says it launched a legitimate counter-insurgency operation after coming under attack by Rohingya militants last August.

One of the officers sanctioned by the EU, Major General Maung Maung Soe, had already been sanctioned by the US. He was transferred late last year from his post as the head of Western Command in Rakhine, where Myanmar’s military launched its counter-offensive.

“He is responsible for the atrocities and serious human rights violations committed against (the) Rohingya population in Rakhine State by the Western Command during that period,” the EU said. —

Officials accused of driving 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh