UN admits failing Rohingya in Burma crackdown

‘Without question serious errors were committed in the UN system’

THE UN has called its own handling of the crisis in Burma a systematic failure beset by “serious errors” in a report due out this week.

It found there was no joined up strategy at the highest level and “unseemly” infighting over how to handle the situation when the Burmese military launched a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims in August 2017.

UN investigators have said the government acted with “genocidal intent”, leading about 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their homes. Yet Ban Kimoon, the former UN secretary-general, was “either unwilling or unable” to negotiate a way forward, according to the copy of the report seen by The Guardian. It stated: “Without question, serious errors were committed and opportunities were lost in the UN system following a fragmented strategy rather than a common plan of action.

“The overall responsibility was of a collective nature; in other words it can truly be characterised as a systemic failure of the United Nations.”

The report, compiled by Gert Rosenthal, the former foreign minister of Guatemala, suggests that abuses against the Rohingya were “played down” and “deliberately dedramatised” by some UN officials with the aim of furthering the case for pursuing a policy of development in Burma.

The local UN mission also suffered from understaffing and a lack of clear instructions on what it was supposed to do, the review found.

Last month Amnesty International warned that the Rohingya Muslims were facing fresh atrocities and human rights violations at the hands of the military in Burma’s western Rakhine state.