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Tag: UN

  • Ethnic Rakhine MPs Refuse To Meet UN Envoy Probing Rohingya Abuse

    Ethnic Rakhine MPs Refuse To Meet UN Envoy Probing Rohingya Abuse

    The ruling party in Myanmar’s Rakhine state government said Friday (Jan 13) it refused to meet a UN envoy who is probing allegations of horrific abuse of Rohingya Muslims by security forces in the region.

    Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, was expected to hold talks with members of the Arakan National Party in the state capital Sittwe, before travelling north to an area under military lockdown on Saturday.

    Lee has faced threats and been branded a “whore” by Buddhist hardliners on previous visits for her criticism of how Myanmar treats the Rohingya, a stateless group that has suffered years of poverty and repression.

    They have been targeted by security forces during a three-month crackdown in northern Rakhine that the UN said has seen at least 65,000 Rohingya flee across the border to Bangladesh.

    “They offered to meet with us from their side but we have no plans to meet them,” the vice president of ANP, Khine Pyi Soe, said of Lee’s arrival.

    “I don’t think that meeting with them is very important,” he added.

    Lee’s spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

    Parts of northern Rakhine have been under military control since October as the army launches “clearance operations” to find Rohingya insurgents allegedly behind deadly raids on police border posts.

    The crisis has drawn a storm of international criticism for the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which took power in March.

    Lee has slammed the lockdown as “unacceptable” and called for an international investigation into claims troops have raped, murdered and tortured civilians from the Muslim minority.

    Ahead of her trip, she said violence in Rakhine had contributed to “disquiet regarding the direction that the new government is taking in its first year”.

    Muslim-majority Malaysia has lashed out at Nobel laureate Suu Kyi for not stopping the violence, and next week will host foreign ministers from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for talks on the crisis.

    Bangladesh has urged Myanmar’s government to end the violence and take back the thousands of refugees that have entered already overcrowded camps along the border.

    “Bangladesh has demanded (the) quick restoration of (a) normal situation in Rakhine state so that Myanmar nationals… can quickly go back home,” foreign minister A.H. Mahmood Ali said after meeting Myanmar’s special envoy in Dhaka this week.

    Myanmar’s foreign ministry said the two sides had “agreed to commence consultations for verification and repatriation” of those who had fled the lockdown.

     

    Source: CNA

  • Myanmar detains cops over Rohingya abuse video

    Myanmar detains cops over Rohingya abuse video

    YANGON • Myanmar’s government yesterday said it has detained several police officers over a video apparently showing Rohingya civilians being beaten, a rare admission that the authorities may have carried out abuses against the Muslim minority.

    Tens of thousands of people from the persecuted ethnic group – loathed by many of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority – have fled a military operation in Rakhine province launched after attacks on police posts in October.

    Bangladesh says some 50,000 Rohingya have crossed its borders over the past two months. Many have brought harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of Myanmar’s security forces. Their stories have raised global alarm and galvanised protests against Myanmar’s de facto leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been accused of not doing enough to help the Rohingya.

    Her government has said troops are hunting militants behind deadly raids on police border posts, denying claims of atrocities and launching a dogged information campaign against reports of abuse.

    However, the authorities yesterday pledged to take action “against police officers who allegedly beat villagers during area clearance operations on Nov 5 in Kotankauk village”.

    Ms Suu Kyi’s office named four officers who were involved in the operation, including constable Zaw Myo Htike, who filmed the “selfie-style” video.

    “Those who (were) initially identified were detained,” it said in a statement. “Further investigations are being carried out to expose other police officers who beat villagers in the operation.”

    Dozens of videos have emerged apparently showing security forces abusing Rohingya, but this is the first time the government has said it will take action over them.

    The footage shows police hitting a young boy on the head as he walks to where dozens of villagers are seated in rows on the ground, hands behind their heads. Three officers then start attacking one of the men, beating him with a stick and kicking him repeatedly in the face.

    A Rohingya activist contacted by Agence France-Presse said the footage had been verified by a refugee from the nearby camp, Shilkhali.

    Around 600 people have been detained since the military operation, according to state media, including six who have died in police custody.

    Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long discriminated against the stateless Rohingya, who rights groups say are among the most persecuted people in the world.

    More than 120,000 have been trapped in squalid displacement camps since violence erupted in 2012 in Rakhine, where they are denied citizenship, access to healthcare and education.

    More than a dozen Nobel laureates wrote to the UN Security Council last week urging action to stop the “human tragedy amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” in northern Rakhine.

    Last month, UN rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein criticised the government’s “callous” handling of the crisis, describing it as “a lesson in how to make a bad situation worse”.

    Under Myanmar’s junta-era Constitution, Ms Suu Kyi’s civilian administration has limited power over the army, which maintains control of the defence, home and border ministries.

     

    Source: The Straits Times

  • Benjamin Netanyahu ‘Told New Zealand Backing UN Vote Would Be Declaration Of War’

    Benjamin Netanyahu ‘Told New Zealand Backing UN Vote Would Be Declaration Of War’

    Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told New Zealand’s foreign minister that support for a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in the occupied territories would be viewed as a “declaration of war”.

    According to reports in Israeli media, the Israeli PM called Murray McCully, the foreign minister of New Zealand, before Friday’s resolution, which was co-sponsored by Wellington. Netanyahu told him: “This is a scandalous decision. I’m asking that you not support it and not promote it.

    “If you continue to promote this resolution, from our point of view it will be a declaration of war. It will rupture the relations and there will be consequences. We’ll recall our ambassador [from New Zealand] to Jerusalem.”

    McCully, however, refused to back down, telling Netanyahu: “This resolution conforms to our policy and we will move it forward.”

    A western diplomat confirmed that the call took place and described the conversation as “harsh”.

    The details of the call – disclosed in Haaretz – suggest a mounting sense of panic on the part of Netanyahu in the run-up to the UN security council resolution that passed on Friday demanding an end to settlement building.

    As well as the Netanyahu call, a senior official in Israel’s foreign ministry called New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel, Jonathan Curr, and warned that if the resolution came to a vote, Israel might close its embassy in Wellington in protest.

    Israel responded furiously to the vote, threatening diplomatic reprisals against the countries that voted in favour. Diplomatic ties with New Zealand were temporarily severed and ambassador Itzhak Gerberg was recalled.

    But in a sign that the international pressure may be being felt by the Netanyahu administration, scheduled plans to consider for approval 600 new settlement houses in occupied east Jerusalem were abruptly removed from the agenda of the city’s municipality on Wednesday.

    Netanyahu’s language and behaviour – which has resulted in ambassadors being reprimanded and consultations with foreign leaders, including the UK’s Theresa May, cancelled – has raised eyebrows among foreign diplomats, who point out that the UN resolution does no more than confirm the longstanding view of the international community on Jewish settlements.

    Later on Wednesday the US secretary of state, John Kerry, will make a speech outlining the parameters for how the Obama administration sees a settlement of the Middle East peace process.

    Kerry’s speech, less than a month before Barack Obama leaves office, is expected to be the current administration’s last word on a decades-old dispute that Kerry had hoped to resolve during his four years as America’s top diplomat.

    It could also be seen in Israel as another parting shot at Netanyahu, who has had an acrimonious relationship with Obama since they both took office in 2009. Israel’s public security minister, Gilad Erdan, told Israel Army Radio that the planned speech was a “pathetic move” and “anti-democratic”.

    The US on Friday broke with a longstanding approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and abstained on a United Nations security council resolution that passed with 14 countries in favour and none against.

    An Egyptian paper supportive of the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, reported what it said was a leaked memo allegedly confirming Israel’s allegations that the Obama administration and Palestinian officials had coordinated positions over the wording of the resolution to allow the US to abstain in the vote. The state department denied the report.

     

    Source: www.theguardian.com

  • New Zealand Defends UN Resolution Critical Of Israeli Settlements

    New Zealand Defends UN Resolution Critical Of Israeli Settlements

    WELLINGTON (AFP) – New Zealand said on Saturday (Dec 24) the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements should have come as no surprise to the Jewish State, after Israel retaliated by recalling its ambassador to Wellington.

    New Zealand co-sponsored the resolution which described the settlements in the occupied territories as a major stumbling block to Middle East peace efforts, as they are built on land the Palestinians consider part of their future state.

    There was applause in the UN chamber when the first resolution by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in more than 38 years to condemn Israel over its settlement policy was passed 14-0, with the country’s key ally the United States abstaining.

    Israel refused to recognise the resolution with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman tweeting that their ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal, who co-sponsored the resolution, were to return to Israel immediately.

    “These steps are taken against countries that have tabled the draft resolution to the UNSC and have diplomatic relations with Israel,” he said.

    New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said the decision should have been no surprise to Israel which knew Wellington’s position long before the UN vote.

    “Israel has informed us of their decision to recall their ambassador to New Zealand for consultations,” McCully told AFP in a statement.

    “We have been very open about our view that the (Security Council) should be doing more to support the Middle East peace process and the position we adopted today is totally in line with our long established policy on the Palestinian question.

    “The vote today should not come as a surprise to anyone and we look forward to continuing to engage constructively with all parties on this issue.”

    The resolution demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” It states that Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution”.

    Netanyahu’s office described the UN move as a “shameful anti-Israel resolution”.

    Malaysia and Venezuela also sponsored the UN resolution but do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

    New Zealand is one of 10 non-permanent members of the UNSC, whose two-year term ends this month.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • International Crisis Group: Rohingyas Involved In Attack On Border Guards Headed With People With Links To Pakistan And Saudi Arabia

    International Crisis Group: Rohingyas Involved In Attack On Border Guards Headed With People With Links To Pakistan And Saudi Arabia

    A group of Rohingya Muslims that attacked Myanmar border guards in October is headed by people with links to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on Thursday, citing members of the group.

    The coordinated attacks on Oct. 9 killed nine policemen and sparked a crackdown by security forces in the Muslim-majority northern sector of Rakhine State in the country’s northwest.

    At least 86 people have been killed, according to state media, and the United Nations has estimated 27,000 members of the largely stateless Rohingya minority have fled across the border to Bangladesh.

    Predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, blamed Rohingyas supported by foreign militants for the Oct. 9 attacks, but has issued scant additional information about the assailants it called “terrorists.”

    A group calling itself Harakah al-Yakin claimed responsibility for the attacks in video statements and the Brussels-based ICG said it had interviewed four members of the group in Rakhine State and two outside Myanmar, as well as individuals in contact with members via messaging apps.

    The Harakah al-Yakin, or Faith Movement, was formed after communal violence in 2012 in which more than 100 people were killed and about 140,000 displaced in Rakhine State, most of them Rohingya, the group said.

    Rohingya who have fought in other conflicts, as well as Pakistanis or Afghans, gave clandestine training to villagers in northern Rakhine over two years ahead of the attacks, it said.

    “It included weapons use, guerrilla tactics and, HaY members and trainees report, a particular focus on explosives and IEDs,” the group said, referring to improvised explosive devices.

    It identified Harakah al-Yakin’s leader, who has appeared prominently in a series of nine videos posted online, as Ata Ullah, born in Karachi, Pakistan, to a Rohingya migrant father before moving as a child to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

    “Though not confirmed, there are indications he went to Pakistan and possibly elsewhere, and that he received practical training in modern guerrilla warfare,” the group said. It noted that Ata Ullah was one of 20 Rohingya from Saudi Arabia leading the group’s operations in Rakhine State.

    Separately, a committee of 20 senior Rohingya emigres oversees the group, which has headquarters in Mecca, the ICG said.

    U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a news briefing on Thursday that the United States was aware of the report and reviewing it, but declined to comment further.

    Groups like Islamic State and al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent have referred to the plight of the Rohingya in their material, and the battlefield experience of at least some of the Rohingya fighters implied links to international militants, the ICG said.

    However, ICG said the group has notably not engaged in attacks on the civilian Buddhist population in Rakhine. Harakah al-Yakin’s statements to date indicate its main goals are to end the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar and secure the minority’s citizenship status.

    “It is possible, however, that its objectives could evolve, given its appeals to religious legitimacy and links to international jihadist groups, so it is essential that government efforts do not focus only or primarily on military approaches, but also address underlying community grievances and suffering,” the ICG said.

     

    Source: www.reuters.com