Myanmar ‘planned’ Rohingya attacks, possibly ‘genocide,’ UN rights chief

The UN rights chief tells AFP Monday that Myanmar clearly “planned” violent attacks on its Rohingya minority, causing a mass-exodus, and warned the crackdown could possibly amount to “genocide.”

“For us, it was clear… that these operations were organised and planned,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says in an interview.

“You couldn’t exclude the possibility of acts of genocide… You cannot rule it out as having taken place or taking place.”

Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in August.

And more than 655,000 of the Muslim minority have fled across the border into Cox’s Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh since the army campaign began.

Myanmar has consistently denied committing atrocities in Rakhine, saying the crackdown was a proportionate response to the Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25, killing around a dozen officials.

But Zeid said the evidence did not seem to support that, pointing to an upsurge in violence last year that had already prompted some 300,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

His office, which has not been granted numerous requests to access northern Rakhine, published a report last February after speaking to refugees in Cox’s Bazar who spoke of “horrific, horrific crimes, the hunting down of children and cutting their throats,” Zeid said.

“My suspicion was that the first (smaller) operation was a dry run for the second,” he said.

— AFP