UN Myanmar envoy worried over displaced Muslims
The Washington Post, July 26 AP
YANGON,
Myanmar — The new U.N. human rights envoy for Myanmar expressed serious concern about the
conditions in camps for more than 100,000 mostly minority Muslims displaced by
violence led by Buddhist extremists, and warned that the country’s human
rights situation may be deteriorating.
Yanghee
Lee spoke Saturday at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission to Myanmar, her
first in the capacity of U.N. rapporteur. She said Myanmar should be applauded for having come a
long way since installing an elected government in 2011 after almost five
decades of repressive military rule.
[You know, I am getting a little tired of hearing this --every time
someone wants to point to the inhumane and despicable treatment of Rohingya
they feel they have to throw the Myanmar government a bone. “It’s a lot better than it was” has not
helped the non-Buddhist minority one bit, ever. “Hey, they have free and fair
elections now . . . and of course they’re deliberately starving over 100,000 people
but you can’t have everything, right?
Baby steps, right?"]
“Yet,
there are worrying signs of possible backtracking, which if unchecked could undermine Myanmar’s
efforts to become a responsible member of the international community that
respects and protects human rights,” she said, after talks with
political and social leaders and trips to troubled areas of the country. [does she mean that
Myanmar should be making these efforts, or that she believe it is currently
making these efforts? And how has any
treatment of the Rohingya confirmed this?]
In
recent months, the government has failed to make much progress in ending
religious conflicts and ethnic tensions, and journalists have been coming under
legal assault after an initial period of goodwill that saw the lifting of
censorship.
Facing
growing international criticism, Myanmar announced this week it was allowing
international aid organizations to return to a western region they were
expelled from earlier this year after Buddhist mobs disrupted their work
helping displaced Rohingya Muslims. [big of them]
Lee
visited western Rakhine state, where since 2012, violence between Rakhine
Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims has left at least 280 people dead and 140,000
homeless, mostly Muslims confined in squalid camps. Myanmar is overwhelmingly
Buddhist, and most
Rohingya are denied citizenship.
“The situation is deplorable,” she
said, reading to reporters from a 10-page statement. She said she believed camp
residents did not have adequate access to basic services and had heard
“disturbing reports” of people dying in the camps due to the lack of emergency
medical care and failure to adequately treat preventable illnesses and
pregnancy-related conditions.
“By virtue
of their legal status (or lack of), the Muslim community has faced and
continues to face systematic discrimination, which include restrictions in the
freedom of movement, restrictions in access to land, food, water, education and
health care, and restrictions on marriages and birth registration,” Lee said.
She added she was concerned that “the government’s plan for long-term peaceful
coexistence may likely result in a permanent segregation” of the Buddhist and
Muslim communities.
[So: I’m confused. What part
of the Myanmar administration is it, exactly, that deserves all this
international praise?]
What
was originally a localized conflict in Rakhine state has turned into a sometimes violent campaign led by Buddhist extremists
against Muslims in other parts of the country, and Lee warned that “the
recurring outbreak of intercommunal violence reveals deep divisions and a
growing polarization between Muslim and Buddhist communities.” [Growing???? You think
it could get any bigger??]
She
called for a law banning hate speech, saying she was concerned by its spread
“and incitement to violence, discrimination and hostility in the media and on
the Internet, which have fuelled and triggered further violence.” She also
called for the withdrawal of a legislative
package on the so-called protection of race and religion that would limit the
civil rights of the Muslim community.
Lee
said she would present her findings later this year to the U.N. General
Assembly.
Aun San Suu Ki, we hardly knew ye . . .
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