LETTER | The Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra) warmly welcomes and strongly supports the statement of the Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed in condemning the actions of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in downplaying the massacre of the Rohingya people as defending the indefensible.
Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi’s transformation from democracy icon to international pariah began with the same unjustifiable behaviour. Utterly deplorable was her attempt at justifying the jailing of two international journalists by her regime last month. The regime she leads is now far from being a respectable member of the international community.
Consequently, we are elated to hear that Amnesty International has chosen to withdraw its conferment of its highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award upon Aung San Suu Kyi.
Undoubtedly, this is yet another in a long line of awards that this peace laureate has lost. Other losses suffered include the revocation of a Canadian honorary citizenship as well as the cancellations of Freedoms of Oxford, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle, as well as the removal of a plague in the Scottish city of Aberdeen erected in her honour, all due in no small part to her callous indifference to the suffering of the Rohingya at the hands of a government that she, as State Chancellor, is widely considered to be the de facto leader of, if not de jure.
Centhra also repeats its past demand to the Nobel Prize Committee, as well as others who have invested the Myanmar leader with any sort of honorary bestowments to revoke them with expedience given her unmasking as a human rights violator complicit in the mass murder of the Rohingya people.
Accordingly, we urge every leader at the Asean gathering in Singapore for its 33rd Summit this week to immediately apply political and social pressure upon Myanmar to force its regime to hold those who have committed grave crimes against the Rohingya accountable. The regime also needs to resolve the causes of displacement and ongoing genocide of Rohingya Muslims, and the displacement of the Kachin Christians, another minority group of Myanmar.
Centhra reminds all Asean nations to their commitment to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), made at the 2005 World Summit. The principle of the R2P is based upon the underlying premise that all nations possess a fundamental obligation to protect all populations from mass atrocities and entails the exercise of a framework for employing measures such as mediation, early warning mechanisms, and economic sanctions to prevent human rights violations and to protect civilians from their occurrence.
Centhra urges Asean members to immediately activate this framework and apply this against Myanmar in order for it to restore the basic rights and dignity due and owing to the Rohingya community. Such actions surely must also include appropriate political, economic and military sanctions against Myanmar including the use of economic and military force against the regime pursuant to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter should the regime continue to disregard the will of the international community as regards the safety and well-being of the Rohingya.
Already Myanmar has made known its utter contempt for international law and due process by ignoring the findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar through its report, which documented inhumane treatments against the Rohingya, among other indiscriminate attacks, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearance, destruction of property and looting, torture, rape, and other forms of gender-based violence, leading to the conclusion that the persecution and actions taken against the Rohingya are genocide, a crime against humanity, and war crimes as defined by the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court.
Consequently, it must thus be asked, what juncture will the leaders of Asean heed the call to uphold basic human rights and dignity for all peoples, and thus finally decide that enough is enough, and finally take decisive action against the Burmese regime? Many Rohingya and Kachin lives have already been lost. They could have been saved had the Asean community of nations, acting in concert with the wider international community, moved to impose due punitive measures against Myanmar.
Centhra again beseeches Asean leaders to heed the call to action, and accordingly declare the sufferings of the Rohingya as genocide. Also given the involvement of the United States of America as a partner of Asean with US Vice-President Mike Pence in attendance at this 33rd Asean Summit, Centhra also calls upon the US to remain true to its stated commitment to defend liberty and human dignity worldwide, and reprise its role as enforcer of the two ideals by similarly declaring the massacre of Rohingya at the hands of Suu Kyi’s barbaric regime as a crime against humanity.
Concrete action in the form of sanctions and the creation of a safe zone within the Rakine State in Myanmar policed by the international community via the UN acting in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter with appropriate no-fly zones above the same could thus follow.
Only then can any notion of refoulement of the displaced Rohingya back into their lands in Myanmar, as agreed between the government of Bangladesh and the Myanmar regime via the so-called “Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State” take place.
Any such arrangement must guarantee the safety and dignity of those Rohingya who return as well as the restoration of their rightful status as citizens of Myanmar that was unjustly stripped back in 1982 via the enforcement of measures heretofore suggested, and not before.
The writer is a lawyer and the chief executive of Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra)
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.