Myanmar to release its Rohingya crackdown probe results

An inquiry set up by the government of Myanmar to investigate the 2017 crackdown that prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee the country is expected to report this month, but activists and independent observers are skeptical about the story it will tell, despite promises of accountability from the country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Accountability through domestic criminal justice is the norm," State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi said last month when she took the stand at the International Court of Justice in The Hague to defend the country against charges of genocide against the Muslim Rohingya minority.

"Only if domestic accountability fails, may international justice come into play."

The Myanmar military has been accused of genocide by the United Nations and others for the brutal crackdown on the country's Rohingya Muslim minority, which prompted more than 740,000 to flee.

A UN fact-finding mission report estimated at least 10,000 were killed.

Addressing the ICJ, Aung San Suu Kyi said an internal investigation by the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) was underway and that the commission's report would shed light on what really happened in 2017.

"There is currently no other fact-finding body in the world that has garnered relevant first-hand information on what occurred in Rakhine in 2017 to the same extent as the Independent Commission of Enquiry," she said.

The government has rejected the findings of the UN and severely restricted the ability of neutral observers and journalists to investigate. As the public awaits the findings from the ICOE, human rights activists and the Rohingya themselves expect little.

Agencies

 

Dhaka/Nasim