Nobel peace prize laureate and acclaimed human rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi’s government is committing "crimes against humanity" against its Rohingya Muslim population. That’s according to a statement made Tuesday by the U.N. human rights agency, as U.N. chief Kofi Annan arrived in the country, where he will also visit the conflict-ravaged region of Rakhine.
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Violence Explodes in Myanmar, Military Forces Raze Villages
The army has carried out a bloody crackdown against the Muslim minority since at least 2012, with many claims surfacing of torture, gang rapes, and murder at the hands of security forces.
Entire villages have been razed as some 30,000 people have fled, often to neighboring Bangladesh, and another 120,000 have been crammed into displacement camps, where they are denied citizenship, healthcare and education.
The government continues to deny all allegations of abuse, saying they are hunting “terrorists” in these village raids. They have also protested over the statement made by a U.N. official in Bangladesh, who said the state is carrying out an "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingya.
"The Myanmar government has denied that these allegations of abuse have happened, but at the same time, they haven't been giving people access to these areas," Al Jazeera's Florence Looi reported, referring especially to journalists. "Many people we've spoken to say they aren't very hopeful that the (UN) commission will be able to achieve anything."
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Aung San Suu Kyi Continues to Ignore the Plight of the Rohingya
"The government has largely failed to act on the recommendations made in a report by the U.N. Human Rights Office... (that) raised the possibility that the pattern of violations against the Rohingya may amount to crimes against humanity," the U.N. human rights agency said in their statement.