Myanmar rebuffs UN findings

A Rohingya Muslim refugee holds her baby at the registration center after she crossed the border from Myanmar, in Teknaf, Bangladesh on October 2, 2017. Myanmar has proposed taking back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, the Bangladeshi foreign minister said after talks Monday with a senior Myanmar representative. / AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR YANGON — Myanmar rejected Wednesday the findings of a UN probe alleging genocide by its military against the Rohingya, in a strident government response to a damning report on the crisis.

Myanmar has come under immense pressure this week over last year’s military crackdown that pushed more than 700,000 of the Muslim minority into Bangladesh.

Monday’s report by a UN fact-finding mission said there was evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity “perpetrated on a massive scale.”

In a session of the UN Security Council late Tuesday several countries called for Myanmar’s military leaders to face international justice.

But Myanmar on Wednesday rejected the remit of the UN mission and its findings.

“We didn’t allow the FFM (the UN Fact-Finding Mission) to enter into Myanmar, that’s why we don’t agree and accept any resolutions made by the Human Rights Council,” government spokesman Zaw Htay said, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

He pointed to the formation of Myanmar’s own Independent Commission of Enquiry, which he said was set up to respond to “false allegations made by the UN agencies and other international communities.”

Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett, a goodwill ambassador of the UN refugee agency, asked for efforts to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and to create the right conditions for their return to Myanmar.

“The focus of all our efforts must be to provide much-needed support inside Bangladesh while working to ensure conditions in Myanmar are conducive to return,” the actress told the UN Security Council.

“The many refugees that I spoke with consider Myanmar their home but they have real, deep fears about returning there,” she said. AFP and Xinhua