Monday, April 22, 2013

Human Rights Watch says anti-Rohingya unrest in Myanmar was organized ‘ethnic cleansing’

A leading international rights group on Monday accused authorities in Myanmar, including Buddhist monks, of fomenting an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority that killed hundreds of people and forced 125,000 from their homes.

Human Rights Watch also described the bloody wave of violence and massacres in western Rakhine state last year as crimes against humanity, and slammed the government of President Thein Sein for failing to bring the perpetrators to justice months after mobs of Buddhists armed with machetes and homemade guns razed thousands of Muslim homes.

While state security forces sometimes intervened to protect fleeing Muslims, more often they fueled the unrest, the rights group said, either by standing by idle or directly participating in atrocities. One soldier reportedly told a Muslim man whose village was ablaze: “The only thing you can do is pray to save your lives.”

The allegations, detailed in a new report by the New York-based rights group, came the same day the European Union was expected to lift all sanctions on Myanmar except an arms embargo to reward the Southeast Asian nation for its progress toward democratic rule. Full story...

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