Nov 9, 2020 | FoRB, RM, Statements
A PDF version of this statement is available here.
A Thai version of this statement is available here.
JAKARTA – Parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia today welcomed the first hearing in the case against Myanmar at the UN’s highest court as an initial step towards justice and possible recognition of the crime of genocide committed against the Rohingya.
“This marks the start of a monumental effort for justice that could put an end to some of the horrific abuses that the Rohingya are facing,” said Kasit Piromya, former Member of Parliament (MP) of Thailand and ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Board Member.
Today’s hearing follows The Gambia’s request for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order provisional measures as “a matter of extreme urgency” requiring Myanmar to take – among others – measures to prevent ongoing genocidal acts.
“Without accountability for the systematic killings, rape, sexual violence and other atrocities committed against the Rohingya, the cycle of violence against ethnic and religious groups in Myanmar will never end,” said Kasit Piromya.
Backed by 57 member states of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Gambia filed a case last month at the ICJ against Myanmar for violating provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to which Myanmar has been a party to since 1956.
The Gambia case follows findings from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar which recommended Myanmar be brought before the ICJ after it found that Myanmar had committed “genocidal acts” during the 2017 “clearance operations” that killed thousands and caused more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee for their lives to Bangladesh. Approximately one million Rohingya refugees are currently living in the Cox’s Bazar camps in Bangladesh.
“On International Human Rights Day today, we emphasize that ensuring accountability is a critical move, but not the only one that Myanmar must take. We have consistently supported the calls from the Rohingya themselves for the Myanmar authorities to lift all restrictions against them, restore their basic rights, including citizenship rights, and ensure their safety and security so that they can return to their homes and live normal lives,” said Charles Santiago, a Member of Parliament of Malaysia, and APHR Board Chair.
Numerous restrictions, including those on citizenship rights, freedom of movement, and access to education and healthcare, continue to be placed upon the Rohingya in Myanmar. APHR urges Myanmar to take immediate action to guarantee these rights for the Rohingya and again called on the international community to do all in its power to ensure the Rohingya living in Myanmar have their rights restored and that those in Bangladesh are able to return to their homes free from persecution or threats, and with their rights fully restored.
The hearing on provisional measures is being held from December 10-12 in the Hague, Netherlands, at which a delegation from Myanmar is being headed by Aung San Suu Kyi herself.
“It is saddening and still a little bewildering for many of us across this region that a former democracy champion, and someone we spent years defending the rights of, has sought to stall and subvert any genuine efforts to address accusations of serious human rights violations under her government and is now herself defending allegations of genocide at the ICJ,” said Mu Sochua, former Cambodian MP and APHR Board Member.
“As Myanmar’s de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi has the duty to promote and protect the rights of all its people, including the Rohingya.”
Nov 9, 2020 | Open Letters, RM
A PDF version of this joint letter is available here.
November 12, 2019
Re: Plans to Move Rohingya Refugees to Bhasan Char Island
Dear Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,
We, the 39 undersigned organizations, welcome the recent announcement on November 3 by the Bangladesh Minister of Disaster Management and Relief Enamur Rahman to put on hold plans to relocate Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char island and that any relocations would be voluntary.
We urge your administration to meaningfully consult Rohingya refugees on all potential solutions and plans affecting their situation and ensure relocations proceed only with their free, prior, and informed consent. We welcome the announcement by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief Senior Secretary Md Shah Kamal allowing the United Nations (U.N.) to conduct a technical assessment of Bhasan Char island from November 17 to 19. We urge your administration to ensure that the assessment is made publicly available.
We recognize your leadership in providing humanitarian assistance and emergency shelter to more than one million Rohingya refugees who fled brutal attacks by Myanmar authorities in 2016 and 2017 as well as Bangladesh’s role in providing protracted shelter and support to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who previously fled persecution in Myanmar.
While we respect your government’s commitment to identify alternative durable solutions for Rohingya refugees, we are concerned with the plan to relocate more than 100,000 Rohingya refugees from the camps in Cox’s Bazar District to Bhasan Char island.
In particular, we are concerned that the relocations may proceed without informed consent or consultation with the affected refugee community. Bangladeshi authorities included several Rohingya refugee families on a list, identifying those slated for relocation to Bhasan Char without their knowledge and willingness to relocate to the island. Many Rohingya refugees living in the camps in Cox’s Bazar have expressed fear and opposition to the Bhasan Char relocation plans.
In January 2019, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee warned, “Ill-planned relocation, and relocations without the consent of the refugees concerned, have the potential to create a new crisis.” Similarly, a statement by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in March 2019 said, “The UN considers that any relocation to Bhasan Char must be on a voluntary basis and that refugees should have the relevant, accurate, and timely information on the project from the Government, so they can make free and informed decisions.”
We join these international experts in calling on your government to ensure relocations take place only with informed, voluntary consent by Rohingya refugees.
As noted above, it’s important the government will allow an independent assessment by the U.N. to ensure the arrangements on Bhasan Char meet international standards. Such an assessment should prioritize consideration of protection concerns for Rohingya refugees as well as the feasibility, safety, and sustainability of the arrangements. We also call upon the government to make the assessments public and available to Rohingya refugees in the camps.
With regard to developments on Bhasan Char, we understand that the Bangladesh government has overseen construction projects to accommodate Rohingya refugees on the island, including building multi-family concrete housing structures, cyclone shelters, prefab food and storage warehouses, roads, and a solar power grid. However, reflections about the accommodations by human rights and refugee experts following visits to the island remain inconclusive. For example, in January 2019, Yanghee Lee said, “There are a number of things that remain unknown to me even following my visit, chief among them being whether the island is truly habitable.”
Lastly, mobile communications and the internet provide a critical means for refugees to obtain information on issues that affect their daily lives and to make plans for their future, including information related to developments on Bhasan Char. However, access to the internet remains restricted in the refugee camps since September. Furthermore, Rohingya refugees report that Bangladesh authorities have prohibited the use of mobile phones in the camps and are increasingly confiscating mobile phones from Rohingya refugees. To ensure Rohingya refugees have access to information, including necessary information on the situation in Bhasan Char, we urge your government to immediately lift restrictions on mobile and internet communications and allow Rohingya refugees be allowed to use mobile phones and SIM cards.
We thank you for your attention to these matters, and we welcome the opportunity to assist and support your administration to ensure the protection of Rohingya refugees.
Signed
- ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
- Amnesty International
- Article 19
- Beyond Borders Malaysia
- Burma Human Rights Network
- Burma Task Force
- Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan
- Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia
- Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark
- Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
- Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organization
- Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative
- Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need
- Christian Solidarity Worldwide
- European Rohingya Council
- FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights
- Fortify Rights
- Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa
- Human Rights Watch
- Humanity Auxilium
- International Campaign for the Rohingya
- International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School
- Justice For All
- Kaladan Press Network
- Physicians for Human Rights
- Refugees International
- Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
- Rohingya Action Ireland
- Rohingya Association of Canada
- Rohingya Human Rights Network
- Rohingya Peace Network Thailand
- Rohingya Post
- Rohingya Refugee Network
- Rohingya Today
- Rohingya Vision
- Rohingya Women Development Network
- Save Rohingya World-Wide
- Smile Education and Development Foundation
- Society for Threatened Peoples Germany
Nov 9, 2020 | FoRB, Open Letters, RM
A PDF version of the letter is available here.
Dear Secretary-General,
We, the undersigned coalition of 16 international organizations, write to you regarding the recent report by Gert Rosenthal, “A Brief and Independent Inquiry into the Involvement of the United Nations in Myanmar from 2010 to 2018.” As you are aware, 19 international nongovernmental organizations wrote to you on March 25, 2019, expressing support for an independent investigation into the handling of the Myanmar crisis by the UN and its agencies, with a view to drawing lessons and ensuring accountability.
The Rosenthal report describes the UN’s failure to stop, mitigate, or even draw attention to violence that the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission found amounted to crimes under international law including crimes against humanity, and warrants an investigation of the crime of genocide against Rohingya. We note that the mandated scope of Mr. Rosenthal’s inquiry was extremely limited, was undertaken by one individual, did not include field visits, and excluded individual accountability. These limitations do not satisfy the UN Human Rights Council’s call for a “comprehensive” investigation, and are not reconcilable with the extraordinary magnitude of the crisis and the urgency of gathering “lessons learned” to improve the UN’s response in Myanmar and in similar high-risk situations going forward.
Nevertheless, we recognize your leadership in commissioning this report, releasing it publicly, and accepting all of its recommendations. This is a valuable first step. We stand ready to work with your office, as appropriate, to implement the recommendations, and to support other necessary changes and reforms.
However, we also note that the UN made similar commitments after the publication of the 2012 “Report of the Secretary-General’s Internal Review Panel on United Nations Action in Sri Lanka,” written by Charles Petrie. It is clear from the Rosenthal report that the failure to fully implement the recommendations in the Petrie report set the stage for the UN’s subsequent failings in Myanmar.
It is for this reason that we encourage you to take bold action, beyond the recommendations outlined in the Rosenthal report. These actions should include:
- promptly implementing reforms to prevent the recurrence of the “systematic” failures and “obvious dysfunctional performance” outlined in the report, and ensuring accountability for those failures as required;
- re-energizing the Human Rights up Front initiative prompted by the Petrie report;
- returning to your office a senior staff member dedicated to ensuring Human Rights up Front is fully implemented throughout the UN system;
- taking practical steps to hold accountable those UN officials responsible for failures before, during, and since the 2017 ethnic cleansing campaign;
- supporting the Resident Coordinator to ensure they have authority to implement a comprehensive Human Rights up Front strategy that takes into account the views of national and international NGOs, community-based organizations, and the human rights community, and is reflected and implemented at country level;
- using your leadership to take concrete steps to improve coordination at all levels of the UN on the situation in Myanmar; and
- committing to publishing annual updates on progress in adopting the recommendations of the Petrie and Rosenthal reports until they are fully implemented.
To promote greater transparency and accountability, we urge you to submit the report to the Security Council and encourage its member states to invite Mr. Rosenthal to brief the Council, the UN General Assembly, and nongovernmental organizations on this matter. We also urge you to brief the UN Human Rights Council on the report’s findings and recommendations at its 43rd session, as requested by the Council in resolution 40/29.
We note that while Mr. Rosenthal’s review covers 2010 to 2018, many of the issues raised regarding the failings of “quiet diplomacy” are ongoing. A number of actors were also responsible for failing to take steps that may have prevented or limited atrocities, including individual UN member states and, above all, the Security Council, which has abdicated its collective responsibility to act under the UN Charter, despite your September 2, 2017 letter to the Security Council President urging concrete action.
It is vital that your office act once again and quickly. Specifically, we call on you to set a clear, unifying strategy for the UN Country Team in Myanmar that places human rights concerns at the center of its strategy.
With elections scheduled in Myanmar in 2020, there is a real and serious risk of more violence against the Rohingya, other Muslim communities, and other vulnerable groups; heightened repression against critics of the military and government; and increased violations of international humanitarian law in the country’s internal armed conflicts with ethnic armed groups. Against this backdrop, it is crucial that under your direction UN bodies operate with a consistent and principled voice that prioritizes human rights.
We would be happy to discuss these issues and next steps with you and your team. As Mr. Rosenthal states, UN reforms “will be on trial” in Myanmar going forward.
We hope that you can make past failures in Myanmar a turning point in the UN’s history—the moment when the lessons were finally learned.
Yours sincerely,
ALTSEAN-Burma
Amnesty International
Article 19
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Burma Campaign UK
Burma Human Rights Network
Fortify Rights
Global Justice Center
Human Rights Watch
International Campaign for the Rohingya
International Commission of Jurists
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI)
Justice for All/Burma Task Force
Progressive Voice
Nov 9, 2020 | FoRB, RM, Statements
JAKARTA – ASEAN member states must impose targeted financial sanctions against all Myanmar Army-owned companies and anyone contributing or benefiting economically from them, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) said today.
“It is shameful that companies in Southeast Asia are providing economic benefit to an army that stands accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. ASEAN has been unable to take any meaningful measures to respond to the Tatmadaw’s international crimes, but this is one step that member states and private business can and must take,” said Charles Santiago, Member of Parliament in Malaysia and APHR Board Chair.
“These companies run the risk of contributing to the human rights abuses perpetrated by the military in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states. It is simple; no businesses in the region should enter into any commercial relationship with the Myanmar Army, or any enterprise owned or controlled by them.”
On Monday, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (IFFM) on Myanmar issued a report on “The economic interests of the Myanmar military,” highlighting the foreign companies with commercial ties to the Myanmar Army. According to the report, 15 foreign companies have joint ventures and at least 44 have other forms of commercial ties with Myanmar Army businesses. Several of them are domiciled in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. In addition, a firm based in the Philippines sold military equipment to the Myanmar Army well-after the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.
The regional grouping of parliamentarians said pressure needed to be brought on those companies in ASEAN member states that continue to do business with the Myanmar Army, stressing that the onus was on those private companies to review their ties in Myanmar and take the necessary actions, as much as it was on the region’s governments.
“ASEAN governments and private companies should take the findings and recommendations of this UN report very seriously and take immediate corrective action. It is totally scandalous that some ASEAN countries have permitted the transfer of arms to the Myanmar Army in full knowledge of the crimes it is committing against its people. For once, ASEAN needs to look beyond its economic interests and take a coordinated approach towards accountability and justice by imposing a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar,” said Teddy Baguilat, former Philippine parliamentarian and APHR Board Member.
Nov 9, 2020 | DFF, FoRB, RM, Statements
JAKARTA – The official statement that came out of last week’s ASEAN Summit in Bangkok has once again laid bare the grouping’s inability to grapple with the rising challenges to democracy and human rights in Southeast Asia, the Board of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) said today.
ASEAN as an institution, as a political grouping of nations, is failing to live up to its stated aims: the restrictive framework within which the region’s leaders are forced to operate make it impossible for them to effectively tackle the most serious and thorny issues this region is now facing.
ASEAN’s consistent failure to reform itself so as to be able to take on these problems poses an existential threat to the organisation. Our leaders failed to tackle the Rohingya crisis in any meaningful way, and used the Summit to advance regional trade deal talks that are being held in direct contradiction to their stated values of sustainability and economic development for all. The largest elephant in the room of all – the startling rise in authoritarianism and threats to democracy in Southeast Asia and across the globe – was completely overlooked.
In reference to the Chairman’s statement released by Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 23 June 2019, we highlight several concerns. Despite the decline in democracy in Thailand (this year’s ASEAN Chair) and in the region as a whole, not once did the word “democracy” appear in the text. Furthermore, ASEAN noted its “satisfaction” with the bloc’s human rights mechanism, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), and its role “in the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN”. In reality, the body has failed to tackle or condemn human rights violations in the region, including related to the Rohingya crisis.
The statement furthermore failed to acknowledge atrocities by the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State, or to even use the term “Rohingya”. In the build-up to the Summit, APHR, FORUM-ASIA and Progressive Voice called on ASEAN to make the protection of Rohingya rights a priority.
ASEAN also problematically mentioned that they expect Myanmar’s Independent Commission of Inquiry to address the lack of accountability around the Rohingya crisis. Myanmar however has a disturbing track record of completely failing to investigate its own abuse, and the UN and human rights NGOs have all called into serious question the Commission’s ability to fulfil its mandate. APHR reiterates that the international community is crucial to ensuring justice for atrocities in Myanmar, and calls on members of the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.
Lastly, as ASEAN leaders reiterated their commitment to conclude Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations within this year, APHR stresses that the protection of human rights and people’s interests must be a central focus in negotiations around the trade deal.
