Myanmar must be held accountable
The question of putting on trial people responsible for mass killing of Rohingya Muslims in an international court should now seriously come to the fore. Unless such a move is taken, Myanmars military backed by Buddhist fundamentalists of the country, will continue to kill Rohingyas for reaching their goal of wiping this community from Myanmar. Despite huge international condemnation more than a year, Myanmar attitude is this: do whatever want you want to, we will not stop in our attempt to wipe out Rohingyas.
Had that not been the case, the authorities would have by now stopped their heinous crime against this community. The UN investigators yesterday again revealed in a report to the Security Council that a genocide against Myanmars Rohingya Muslims is still continuing. They rightly called for the issue to be referred to an international tribunal.
The report observed that beyond mass killings, Myanmar authorities are ostracizing Rohingya population in Rakhine, preventing their births, and making widespread displacement in camps. So far, the international community could do nothing more than giving verbal condemnation or some travel ban on few of the Myanmars military generals.
The International Criminal Court in Hague of which Myanmar is not a signatory a couple of months ago issued a rule that despite the fact Myanmar is not a member state in the Hague court, it has jurisdiction to hold Myanmar accountable since Bangladesh, a signatory to this court, is a victim for the violence in the state of Rakhine.
Myanmar vehemently opposed the ruling calling it absurd. Myanmars reaction was only to be expected. But if the court at Hague, or international community for that matter, steps back and stops proceeding with the case then nothing will be achieved in terms of justice and the real welfare of the tortured Rohingya population.
The fact remains that a whole ethnic population of Myanmar and, indirectly Bangladesh, cannot continuously suffer for the unjust action of Myanmar and the international community will just watch it only issuing mere verbal disapproval of the action. The UN Security Council has so far failed to take any punitive action against Myanmar because veto wielding China favours Myanmar at the forum. For stopping Myanmar, the International Criminal Court in Hague must move with firm resolution to hold Myanmar authorities accountable for their crimes.
