The Rohingya Muslims have suffered racial discrimination for decades in Myanmar. They are gunned down, their villages are burnt, crops destroyed, babies thrown into fire and ,girls and women raped. The northern state of Rakhine in Myanmar today is synonymous with death, destruction, displacement, forced Labour , enforced  disappearances, poverty, hunger, mass rape and arson, which has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. An extensive 400  page  report recently released by the United Nations human rights panel has  exposed the  crimes carried out by Myanmar ‘s armed forces  -known as the Tatmadaw-   against the Rohingya Muslims  and other ethnic minorities throughout the country under the cover of counter-insurgency.

“The nature, scale and organization of the operations suggests a level of pre planning and design on the part of the Tatmadaw leadership consistent with the vision of the commander -in chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing”the report said.

The Myanmar military last August started deadly crackdown against Rohingya Population  following the attacks on police check posts  by a small armed Rohingya faction, in which 10,000 civilians were reportedly killed.  Since modus operandi  of Myanmar   military is killing the Muslim minority indiscriminately  this is the reason why,   750,000 fled  to neighbouring Bangladesh piling pressure onto already overcrowded  world’s biggest camp with Rohingya refugees  living in squalid conditions  in the Cox’s Bazar, area near the Naf river that divides the two countries.

UN Investigators with the International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, who had been denied access to Myanmar conflict region  for the assessment of atrocities inflicted on the Muslim minority under discussion, conducted interviews with 875 victims and eye – witnesses who had fled the country  in the wake of “clearance operation “. They both  described soldiers dragging people out of their home ,shooting them at point -blank or slitting their throats ;  girls and   women brutally tortured and gangraped before other family members, ;some of the victims were tied naked by their hands or hair to trees.The UN  meticulously written report  said”  rape and sexual violence are a part of   a deliberate strategy  to intimidate, terrorize or punish a civilian population, and are used as a tactic of war”. While the the community in question was being culled,their  400 hundred  villages were  wiped off the map .

In the light of its findings, the fact -finding mission has demanded that six top military officials -including the army’s commander -in-chief -be investigated and prosecuted for genocide. Marzuki Darusman, chair of the UN fact-finding mission very recently remarked “Peace will not be achieved while the Myanmar military remains above the law”.

Both Myanmar military and defacto civilian leader Aung San Suu kyi are in a state of denial and defiance .The military has termed the recent UN report a “interference in the infernal affairs of the country”, whereas Suu kyi surprisingly times and again has called this and Other UN reports highlighting the Rohingya crisis and persecution a “huge iceberg of misinformation” and, “and, rape of women and girls  by security personnel as “made -up stories”. Such arguments hold no water.The gravest crimes against ethnic and religious minority highlighted by the various UN reports which are seen by Suu Kyi as exaggerated stories, is tip of the iceberg . Defending the military ‘s means and methods applied in wiping out certain civilian minority transpires that Aung San Suu kyi has renounced the use of reason. The question is: if Myanmar’s scorched- earth-response  is against  militants, and no crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslims by the military, then why  has the regime  refused entry of international independent observers for the assessment of atrocities inflicted on the oppressed community who are seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh by the predominantly Buddhist country?

The criminal act of supposed militants  targeting  police check posts, can not be and  should not be  used as a tool to tyrannise the whole population of minority Muslims living in pathetic conditions. To crush Rohingya Muslims is tantamount to war crimes. The  Myanmar government’s unwillingness to allow humanitarian aid agencies to reach famished people has created a humanitarian crisis.

The writer specialises

on strategic affairs