MYANMAR, August 29: Myanmar Wednesday rejected the findings of a UN investigation alleging genocide by its military against the Rohingya, after the US and other countries joined growing calls for them to face justice.

Mainly Buddhist 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.

On Monday the UN probe detailed evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity “perpetrated on a massive scale” against the Rohingya, including acts of rape, sexual violence and mass killings.

In a UN Security Council session a day later, several countries — including the US, Britain, France and Sweden — called for Myanmar’s military leaders to be held accountable.

But Myanmar rejected the UN mission’s findings in a typically defiant response to a crisis that has heaped international opprobrium on both its military and civilian leadership.

“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,” said government spokesman Zaw Htay, according to Wednesday’s 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”.

The country has “zero tolerance for human rights violations”, Zaw Htay said, but he added that “strong evidence” including records and dates of any alleged abuses must be provided before investigations are undertaken.

The government would take “legal action against any violation of human rights”, he said.

– Facebook ban –

Zaw Htay also lashed out at Facebook for shutting down the pages of Myanmar’s army chief and other top military brass on Monday, saying the move could hamper the government’s efforts at “national reconciliation”.

The social media giant has admitted it was previously too slow to react to the crisis, which saw its platform — wildly popular in Myanmar — become an incubator of hate speech against the Rohingya.

Much of Myanmar’s public has vilified the Rohingya since the army’s crackdown, with little sympathy for a minority who have for years been refused citizenship and denied freedom of movement and access to healthcare and education.

Myanmar’s military retains significant constitutional and political power and is essentially free of civilian oversight.

But the country’s civilian leaders, including Nobel laureate and de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi, have repeatedly defended the military crackdown as a proportionate response to Rohingya insurgents in Rakhine state who staged deadly raids on police posts on August 25, 2017.

However the UN report agreed with rights groups who say the crackdown was premeditated, a key factor in determining if a genocide has taken place.

It pointed to the large-scale military deployments to Rakhine in the weeks leading up to the campaign in a “broader oppressive context”.

Around a million Rohingya now languish in refugee camps in Bangladesh, which has struggled to deal with the huge influx into an already impoverished country.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have signed a deal to repatriate last year’s wave of refugees but there has been little progress given Rohingya fears of returning without guarantees for their safety.

Meanwhile the drumbeat of calls for accountability is getting louder, with UN investigators calling on the Security Council to refer the Myanmar crisis to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or to create an ad hoc tribunal.

Several Security Council members threw support behind the idea while also calling for a mechanism to “collect and preserve proof” of abuses.

Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN Hau Do Suan questioned the UN report’s findings, reiterating that Myanmar “did not accept the mandate of the mission because we have our concern about the mission’s impartiality.”

China and Russia, holding veto powers as permanent members of the Security Council, have said they prefer to engage in “dialogue” with Myanmar’s leadership to resolve the conflict.

The ICC is soon due to rule on whether it has jurisdiction over the crisis because it spilt across the border into Bangladesh.

Myanmar is not a signatory to the court. AFP

COX’S BAZAR, Sept 16: Bangladeshi authorities summoned Myanmar’s envoy to protest what they said were violations of their airspace amid an exodus of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in western Myanmar.

Myanmar’s presidential spokesman on Saturday said there’s no evidence of any trespassing and that Dhaka should have reached out to discuss its concerns instead of issuing public statements.

The Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that Myanmar drones and helicopters flew into Bangladeshi airspace on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. It said a protest note was handed to Myanmar’s envoy Friday evening. Bangladesh warned that the “provocative acts” could lead to consequences.

In Yangon, presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said that while Myanmar’s military denied crossing into Bangladesh’s airspace, the matter is being investigated. “We don’t know exactly if they released that statement for political reasons,” he said of Bangladesh’s protest.

He added that his country was “transporting rations for displaced people for emergency assistance” to areas close to the border and that Bangladesh “needs to understand that as well.”

Up to 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled what they described as indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs in Rakhine state since Aug. 25, when a Rohingya insurgent group attacked police posts and the military responded with “clearance operations.”

The U.N. has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing — a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing.

Ethnic Rohingya have faced persecution and discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar for decades and are denied citizenship, even though many families have lived there for generations.

The Myanmar government says hundreds have died, mostly Rohingya “terrorists,” and that 176 out of 471 Rohingya villages have been abandoned.

Rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights watch have said that they have evidence that Myanmar troops were systematically targeting and setting Rohingya villages on fire over the last three weeks.

U.N. agencies fear continued violence in Myanmar may eventually drive up to 1 million Rohingya into Bangladesh.

Myanmar has insisted that Rohingya insurgents and fleeing villagers themselves are destroying their villages. It has offered no proof to back these charges. AP