For the first time, the US government has described the brutal persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar as genocide. The military junta rejects the statements.
Naypyidaw/Washington – The military junta in Myanmar has sharply criticized the US decision to formally classify the atrocities against the Muslim minority Rohingya as genocide.
“The descriptions mentioned in the speech by the Foreign Minister (Antony Blinken) are far from reality,” said a statement from the State Department distributed through state media. The junta said it “categorically” rejected Blinken’s comments.
Blinken said Monday, speaking at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, that he had come to the conclusion that military personnel in Myanmar had “committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya.” The evaluation included documentation from human rights organizations and the ministry’s own findings.
Junta: Blinken’s statements are “politically motivated”
“Myanmar has never engaged in any genocidal activity and has no genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic or religious group or any other group,” said the junta, which seized power in early 2021. Blinken’s statements are “politically motivated” and an interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.
Human rights groups have long urged the US government to call the atrocities genocide. The governments of US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump had so far avoided this step. However, they have imposed a large number of sanctions on Myanmar.
The Rohingya are brutally persecuted in their homeland. Myanmar’s military is said to have murdered thousands of people, raped women and children and leveled villages. More than 700,000 people fled to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 fearing attacks by the armed forces in the predominantly Buddhist country. They now live there in overcrowded camps. dpa
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