By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON
Britain's foreign secretary has started a two-day visit to Myanmar to press the country’s government over atrocities by its military against the Muslim Rohingya minority.
Jeremy Hunt is to start his contacts with a meeting with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, a government statement said.
“During his trip to Burma [Myanmar], Foreign Secretary Hunt will visit the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners to talk to human rights defenders and visit northern Rakhine, the area from which thousands of Rohingya have fled,” it said.
Speaking on the first day of his visit, Hunt announced “additional support from the U.K. to gather evidence for the Rohingya victims who have suffered sexual violence from members of the Burmese military in Rakhine.”
“The United Nations fact-finding mission exposed terrible suffering in Burma, and in the face of such serious allegations, no country that considers itself humane can stand back and do nothing,” Hunt said.
“We are determined to do all we can to provide security, dignity and justice to the victims. It will be a long journey, but it starts with their conditions right now,” he added.
Hunt underlined that the U.K. has “already provided counselling and psychological support to more than 10,000 women and deployed mid-wives to help provide care to over 53,000 women,” all of them targeted through sexual violence by Myanmar’s army.
He said the support “for those who have been victim of these heinous acts” will be increased.
“This will include additional deployment of the PSVI [Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative] Team of Experts by the end of 2018, development of a code of conduct for gathering such evidence, support for an enhanced coordination mechanism, and more capacity building.”
Hunt held a meeting in London last week with representatives from the Rohingya community from Bradford where he heard stories of the persecution that they faced in Rakhine, the statement said.
Earlier this month Hunt told lawmakers that the U.K. is “committed” to make sure that the perpetrators of atrocities in Myanmar face justice and that he would raise the issues spotlighted by the latest UN Fact-Finding Mission report with Suu Kyi.
Hunt said “ethnic cleansing, in whatever shape and form, should not go unpunished” and “the perpetrators of these appalling crimes must be brought to justice.”
In August the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar called for the trial of Myanmar’s top military officials, including army commander-in-chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, at the International Criminal Court for committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims.
“It is very important in all our dealings with the Burmese regime, they understand that a line has been crossed,” the foreign secretary said following the UN report.
Rohingya persecution
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, entitled Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience.
Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police, and over 115,000 Rohingya houses were burned down and 113,000 others vandalized, it added.
According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly children and women, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017.
The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by Myanmar state forces. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
