Human Rights Watch Accuses Myanmar of 'Ethnic Cleansing'
BANGKOK: Myanmar has waged "a campaign of ethnic cleansing" against Rohingya Muslims, a leading rights watchdog said Monday, citing evidence of mass graves and forced displacement.
The Rohingya, who are denied citizenship by the country also known as Burma, have faced crimes against humanity including murder, persecution, deportation and forced transfer, New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
Myanmar officials, community leaders and Buddhist monks organised and encouraged mobs backed by state security forces to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim villages in October in the western state of Rakhine, HRW said.
"The Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and restrictions on movement," said HRW deputy Asia director Phil Robertson.
HRW noted that while ethnic cleansing was not a formal legal term, it was generally defined as a policy by one ethnic or religious group to remove another such group from certain areas by violent and terror-inspiring means.
In Rakhine, more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims have been forcibly displaced, denied access to humanitarian aid and are unable to return home, the group said.
At least 180 people died in two outbreaks of Buddhist-Muslim violence in Rakhine since June 2012, according to the official toll, but rights groups believe the real figure is much higher.
In a report based on more than 100 interviews, HRW said that it had uncovered evidence of four mass-grave sites in Rakhine, accusing the security forces of trying to destroy evidence of crimes.
