US: Myanmar army commits genocide against Rohingya Muslims

The United States has said in a statement that Myanmar’s military has committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya minority, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said today, warning that as long as the junta is in power, no one in the country is safe.

Announcing the US government’s decision, Blinken said the attacks on the Rohingya were “extensive and systematic” and that the evidence showed that there was a clear intention to destroy the predominantly Muslim minority.

Speaking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., the top US diplomat read tragic and gruesome descriptions of victims who were shot in the head, raped and injured.

Myanmar’s armed forces launched a military operation in 2017 that forced at least 730,000 predominantly Rohingya Muslims to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighboring Bangladesh, where they described killings, gang rapes and arsons. In 2021 the Myanmar army seized power in a coup.

“After the coup, we have seen the Myanmar military use many of the same practices. Only now the military is targeting anyone in Myanmar who it deems to oppose or undermine its repressive rule,” Blinken said.

“For those who did not realize it before the coup, the fierce violence unleashed by the military since February 2021 has made it clear that no one in Myanmar will be safe from atrocities while in power,” he added.

A few days after US President Joe Biden took office, Myanmar generals under Chief of General Staff Min Aung Hlaing came to power on February 1, 2021, after protesting fraud in the 2020 parliamentary elections. won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party. Election observer organizations did not find any evidence of massive fraud.

The armed forces crushed an uprising against the coup, killing at least 1,600 people and arresting nearly 10,000 politicians, including Suu Kyi, according to the Association for the Aid of Political Prisoners, a human rights group and sparking an uprising.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

You may also like