Junta’s Foreign Ministry hits back at statements marking 2017 Muslim exodus

By DMG 26 Aug 2022

DMG Newsroom
26 August 2022, Sittwe

The Foreign Ministry of Myanmar’s military regime on Friday condemned statements issued by United Nations officials and other international stakeholders on the fifth anniversary of the 2017 Muslim exodus from Arakan State.

Multiple international organisations released statements on the anniversary of the Myanmar military’s persecution and forced mass displacement of more than 700,000 Muslims into Bangladesh during what it called “counter-insurgency operations” in 2017.

“The contents and facts contained in their statements not only lack authenticity and are from unverifiable sources, but are also found to be one-sided and interfering in the internal affairs of Myanmar,” reads a statement from the junta’s Foreign Ministry.

The statements did not mention the attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) that prompted the counter-insurgency operations, and showed a disregard for the constructive measures taken by the regime, said the Foreign Ministry’s statement in response.

But UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, on Wednesday urged the international community to hold Myanmar’s military leadership accountable for their brutal crackdown on Muslims in Arakan State following the ARSA attacks of August 2017.

“It is long past time for the entirety of the international community to call these attacks what they are — genocide. The Myanmar military has yet to be held to account for this ultimate crime,” said Andrews.

He called for bringing the Myanmar military to the International Court of Justice, and for putting economic and diplomatic pressure on the regime.

“The incidents that started on August 25, 2017, in Rakhine [Arakan] State were triggered by the coordinated and simultaneous attacks of the ARSA terrorist group on 30 police outposts and a regiment headquarters,” insisted the Foreign Ministry statement.

“Those terrorist attacks resulted in casualties of both security personnel and innocent civilians. In this regard, with a view to ensuring the prevalence of security, peace and stability of the locality and the people, the security personnel had to take necessary measures in accordance with the existing rules and regulations.”

The Myanmar military’s conduct in Arakan State has been widely described as constituting crimes against humanity and genocide, with a case currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.