A local official in Myanmar on Friday denounced a request by UN observers to refer the country’s military leaders to the International Criminal Court over allegations of genocide.
“Right now, there are accusations with one-sided narratives and one-sided views.
“Some say there was genocide and massacres and other problems like this, but you have to show the evidence,” Maungdaw Township Administrator, Myint Khaing, said.
Maungdaw is located in the northern Rakhine State, where a crackdown on the predominantly Muslim Rohingya minority has caused an exodus from the majority-buddhist country to neighbouring Bangladesh and prompted international outcry.
On Wednesday, the head of the UN’s fact-finding mission in the country, Marzuki Darusman, presented a report detailing alleged crimes against the Rohingya population to the Security Council.
Darusman described the situation in the northern Rakhine State as an “ongoing genocide.’’
He urged the council’s members to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or create an ad hoc international criminal tribunal.
Myanmar maintains that its “clearance operations” in August 2017 were a justified response to a series of attacks on security installations by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group.