The Myanmar government has organized a trip to Rakhine State tomorrow for foreign diplomats and UN agency officials. Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Kyaw Zeya said the purpose of the trip was to “[enable] the diplomatic community in Myanmar to learn the real situation in Rakhine State.”
The Myanmar military has been accused by the UN and foreign governments of committing ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya population of Rakhine State following a series of attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on August 25. Since then, an estimated 480,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee to Bangladesh.
Permanent secretary Kyaw Zeya told Eleven on Tuesday that the trip was arranged in line with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech to foreign diplomats on September 19. During the speech, she said: “We would like to invite the members of our diplomatic community to join us in our endeavor to learn more from the Muslims who have integrated successfully into the Rakhine State.”
“If you are interested in joining us in our endeavors, please let us know,” she continued. “We can arrange for you to visit these areas and to ask them for yourself why they have not fled why they have chosen to remain in their villages, even at a time when everything around them seems to be in a state of turmoil.”
Kyaw Zeya said a list of participants has not yet been finalized, and members of non-UN organizations have not been invited on the trip.
“Similar visits have already been arranged before. Under the previous government, [then-Vice President] Dr. Sai Mauk Kham led two visits for diplomats to Rakhine State. They held meetings, conducted interviews and so on,” the permanent secretary said.
Will they ‘delve deeply’?
In November 2016, the Myanmar government brought nine foreign diplomats to northern Rakhine State to “get a general sense of the situation” during the military response to a previous round of attacks by ARSA on police installations the previous month.
Following that trip, UK ambassador Andrew Patrick said the villagers were eager to tell the diplomats “things that would have been unwelcome to the security forces” that were accompanying them.
However, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator and UNDP resident representative Renata Dessallien said the group was unable to visit one Rohingya village on its itinerary due to “logistical constraints.”
When asked whether she could verify allegations of rape perpetrated by security forces against Rohingya women, Dessallien said: “The nature of our mission did not allow us to delve deeply,” and she called for an independent investigation into the allegations.
In June, Aung San Suu Kyi ordered a visa ban on the members of a fact-finding mission established by the UN to investigate allegations of human rights atrocities committed by the Myanmar military in Shan, Kachin, and Rakhine states.
In her speech on September 19, Suu Kyi hinted at the limitations the diplomats will face during tomorrow’s trip when she said the diplomats were invited “to go with us to the trouble areas where we can guarantee security for you because we don’t want the added problems of anything happening to any of you.”
When asked whether the trip will include an investigation of alleged killings of Hindu civilians by ARSA, government spokesman Zaw Htay told Eleven that the trip’s program was still being finalized in consultation with the Rakhine State government.
