William Hague congratulated the Burmese government last week for its role in spearheading "remarkable changes" in the country. But his upbeat assessment and heady optimism are premature, as is the EU's haste to lift all economic sanctions on Burma except for the arms embargo.
While Burmese president Thein Sein has released political prisoners and opened up greater space for political opposition, serious human rights violations continue across many parts of Burma. Indeed, in Arakan state, rights violations have dramatically escalated in scale and intensity over the last year. Seduced by a romantic narrative of swift democratic transformation in Burma, the international community is paying insufficient attention to the human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding there.
New research from Human Rights Watch, published on Monday, documents crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against the minority Rohingya population in Arakan state. These are not claims we make lightly. Although there has been a tendency to describe the violence in Arakan state as purely communal and a reflection of deep-seated hatreds between communities, our findings confirm extensive state involvement and planning in the killings and destruction of property, as well as the forced displacement of populations.
The deadly violence that erupted between ethnic Arakanese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims last June began with sectarian clashes in four townships. Even at this point, state security forces failed to intervene to stop the violence or protect civilians, and in some cases were direct participants in it. Far from defusing the situation, the remarks of President Thein Sein were highly provocative. On 12 July, a month after the violence began, he called for "illegal" Rohingya to be sent to "third countries". Since most Rohingya, even those whose families have resided in Burma for generations, lack formal legal status, his language implied that the great majority of Burma's Rohingya did not belong in the country. His comments were eagerly seized on by those who favour the expulsion of all Rohingya from Burma.
Nothing "sparked" the violence that resumed in October: instead a co-ordinated campaign of ethnic cleansing in nine more townships sought to remove or relocate the state's Muslim population. The October attacks were organised and carried out by local Arakanese political party officials, Buddhist monks and ordinary Arakanese, but often directly supported by state security forces. Rohingya men, women and children were killed, some were secretly buried in mass graves, and their villages and neighbourhoods were razed. All of the state security forces operating in Arakan state are implicated in failing to prevent atrocities or directly participating in them, including local police, Lon Thein riot police, Nasaka (the inter-agency border control force), and the army and navy. In the deadliest incident, on 23 October, at least 70 Rohingya were killed in a massacre in Yan Thei village in Mrauk-U township, after the police and army had disarmed the Rohingya of the sticks and other rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves. The death toll included 28 children who were hacked to death, and 13 under the age of five.
While Human Rights Watch has visited and documented the sites in which the killings took place and the mass graves, the extent of property destruction and arson of residential areas is so widespread as to be easily visible from satellite imagery.
In the months since the violence, Thein Sein's government has done little or nothing to investigate the killings and abuses and to hold people accountable for these crimes. A 27-member "investigative commission" established by the president "to reveal the truth behind the unrest" has yet to report its findings and recommendations to the public.
Alongside its complicity in crimes against humanity, the Burmese government has contributed to the severe humanitarian crisis facing displaced Rohingya and other Muslim communities. More than 125,000 people are now living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, yet Thein Sein's government has consistently obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to them. The camps are overcrowded and lack adequate food, shelter, water and sanitation, as well as medical care. Without a dramatic improvement in the condition of the camps, including unfettered access for international humanitarian organisations, the situation could further deteriorate with the coming rainy season.
The UK and other parts of the international community have been too eager to laud the reforming achievements of the Burmese president and too quick to surrender their leverage.
Faced with evidence of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, mass graves and the obstruction of humanitarian aid to displaced communities, Burma should instead be pressed hard to investigate these abuses and hold those responsible to account. It should also face concerted international pressure to revise the discriminatory 1982 citizenship law that effectively denies Burmese citizenship to otherwise stateless Rohingya, a measure long invoked by the authorities as justification for their persecution and displacement.
The plight of the Rohingya is not the only issue facing the new government of Burma. But it is perhaps the most defining single test of that government's commitment to democratic change and the rule of law, as well as the efficacy of the international community's efforts to promote reform in Burma. It is a test they are both failing.
