U.S. government officials declined to characterize the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims as ethnic cleansing but listed new measures including targeted sanctions Washington is considering to address the crisis. Mark Storella Deputy Assistant Secretary of State from the Bureau Of Population, Refugees and Migration spoke at a Senate hearing Tuesday and was pressed to say whether he viewed the situation as ethnic cleansing. “I’m not in a position … to characterize it today, but to me, this very closely resembles some of the worst kind of atrocities that I’ve seen during a long career,” he said. Storella said instead U.S. is considering “broad sanctions” in Myanmar.
Earlier this week, U.S. officials were preparing a recommendation for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to declare that “ethnic cleansing” is occurring against Rohingyas in Myanmar. A declaration of “ethnic cleansing” by the top U.S. diplomat would have marked a reversal of fortune in American relations with the country also known as Burma, whose civilian government has been under the leadership of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for more than a year. But Suu Kyi and her government allies have little control over Myanmar’s still powerful military, which is blamed for a brutal crackdown on Muslims in Rakhine State that has caused more than 600,000 refugees to flee to Bangladesh.
Attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security forces in late August triggered what human rights groups have called a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Amnesty International has reported that hundreds of Rohingya men, women and children have been systematically killed. Calls for a U.S. determination of “ethnic cleansing” have intensified, as the United Nations and leading Western governments have used the term. Six weeks ago, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said it “seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” French President Emmanuel Macron echoed that opinion, as have leaders of many in the Muslim world.
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/3821266/rohingya-crisis-ethnic-cleansing/
