United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, during his maiden visit to India urged the country to put pressure on Myanmar and support Bangladesh, The Daily Star reported.
“What can India do? Support Bangladesh in helping these people because there is a huge humanitarian problem. Second, to put pressure on Myanmar, the military in Myanmar for reconciliation and create conditions for these people to go back. These people will not go back in present circumstances,” the UN chief said.
He also said that to keep Rohingyas in such a “discriminatory situation” is “an invitation for terrorist groups” to exploit the situation.
“I have never seen a community so discriminated in the world as Rohingyas,” Guterres said in response to an inquiry on the issue after delivering a lecture on ‘Global Challenges, Global Solutions’ on Tuesday night, TDS reported.
“There should be accountability to those crimes,” he said referring to the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingyas and added “to keep a population in such a discriminatory situation is an invitation for terrorist groups” to exploit the situation.
In a question-answer session after his lecture, the UN Secretary General said Rohingyas do not have access to health and education and there was a deep-rooted feeling of racism against them in the Myanmarese society.
As an example, Guterres stated his visit to Myanmar as the High Commissioner for Refugees, and said that at that time the president of Myanmar had asked him to resettle Rohingyas in some other countries.
“To make them refugees is not my role. My role is to solve the problem of refugees. This shows how deeply-rooted is the negative perception of the Rohingyas. This was intensified by some hate speech by some monks on social media. There are over one million people in Bangladesh. They were people burnt, raped,” he said.
Guterres said “even if there was a provocation, the reaction of the armed forces was brutal.” He placed emphasis on political reconciliation so that the Rohingyas could be repatriated to their country.
Earlier, the Canadian parliament stripped Myanmar’s leader, Aung Sang Suu Kyi from her honorary citizenship over her poor handling of the Myanmar crisis.
Suu Kyi had received the honour from Ottawa in 2007. However, she has been under constant criticism for her failure to condemn the military campaign in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, leading upto 70,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
A United Nations Report has stated in its document, written by an independent three-member fact-finding mission of the UN Human Rights Council, that the top military leaders of Myanmar should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya population in the Rakhine state.
