Arakan News Agency
The Rohingya FDMN Representative Committee has called on the international community to designate the Arakan Army (AA) and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), as a terrorist organization. This call comes in light of what the committee described as “systematic crimes” committed against the Rohingya in Arakan State, as documented in recent reports by Fortify Rights and Human Rights Watch.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the committee confirmed that the Arakan Army has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including summary executions, beheadings, forced displacement, abductions, torture, child recruitment, looting, destruction of cemeteries, and forced labor.
The statement emphasized that these violations are systematic and aimed at terrorizing and oppressing the Rohingya population, using tactics similar to those employed by the Myanmar military during previous genocidal campaigns.
The committee urged the U.S. Department of State to designate the Arakan Army as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act, or as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order 13224, stressing that the group’s actions pose a direct threat to both regional and international security.
It also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediately open a formal investigation into the crimes committed by the Arakan Army and expressed its full readiness to cooperate with the ICC, UN investigative bodies, and international human rights organizations to ensure accountability for the perpetrators.
Furthermore, the committee urged the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions on the Arakan Army and its leadership, and to take urgent measures to protect Rohingya civilians and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar from further violations.
The committee noted that over 200,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since May 2024, while hundreds of thousands remain internally displaced in Myanmar under dire humanitarian conditions, lacking access to aid and basic services.
The statement concluded with a strong warning:
“Justice delayed is justice denied. The international community must act immediately to end these crimes and ensure the Rohingya their right to safety, dignity, and a life free from fear.”
Earlier, the human rights organization Fortify Rights released a new investigation confirming that the Arakan Army has committed widespread abuses against the Rohingya in Arakan State, including detention, torture, killings, and beheadings over the past two years.
Likewise, Human Rights Watch confirmed in a recent report that the Arakan Army has carried out severe violations against the Rohingya people in Arakan State, including discrimination, looting, arbitrary detention, forced recruitment, and forced labor.
Arakan State remains a battleground between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, which launched a large-scale offensive in November 2023 to seize control of the region. The fighting has led to the displacement of large numbers of Rohingya both internally and across the border into Bangladesh. Trapped between both sides, the Rohingya continue to suffer abuses, including the military’s genocidal campaign in 2017 that forced nearly one million to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
