Arakan News Agency
In response to an EU parliamentary delegation’s demand for an independent investigation into alleged suppression of Muslim minorities in northern Arakan State, the Myanmar government has said it does not believe any foreign investigation would be independent and fair.
“Myanmar has cooperated with Yanghee Lee (the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar), who talked about an independent investigation. But the claims she made after her visit were not fair. Therefore, we won’t agree to a fact-finding mission [sought by the EU], nor investigations by foreign countries,” U Zaw Htay, spokesperson of the President’s Office told The Irrawaddy.
The European parliamentary delegation, led by Pier Antonio Panzeri, visited Myanmar from Feb. 12-16, and during a press conference on Friday, the Italian politician called for the government to allow an independent investigation into human rights violations of Muslim minorities in northern Arakan State.
Panzeri said that the latest developments in Arakan State called for such an investigation because the report conducted by the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission was made some time ago, and did not cover the current situation.
“According to my experience, if democratic transition stalls for some reason, the country is likely to face renewed challenges that it had already experienced,” he said.
U Zaw Htay said that there was a huge gap between the understanding of the Myanmar people and foreign countries’ perception of the Arakan issue. And that gap would continue to exist if foreign countries did not take the concerns and experiences of the Myanmar people into consideration.
“The majority [of Myanmar people] don’t believe that an independent international investigation would be fair and independent. They don’t think it is necessary,” he said.
Over 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since Aug. 25 last year after the Myanmar military cracked down on insurgents in Arakan State. The Myanmar government has rejected the UN’s label of the military’s activities as ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar’s main problem is not the Rohingya issue, but democratic transition, ethnic affairs analyst U Maung Maung Soe said.
