GENEVA: Myanmar’s army may be committing gross human rights violations under cover of a mobile phone blackout in parts of Myanmar’s Rakhine and Chin states, UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee said on Monday.
Lee, an independent expert who reports to the UN Human Rights Council on human rights in Myanmar, said nine townships had been blacked out, with no media access and serious restrictions on humanitarian organizations.
“I fear for all civilians there,” Lee said in a statement.
“I am told that the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s army) is now conducting a ‘clearance operation’, which we all know by now can be a cover for committing gross human rights violations against the civilian population.”
The statement said there were credible reports that the army helicopters carried out attacks in Minbya Township in central Rakhine on June 19, and the following day, the Arakan Army fired on a navy ship in Sittwe, killing and injuring several soldiers.
The Arakan Army is an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state.
The conflict has included use of heavy weaponry, airstrikes and helicopter gunships, with significant loss of life on all sides, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council earlier on Monday.
Rakhine state came to global attention after about 730,000 Rohingya Muslims crossed into Bangladesh fleeing a military crackdown in response to militant attacks in 2017.
UN investigators have called for senior military officers to be prosecuted over allegations of mass killings, gang rapes and arson. The military denies widespread wrongdoing.
A leading telecoms operator, Telenor Group, said on Saturday that the Ministry of Transport and Communications had ordered a temporary shutdown of Internet services in conflict-torn western Myanmar, where government troops are fighting ethnic rebels.
It said the ministry had cited “disturbances of peace and use of Internet activities to coordinate illegal activities,” but a military spokesman said the army had no information about the shutdown and was not behind it.
Lee called on the government to end the mobile Internet ban.
Lee’s statement said the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Tatmadaw has been going on since late 2018 and has displaced more than 35,000 civilians.
Myanmar blackout may be cover for gross human rights violations — UN investigator
Myanmar blackout may be cover for gross human rights violations — UN investigator
- The Arakan Army is an insurgent group that recruits from the mainly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine population and is fighting for greater autonomy for the state
US ‘totally stupid’ to attack Iran during talks: UN ambassador
- “War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents
- “Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression”
GENEVA: The United States made a “totally stupid decision” to attack Iran while in negotiations, and betrayed Gulf nations by trashing their diplomatic efforts, Tehran’s UN ambassador said Tuesday.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, insisted Tehran had no problem with its neighbors, but could not let US bases in the Gulf be used as launchpads for attacks on Iran.
“War was not our option. War was imposed on Iran,” Bahreini told UN correspondents.
“Nobody should expect Iran to show restraint in front of aggression.
“We will continue our defense until the point that this aggression is stopped,” he said.
On February 26, Washington and Tehran held indirect negotiations in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program — with the Omani mediators reporting “significant progress.”
Bahreini was present for part of those talks and said “everybody was optimistic” and the US team “agreed to continue negotiations” in Vienna this week.
But Bahreini said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had convinced US President Donald Trump to destroy diplomacy and attack Iran, with strikes starting on Saturday.
“It was a totally stupid decision. They will know in the future how stupid this decision has been. Both of them will understand, because Iran will firmly determine the situation and the destiny of this war,” he said.
“All our neighbors are now disappointed with the betrayal of the United States because everybody was working for diplomacy, particularly Oman.
“The US betrayed everybody.”
- ‘Not a regional war’ -
Tehran has launched strikes against countries in the region that host US bases.
“I cannot accept labelling what we are doing as reprisal. What we are doing is a kind of self-defense,” said Bahreini.
The ambassador said Iran’s problem was not with its neighbors, describing the Gulf countries as friends.
“We are in daily dialogue with our neighbors to convey to them the message that this war is not a war against our neighbors.
“This is not a regional war.
“But we cannot ignore the fact that the US bases in their lands are operational against us.
“In no way we can allow those bases to be used to make military operations against Iran.”
He said Iran’s operations were “exclusively” against US military targets, and said “there has been very serious order given to our military forces not to make any harm to civilians.”
Trump claimed Tuesday that the Iranian leadership “want to talk” but Bahreini insisted no approach had been made to Washington, saying “there hasn’t been any contact from our side” since the war erupted.
