Arab News
August 07, 2012
The head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) yesterday proposed sending an OIC mission to probe the “massacres” of Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
The OIC will try to persuade the government in Yangon to accept an OIC fact-finding mission, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told an executive committee meeting of the OIC.
“The OIC has directed its offices at the UN in New York to urge the Council to look into the suffering of the Rohingya minority,” he was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the 57-member organization. He “expressed disappointment over the failure of the international community to take action to stop the massacres, violations, oppression and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the government of Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims.”
Violence which erupted in June in Rakhine state between Buddhists and Rohingya left about 80 people dead from both sides, AFP reported citing official figures.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that figure appeared “grossly underestimated,” however, and accused security forces of opening fire on Muslims and committing rape.
Hundreds of Rohingya men and boys have been rounded up and remain incommunicado in the western region of the country formerly known as Burma, it said in a report.
A UN envoy earlier called for the establishment of a “truth commission” into decades of human rights abuses in Myanmar to augment its ongoing transition to democracy.
A nationwide probe led by parliament into allegations of the abuse of ethnic groups is key to healing long-standing rifts, UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana said.
During his visit Quintana also met with several UN staff held since recent unrest between Muslim Rohingya and ethnic Buddhists in Rakhine state, raising “serious concerns” about the treatment during their “unfounded” detention.
