UN envoy says Myanmar failed to protect him in attack
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| Tomas Ojea Quintana at a press conference prior to his departure from Yangon airport on August 21, 2013 (Photo: AFP, Soe Than Win) |
By AFP
August 21, 2013
YANGON — The UN's rights envoy on Myanmar Wednesday slammed the nation's government for failing to protect him when his convoy came under attack in a town reeling from religious unrest.
"The state has to protect me as a responsibility... This did not happen. The state failed to protect me," Tomas Ojea Quintan, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, told reporters at the end of his 10 day visit to the country.
No one is thought to have been injured in the incident, which occurred on August 19 in the town of Meiktila, central Myanmar, where anti-Muslim violence in March left at least 44 dead.
In a statement the UN envoy said his vehicle "was descended upon by a crowd of around 200 people who proceeded to punch and kick the windows and doors of the car while shouting abuse".
He said the incident forced him to abandon plans to visit a local camp, where some 1,600 displaced Muslims are sheltering.
"The fear that I felt during this incident, being left totally unprotected by the nearby police, gave me an insight into the fear residents would have felt when being chased down by violent mobs during the violence last March," he said.
He reiterated reports of security forces failing to stop the March unrest, saying "police allegedly stood by as angry mobs beat, stabbed and burned" their victims to death.
Attacks against Muslims -- who make up an estimated four percent of Myanmar's population -- have exposed deep fractures in the Buddhist-majority nation and cast a shadow over its emergence from army rule.
The watchdog Physicians for Human Rights on Tuesday warned that Myanmar risked "catastrophic" levels of conflict, including "potential crimes against humanity and/or genocide" if authorities failed to stem anti-Muslim hate speech and a culture of impunity around the clashes.
Riots in Meiktila, sparked by an argument in a gold shop and the brutal murder of a Buddhist monk, saw Buddhist mobs torch whole Muslim areas in violence that spread to other parts of the country.
The victims included more than 20 students and teachers of a Muslim school on the outskirts of Meiktila, who were set upon by armed men and beaten and burned to death, according to witnesses interviewed by AFP.
Graphic video footage given to AFP by activists shows an embankment next to the school turned into a killing ground, watched over by uniformed police.
After the March violence, Quintana said the reluctance of security forces to crack down on the unrest suggested a possible state link to the fighting -- a claim rejected by the government.
The unrest followed two outbreaks of conflict in western Rakhine state in June and October last year that left around 200 people dead, mainly Rohingya Muslims who are seen by many in Myanmar as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
A sense of deep distrust between Muslims, Buddhists and the security forces pervades the state, which Quintana visited at the start of his trip.
At least one person was killed and around 10 injured earlier this month in a violent clash in a camp for dispossessed Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine that broke out just days before Quintana toured the area.
In June, five Muslims including three Rohingya women were killed by security forces who opened fire during disputes in two separate incidents in camps in Rakhine.
Is the country and terror Buddhists still are of Jungle law? What we expect future of that country and road to reformation?
Myanmar is not for man_kind but for wild animals.
RAKHINE RACIST MANIPULATION CONTINUES
HISTORY OF THE RAKHINE MOGH RACISM SHOWS THAT, RAKHINE MOGHS HAVE BEEN THE MASTER HYPOCRITES AND MASTER MANIPULATORS COMMITTING CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
SURELY THE MOB THAT THREATENED MR.Quintana, THE UN RAPPORTEUR WAS ORGANIZED BY THE RAKHINE LEADERSHIP IN RANGOON. LOOK, President Thein Sein’s spokesman, Ye Htut, A RAKHINE DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN THE JUNE VIOLENCE EVEN SHAMELESSLY BLAMES MR. Quintana THAT HE WAS LYING ABOUT THE ENTIRE EPISODE.
ONLY NOW THE WORLD UNDERSTANDS FROM AN UN REPRESENTATIVE HOW DANGEROUSLY BARBARIAN THE CULTURE OF RAKHINE RACISM IS. TO THE RAKHINE RACIST UNDERSTANDING, THEY BELIEVE , THEY ONLY ARE RIGHT AND OTHERS ARE ALWAYS WRONG!
FOR THE RAKHINE MOGH BARBARITY, WE SAW THE END OF THE MOGH KINGDOM CAME IN 1784. WE WONDER, WHEN THE RAKHINE RACIST MANIPULATION OF THE INNOCENT BURMESE PEOPLE AGAINST THEIR FELLOW MUSLIM CITIZENS WILL COME TO AN END!