By Aradhana Aravindan and Yimou Lee 

Reuters

December 2, 2016

SINGAPORE/SITTWE, MYANMAR -- Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi accused the international community on Friday of stoking resentment between Buddhists and Muslims in the country's northwest, where an army crackdown has killed at least 86 people and sent 10,000 fleeing to Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi appealed for understanding of her nation's ethnic complexities, and said the world should not forget the military operation was launched in response to attacks on security forces that the government has blamed on Muslim insurgents.

"I would appreciate it so much if the international community would help us to maintain peace and stability, and to make progress in building better relations between the two communities, instead of always drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment," Suu Kyi told Singapore state-owned broadcaster Channel News Asia during a visit to the city-state.

"It doesn't help if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation, in spite of the fact that there were attacks against police outposts."

The violence in the northwest poses the biggest challenge so far to Suu Kyi's eight-month-old government, and has renewed international criticism that the Nobel Peace Prize winner has done too little to help the country's Rohingya Muslim minority.

Soldiers have poured into the north of Rakhine State, close to the frontier with Bangladesh, after attacks on border posts on Oct. 9 that killed nine police officers. Humanitarian aid has been cut off to the area, which is closed to outside observers.

Myanmar's military and the government have rejected allegations by residents and human rights groups that soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burned houses and killed civilians during the operation.

Suu Kyi's remarks came as a commission led by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan arrived in the state, where ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims have lived separately since clashes in 2012 in which more than 100 people were killed.

"CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY"

Despite often having lived in Myanmar for generations, most of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya are denied citizenship, freedom of movement and access to basic services such as healthcare and education.

The U.N.'s human rights agency said this week that abuses suffered by the Rohingya may amount to a crimes against humanity, repeating a statement it first made in a June report.

The Rohingya are not among the 135 ethnic groups recognized by law in Myanmar, where many majority Buddhists refer to them as "Bengalis" to indicate they regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In northern Rakhine, one of the poorest parts of the country, Muslims outnumber the ethnic Rakhine population.

"In the Rakhine, it's not just the Muslims who are nervous and worried," said Suu Kyi. "The Rakhine are worried too. They are worried about the fact that they are shrinking as a Rakhine population, percentage-wise." 

U.N. officials said this week more than 10,000 people have fled the recent fighting to Bangladesh.

There are continuing reports of people fleeing across the river border in flimsy boats, bringing accounts of razed villages, uprooted communities and separated families.

Still, Suu Kyi said the government has "managed to keep the situation under control and to calm it down".

ANNAN'S TASKFORCE

Suu Kyi identified Rakhine as one of the areas that required special attention from the outset of her term, nominating Annan in August to lead a taskforce to come up with long-term solutions to the problems of the divided state.

The six Myanmar and three foreign commissioners, on their second trip to Rakhine, met community leaders, local government representatives and Muslims from camps for displaced people in the state capital of Sittwe.

"There have been security actions there, but security actions should not impede humanitarian access to those in need," Annan told reporters after the meetings, referring to the north.

"We have discussed it and I expect progress to be made. Some agencies have been able to go in, but there's a great deal of needs, and I expect to see further progress in the next few days or so."

The U.N. has said some 30,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting and, while nearly 20,000 have had their deliveries of aid restored, around 130,000 are still not getting food and other assistance they had been receiving prior to the outbreak of violence.

Suu Kyi bowed to weeks of international pressure late on Thursday to appoint a commission to investigate the original attacks and allegations of human rights abuses in the military operation that followed.

However, she raised eyebrows with her pick for the chief of the team, vice president Myint Swe, who headed the feared military intelligence under former junta leader Than Shwe. 

Myint Swe, a close confidant of the former junta supremo, was the chief of special operations in Yangon when Than Shwe ordered a crackdown on anti-junta protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007, known as the Saffron Revolution.

New Investigation Commission Lacks Credibility – UN Investigation Needed

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK rejects the new Commission established by the government of Burma to investigate violence in Rakhine State.

The government and military are not impartial. The military have been committing abuses and the government have been defending them and denying abuses are taking place. A government which has prejudged the situation and taken sides has established an investigation led by a former senior soldier who himself has allegations of human rights violations against him. This cannot be considered independent or credible. 

Since 2012 there have been numerous committees and commissions established by the government. None have been credible or led to any solutions, in fact the situation has got worse.

It is disturbing that the investigation committee is chaired by vice-President 1 U Myint Swe who was Chief of Military Security Affairs when the 2007 Saffron Revolution was crushed. 

Burmese government has continuously been denying all the allegations of abuses against the Rohingya, how are we now expected to believe it will conduct a genuine investigation?

This week Adama Dieng, the U.N.'s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said the allegations "must be verified as a matter of urgency" and urged the government to allow access to the area.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has also stated: “the government has largely failed to act on the recommendations made in a report by the UN Human Rights Office… (that) raised the possibility that the pattern of violations against the Rohingya may amount to crimes against humanity,” echoing what another UN official described the government is carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya Muslims.

BROUK President Tun Khin said “It is very surprising that the investigation only happens now 7 weeks after the attacks and after the government and military already made statements about the attacks and launched major military operations against the Rohingya populations. The military have killed at least 400 Rohingyas 240 Women have been raped, at least 600 Rohingyas arrested 2300 houses burnt, and 35,000 forced from their homes, and only now they say they will investigate who is responsible. Who can believe that after all this they will say they got it wrong?”

Tun Khin added: “We strongly reject the commission and we urgently need a UN commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against Rohingya perpetrated by Burmese military in Northern Arakan, The International community have to take immediate steps to pressure NLD government to implement the key recommendations points from the UN human rights office report on this year June”.

Stop The Killings Of Rohingyas

December 2, 2016

A security guard stands next to 38 Rohingya Muslims detained for illegally crossing the border in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 21, 2016. Credit: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

By Patrick Winn
Global Post
December 1, 2016

Myanmar is beset by “human fleas.”

So says the nation’s most widely known state newspaper, now operating under the democratically elected government helmed by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

This “morally bad” group of people are “loathe for their stench and for sucking our blood,” says the Global New Light of Myanmar. And the nation’s citizenry must “constantly be wary of the dangers of detestable human fleas.”

Comparisons to Nazism are cheap, especially in the social media era. But this op-ed stands out for, well, sounding remarkably similar to Third Reich propaganda.

“Sure, the Jew is also a human being,” wrote Joseph Goebbels, the future Nazi regime’s propaganda chief, in the late 1920s. “None of us has ever doubted that. But a flea is also an animal — albeit an unpleasant one … our duty is to make it harmless.”

This screed against “fleas” in Myanmar comes amid a violent crackdown along the nation’s marshy western coast. The targets? Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority numbering roughly 1 million.

They are widely hated in their own homeland. In recent years, about 10 percent of them have been driven into grim camps patrolled by armed guards.

Over the years, officials in Myanmar have called the Rohingya “ugly as ogres” and, more recently, too “dirty” for soldiers to rape. One political faction, with seats in parliament, has spoken warmly of Nazi pogroms and openly promotes “inhuman acts” to rid Rohingya from the nation.

A purge of sorts is now underway. Myanmar’s military is currently sweeping Rohingya villages to root out what the government calls “extremist” elements.

Indeed, a ragtag band of Rohingya militants — armed with sticks, blades and a few guns — emerged in October to attack soldiers and police. But the army has responded with overwhelming force.

Satellite images, commissioned by Human Rights Watch, suggest more than 1,000 buildings in Rohingya territory have been torched. The army, by its own admission, is pitting well-armed platoons against men wielding clubs.

According to the United Nations, at least 30,000 have fled this crackdown toward neighboring Bangladesh.

Macabre images, shot on mobile phones, continue to emerge from Rohingya circles. One clip appears to show a human figure incinerated. Others depict villagers fleeing gunfire.

Is this footage legit? If so, is the army culpable? These questions might be answerable if the government hadn’t declared much of the conflict zone off limits to outside observers — namely journalists and aid workers. Instead, the military prefers to control the terrain and thus maintain a stranglehold on information.

Meanwhile, Rohingya are escaping en masse toward Bangladesh. According to many government officials — including those surrounding Aung San Suu Kyi — that is where they belong.

Bangladeshi officials rightly note that western Myanmar is the Rohingya minority’s proper homeland. Less defensible is Bangladesh policy directing armed units to turn back terrified Rohingya refugees.

“They haven’t got many chances here either,” says Ko Ko Linn, an activist based in Bangladesh with the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation, or ARNO. He contends that “this is no place to take shelter. If you reach the border, you get pushed back. So how can they survive?”

As for the alleged jihadis hunted down by Myanmar’s army? They are nothing more than “local youth, homegrown youth, who find persecution unbearable,” Ko Ko Linn says. “You can’t call them jihadis.”

ARNO, among the few international Rohingya-run rights organizations, has been condemned as a pro-militant group by Myanmar’s government. Officials have repeatedly alleged that “foreign terrorist organizations” have nurtured extremism within Rohingya villages. Even the Western media have played along by stoking fears of the Islamic State’s imminent rise in Myanmar.

For sure, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State have made weak overtures toward the tormented Rohingya. But despite years of fretting over a great jihadi uprising in the Rohingya’s homeland, this menace has yet to manifest on any serious scale.

Videos posted online, in which Rohingya militants vow jihad, show a gang of men holding fewer than a dozen rifles — a weapons cache exceeded by many American biker gangs.

These rebels are hardly impressive. They appear to have fared miserably in conflicts with Myanmar’s army. Official reports describe villagers with knives charging at soldiers — and getting mowed down by the dozens.

As the purge drags on, tens of thousands of Rohingya are made to suffer for the crimes of this tiny band of fighters. The military’s guns-blazing raids in Rohingya terrain amount to “collective punishment,” according to John McKissick of the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Worse yet, he told the BBC, the army has a bigger goal: “ethnic cleansing,” a potent phrase coming from the United Nations, which typically favors dry diplomatic language.

Allowing the Rohingya to surge into Bangladesh, he says, would encourage Myanmar’s army to “continue the atrocities and push them out until they have achieved their ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar.”

December 1, 2016

By AKIL YUNUS, RASHVINJEET S. BEDI, and NURBAITI HAMDAN

The Star Online
December 1, 2016

KUALA LUMPUR: Umno's Youth and Puteri wings have called for more urgent action on the Rohingya issue in Myanmar, even suggesting that Asean review the country's membership in the regional bloc.

Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin (pic) said the wing "demands that Myanmar's membership in Asean be reviewed."

"The principle of non-interference is void when there is large scale ethnic cleansing in an Asean member state.

"Let us raise our hands in prayer to Allah for the deliverance of the Rohingya people from injustice and ruin," he said in his policy speech, to shouts of approval from delegates at the wing's general meeting at Putra World Trade Centre here.

The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been accused by the international community of ethnic cleansing of the minority Rohingyas for years.

"I want to unequivocally state that Umno Youth condemns and denounces to the highest level, the cruel and oppressive treatment of the Rohingya community in Myanmar that is grossly inhumane and unacceptable for any human being with a mind, heart, and soul.

"Therefore, Umno Youth demands that the Myanmar government take immediate action to stop all forms of this brutality at once," he added.

Soon after starting his speech, Khairy played a heart-wrenching video showing the suffering of the Rohingyas.

Puteri Umno urged international and regional bodies to make a stand on the violence against the Rohingyas.

Its chief, Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin, said the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Asean should play a role to end the violence orchestrated by the Myanmar regime in the Rakhine state.

She also wants Aung San Suu Kyi, who is foreign minister, to be stripped of her Nobel Peace prize.

"Besides political action, we should also learn from these events.

"What is happening there can also happen here if we are negligent," she said at the wing's general assembly on Wednesday.

A large-scale gathering of Muslims in Malaysia is expected to take place here on Dec 4 to protest against the Myanmar government.

This is a follow-up to last Friday's march to the Myanmar embassy from the Tabung Haji complex in Ampang to hand over a memorandum voicing solidarity with the Rohingya, many of whom have fled to neighbouring countries such as Malaysia.

Violence in Rakhine, Myanmar for the past few weeks has resulted in at least 86 people being killed and more than 30,000 being displaced.

Human rights groups have accused the military and border guard forces of raping Rohinya women, torching houses and killing civilians, although this has been denied by the Myanmar government and military.

Considered to be stateless, often subjected to arbitrary violence and forced labour in Myanmar, the Rohingya are considered by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

As of October this year, there are 54,586 Rohingya refugees registered with the UNHCR in Malaysia, although unofficial estimates put the number at three times as high.

By Al Jazeera
December 1, 2016

Bangladesh turns away Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar crackdown as the UN decries "pattern of violations".

Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims may be victims of crimes against humanity, the United Nation's rights agency has said, as former UN chief Kofi Annan arrived to the country for a visit that will include a trip to the conflict-ravaged region of Rakhine.

The army has carried out a bloody crackdown in the western state and thousands of the Muslim minority have flooded over the border into Bangladesh this month, making horrifying claims of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of security forces.

Some 30,000 have fled their homes and analysis of satellite images by Human Rights Watch found that hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been razed.

Myanmar has denied allegations of abuse, saying the army is hunting "terrorists" behind raids on police posts last month.

The government has lashed out at media reports of rapes and killings, and lodged a protest over a UN official in Bangladesh who said the state was carrying out "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingya.

Al Jazeera's Florence Looi, reporting from a camp for displaced people in Myanmar's Sittwe, said human rights investigators and journalists have been blocked from accessing the areas where massacres are alleged to have happened.

"The Myanmar government has denied that these allegations of abuse have happened, but at the same time, they haven't been giving people access to these areas," she said.

"Many people we've spoken to say they aren't very hopeful that the [UN] commission will be able to acheive anything."

On Tuesday, the UN human rights agency said Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya could be tantamount to crimes against humanity, reiterating the findings of a June report.

Eight boats attempting to cross the Naf River separating Rakhine from southern Bangladesh were pushed back on Monday after six were refused entry on Sunday, Colonel Abuzar Al Zahid, the head of the border guards in the Bangladeshi frontier town of Teknaf, told AFP. 

Dhaka says thousands more are massed on the border, but has refused urgent international appeals to let them in, instead calling on Myanmar to do more to stop people fleeing.

In the past two weeks, Bangladeshi border guards have prevented more than 1,000 Rohingya, including many women and children, from entering the country by boat, officials told AFP.

More than 120,000 Rohingya have been crammed into displacement camps since sectarian violence kicked off in 2012, where they are denied citizenship, healthcare and education and their movements are heavily curbed.

'Pattern of violations'

"The government has largely failed to act on the recommendations made in a report by the UN Human Rights Office... (that) raised the possibility that the pattern of violations against the Rohingya may amount to crimes against humanity," the UN human rights agency said in a statement.

Amid the mounting crisis, former UN chief Kofi Annan on Tuesday began a week-long visit to Myanmar that will include a trip to northern Rakhine

Myanmar's Suu Kyi in August appointed her fellow Nobel laureate to head a special commission to investigate how to mend bitter religious and ethnic divides that split the impoverished state.

Annan has expressed "deep concern" over the violence in Rakhine, which has seen thousands of Muslims take to the streets across Asia in protest.

But Aye Lwin, a Muslim member of the Rakhine commission, defended Suu Kyi's handling of the crisis.

"What she has inherited is a dump of rubbish, a junk yard," he told AFP, pointing out the army retains control of security and defence under a constitution written under the former junta.

"Her hands are tied - she can't do anything. What she is doing is trying to talk and negotiate and build trust" with the army, he added.

Myanmar has refused to recognise Rohingya minorities as citizens for generations [Reuters]

By Al Jazeera

December 1, 2016

Fortify Rights says "systematic violations" have been "overlooked" by Western powers.

A rights group monitoring the welfare of the Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar have called on the international community to take action in order to prevent a "genocide" from taking place in the country.

The Rohingya, which number about one million among Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist 52 million population, have lived in Myanmar for generations.

However, most people view them as foreign intruders from neighbouring Bangladesh which, while hosting many Rohingya refugees, refuses to recognise them as citizens.

Dozens of Rohingya Muslims have been killed since early October, when the army launched a crackdown after an attack killed nine police officers.

According to UN estimates, 30,000 people have fled in the recent violence, and some refugees have accused the Myanmar military of committing rights abuses, including torture, rape and murder.

"I think it is reasonable right now to be talking about genocide prevention in Myanmar," Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

"We do know that widespread and systematic human rights violations have been perpetrated for a very long time, and there's been a very grave uptick of those since October.

"We've seen genocidal rhetoric coming out of state media in recent weeks. It should spur some action."

Smith also criticised the Western government's inaction, saying many are "fairly intoxicated with this narrative of political reform" to the extent that the Rohingya situation is "overlooked".

His comments came after Al Jazeera learnt Bangladesh authorities had been turning back Rohingya men at the border, while allowing in women and children based on their need.

More than 10,000 people have already crossed into Bangladesh in the last two months, a UN report had said.

Al Jazeera's Maher Sattar, reporting from Cox's Bazar near the Myanmar border on Thursday, said that "due to humanitarian concerns, some people are being allowed" in. 

"There is no real criteria, it is more an ad-hoc decision-making process, where border guards see someone, and they feel that this person is really suffering, it's usually women and children, and they let them through," he said citing border guards.

"But most of the men get turned back."

But "on the whole" the Bangladesh government remain "antagonistic" towards Rohingya refugees, pushing them back to Myanmar, he added.

Those of have managed to cross the border into Bangladesh have sought shelter at an unofficial Cox's Bazar refugee camp, where there are 200,000 Rohingya refugees already.

The situation is being described as dire, as the previous batch of refugees are unable to extend help to those who have just arrived to seek shelter.

"There's not much to give. They are refugees themselves," he said.

Across the border in Myanmar's Rakhine State, Al Jazeera's Florence Looi, reporting from Sittwe, said local Rakhine organisations have refused to meet a commission led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, which is investigating alleged human rights abuses against the Rohingya.

Almost all Rohingya live in western Myanmar's Rakhine.

Annan's team is due in Sittwe on Friday and local organisations said they are unable to meet the commission because they used the term "Rohingya", which is not an officially recognised minority in the country.

On Tuesday, the UN OHCHR said Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya could be tantamount to crimes against humanity, reiterating the findings of a June report.

Habibullah, a Rohingya resident in Sittwe, told Al Jazeera that his family, which was living in another part of Rakhine, were forced to flee after their homes were allegedly burned by soldiers.

He said that he later received reports that his grandfather managed to escape to Bangladesh, while his uncle and cousin are feared to have died.

Authorities have denied the allegations of abuse, but have so far refused access into the area affected by the violence.

Many International aid workers have also had to leave because their travel permits have not been renewed.

Nyi Pu, chief minister of the Rakhine state, said officials are trying to resolve the situation.

"Our government is handling all of the problems in Rakhine, fiercely and precisely. Precisely means we deal with terrorism, in accordance with the rule of law," he told Al Jazeera.

By Maaz Hussain 

Voice of America

November 30, 2016

Rohingya Muslims who have sought refuge in Bangladesh say they are desperate to stop living as refugees and return to their homeland in Myanmar.

“The Rohingyas have been seeking temporary shelter in Bangladesh only to save their lives from a genocide-like situation in Myanmar. For most of us, life as refugees is very hard in Bangladesh. Arakan (Rakhine), where our Rohingya community has lived for centuries, is our ancestral homeland. We want to go back to Arakan,” said Mohammad Shaker, a Rohingya leader in the Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh.

Nurul Islam, a Britain-based Rohingya rights activist and community leader, said whenever anti-Rohingya violence erupts in Myanmar, the international community has taken a keen interest to see that they get safe passage to other countries. But he alleges outside powers do not follow up to help the refugees return to their homeland.

“It appears many in the international community think if all Rohingyas are evacuated from Myanmar, the problem of our community will be solved. They are wrong,” said Islam, chairman of Arakan Rohingya National Organization. “The Rohingya crisis will never be resolved until our community members are able to return to their homeland in Arakan.”

Long-standing problem

Since the Rohingya Muslims were first targeted by large-scale ethnic violence in 1978, the religious minority community has fled persecution and economic hardship in Myanmar by leaving for Bangladesh and other countries.

Currently, there are up to half a million Rohingyas in Bangladesh, with over 90 percent of them living as illegal refugees, mostly in decrepit shanty-colonies scattered across southeastern Bangladesh.

With no support from the Bangladesh government or the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), most of the refugees do menial jobs, have no access to basic services, and live hand-to-mouth.

Most complain that in Bangladesh their life is full of hardship and their life back in Myanmar was more comfortable.

“After the Rakhine Buddhists burnt my house, with my two children and wife I fled to Bangladesh four years ago. I do odd day-wage jobs to support my family. Often I go without job. I live in a ramshackle shack and I think I can never escape this life of poverty here,” said Mohammad Ismail, a 38-year-old Rohingya. “I had my own farmland, I also owned a shop and I was quite well-off. If the situation there changes I want to return to Arakan.”

Current crisis

Since a Myanmar military crackdown began in Rakhine state seven weeks ago following the killing of 9 policemen in an armed attack blamed on Rohingya militants, several thousands more Rohingya men, women and children have landed in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that “on humanitarian ground” some of the Rohingyas fleeing the current violence have been provided refuge.

“We shall try to host these people as long as possible. Then we shall start a dialogue with Myanmar so that they can return to their home. We hope Myanmar will take them back, eventually,” Kamal said.

But Rohingya community leader Islam alleged the ongoing violence against the Rohingyas in Rakhine is “state-sponsored.” 

“The Burmese security forces are entering the Rohingya villages and indulging in killings, rape and arson in ways as violent as possible, as we have seen in the past weeks. This level of indescribable torture is aimed at terrifying the entire community to an extreme level so that all Rohingyas flee the country,” Islam told VOA. “No Rohingya refugee can dare return to Burma in such situation. But, the final line from us is that we want to return to our homeland in Arakan.”

Investigations and pressure

The Myanmar government has said it is setting up a “national level committee” to investigate conditions and allegations of abuses amid international pressure about rising violence and a humanitarian crisis in northern Rakhine state.

Although the current government has said little else about the current situation, it has long denied allegations of abuse and persecution. For decades, Myanmar officials have said most the Rohingya are recent migrants from Bangladesh, and the government generally refers to them as Bengali.

Myanmar’s state counselor and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has faced growing criticism for failing to tackle the violence, as the military campaign has triggered the displacement of tens of thousands.

The committee follows on the Rakhine State Advisory Commission, in place since August, under former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who recently expressed “deep concern” over violence.

Penny Green, a professor of law and globalization at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) said as long as institutionalized discrimination, widespread and state sanctioned hate crime and segregation characterize life for the Rohingya in Myanmar, they will continue to flee Myanmar.

“The voluntary return of the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar will only be possible if Myanmar confronts its genocidal crimes, punishes perpetrators and restores full civil, economic, social and political rights to the Rohingya,” said Green, who is the director of QMUL’s International State Crime Initiative. 

She said pressure must be brought to bear on Aung San Suu Kyi’s government. 

"Sanctions, boycotts and divestment have been successful in confronting some of the world’s worst state crimes. We should all be urging our own governments not to engage with the Myanmar government until it ceases its genocidal practices,” she said.