Washington: Saying that it has found “compelling evidence of genocide” in Myanmar against the Muslim Rohingya minority, the U.S. Holocaust Museum called on the U.S. government and international governments to hold the Burmese military accountable.
Chairman Lee Feinstein of the Museum’s genocide watchdog Committee on Conscience said in a statement, “For the sake of the remnant community of Rohingya still in Burma (Myanmar) and those threatened with being returned, we hope this announcement prods action.”
Meanwhile, Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), contracted by the U.S. State Department to study the crisis, also released a report saying the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes against the Rohingya.
Voa News has quoted Naomi Kikoler of the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide as saying “We hope that this leads to a process of review, not just by the U.S. government, but by the international community more broadly.”
It must be noted that about 700,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state in eastern Myanmar since August 2017, after a brutal military crackdown from the majority-Buddhist country’s military that included mass killing of civilians, rape and widespread arson. Majority of the refugees have taken shelter in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.