PETALING JAYA, Aug 30 — Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) has backed Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah’s call to hold the Myanmar government accountable for the alleged genocide and crime against humanity in that country.
The human rights group’s executive director, Sevan Doraisamy, said they fully supported Saifuddin’s call yesterday for the international community to take action if Myanmar was not willing or incapable of addressing the findings in a recent United Nations (UN) report.
Sevan said the UN’s Independent International Fact-finding Mission in Myanmar carries serious concerns of genocide and crimes against humanity allegedly committed against the ethnic Rohingya in the Rakhine state by the Armed Forces of Myanmar (Tatmadaw).
“The report by the United Nations Independent International Fact-finding Mission in Myanmar is an opportunity for Malaysians to redeem ourselves from the sins that we bear and revitalize our commitment to human,” he said in a statement today.
“It is time for Malaysia to respond to the grave findings by the United Nations and provide all the necessarily leadership and political commitment to ensure that the atrocities happening in Myanmar would not be allowed to continue unabated with impunity.”
Sevan warned that the gross human rights violations taking place within Myanmar will not remain a ‘domestic’ issue, and all neighbouring countries and Asean member states will eventually be made to contend with the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
The apathy shown by the Government of Malaysia in the past, he said, had further jeopardised the wellbeing of refugees and eventually contributed and facilitated the development of the vast human trafficking network that seeks to profit from the tragedy.
“The ghastly human trafficking camps and mass graves discovered within the vicinity of Malaysia-Thai borders will forevermore be a blight upon Malaysian history as we are forced to contend with the atrocities that happened within our borders with our acquiescence.”
