TEHRAN (Iran News) – An independent commission established by Myanmar government has concluded there are reasons to believe that security forces committed war crimes in operations that led more than 700,000 members of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

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The 193-member UN on Friday voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions in favor of the resolution which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion.

Earlier this month, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, denied that her country’s military acted with “genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya.

Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.

The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded on August 25, 2017, when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the mass Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes.

Hau Do Suan, Myanmar’s UN ambassador, called the resolution “another classic example of double-standards (and) selective and discriminatory application of human rights norms” designed “to exert unwanted political pressure on Myanmar.”

He said the resolution did not attempt to find a solution to the complex situation in Rakhine and refused to recognize government efforts to address the challenges, The Telegraph reported.

The resolution, the ambassador said, “will sow seeds of distrust and will create further polarization of different communities in the region.”

The resolution expresses alarm at the continuing influx of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh over the past four decades, now numbering 1.1 million including 744,000 who arrived since August 2017, “in the aftermath of atrocities committed by the security and armed forces of Myanmar.”

The assembly also expressed alarm at an independent international fact-finding mission’s findings “of gross human rights violations and abuses suffered by Rohingya Muslims and other minorities” by the security forces, which the mission said, “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.”

The resolution called for an immediate cessation of fighting and hostilities.

It reiterated “deep distress at reports that unarmed individuals in Rakhine state have been and continue to be subjected to the excessive use of forces and violations of international human rights law, international humanitarian law by the military and security and armed forces.”

And it called for Myanmar’s forces to protect all people, and for urgent steps to ensure justice for all rights violations

The resolution also urged the government “to expedite efforts to eliminate statelessness and the systematic and institutionalized discrimination” against the Rohingya and other minorities, to dismantle camps for Rohingyas and others displaced in Rakhine, and “to create the conditions necessary for the safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of all refugees, including Rohingya Muslim refugees.”

It noted that the Rohingya have twice refused to return to Myanmar from Bangladesh because of the absence of these conditions.

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“Myanmar’s regime is a US puppet,” Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said on Thursday.

“A person, who has unfairly received the Nobel Peace Prize, is today taking these measures, but Muslim societies won’t be silent and will curb this dictatorial regime through international bodies,” he added.

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has taken almost no action to end the ongoing violence against the Rohingya Muslims, triggering international outcry.

Myanmar’s government has laid a siege to the country’s western Rakhine State where the Rohingya are concentrated, with horrific violence taking place against the minority Muslims.

Soldiers and extremist Buddhists have reportedly been killing or raping the Muslims and setting their homes on fire. The United Nations Children’s Fund said up to 400,000 Rohingya Muslims had fled Myanmar and entered neighboring Bangladesh since late August, when the latest bout of violence erupted.

Tehran has called for a visit by an Iranian Foreign Ministry delegation to Myanmar to discuss ways to end the plight of the Rohingya Muslims.

Iran’s Red Crescent is also preparing to send a shipment of humanitarian aid for those stranded on the border with Bangladesh.

Earlier this week, Ayatollah Khamenei called on Islamic governments to exert political and economic pressure on Myanmar’s “cruel” regime to end the massacre.

US ban on aircraft sales to Iran breaches JCPOA

Elsewhere in his remarks, Velayati said a recent US move to block sales of commercial aircraft to Iran has “violated” the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives voted in favor of new measures that would specifically prevent the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) from clearing licenses to allow aircraft sales to Iran.

“A ban on selling aircraft to Iran shows that we should not trust the US and its allies,” Velayati added.

The JCPOA was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, and Britain plus Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016. Under the deal, Iran undertook to put limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for the termination of all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.

The removal of sanctions allowed Iran to purchase hundreds of commercial aircraft from Airbus, Boeing and other aircraft manufacturing companies.

However, officials in the administration of US President Donald Trump have recently been sparing no efforts to undermine the nuclear deal.

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The independent Burma Human Rights Network said in a Tuesday report that the persisting repression of Muslims across the East Asian country was backed by government authorities, elements among the country’s majority Buddhist monks as well as ultra-nationalist civilian groups.

The report by the UK-based institution obtained its data from over 350 interviews in more than 46 towns and villages over an eight-month period since March 2016.

“The transition to democracy has allowed popular prejudices to influence how the new government rules, and has amplified a dangerous narrative that casts Muslims as an alien presence” in the Buddhist-majority country, the report added.

Besides Rohingya Muslims, the report further examines the broader portrait of Muslims of various ethnic groups throughout Myanmar following waves of communal violence against them in 2012 and 2013.

According to the report, government authorities have refused to issue national identification cards for many Muslims from all ethnicities, denying them access to Islamic places of worship in some areas.

Myanmarese officials have offered no immediate reaction to the report.

The Naypyidaw government continues to reject widespread allegations of discrimination against the country’s Muslim population, insisting that army forces in the northern state of Rakhine are waging a legitimate campaign against “terrorists.”

In Rakhine State, the report highlighted increasing segregation between Buddhists and Muslim communities as well as harsh travel restrictions against Rohingya Muslims and limits on their access to health care and education.

At least 21 villages around Myanmar have declared themselves “no-go zones” for Muslims, in a government-backed move, added the report.

The latest wave of violence in Rakhine State started on August 25, when an armed group, which is said to be defending the rights of Rohingya Muslims, attacked dozens of police posts and an army base.

The ensuing clashes and a military offensive have killed at least 400 people and forced tens of thousands of villagers to flee towards neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has come under increasing pressure from countries with large Muslim populations — including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan — to halt the violence against Rohingya Muslims, after nearly 125,000 of them fled to Bangladesh, according to the new figures released by the UN on Tuesday.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Myanmar Army Chief Min Aung Hlaing on Monday to call on Myanmar to halt the bloodshed.

“The security authorities need to immediately stop all forms of violence there and provide humanitarian assistance and development aid for the short and long term,” Retno said following her discussions in the Myanmarese capital.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also due in Myanmar later in the day for talks with officials on the crisis in Rakhine.

Myanmar’s government brands more than one million Rohingya Muslims in the country as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh. Rohingya Muslims, however, have had roots in the country that go back centuries. They are considered by the UN the “most persecuted minority group in the world.”

There have been numerous eyewitness accounts of summary executions, rapes and arson attacks by the military since the crackdown against the minority group began.

The United Nations believes the government of Myanmar might have committed ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in its crackdown.

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