\n A government-appointed commission on Sunday cleared Myanmar security forces of systematic rape, murder and arson against Rohingya Muslims, dismissing UN allegations of widespread abuses during a recent crackdown.\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission examined the deadly violence which began in northwestern Rakhine State in October last year after attacks by Rohingya militants on police posts near the Bangladesh border.\n<\/p>\n
\n The government is refusing to allow a UN fact-finding team to conduct its own probe into whether the security response amounted to \"ethnic cleansing\" of the stateless Rohingya minority.\n<\/p>\n
\n Giving their conclusions on Sunday, a state-backed commission said it found no evidence that Myanmar security forces carried out a systematic campaign of rape, murder or arson.\n<\/p>\n
\n Instead any \"excessive actions\" were likely committed by low-rank \"individual members of the security forces\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Some incidents (of abuse) appeared to be fabricated... others had little evidence,\" according to a press release by the commission.\n<\/p>\n
\n It also took aim at a detailed report by the UN's Human Rights Office released in February this year.\n<\/p>\n
\n That report said it was \"very likely\" that crimes against humanity had been committed during the crackdown.\n<\/p>\n
\n Based on interviews with 204 witnesses who fled to Bangladesh, the UN alleged Myanmar security forces gang-raped Rohingya women, butchered children and tortured men.\n<\/p>\n
\n But \"no such cases were uncovered\" by the government commission, which said the UN findings lacked balance and failed to recognise the gravity of the attacks by Rohingya militants.\n<\/p>\n
\n Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a nobel peace prize winner, is blocking a visit by a UN team.\n<\/p>\n
\n She says the government commission is an adequate response to the violence, which left scores dead and displaced tens of thousands of Rohingya to Bangladesh.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Rohingya are reviled in Myanmar and widely seen as illegal immigrants.\n<\/p>\n
\n Stateless, poor and subject to tight controls on movement, education and work, roughly one million of the Muslim group are hemmed into the impoverished border zone -- which remains locked down and under curfew.\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission conceded that foreign media and NGOs should have been granted access to the zone during the conflict to dispel \"misconceptions.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n It also called for rights training for low-level security officers, urged local officials to tackle corruption and called for swift and fair trials of suspected militants.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rakhine State remains violent and on edge.\n<\/p>\n
\n The government says foreign-backed Rohingya militants are still active in the conflict area, accusing them of killing perceived state collaborators and running \"terror\" training camps.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last week seven Buddhists were found dead in the conflict area.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rohingya villages also continue to be raided.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Friday up to 50 \"warning shots\" were fired at a Rohingya village during a raid.\n<\/p>\n
\n Unverifiable images on social media showed several people wounded by bullets allegedly fired in the episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A government-appointed commission on Sunday cleared Myanmar security forces of systematic rape, murder and arson against Rohingya Muslims, dismissing UN allegations of widespread abuses during a recent crackdown. The commission examined the deadly violence which began in northwestern Rakhine State in October last year after attacks by Rohingya militants on police posts near the Bangladesh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-34240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n