TIB condemns UN for failing to avert Rohingya crisis

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) today strongly condemned the failure of the United Nations to act upon a report of an independent expert it commissioned before the Myanmar military crackdown on Rohingyas in Rakhine.

"TIB expressed deep disappointment that the UN not only suppressed the report it received in May 2017 but also ignored the prediction of the report that security forces were going to be "heavy-handed and indiscriminate" in dealing with the Rohingyas, which came true in August-September," it said in a statement.

The anti-graft agency termed it an unacceptable offense that the global body deliberately shelved the recommendation to be coherent and undertake serious contingency plan against the impending violation of human rights.

"We call upon the UN to explain this inaction, particularly the inability of UN to practice what it preaches. No one, not least the UN, can be above accountability," TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said in the statement.

It also urged the UN to disclose the report for public information and demanded punishment to those who were responsible for the failure to act in a manner that could have prevented the worst possible form of pre-planned and massive violation of human rights.

The UN should now have the courage to explain the reasons behind suppressing such a hugely important report and deliberately missing the opportunity to prevent what UN itself later described as a "textbook case of ethnic cleansing" and human rights organisations called it as the crime against humanity of over half a million people, Dr Iftekharuzzaman added.