DHAKA/COX’S BAZAR, Feb 26, 2018 (BSS) – Three women Nobel Peace Prize
winners today called atrocities on Rohingyas a case of “clear genocide” as
they are on a visit to Cox’s Bazar while European Union in Brussels prepares
new Myanmar sanctions over the country’s crackdown on the ethnic minority
Muslims.
International media reports said EU foreign ministers in a meeting in
Brussels today, meanwhile, agreed to draw up a list of sanctions to be
slapped on Myanmar generals, a development that coincided with the emotion-
choked statements of the three Nobel Laureates.
“This is clearly, clearly, clearly genocide that is going on by the Burmese
government and military against the Rohingya people,” of the three Mairead
Maguire told newsmen after visiting the camps in Cox’s Bazar while her voice
choked and eyes were on tears.
The Northern Irish Nobel Laureate described the crackdown as an
“orchestrated attempt” to wipe up Rohingyas from Myanmar and “out of
history”.
Maguire and the two other globally acclaimed women peace activists – Iran’s
Shirin Ebadi and Tawakkol Karman — made their personal statements after
their joint visit to the overcrowded Rohingya camps on Saturday and Sunday
and warned fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi that she could be prosecuted for
“genocide” unless she “woke up” about violence.
Karman said “we identified the crisis as genocide” and “we will follow it
(the issue) up until they (perpetrators) are exposed to the International
Court of Justice”.
“If she (Suu Kyi) will continue her silence, she will be one of them,” said
Karman, fighting back her tears adding “it is an appeal to our sister Aung
San Suu Kyi to wake up”.
The three women also visited the office of Bangladesh’s Refugee, Relief and
Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) in Cox’s Bazar and held a discussion with
RRRC Abul Kalam on the second day of their weeklong visit to the refugee
camps as part of a mission of Nobel Women’s Initiative, a platform of six
female peace laureates established in 2006.
But their statement came as reports from Brussels said European Union
foreign ministers agreed on Monday to prepare sanctions against Myanmar
generals over the killings of Rohingya Muslims and to strengthen the EU arms
embargo, accusing them of grave human rights abuses.
The reports said the EU foreign ministers on Monday also ordered EU foreign
policy chief Federica Mogherini to propose ways to toughen an EU embargo
blocking the provision of arms and equipment that could be used for internal
repression.
In a statement, the ministers called for “targeted restrictive measures
against senior military officers of the Myanmar armed forces responsible for
serious and systematic human rights violations without delay”.
The proposed action appeared to be EU’s toughest yet in its efforts to
hold the Myanmar military accountable for the abuses while United States and
Canada earlier issued sanctions against the South East Asian country.
The reports said the EU foreign ministers also sought to strengthen the
bloc’s 1990s-era arms embargo on the Southeast Asian country that remains in
place.