Report Says Myanmar Was Complicit in Anti-Muslim Violence

HONG KONG â€" The government of Myanmar, which has been trying to get in the good graces of the United States and other nations, is coming under new scrutiny for its treatment of a Muslim minority group.

The group Human Rights Watch released a report Monday accusing Myanmar’s government of ethnic cleansing for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims in the state of Rakhine, also known as Arakan, over the last year.

The report accuses the government of taking part in a systematic campaign of violence against the Rohingya, and said it was complicit in destroying mosques. It also says that the government has encouraged anti-Muslim violence by Buddhists in Rakhine, where many Rohingya have been forced from their land and have had to resettle elsewhere.

The human rights group says that government authorities had advance warning of an attack that took the lives of more than 70 Rohingya in October. The report says that the small number of police and soldiers dispatched to the scene actually assisted in the killings by disarming the Rohingya. It said that 28 children were hacked to death during the violence.

The report comes as the United States and Myanmar have been repairing their long-frayed ties, with President Obama traveling to the country in November, a visit that he used to welcome the new dialogue between the two countries while prodding the government to quicken its march toward democratic reform.

But Myanmar has struggled as it tries to adapt to a more open society with festering ethnic tensions just below the surface. Animosities between Muslims and Buddhists had been kept in check during the country’s five decades of military rule. But the tensions have exploded recently as greater freedom of expression has allowed Buddhists to vent their rage against Muslims.

The government of President Thein Sein has tried to encourage media outlets to tamp down on anti-Muslim vitriol in an effort to curb the violence, even banning publication of outlets that engage in such coverage and trying to have Rakhine-related news go through government censors.

Human Rights Watch said that after the violence in Rakhine, it sent staff members to investigate, and they conducted more than 100 interviews with Rohingya and others to get first-hand accounts of the violence. It said that during the attacks by Buddhists, one soldier told a Rohingya man who pleaded for protection, “The only thing you can do is pray to save your lives.”

Burmese officials could not be reached for comment on the group’s assertions.

As the United States has strengthened ties with Myanmar, formerly called Burma, it has also repeatedly cautioned that the government has to improve its record on human rights. But progress on that front has been repeatedly tested by the fierce and longstanding ethnic and religious tensions in the country.

“What this report reveals is that in October, just weeks before President Obama’s visit to Burma, the Burmese authorities were engaged in ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Arakan state,” Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch for Asia, said in an e-mail. “This should make it abundantly clear that the U.S. cannot just rely on fine words from Burma’s leaders but they need to insist on clear actions to hold accountable those involved with these crimes.”