USCMO officials met with the UN’s Middle East and West Asia Division director and staff and formally submitted a statement to UN Secretary General António Guterres on the genocide of the Rohingya by the Myanmar government, security forces, and nationalist vigilantes, which the UN staff delivered to him. Our representatives unequivocally condemned Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing as the culmination of a 69-year history of regime oppression of Rohingya Muslims and expressed its grave concern for the humanitarian catastrophe the Rohingya face as a result of current atrocities committed by Myanmar’s army, police, and sanctioned vigilantes. The statement itemized the illegal atrocities of the Myanmar government against the Rohingya, including mass killings, extra-judicial executions, and rape, which constitute explicit crimes against humanity. The Council delegation expressed appreciation of UN officials’ “direct and unflinching statements regarding the Myanmar establishment’s mounting crimes against the Rohingya people and humanity,” requesting the UN leadership to bring maximal pressure on Myanmar to accept USCMO proposals to Myanmar to send a fact-finding delegation to Rohingya in Myanmar itself; and also to permit Muslim relief organizations to enter Myanmar to help all needy communities, regardless of religion or ethnicity; and to support the USCMO proposal for the creation of an interfaith, inter-communal reconciliation delegation in Myanmar. In addition, USCMO representatives requested that Secretary General Guterres and Director Mocibob appoint a liaison for the USCMO within the Middle East and West Asia Division for the purpose of developing their understanding and cooperation with regard to the Rohingya, and to include a USCMO representative in any consultative committees or advisory panels the UN or its Division creates with respect to the Rohingya.
