An independent review of United Nations operations in theyears before hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled a violent crackdownby Myanmar’s military concluded that the organisation’s many bodies failed toact together, resulting in “systemic and structural failures.”
The 36-page review by Gert Rosenthal, Guatemala’s formerforeign minister, released Monday said the UN could conceivably have reconciledcompeting views on whether quiet diplomacy or outspoken advocacy against humanrights abuses in Myanmar should have been used — but it didn’t.
The result — as in Sri Lanka at the end of the civil waragainst Tamil separatists in 2009 — was a “dysfunctional performance ofthe UN system,” Rosenthal said.
“Without question serious errors were committed andopportunities were lost in the UN system following a fragmented strategy ratherthan a common plan of action,” he said, adding that the “systemicfailure was further magnified by some bureaucratic and unseemly infighting.”
The long-simmering crisis exploded in August 2017 whenMyanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in northernRakhine State in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group.
The campaign forced more than 720,000 Rohingya to flee toneighbouring Bangladesh and led to accusations that security forces committedmass rapes, killings and burned thousands of homes.
Rosenthal said the key lesson is “to foster anenvironment encouraging different entities of the UN system to work together.”
On a more optimistic note, he said since UNSecretary-General Antonio Guterres took office at the start of 2017,”there appears to be renewed recognition of the crucial importance ofimproved coordination.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres, whocommissioned the report, has accepted all of its recommendations “and iscommitted to implementing them.”
“The secretary-general is very grateful to Mr Rosenthalfor producing a candid, forthright and very useful report,” he said.
The review covers the UN involvement in Myanmar since 2010,when the at the time military-fuelled nation moved started opening up to theoutside world, eventually leading to elections and moves toward a more open,market-oriented economy.
Rosenthal said “for all these positive tendencies withtheir ups and downs over time,” Myanmar also engaged in”long-festering discriminatory treatment against minorities” fordecades, most especially the Rohingya.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingyato be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families havelived in the country for generations.
Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982,effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom ofmovement and other basic rights.
In his conclusions and recommendations, Rosenthal saidMyanmar’s government is mainly responsible for the grave abuses against theRohingya.
He said the UN system “has been relatively impotent toeffectively work with the authorities of Myanmar to reverse the negative trendsin the area of human rights and consolidate the positive trends in otherareas.”
He also noted “increasing criticism regarding the lackof leadership displayed by Aung San Suu Kyi,” the government’s de factoleader, “as well as her unwillingness to take distance from themilitary.”
Although the UN’s systematic failures are not down to anysingle entity or any individuals, Rosenthal said, “clearly there is ashared responsibility on the part of all parties involved in not having beenable to accompany the government’s political process with constructive actions,while at the same time conveying more forcefully the United Nations’ principledconcerns regarding grave human rights violations.”
Rosenthal said the UN Security Council as the world body’smost powerful organisation should also bear some responsibility because itsdivisions failed to provide support to the UN Secretariat “when suchbacking was and continues to be essential.”
The Secretariat “would have benefited enormously”from Security Council support for an impartial UN observer presence in Rakhinestate “to deter the use of violence in general,” he said.
He said the UN, which has multiple ways to engage its 193member states, could find ways “to criticise and prod governments thatengage in serious violations of international law while at the same timecooperating with them in delivering humanitarian and developmentassistance.”
“This would be the highly desirable objective toaddress the obvious dysfunctional performance of the UN system observed in bothSri Lanka and Myanmar,” he said.
But Rosenthal said “recent experience, precisely inboth countries, has gone in the opposite direction, with mindsets and specificactions” competing rather than complementing each other.
Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, saidthe United Nations failed to keep its promise of “never again” tomass atrocities after the wartime deaths of tens of thousands of civilians inSri Lanka.
“If the UN leadership is determined to change itsinternal culture, it needs to hold UN officials most responsible for ignoringethnic cleansing in Myanmar accountable for their inaction,” he said.