The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands the European Union (EU) to agree on sanctions against Burma’s army and government because of the persecution and expulsion of the Rohingya. “There should be no more hesitating and dithering! Europe must finally show commitment to human rights. The EU must put significantly more pressure on Burma in order to stop the human rights violations against the Rohingya,” explained Ulrich Delius, the director of the STP, in Göttingen on Sunday. While leading representatives of the United Nations had strongly condemned the violence against the Rohingya, the EU has so far been reluctant to make a clear statement. On Monday, the EU Foreign Ministers will discuss whether there will be sanctions against Burma’s leading military officials.

The army is primarily responsible for the crimes of the past, but Burma’s government under Aung San Suu Kyi has become a complicit by trying to downplay and sugarcoat the dramatic human rights situation. In an interview with the news channel Al Jazeera, for example, Minister Wyn Myat Aye, (who is also responsible for disaster relief) had caused irritation by stating that the Rohingya had “planned” their exodus deliberately in order to create the false impression that there had been crimes of ethnic cleansing. Previously, the government had claimed, over the course of several weeks, that the Rohingya had set fire to their houses in order to blame the armed forces. “Nobody who has witnessed the unspeakable suffering of the traumatized refugees could possibly agree to cynical explanations like this. If Aung San Suu Kyi tolerates inhumane statements by members of the cabinet, she is a complicit in the crimes,” explained Delius.

In an interview that was published this week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) had raised serious accusations against Burma’s army. Thus, the armed forces and the Buddhist nationalists were systematically trying to drive away the Rohingya civilian population by destroying their fields, their harvest, their villages, and even the trees to keep them from returning. The houses had been set on fire with fire bombs, UN experts had reported – and the Burmese minister who is responsible for disaster relief emphasized that, according to the law, the burnt land would go to the state.

The UN investigators also accused the army of arbitrary arrests as a means of preparing a systematic expulsion of the minority – even before the attacks by armed Rohingya on August 25, 2017. So far, the army had repeatedly stated that the actions were to be seen as consequences of the armed attacks.