Rohingya crisis: ‘UN mechanisms were wrong’

Diplomatic Correspondent: The Permanent Representative (PR) of Bangladesh Ambassador Masud Bin Momen has said that UN mechanisms were unsuccessful to prevent atrocities in Rakhine state of Myanmar.

Ambassador Masud was speaking at the Plenary debate titled, “The responsibility to protect (R2P) and the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity: report of the Secretary-General” in New York recently, said the Bangladesh Mission on Saturday.

He referred to the recent report on ‘Independent inquiry into the involvement of the UN in Myanmar from 2010 to 2018’ of Gert Rosenthal, the former Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Minister.

“There is no denying what has happened to the Rohingyas. Although with the available resources and technology, lack of early warning is rarely a problem, UN mechanisms in Myanmar could not provide early warning," said Momen.

The problem was even bigger- not unsurprisingly though- it was not lack of warning but of timely response, he said.

"Very recently, from Rosenthal report, we have come to know in detail why and where UN failed”.

Quoting from Rosenthal’s report, he said it must also be said that the United Nations’ collective membership, represented by the Security Council, bears part of that responsibility, by not providing enough support to the Secretariat when such backing was and continues to be essential.

He urged the international community, in particular the UN Security Council, to consider and come forward to support the pillars II & III of the R2P which clearly stated about the accountability of such barbaric acts and responsibility of the UN to protect against these kinds of acts.

María  Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the President of the 73rd UNGA and Maria LuizaRibeiroViotti, Chef de Cabinet on behalf of the Secretary-General spoke at the inauguration of the occasion.

More than 70 member state spoke at the debate.

risingbd/Dhaka/June 29, 2019/Hasan/Mukul