Myanmar army chief defies UN calls, defends crackdown on Rohingya

Myanmar's army chief has defended an ongoing crackdown against the persecuted Rohingya Muslims minority in Rakhine State after the UN pledged to probe a campaign of killing and torture by security forces there.

Army chief Min Aung Hlaing defended the military campaign while speaking to crowds assembled in the capital Naypyidaw for armed forces day on Monday. 

The military chief branded Rohingya Muslims as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh or "Bengalis" despite many living there for generations. 

"The Bengalis in Rakhine State are not the Myanmar nationalities but the immigrants," Hlaing said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar armed forces blamed Muslims for a series of attacks across the troubled region on security forces that occurred October last year.

"The terrorist attacks which took place in October 2016 resulted in the political interferences." 

The remarks come after the top United Nations human rights body on Friday agreed to send an international fact-finding mission to investigate widespread allegations of killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Sources say the mission will seek to ensure "full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims."

However, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)  stopped short of calling for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry - the world body’s highest level investigation - into the situation of the Rohingya despite a call by Yanghee Lee, the UN’s special rapporteur on rights in Myanmar. 

UN investigators believe security forces may have committed crimes against humanity. 

SS