Rights group: Myanmar forces supported attacks


Human Rights Watch said soldiers in some parts of western Rakhine state also tried to stop Buddhist attacks and protect Muslim civilians, known as Rohingya. But the group said the government needs to do much more to protect the stateless minority, who are denied citizenship because they are considered foreigners from Bangladesh.



"The satellite images and eyewitness accounts reveal that local mobs, at times with official support, sought to finish the job of removing Rohingya from these areas," Human Rights Watch's Asia director, Brad Adams, said in a statement.

"The central government's failure to take serious action to ensure accountability for the June violence fostered impunity, and makes it responsible for later attacks not only when security forces were directly involved, but also when they weren't," he said. "This is crunch time because Burma's failure to contain sectarian violence ... calls into question the Burmese government's stated goal of becoming a rights-respecting, multi-ethnic state."

Myanmar is also known as Burma.

Rakhine state government spokesman Win Myaing said he strongly rejected charges that local authorities and security forces supported the violence in October.

"We tried our utmost to resolve the problems with fairness in the interest of the welfare of both communities," Win Myaing told The Associated Press. "Both sides accused us of supporting either side, but we tried our best to protect both communities. We stationed more security to protect the mosques."

The Associated Press has also interviewed victims in Rakhine state who accused security forces of taking part in the violence or of doing little to stop it, but it was not possible to verify the claims.

On Friday, the United Nations announced it had received a letter from Myanmar President Thein Sein pledging to consider new rights for the Rohingya for the first time and condemning the "senseless violence" that has battered Rakhine state. But the letter stopped short of a full commitment that citizenship and other new freedoms would be granted, and gave no timeline.

The White House says Obama will press the matter Monday with Thein Sein, along with demands to free remaining political prisoners as the nation transitions to democracy after a half-century of military rule that ended last year.



