Burma leaders may be charged with genocide, UN chief says

The United Nations human rights chief has claimed the conflict in Burma, which has led to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing the country, could one day be classified as genocide.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein hinted that he believed Burma’s leaders could be charged if it is deemed they have not done enough to stop the trouble. 

Speaking to BBC’s Panorama, which is due to air on Monday night, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights said it would not surprise him if genocide charges were one day brought before the country’s leaders.

He said: ‘The elements suggest you cannot rule out the possibility that acts of genocide have been committed.

‘It’s very hard to establish because the thresholds are high but it wouldn’t surprise me in the future if the court were to make such a finding on the basis of what we see.’

If the country’s leaders are aware of the violence – which has seen dozens of people raped, killed and maimed and received vast media coverage – they could be ‘culpable’, Mr Al Hussein said. 

Rohingya Muslims have fled from Burma after intense violence which the UN described as ‘ethnic cleansing’, although authorities have blamed Rohingya militants for the conflict.

A cross-party group of MPs found violence amounting to ‘ethnic cleansing and may also constitute crimes against humanity and even genocide’. 

The BBC said it had asked Burma’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the head of the country’s armed forces for a response but neither had replied.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein hinted that he believed Burma’s leader could be charged if it is deemed they have not done enough to stop the trouble

A cross-party group of MPs found violence amounting to ‘ethnic cleansing and may also constitute crimes against humanity and even genocide’