Backing the systems of abuse, not victims

Amid the unfolding Rohingya crisis and the international pressure on Myanmar to stop ethnic cleansing, a BBC investigation has revealed that the UN leadership in Myanmar tried to stop the Rohingya rights issue being raised with the government.

One former UN official told the BBC that the head of the UN in Myanmar tried to prevent human rights advocates from visiting sensitive Rohingya areas.

Since August 25, more than 500,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh fleeing an army crackdown in the Rakhine State.

From the start of the Rohingya influx, the UN has been at the forefront of the response. It has delivered aid and made strong statements condemning the Myanmar authorities. 

But sources within the UN and the aid community both in Myanmar and outside have told the BBC that, in the four years before the current crisis, the head of the United Nations Country Team (UNCT), a Canadian called Renata Lok-Dessallien tried to stop human rights activists travelling to Rohingya areas and isolated staff who tried to warn that ethnic cleansing might be on the way.

The UN in Myanmar "strongly disagreed" with the BBC findings.

Multiple sources in Myanmar's aid community have told the BBC that at high-level UN meetings in Myanmar any question of asking the Burmese authorities to respect the Rohingyas' human rights became almost impossible.

One aid worker, Ms Vandenabeele, said it soon became clear to everyone that raising the Rohingyas' problems, or warning of ethnic cleansing in senior UN meetings, was simply not acceptable.

"Well you could do it but it had consequences," she said. "And it had negative consequences, like you were no longer invited to meetings and your travel authorisations were not cleared. Other staff were taken off jobs - and being humiliated in meetings. An atmosphere was created that talking about these issues was simply not on."

Repeat offenders, like the head of the UN's Office for the Co-ordination for Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) were deliberately excluded from discussions.

The UN's priorities in Rakhine were examined in a report commissioned by the UN in 2015 entitled "Slippery Slope: Helping Victims or Supporting Systems of Abuse".

Leaked to the BBC, it is damning of the UNCT approach.

"The UNCT strategy with respect to human rights focuses too heavily on the over-simplified hope that development investment itself will reduce tensions, failing to take into account that investing in a discriminatory structure run by discriminatory state actors is more likely to reinforce discrimination than change it."

Ms Dessallien declined to give an interview to the BBC to respond to this article.

The UN in Myanmar said its approach was to be "fully inclusive" and ensure the participation of all relevant experts.

One source said the UN now appeared to be preparing itself for an inquiry into its response to Rakhine.