UNSC should visit Rakhine

We are not surprised to learn that Myanmar has asked the UN Security Council to not visit its conflict-ravaged Rakhine state this February because it was "not the right time." While Myanmar did not entirely reject the proposed visit, it wants it delayed to March or April. We wonder, if not now, when is the time right for global inspections into the crimes committed in the area? To Myanmar's government and military, the time is perhaps right only when all the evidence of its pogrom against the Rohingyas is already buried too deep to be unearthed. 

The fact that Myanmar is hesitant to allow the international diplomatic corps to visit Rakhine state should reinforce and reaffirm the widely believed notion that the state forces of Myanmar were directly involved in the genocidal activities against the ethnic minority and, thus, the country is now trying to hide the traces of its misdeeds. That is all the more reason for the UNSC to visit the area.

The UNSC should not only visit the affected region but also pressurise Myanmar to hasten the Rohingya refugee repatriation process, and the repatriated refugees should be accorded full citizenship rights. In particular, the concentration camps it has built for returnee Rohingyas in Rakhine should be visited by the UNSC to see for itself the government's actual plans for the minority community.