ICC NOTE: The UN envoy to Myanmar met with Muslim and Buddhist residents of Rakhine state in Burma Wednesday as she continues on a 12 day visit through the newly democratic nation. Her efforts at the moment are to facilitate the persecution of Rohingya Muslims by the Buddhist majority. Unfortunately it does not appear she will discuss the persecution of Christians in Burma who have faced similar instances of persecution but have received little attention. Currently radical Buddhists are pursuing a campaign of building religious shrines on Christian property as a means to return the nation to its historically Buddhist identity. 

6/22/2016 Burma (Radio Free Asia) – A United Nations human rights envoy to Myanmar met on Wednesday with Muslim and Buddhist residents of the country’s troubled Rakhine state at the airport in the state capital Sittwe, though the state’s dominant local political party turned down her invitation for a discussion.

“I come here as I did on my very first trip as a true friend of Rakhine,” said Yanghee Lee, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

Lee is on a 12-day visit to the country through July 1 to address a range of human rights issues with authorities and various stakeholders and compile information for a report she will submit to the U.N. in September.

“I come here with sincerity, and I am here to facilitate the process here so that everybody benefits from the new changes here,” she said.

This is Lee’s fourth mission to Myanmar since she was appointed as the U.N. envoy to the country in 2014.

Since her last trip in August 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party has come to power and created a committee to work on peace and development in Rakhine.

The government also plans to spend more than 70 billion kyat (U.S. $5.9 million) to finance goods and services that promote human resources there.

During her visit, Lee will observe the situation of Myanmar’s 1.1 million stateless and persecuted Rohingya Muslims, tens of thousands of whom have lived in squalid conditions in internment camps after they were displaced by communal violence with majority Buddhists in 2012.

The government does not consider the Rohingya to be full citizens of Myanmar and denies them basic rights, freedom of movement, and access to social services and education.

Buddhists call the Rohingya “Bengalis” because they consider them illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh, though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Rakhine has also suffered from fighting between armed ethnic groups and the Myanmar military, forcing thousands of residents from their homes.

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