Mass Grave Uncovered in Myanmar; Humanitarian Crisis in Congo
SESAY: Hello everyone. A U.N. human rights representative investigating the brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has been denied access into the country.</s>VAUSE: That came a day after the military uncovered a mass grave on the edge of a village in Rakhine state. Details from Kristie Lu Stout.</s>KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Authorities in Myanmar are investigating a grizzly discovery. The military says a mass grave containing ten corpses was discovered in northern Rakhine state earlier this week. State media reports the grave in Maungdaw Township was unearthed by security forces who were acting on a local tip. The military was quote, as saying action will be taken against those involved in the killings. This raises new concerns about what is happening in Rakhine state. Since late August, Myanmar security forces have launched a crackdown on Rohingya Muslims after militants attacked government posts. The government saying it was targeting terrorists. Rights groups say the ensuing violence has resulted in the exodus of more than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims from Rakhine into neighboring Bangladesh. There has been international criticism about how Myanmar's leaders have handled the crisis and pressure on them to let journalists, rights groups, and diplomats into Rakhine to see the situation firsthand. But the U.N. says Myanmar has denied its special rapporteur on human rights, Yanghee Lee access to the country and that it will no longer cooperate with her. In a statement to CNN, government spokesman Zaw Htay said that Lee is not impartial and objective while conducting her work. There is no trust on her. He told CNN the government's messages have been contradictory.</s>YANGHEE LEE, UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR: If they say one thing, that there's nothing to hide that anybody can come and then they deny access. I really don't know what message they're sending out and how to interpret that.</s>STOUT: There was also growing concern for two local journalists from the Reuters News Agency who were covering the situation in Rakhine. They were arrested last week and charged under the Official Secrets Act that could carry a maximum 14-year jail sentence. Human Rights Watch has accused Myanmar of attempting to "disappear" the men, an accusation the government has denied. This as Rohingya refugees continue to flow into Bangladesh with accusations of massacres, rape and the torching of their villages by government troops -- allegations the government has denied. But the true scale of the crackdown will remain unclear as long as Myanmar continues to restrict access to Rakhine state. Kristie Lu Stout, CNN.</s>SESAY: Akshaya Kumar is deputy United Nations director for Human Rights Watch and she joins me now from New York. Akshaya -- thank you so much for being with us. I want to share with our viewers some satellite imagery obtained by your organization showing the recent torching of dozens of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state. So according to your organization this first photo shows some villages before their destruction. And then this next one that we're putting up on screen captures the many burned-out buildings. And what's striking to me, Akshaya is the fact that these images showed damage or destruction since October which drives home the fact that the Myanmar authorities continue to terrorize the Rohingya population despite all the international condemnation, even though the actions have been labeled ethnic cleansing by the U.S. and the U.N. What does that say to you about this regime? What does it tell us?</s>AKSHAYA KUMAR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Absolutely. This satellite imagery does just add to the weight of evidence that we have that this campaign of ethnic cleansing has not completed, it's not finished. And unfortunately the international communities' lukewarm statements haven't done the trick. Myanmar authorities are not feeling the pressure. They don't see a need to change their ways. And in fact they're becoming more obstructionist by the day. Today they announced that they're not letting the U.N. special rapporteur into the country at all which is a big shift.</s>SESAY: Yes.</s>KUMAR: So things are just getting worse on both fronts -- multilateral and backhole.</s>SESAY: So I want to read an extract from a survivor of the violence in Rakhine state and really it is to make the connection with the point you just made about the special rapporteur being banned. I want to read this. It's from actually one of your reports, one of Human Rights Watch's reports. And it's difficult to read and some of our viewers may find the details extremely disturbing. It's from Shaufika (ph). She says "I woke up and realized I was in a pool of sticky blood. I tried to wake the others up but they didn't move. Then I broke through the bamboo wall and escaped. All the houses in the area were on fire. I could hear women screaming from some of the other houses. They could not escape from the fires." This is just one of many stories that appears in the recent 30-page Human Rights Watch report, called "Massacre by the River: Burmese Army Crimes against Humanity" in</s>KUMAR: It's going to be harder but it's not impossible. Look. The Burmese military, the authorities are hopeful that if they just keep all of out, if we're not allowed into northern Rakhine state that somehow the truth won't come out. But we've proven them otherwise. We use satellite imagery. We've taken testimonies. I went to the camps myself. We spoke to people like Shaufika. I can still see her in my eyes, another woman I spoke to whose entire face, her skin, her arms had been burned because of fire. So these wounds, this evidence is so blatant it can't be covered up. And so this flimsy attempt to kick out the special rapporteur will actually just make things worse for them. Hopefully they'll give some of the members of the U.N. Security Council a wake-up call. They need to take action now. The Burmese are not taking this seriously.</s>SESAY: You know, you mentioned going to the camps and speaking to survivors like Shaufika. What about those survivors there in northern Rakhine state? I mean we showed the pictures at the beginning of our conversation of the destruction since October. For those still there on the ground in Myanmar do we know what conditions they are in? What conditions they're living in?</s>KUMAR: It's deeply worrying. Look. Our satellite imagery counted 40 villages that were destroyed in the past two months so we know that this campaign is still ongoing. But we don't have enough access certainly not for independent journalists, for human rights workers, not even for aid workers who want to deliver life-saving assistance. And so for those Rohingya who remain and it could be up to 100,000 we have to be really worried because they're trapped without access to people who could champion their rights or monitor what's happening to them.</s>SESAY: Akshaya -- I want to switch gears because there is so much that is happening right now in the world and I want to turn our attention now to a refugee crisis of even greater proportion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some 1.7 million people have fled their homes in the country year alone. We're looking at about 5,500 people a day due to the ongoing violence in the region. A large percentage of them don't have access to clean water or toilets. Conditions in the camps are described as being simply horrible. I mean Akshaya -- I mean the truth is what we're hearing is that DRC is facing a constitutional, humanitarian and human rights crisis all rolled up into one. What can you tell us about the situation?</s>KUMAR: Well, you're right. We have a problem at the highest level with the political situation. There was supposed to be an election before the end of the year. It doesn't lock like that's about to happen. And more generally in the Kasai we have a huge human rights issue where there's been a climate of impunity. The U.N. has discovered up to 80 mass graves. They estimate 5,000 people have been killed in violence and just no accountability or justice and no attempt from the government to stop the killings. In fact it's exactly the opposite. Today, news came out that there's good reason to believe the government itself could have been responsible for the killing of two U.N. investigators who were trying to get to the bottom of what's happening. And I emphasize that because this is a dire humanitarian crisis. People have been forced to flee their homes, schools have been torched. There's mass displacement. But it doesn't come in a vacuum. This is a man-made crisis in many ways and the government should shoulder some blame.</s>SESAY: And to give our viewers, you know, the proper context -- I mean this is a multi-regional crisis that is playing or multi-region crisis playing out in the DRC that has seen all these people flee. How much of the violence -- and I don't know if Human Rights Watch has done the analysis -- but how much of the violence is being perpetrated by non-state actors versus state security forces? Do you have an idea?</s>KUMAR: We don't know but we know that violence is being perpetrated by both sides, by government actors or state security and by these non-state actors. Militias that are emerging including the Kamwina Nsapu which is a really brutal militia group that has come out of the Kasai region. So it's hard to tell on balance and one of the reasons that it's so hard to tell is that there have been these cover-ups. There have been restrictions and limitations on independent investigators like those two U.N. experts I mentioned really looking into things. And trying to find out when is the government responsible? And who's behind all of this violence Our experts actually worry that the government might be sort of taking a calculated approach of chaos to stir things up in this region to just make it easier for them to push off the elections and we can't discount that possibility.</s>SESAY: No -- absolutely. What is at stake here? What is at stake here when we look at the situation in DRC which some have said may be sliding back towards civil wars we saw in the 1990s that saw millions of people's lives devastated? As you look at the situation today where is this heading? And what are the consequences here if the international community don't step up?</s>KUMAR: I really see the DRC on a precipice right now. You have a massive peacekeeping mission there who aren't able to stem this violence and fighting. You have increasing threats not coming from these armed groups as it has historically but from the government itself and then a ticking time bomb of President Kabila refusing to announce his intentions. Will he stay? Will he go? Will there be a credible or real election where the Congolese people feel their voices are heard? And in an atmosphere like that unless something changes we're really at a breaking point. I think people need to be watching the DRC much more closely going into 2018. This year it slipped off the agenda and the situation just deteriorated for the people who are living there.</s>SESAY: I can assure you that here on NEWSROOM L.A. we are going to be watching the situation very, very closely going forward. And look forward to speaking to you again soon. Akshaya Kumar -- thank you so much.</s>KUMAR: Thank you. We appreciate you covering these issues.</s>VAUSE: Well the anticipation of the Trump tax cuts has been driving stock markets around the world. A point not lost on the U.S. President but could that be like the rooster claiming credit for dawn? Details when we come back.