Analysis, Side Feature

Views on the News – 29 Aug 2018

Headlines:

  • UN confirms Rohingya Genocide
  • Macron Talks of EU NATO
  • Russia to Hold Biggest War Games since Cold War

UN Confirms Rohingya Genocide

The UN mission has found Myanmar’s armed forces took actions that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law”, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee starting in late August 2017. Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with “genocidal intent” and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted, UN investigators said. It was the first time the United Nations explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya. Speaking in Geneva on Monday 27 Aug, Marzuki Darusman, the mission’s chairman, said his researchers amassed evidence based on 875 interviews with witnesses and victims, satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos. Marzuki said victim accounts were “amongst the most shocking human rights violations” he had come across and would “leave a mark on all of us for the rest of our lives”.

 

Macron talks of EU NATO

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned that Europe can no longer depend on the US for its military defence and called for an urgent new European security policy in the face of rising nationalism and extremism. “Europe can no longer rely on the United States for its security,” Macron said in a foreign policy speech at what he called a “crisis moment” for European politics and global multilateralism. “It is up to us to guarantee European security.” Macron vowed to put forward new proposals in the coming months for the EU to boost defence cooperation, as well as talks with Russia on their security relationship, an issue of concern for countries on Europe’s eastern edge. The EU has for long attempted to establish its own defence apparatus, but differences between the different nations, budgetary constrains and the fact the US wants to keep NATO as the worlds premier security organisation and has prevented any progress in this area.

 

Russia to Hold Biggest War Games since Cold War

Russia will hold its biggest war games in nearly four decades next month. The September 11-15 manoeuvres will involve almost 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets and all its airborne units, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a statement on 28 August 2018. Shoigu said the drills “are on an unprecedented scale both in terms of the area covered and in terms of the numbers” of military forces. “Imagine 36,000 pieces of military equipment moving together at the same time – tanks, armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles. And all of this, of course, in conditions as close to combat as possible,” he said. China’s state Xinhua news agency has reported Beijing plans to send 3,200 troops and about 900 weapons units for the exercises.