If the UN thought to redeem its criminal misconduct toward the Rohingya genocide by publishing this internal review by Gert Rosenthal, they sorely miscalculated. Rosenthal doesn’t even have the moxie to play diplomat but says he took on this assignment from UN Secretary General António Guterres without knowing a damn thing about Burma, the Rohingya, or the history of ethnic oppression in Burma. Guterres told him his ignorance would ensure impartiality. Makes you cry. But it is ‘par for the course’ in the UN handling not just of the Rohingya genocide but of all such life & death conflicts. In the bombing of Idlib, the UN has been handing Syrian & Russian bombers the coordinates for hospitals even when they knew they were being targeted.

Contrary to Guterres, ignorance has not served this investigation. The genocidal assaults against the Rohingya have been going on for a few decades yet Rosenthal suggests that a couple of alleged incidents in Arakan state by a handful of Rohingya irregulars–incidents which were probably defensive–to be key factors in provoking the Burmese genocidaires. He also maintains the fiction of a civilian Burmese government headed by Suu Kyi versus a genocidal military. Most of what Rosenthal has to say is just bullshit because what Rohingya refugees have to testify is completely ignored as if their experience & voices are of no consequence.

There may have been, as Rosenthal claims, confusions, “systemic & structural tensions,” blunders, shortcomings, “system failures,” by UN officials which led to the complete UN debacle in response to the Rohingya genocide–including putting a guy who knows nothing in charge of the investigation. But as we know from Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, that’s just the way the UN rolls.

UN Report: https://www.un.org/sg/sites/www.un.org.sg/files/atoms/files/Myanmar%20Report%20-%20May%202019.pdf?