Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said Canada will work with other countries and the UN to come up with broad international plan for resettlement.

That includes imposing sanctions on those in the Myanmar government and military deemed responsible for atrocities against the Rohingya and supporting any UN Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court.

"They will face justice," Freeland said. "The world community is watching. We are determined. We will stick to this. We will gather our facts. There will ultimately be no place to hide."

Human rights groups have reported mass executions, rapes and arsons by the Myanmar military, which is predominantly Buddhist, though Amnesty International reported evidence Wednesday that Rohingya armed groups had massacred dozens of Hindus.

"There is certainly violence on both sides, but I think it's very important not to muddy the waters here," said Freeland, who noted that there were reports of serious atrocities against an estimated one million Rohingya.

"The core objective is for the crimes against the Rohingya to stop. And persecution is still happening and people are still fleeing."

Despite that, the ministers said the government doesn't have any plan — at least not yet — to begin resettling some of the estimated 700,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar and are now living in squalid conditions in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Canada will instead work with other countries and the UN to come up with a broad international plan for resettlement, the ministers said — at which point Canada will stand ready to resettle the most vulnerable families and individuals.

In the interim, the government will expedite applications from family members already here.

"The most important thing to understand is the Rohingya, the vast majority of them, want to go home," Freeland said.

Noticeably absent from the ministers' comments was another major issue: how to address the matter of Nobel laureate and honorary Canadian citizen Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto political leader who has been widely criticized for not speaking out against the atrocities being committed against the Rohingya.

Source: CBC News Canada

BDST: 1517 HRS, MAY 24, 2018
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