An independent review into how the UN System operated in Myanmar in the years leading up to the mass exodus of the Rohingya minority community following serious human rights abuses has concluded that there were "systemic and structural failures" that prevented a unified strategy from being implemented.
The report by former Guatemalan foreign affairs minister Gert Rosenthal, a former UN Ambassador and top executive at the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said the UN System overall had been "relatively impotent to effectively work with the authorities of Myanmar, to reverse the negative trends in the areas of human rights and consolidate the positive trends in other areas".
The review, published on Monday, covers the period 2010-2018, encompassing the UN's response to the systematic and brutal abuse of hundreds-of-thousands of mainly-Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state by the national army and security forces which began in August 2017, described by the UN human rights chief at the time as a text book example of ethnic cleansing.
A section of the report on "basic facts" about Myanmar said that bringing Myanmar's disparate groups under a common national vision is one of the major challenges the country faces.
In addition, due to its geographical location, Myanmar is susceptible to frequent natural disasters, it said, adding that "finally, events in Myanmar are also strongly influenced by its immediate neighbours, including of course India and especially China".
Without naming them, the report also noted the work of former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy for Myanmar, veteran Indian diplomat and Ban's Chef de Cabinet (CdC) Vijay Nambiar and Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, making a reference to the "different perspectives" between the two on how the events unfolding in Rakhine should be handled.
In the section 'The absence of a clear and unifying strategy', the report states that "even at the very highest levels of management of the Organisation commonly referred to in UN circles as 'the 38th floor' the oft-mentioned competing strategies were both represented until the end of 2016 in the persons of the Deputy Secretary-General and the Special Adviser on Myanmar; the latter concurrently also the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General until March 2012," a reference to Eliasson and Nambiar.
Nambiar had served as Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Myanmar from 2012 to 2016 and as Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary-General at the rank of Under-Secretary-General from 2007-2012. The UN Secretary General's office is on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building in New York.
"No one can fault either personality for their credentials and unquestionable integrity and respect for the United Nations. The Deputy Secretary-General had an impressive background in his country (Sweden) and in international circles, and was, among other aspects, a known human rights advocate.
"The Special Adviser also had a notable background in the foreign service of his country (India), and had two important additional assets: his proximity to the Secretary-General (at least when he exercised the post of CdC) and his deep knowledge and wide understanding of Myanmar and its neighbouring countries (including China, where he had served as Ambassador of India)," the report said.
As can be surmised, the Deputy Secretary-General favoured a more robust posture of the UN to address the events in Rakhine, while the Special Adviser argued for quiet diplomacy to exert increasing influence on the host Government, it said.
"It appears that there were several attempts during 2015 and 2016 to reconcile these different perspectives into a common position that could offer guidance to the entities that served in the different pillars of the Organisation so that development, peace and security and human rights would be mutually reinforcing as well as to the system as a whole.
"One can only speculate that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was either unwilling or unable to arbitrate a common stance between these two competing perspectives, notwithstanding his deep personal commitment to provide Myanmar with UN support for the political and peace processes and for addressing the human rights abuses taking place in Rakhine State," it said.
In his conclusions and recommendations, Rosenthal said responsibility for the grave abuses wrests mainly with the government.
But although the UN's systematic failures are not down to any single entity or any individuals, "clearly there is a shared responsibility on the part of all parties involved in not having been able to accompany the Government's political process with constructive actions, while at the same time conveying more forcefully the UN' principled concerns regarding grave human rights violations".
He said the UNSC should bear some responsibility "by not providing enough support to the Secretariat when such backing was and continues to be essential".
Rosenthal said the key lesson was "to foster an environment encouraging different entities of the UN System to work together" to reinforce a "broader, system-wide strategy".
The UN Spokespersons' Office said that UN chief Antnio Guterres accepted the recommendations "and is committed to implementing them so as to improve the performance of the UN system.
"This review is valuable for the Resident Coordinator and the UN Country Team in Myanmar, as well as in other countries where the UN operates in similarly challenging conditions".
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