YANGON (Reuters) -- Human rights group Amnesty International poured scorn on a Myanmar military investigation into alleged atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, branding it a "whitewash” and calling for UN and independent investigators to be allowed into the country.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a counter-insurgency clearance operation in Rakhine State that a top UN official has called a classic case of "ethnic cleansing”.
Accusations of organized mass rape and other crimes against humanity were leveled at the Myanmar military on Sunday by another senior UN official, who had toured camps in Bangladesh where Rohingya refugees have taken shelter.
Myanmar’s military has consistently protested its innocence, and on Monday it posted the findings of an internal investigation on the Facebook page of its commander in chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
It said it had found no instances where its soldiers had shot and killed Rohingya villagers, raped women or tortured prisoners. It denied that security forces had torched Rohingya villages or used "excessive force”.
The military's self-exoneration came as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson prepared to visit Myanmar on Wednesday for talks with leaders.
Amnesty International dismissed the military's internal investigation and called for a UN fact finding mission and other independent investigators to be given full access to Rakhine.
"Once again, Burma's military is trying to sweep serious violations against the Rohingya under the carpet,” James Gomez, Amnesty International's regional director for South East Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement released late Monday.
"There is overwhelming evidence that the military has murdered and raped Rohingya and burned their villages to the ground.
"After recording countless stories of horror and using satellite analysis to track the growing devastation we can only reach one conclusion: these attacks amount to crimes against humanity.”
Speaking in Dhaka, Pramila Patten, the UN special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, said she would raise accusations against the Myanmar military with the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
"Sexual violence is being commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the armed forces of Myanmar, otherwise known as the Tatmadaw,” Patten said following a three-day tour of the Rohingya refugee camps in the Cox's Bazar region of Bangladesh.