The World Bank is considering granting a $100 million loan to Burma to implement a “Rakhine Recovery and Development Support Project”, reports Coconuts Yangon. But rather than address the violence against Rohingya Muslims that has driven hundreds of thousands of them from the country, the plan could make the bank complicit in crimes against the persecuted minority.
“The government is implementing apartheid against the Rohingya, and now it looks like the World Bank is offering to pay for it,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK. “The problem is that the government itself is implementing illegal discriminatory policies against the Rohingya. The World Bank should not be funding the government’s projects in Rakhine State at the same time the government discriminates against part of the population of that state. The World Bank risks complicity in government policies of discrimination, which contribute to the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya.”