How and Why UN’s Reporting System on Arakan Is Largely Unreliable and Biased

Opinion

Global Arakan Network November 30, 2025

UN HR Cheif, IIMM Chief, Special Rapporteur

The United Nations is often praised inside Myanmar as the one international body that dares to speak plainly about the junta’s brutality. When soldiers burn villages, shoot protesters, or bomb schools, UN statements arrive quickly and carry strong words. Many citizens share those reports with relief, seeing them as proof that the world finally notices their pain. Yet the same system that works well in other parts of the country loses its sharpness the moment the subject turns to Arakan. There, the reports become slow, selective, and suspiciously one-sided.

First, the UN machinery in Arakan has been captured by a single narrative. Long before any investigator steps onto the ground, the story is already written: the Arakan Army (AA) is the aggressor, local Buddhist communities are the obstacle, and every claim coming from Rohingya advocacy networks is treated as fact. Offices such as the UN Human Rights Office, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), and Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews regularly publish accusations against the AA that rest on nothing more than second- or third-hand stories circulated by diaspora lobby groups in London, Washington, and Dhaka. No cross-checking with local Rakhine sources takes place.

No site visits to the villages that suffered first. The moment an AA statement appears, it is dismissed as propaganda, while anonymous “testimonies” collected in Bangladeshi camps are copied straight into official reports. This is not neutrality; it is confirmation bias dressed in blue-and-white colours.

Second, the same reports consistently downplay or completely ignore crimes committed against non-Muslim communities in northern Arakan. When jihadist-linked armed groups attack Rakhine, Hindu, or Mro villages, burn houses, abduct young men, or plant roadside bombs that kill farmers, the incidents rarely make it past a short footnote—if they appear at all.

The murder of moderate Muslim leaders who refuse to join extremist ranks is treated as a minor detail. The forced recruitment of teenagers in the camps receives no serious follow-up. The UN’s silence on these events is deafening, and the pattern is too clear to be accidental. Violence only seems to count when the victim fits the pre-approved profile.

Finally, money talks louder than mandates. Follow the funding trail and the picture becomes ugly. A growing slice of the budget for “human-rights monitoring” in Arakan now comes from Qatar and other Gulf donors who have clear political interests in the Rohingya file. Staff positions, consultancies, and research contracts increasingly go to people already aligned with one side of the story. Local voices who challenge the dominant narrative are quietly excluded from witness lists and expert panels. When oil money and political agendas pay the bills, the reports that come out start to look more like commissioned advocacy than independent investigation.

The result is a dangerous distortion. Communities inside Arakan—Rakhine, Hindu, Daingnet, Mro, and even Muslim families who reject extremism—are left without protection and without a voice. The UN’s biased lens actually encourages more violence by signalling to armed extremists that their actions will be ignored or excused, while every move by the AA will be magnified and condemned, even when it is defensive.

Myanmar’s people still need honest international reporting. They need an institution that records every shell, every abduction, every burned house—no matter who fires the gun or who lights the match. Until the UN breaks free from its captured narrative, cleans its funding sources, and starts listening to all communities living inside Arakan, its reports will remain just another weapon in an already bloody conflict. Neutrality is not achieved by picking one side and calling it “the truth.” Real neutrality demands equal outrage for every victim and equal scrutiny for every gunman. Until that day comes, the blue flag will keep losing trust on the ground where it matters most.