DESPITE having a Nobel peace laureate as its leading politician, there is something unpleasant about Myanmar as it emerges from years of international political and economic isolation. Indeed perhaps because Aung San Suu Kyi has such a prominent and respected presence on the world stage, what is happening in Myanmar is so unacceptable.

The massacres of Rohingya Muslims by their Buddhist neighbors in Rakhine state is a crime that has outraged world opinion. The government of President Thein Sein, the installation of which in 2011 apparently brought to an end almost 50 years of often ruthless military rule, agreed to mount an enquiry into the savagery which saw hundreds of the Rohingya minority community murdered and more than 100,000 driven from their homes. Some of these unfortunates have fled to Bangladesh or taken to flimsy boats in the hope of reaching the friendlier shores of Malaysia. How the Thai authorities have treated these luckless refugees is an entirely separate scandal.

Anyway, after much delay, the Burmese government has finally produced its report and it is a biased, racist and entirely unsatisfactory document. The key to the horrors experienced by this Muslim community is that, even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations, they have never been accepted as Burmese nationals. This has always marked them out for discrimination from the Buddhists among whom they lived. They have never enjoyed full rights, nor access to the judicial system and of course, no sort of political representation at all.

Thus, deprived of the full citizenship, which in historical terms is self-evidently theirs, they have been treated as aliens in their own country, deprived of advanced education opportunities and excluded from government and official posts, being relegated to the lower echelons of society, often acting as laborers or servants.

Already victims, it was all the easier for bigoted Buddhists to stir up hatred against them and incite the massacres, often committed while Burmese police and army soldiers stood by and did nothing.

The government report admits the status of the Rohingya must indeed be addressed, but makes no useful suggestions as to how the question should be approached. In addition, the investigators make clear their own view of this minority by referring to them throughout as “Bengalis.” This is not simply pre-judging the issue, but it also displays clear prejudice, which seriously undermines any pretence the report has to be an objective and fair document.

The two clear recommendations that are made are that the number of security forces in Rakhine should be doubled and that the Rohingya Muslims should continue to be kept apart from their Buddhist neighbors. Given the appalling record of at best indifference and, at worst, active participation in the massacres that took place last year, the security forces surely cannot be trusted to enforce law and order, even if twice as many troops and police are sent there. The clear solution is for the government to invite in international observers to monitor the behavior of the security presence.

Meanwhile, in the light of the clear anti-Rohingya bias in the rest of the report, the advice that the enforced segregation of the Rohingya should continue is duplicitous. By no means all the Buddhist community took part in the massacres. Indeed there are stories of some who tried to shelter Muslim friends, who were themselves then subject to attack by the bigots. Keeping the communities divided and incidentally tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in unsuitable refugee camps as the rainy season approaches, is no way to start the process of inter-communal healing and reconciliation.

Indeed, it is to be suspected that security is being used by the Thein Sein administration as a cover to perpetuate the segregation and isolation of the Rohingya, which was what the Buddhist extremists sought in the first place.

What is hardly less disturbing is that despite the warnings of bodies such as Human Rights Watch and some UN agencies, governments around the world are still busy rolling back sanctions imposed on the old military regime. This highly dubious report into last year’s wicked crimes ought to give the international community cause for thought.

Just because it seems that Myanmar’s military has retreated to its barracks; just because it seems that the country is on the threshold of democracy and just because in Aung San Suu Kyi, the country has a brave champion of freedom from military dictatorship, does not mean that the international community must suspend its judgment on the way that the Burmese authorities are behaving to the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in the country.