Amnesty calls for int’l prosecution of Myanmar’s military leaders

Shara Jahan, 40, sits for a portrait near her shelter in Kutupalong Refugee Camp, 29 September 2017. She suffered serious burn wounds when the Myanmar military surrounded and torched her village of Chut Pyin. Her roof caught fire with her still inside. © Andrew Stanbridge / Amnesty International
Shara Jahan, 40, sits for a portrait near her shelter in Kutupalong Refugee Camp, 29 September 2017. She suffered serious burn wounds when the Myanmar military surrounded and torched her village of Chut Pyin. Her roof caught fire with her still inside. © Andrew Stanbridge / Amnesty International
By Alexander Wishneff

Amnesty International has accused Myanmar security forces of crimes against humanity in a comprehensive and harrowing new report on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in northern Rakhine State.

Titled “My World is Finished,” the report catalogs a “systematic, organized, and ruthless” campaign of violence aimed at expelling Rohingya people from their homes in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung townships in northern Rakhine State.

Amnesty International invokes the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines crimes against humanity as “any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Article 7(1) of the statute lists 11 crimes, including murder, forcible transfer of population, torture, rape, and persecution against any identifiable group.

Under customary international law, the report asserts, any state can prosecute suspected perpetrators of crimes against humanity, even when the suspects are neither nationals nor residents of that state, and the crimes did not take place in its territory.

Amnesty supports its call for prosecution for “crimes against humanity under international law” with 150 interviews with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and a trove of satellite imagery and data.

Amnesty establishes a pattern of violence wherein soldiers of the Western Command, Border Guard Police, and vigilante mobs of non-Rohingya ethnic groups systematically surrounded Rohingya villages, opened fire on fleeing men, women, and children, and determinedly burned all standing structures to the ground.

For example, 10 residents of Min Gyi village reported that dozens of soldiers arrived on foot on the morning of August 30, sending hundreds of villagers into hiding near a nearby river. The soldiers encircled the men, women, and children, divided them by sex, and “opened fire, executing primarily the men and older boys, though also hitting some women and younger children.”

Women and girls were put in a ditch of knee-high water before being taken into houses in groups of between two and five and raped. Afterwards, soldiers “set fire to the house, with the women and children who remained alive still inside.”

“The rape and other sexual violence described here were committed by soldiers and BGP as part of a widespread and systematic attack on the Rohingya population,” the report affirms.

While cases of rape have been noted by humanitarian organizations, Bangladeshi hospitals, and NGO-run clinics, the report states: “The scale of sexual violence since August 25 remains unknown. Sexual violence is almost always underreported; fear, stigma, or cultural attitudes that blame women and girls for the sexual violence they experience often means that survivors do not seek help.”

Also, painfully illustrated is “targeted burning,” or “organized, targeted, and coordinated effort by the Myanmar military to permanently drive the Rohingya population out of their homes.”

Contrary to claims by Myanmar authorities insisting Rohingya set fire to their own homes before fleeing, Amnesty International cites evidence, including satellite imagery, of a planned, deliberate, and total burning of Rohingya homes.

Chut Pyin
A satellite image shows the Rohingya section of Chut Pyin village burnt and the non-Rohingya section unburnt.

“In Myanmar and elsewhere, at the heart of what is often called ‘ethnic cleansing,’ is an organized deportation operation, aimed to force people to leave their homes and to ensure they do not return. The Myanmar security forces’ method of achieving these goals has involved terrorizing Rohingya out of their homes, mostly through shooting, killing, sexual violence and threats; followed by the burning of their homes and villages.”

Interviewees described perpetrators as wearing dark green uniforms with a patch that “looked like a flower and star together.” This is the insignia of the Western Command, a division of the Tatmadaw that has “long played a leading role in military operations in northern Rakhine State, and is led by Major General Maung Maung Soe.”

Several testimonies describe soldiers sporting uniforms with a blue and grey camouflage pattern, or as described by Fatima, a 12-year-old refugee: “blue and grey with spots.” This description matches the attire of the Border Guard Patrol, a unit that has been involved in the armed forces’ “clearance operations” against Rohingya communities since it was established 2014.

Amnesty’s report asserts that the only way forward is for the Myanmar government to immediately cease the campaign of violence against the Rohingya, allow international humanitarian organizations full and unfettered access, and permit refugees to return safely and with dignity.

It also calls on the international community to “exercise universal jurisdiction in investigating any person under the country’s jurisdiction who may reasonably be suspected of committing crimes against humanity or other crimes under international law in Rakhine State.”

The Myanmar government however, has refused to acknowledge claims of human rights abuses or to accept Rohingya as citizens, instead referring to them as “Bengalis,” implying they are interlopers from Bangladesh.

On Monday, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander of Myanmar’s armed forces, said claims of ethnic violence are “exaggerated” and that international media are guilty of “instigation and propaganda.”

 

Alexander Wishneff is a Yangon-based journalist.

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