Myanmar military officials must face justice for crimes against humanity targeting Rohingya

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Amnesty International

Human Rights NGO Amnesty International has gathered extensive evidence implicating Myanmar’s military Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and 12 other named individuals in crimes against humanity committed during the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State.

The 186-page report, ‘We Will Destroy Everything’: Military Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Rakhine State calls for the situation in Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court for investigation and prosecution.

The report is the result of nine months of research and more than 400 interviews, and is Amnesty’s most comprehensive account yet of how the Myanmar military forced more than 702,000 terrified women, men and children to flee to Bangladesh.

Matthew Wells, Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty International, said:

“The explosion of violence – including murder, rape, torture, burning and forced starvation – perpetrated by Myanmar’s security forces in villages across northern Rakhine State was not the action of rogue soldiers or units. There is a mountain of evidence that this was part of a highly-orchestrated, systematic attack on the Rohingya population.

“Those with blood on their hands – right up the chain of command to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – must be held to account for their role in overseeing or carrying out crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations under international law.”

Collecting evidence

In the report, Amnesty also names nine of the Commander-in-Chief’s subordinates in the Tatmadaw – Myanmar’s armed forces – and three in the Border Guard Police (BGP) for their roles in the ethnic cleansing campaign.

The report provides new details about the Myanmar military’s command structure and troop deployments, as well as arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of Rohingya men and boys in the weeks directly before the current crisis unfolded.

It also provides the most detailed information to date about abuses by the armed group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), before and after it launched coordinated attacks on security posts on 25 August 2017. This includes killings of people from different ethnic and religious communities in northern Rakhine State, as well as the targeted killings and abductions of suspected Rohingya informants.

Amnesty has already documented in detail how the Myanmar military’s vicious response to the ARSA attacks came in the context of long-standing institutionalised discrimination and segregation amounting to apartheid and was marked by crimes under international law including murder, rape, torture, targeted large-scale burning of villages, the use of landmines, forced starvation, mass deportation and other serious human rights violations.

Based on the interviews and reams of corroborating evidence – including satellite imagery, verified photographs and videos, and expert forensic and weapons analysis – Amnesty’s report goes into harrowing detail about the patterns of violations committed in the military’s “clearance operations”. It also identifies the specific military divisions or battalions involved in many of the worst atrocities.

In total, Amnesty has documented the Myanmar security forces committing nine out of the 11 types of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Combat troops deployed to ‘destroy everything’

The report documents how the military’s senior command sent some of its fiercest fighting battalions, infamous for violations elsewhere in the country, into operations in northern Rakhine. In the weeks leading up to 25 August, the Tatmadaw brought in battalions from the 33rd and 99th Light Infantry Divisions (LIDs), two combat divisions that Amnesty had previously implicated in war crimes in Kachin and northern Shan State in late 2016 and mid-2017, as part of the ongoing internal armed conflicts.

In some Rohingya villages, military commanders made their intentions clear from the start. Around 20 August, five days before violence erupted, a field commander from the 33rd LID met in Chut Pyin, Rathedaung Township, with Rohingya leaders from nearby villages. According to seven people present, the field commander threatened that if there was ARSA activity in the area, or if villagers did any “wrong,” his soldiers would shoot at the Rohingya directly, without any distinction.

Amnesty has also obtained an audio recording in Burmese of a telephone call between a Rohingya resident of Inn Din, Maungdaw Township, and a Myanmar military officer based in the area. In the recording, which Amnesty believes to be authentic, the officer says: “We got an order to burn down the entire village if there is any disturbance. If you villagers aren’t living peacefully, we will destroy everything.”

The ensuing wave of violence, in which the security forces burned several hundred Rohingya villages across northern Rakhine, including almost every Rohingya village in Maungdaw Township, has been well documented by Amnesty and others.

Amnesty’s report also details large-scale massacres in three townships in the villages of Chut Pyin, Min Gyi and Maung Nu. Thousands of Rohingya women, men and children were murdered – bound and summarily executed; shot and killed while running away; or burned to death inside their homes – though it may never be known exactly how many lost their lives as a result of the military operation.

The security forces also raped Rohingya women and girls, both in their villages and as they fled to Bangladesh. Amnesty interviewed 20 women and two girls who were survivors of rape, 11 of whom were gang-raped. The organisation documented rape and sexual violence in 16 different locations in all three townships of northern Rakhine. The practice was widespread and terrorised Rohingya communities. Some rape victims also had their family members killed in front of them. In at least one village, security forces left rape survivors inside buildings and set them on fire.

Border Guard Police arrests and torture

Amid growing tensions ahead of the 25 August attacks and in the days that followed, Myanmar security forces arrested and arbitrarily detained hundreds of Rohingya men and boys from villages across northern Rakhine. Amnesty interviewed 23 men and two boys whom security forces arrested and tortured during this period. Many Rohingya men and boys were severely beaten during the arrest and then taken to Border Guard Police bases, where they were held incommunicado, some for weeks.

Border Guard officers tortured the detainees to extract information or to force them to confess to involvement with ARSA. Amnesty documented torture that occurred in two specific bases: one in Taung Bazar, in northern Buthidaung Township, and another in Zay Di Pyin village, in Rathedaung Township. Multiple survivors of torture named officers responsible for the torture at these bases.

Released detainees described torture methods that included severe beatings, burning, waterboarding, and rape and other sexual violence. Several Rohingya men who were held at the Taung Bazar base described having their beards burned. Rohingya men and two boys who were detained at the Zay Di Pyin base described being denied food and water, beaten to the point of death, and, in many cases, having their genitals burned until they blistered.

A farmer from a village in Rathedaung Township told Amnesty: “I was standing with my hands tied behind my head, then they pulled off my longyi [a sarong-like garment] and put a [lit] candle under my penis. [A Border Guard officer] was holding the candle and [his superior] was giving orders. They were saying, ‘Tell the truth or you will die’.” Some detainees did die from torture in custody, including a 20-year-old man who was beaten to death with a wooden plank after he asked for water.

To secure their release, detainees were made to pay large bribes and sign a document stating they had never been abused. The Myanmar authorities have yet to provide information about who remains in detention, where they are being held, and under what charges, if any. These detentions amount to arbitrary detention under international law.

Command responsibility

Amnesty has reviewed confidential documents about the Myanmar military indicating that, during operations like those in northern Rakhine, forces on the ground normally operate under the tight control of senior commanders. Combat division units – which committed the vast majority of crimes against the Rohingya – have strict reporting requirements as to their movements, engagements and weapons use, information that senior commanders knew or should have known.

Top military commanders, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, actually travelled to northern Rakhine directly before or during the ethnic cleansing campaign, to oversee parts of the operation.

Senior military officials knew – or should have known – that crimes against humanity were being committed, yet failed to use their command authority to prevent, stop or punish those crimes, and even attempted to whitewash the overwhelming majority of them in the aftermath. Moreover, there is sufficient evidence to require an investigation into whether some or all may have been directly involved in planning, ordering or committing murder, rape, torture and the burning of villages.

Amnesty’s research identifies 13 individuals with key roles in crimes against humanity. The organisation is calling for all those responsible to face justice.

Time for accountability

Faced with mounting international pressure, the Myanmar authorities last month announced the establishment of an ‘Independent Commission of Enquiry’ to investigate allegations of human rights violations. Previous government and military-led investigations into abuses have only served to whitewash military atrocities.

Matthew Wells said: “The international community should not be fooled by this latest attempt to shield perpetrators from accountability. Instead, it must finally put an end to the years of impunity and ensure that this dark chapter in Myanmar’s recent history is never repeated.

“The United Nations Security Council must stop playing politics and urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar and impose targeted financial sanctions against senior officials responsible for serious violations and crimes.

“While building international consensus and support for an ICC referral, the international community should use the UN Human Rights Council to set up a mechanism to collect and preserve evidence for use in future criminal proceedings.

“A failure to act now in light of the overwhelming body of evidence begs the question: what will it take for the international community to take justice seriously?”

Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights with over 7 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organisation is “to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated.”