Daily Management Review

Myanmar Military Top Brass should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide: UN


08/28/2018




Myanmar Military Top Brass should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide: UN
A recommendation for investigating and prosecuting top Myanmar military officials was made by a United Nations panel on charges of genocide and human rights atrocities committed against the Rohingya people and members from other minority groups in the country.
 
This report was published by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar and is by far the severest criticism of the Myanmar military overt he Rohingya issue. This report was issued a year after the reported military atrocities on the Rohingya community. 
 
Following those incidents in Myanmar, about 700,000 Rohingyas fled the country and took shelter in neighboring Bangladesh because of the violence. The attacks by the military were justified by them as appropriate measures against the alleged terrorist activities by Rohingya rebels in Myanmar. But that justification has been completely negated in the latest UN report.
 
“Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages,” says the UM report. “The Tatmadaw’s tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats.”
 
The top members of the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, have been identified in the UN report as being those responsible for the genocide and the ethnic violence. Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief Senior-General and the head of the Myanmar military was named in the report. it also named five other military officers which included Maung Maung Soe and Aung Kyaw Zaw. Both these military officials were earlier sanctioned by the United States on allegations of human rights violations.
 
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights would be presented with a longer list of names of the persons responsible for the genocide against the Rohingyas and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar by the panel, it said.
 
The UN report says that the crime committed against the Rohingyas was done with “genocidal intent” and gave details of the gory incidents that were done by the Myanmar military. The report details the extent of mass murders in a number of villages, where “in some cases hundreds of people died.” The report mentions one village where the military separated and killed Min Gyi, boys and men. The women were gangraped in nearby houses and then murdered or injured.
 
“Houses were locked and set on fire. Few survived,” the report states. “In numerous other villages the number of casualties was also markedly high. Bodies were transported in military vehicles, burned and disposed of in mass graves.”
 
The report said presented a conservative estimate of killing of about 10,000 Rohingya.
 
The Muslim minority group of Rohingyas primarily lived in the Rakhine State and this group has been marginalized for long by the Buddhist majority community in Myanmar and the government controlled by the government. The Rohingyas have been denied their rights to citizenshjp and the associated protection rights with the passing of the Burma Citizenship Act of 1982.
 
There have been waves of atrocities on the Rohingyas a number of times and most recently in 2012 and 2016.
 
(Source:www.vox.com)