A U.S. State Department report resulted from more than a thousand interviews of Rohingya men and women in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, where almost 700,000 Rohingya have fled after a military campaign last year in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The Public International Law and Policy Group, a human rights law firm contracted by the State Department to conduct the refugee interviews, issued a companion report saying it provided 15,000 pages of documentation of “atrocity crimes.”
“The survey reveals that the recent violence in northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents,” according to the 20-page report. “The scope and scale of the military’s operations indicate they were well-planned and coordinated.”
Survivors described in harrowing detail what they had witnessed, including soldiers killing infants and small children, the shooting of unarmed men, and victims buried alive or thrown into pits of mass graves. They told of widespread sexual assault by Myanmar’s military of Rohingya women, often carried out in public. One witness described four Rohingya girls who were abducted, tied up with ropes and raped for three days. They were left “half dead,” he said, according to the report. “The stories from some refugees show a pattern of planning and pre-meditation,” the report said, citing the military’s confiscation in advance of knives and other tools that could be used as weapons. About 80 percent of refugees surveyed said they witnessed a killing, most often by military or police, according to the report.
“Reports of mutilation included the cutting and spreading of entrails, severed limbs or hands/feet, pulling out nails or burning beards and genitals to force a confession, or being burned alive,” the report said.
The results of the U.S. investigation were released in low-key fashion - posted on the State Department’s website - nearly a month after U.N. investigators issued their own report accusing Myanmar’s military of acting with “genocidal intent” and calling for the country’s commander-in-chief and five generals to be prosecuted under international law.
U.S. Senior State Department officials said the objective of the investigation was not to determine genocide but to “document the facts” on the atrocities to guide U.S. policy aimed at holding the perpetrators accountable. The report, however, proposes no new steps. It would be up to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whether to make such a “legal” designation in the future. A declaration of genocide by the U.S. government, which has only gone as far as labeling the crackdown “ethnic cleansing,” could have legal implications of committing Washington to stronger punitive measures against Myanmar. This has made some in the Trump administration wary of issuing such an assessment. Any stiffer measures against Myanmar authorities could be tempered, though, by U.S. concerns about complicating relations between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the powerful military which might push Myanmar closer to China.
Sarah Margon, director of the Washington office of Human Right Watch, said: “What’s missing now is a clear indication of whether the U.S. government intends to pursue meaningful accountability and help ensure justice for so many victims.”
“The survey reveals that the recent violence in northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents,” according to the 20-page report. “The scope and scale of the military’s operations indicate they were well-planned and coordinated.”
Survivors described in harrowing detail what they had witnessed, including soldiers killing infants and small children, the shooting of unarmed men, and victims buried alive or thrown into pits of mass graves. They told of widespread sexual assault by Myanmar’s military of Rohingya women, often carried out in public. One witness described four Rohingya girls who were abducted, tied up with ropes and raped for three days. They were left “half dead,” he said, according to the report. “The stories from some refugees show a pattern of planning and pre-meditation,” the report said, citing the military’s confiscation in advance of knives and other tools that could be used as weapons. About 80 percent of refugees surveyed said they witnessed a killing, most often by military or police, according to the report.
“Reports of mutilation included the cutting and spreading of entrails, severed limbs or hands/feet, pulling out nails or burning beards and genitals to force a confession, or being burned alive,” the report said.
The results of the U.S. investigation were released in low-key fashion - posted on the State Department’s website - nearly a month after U.N. investigators issued their own report accusing Myanmar’s military of acting with “genocidal intent” and calling for the country’s commander-in-chief and five generals to be prosecuted under international law.
U.S. Senior State Department officials said the objective of the investigation was not to determine genocide but to “document the facts” on the atrocities to guide U.S. policy aimed at holding the perpetrators accountable. The report, however, proposes no new steps. It would be up to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whether to make such a “legal” designation in the future. A declaration of genocide by the U.S. government, which has only gone as far as labeling the crackdown “ethnic cleansing,” could have legal implications of committing Washington to stronger punitive measures against Myanmar. This has made some in the Trump administration wary of issuing such an assessment. Any stiffer measures against Myanmar authorities could be tempered, though, by U.S. concerns about complicating relations between civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the powerful military which might push Myanmar closer to China.
Sarah Margon, director of the Washington office of Human Right Watch, said: “What’s missing now is a clear indication of whether the U.S. government intends to pursue meaningful accountability and help ensure justice for so many victims.”
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