Episode: KPN 05-08-2022
New evidence shows how Myanmar’s military planned the Rohingya purge – Reuter The military top dogs agreed to carefully coordinate communications so the army could penetrate “instantly during the crucial […]
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Received new evidence of Rohingya case
Documents collected by war crimes investigators and reviewed by Reuters show how the Myanmar military systematically defamed the Rohingya Muslim minority. It shows how they created pickpockets to kill them en masse, and how they linked these pickpockets to nationalist Buddhist monks.
The evidence was gathered by the Commission on International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a non-profit organization comprised of veteran war crimes investigators and international crime lawyers.
The evidence includes conversations about the issue of driving out the Rohingyas. including how the plots and operations were concealed from the international community.
Regarding the issues that drove the Rohingya away, the United Nations called it ethnic cleansing and The United States has declared it a genocide.
For the past 4 years, those war crimes investigators have been collecting evidence that they believe could be used for a conviction in an international court.
Extermination work
The evidence did not include direct orders to soldiers to kill or rape. Such evidence is also rare in the field of international law.
But the new evidence obtained by CIJA includes evidence of premeditation, said Stephen Rapp, a former US ambassador to war crimes who is now involved with CIJA.
“Everything in this evidence points to an intention to drive people out en masse,” he said.
CIJA is sending the evidence to the prosecuting attorneys in the Hague. According to those records, more than a dozen Myanmar officials, most of whom are from the military, will be prosecuted.
The Burmese military is accused of serious crimes under international law, but sentencing is not easy. Myanmar has also not signed the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has the power to try individual perpetrators of international crimes.
The course of the case
Therefore, by default, the UN Security Council must refer the allegations against Myanmar to the ICC.
However, such an action would be blocked by Myanmar’s allies, international law experts said.
However, there are other cases. The ICC adopted a new ruling in 2019 that allows the prosecutor general to begin investigating crimes against the Rohingya, including their expulsion from the country, because they fled to Bangladesh, an ICC member.
Even in 2019, the Muslim-majority Gambia sued Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on behalf of the 57 member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In July, the same court decided to continue examining the case and rejected Myanmar’s objection.
Absolute right to judgment
A non-profit organization, the Burmese Rohingya League – UK, has also sued Burmese leader Min Aung Hlaing and the civilian leader at the time of the mass violence, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in Argentina, under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
Absolute jurisdiction means the right to prosecute atrocities in any court in the world.
There is little chance that top military leaders will be brought to justice soon. They rarely travel outside of Myanmar, and if they do, they only go to non-ICC friends such as China and Russia.
Villages burned down
In August 2017, the Myanmar military began a brutal crackdown that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Mass murder of Rohingyas with brutality that shocked the world.
massacres; Rohingya recounted gang rapes and children being thrown into bonfires.
Doctors Without Borders says at least 10,000 people have died. Hundreds of Rohingya villages were set on fire.
The Muslim-majority Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for two centuries, according to a history supported by independent scholars. Myanmar’s Buddhist-majority nationalists see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
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