Try top brass for genocide, says panel
Burmese generals should be put on trial, says UN fact-finding group
Burma’s army commander and other top generals should face trial in an international court for genocide against Rohingya Muslims and for crimes against humanity targeting other ethnic minorities, UN experts said Monday after a yearlong investigation.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief of Burma’s army, is one of six generals named as priority subjects for investigation and prosecution by a UN Fact Finding Mission on Burma in a report detailing military campaigns involving atrocities that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.”
The three-member panel levelled the most serious charge, genocide, over the ferocious campaign unleashed by the Buddhist-majority security forces against Rohingya Muslims a year ago.
That campaign, in the state of Rakhine, sent more than 700,000 fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.
Burma has rejected allegations of widespread atrocities, asserting that its security forces were simply responding to attacks by Rohingya militants on Burma police posts and an ar- my station on Aug. 25, 2017.
But the panel said there was enough information to warrant investigation and prosecution of senior officers “so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide.”
In an 18-page report released Monday, the panel described the Rakhine operations as a “foreseeable and planned catastrophe” building on decades of oppression of Rohingya Muslims. Burma has long falsely classified the Rohingya as “Bengali” immigrants from Bangladesh, denying them citizenship and making them vulnerable to attack.
The panel found evidence of genocidal intent in the operation, citing the prevailing rhetoric of hate directed at the Rohingya and statements by military commanders as well as “the level of organization indicating a plan for destruction; and the extreme scale and brutality of the violence.”
The panel members said estimates of 10,000 deaths in the Rakhine campaign were conservative.
Burma’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and other civilian authorities “contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes” by failing to use their positions to stop them, the panel said.
Burma refused access and cooperation to the investigation. The panel members said Monday that the Tatmadaw commander should resign as a first step toward achieving accountability for the military’s crimes, but there was no immediate sign of any change in his position of power.