Myanmar finds 3 military officers guilty in Rohingya atrocities court-martial
Myanmar military officers were found guilty by a courtmartial investigating atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in conflict-ridden Rakhine state, the army announced yesterday. The rare action against military members came as Myanmar faces charges of genocide at the United Nations’ top court over a brutal 2017 crackdown against the Rohingya.
Some 750,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh with accounts of widespread murder, rape and arson. Rights groups accused security forces of committing atrocities in various villages, including Gu Dar Pyin, where they alleged at least five shallow mass graves had been found.
After initially denying the allegations, the military started court-martial proceedings in September, admitting
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there had been “weakness in following instructions” in the village.
The commander-in-chief ’s office announced yesterday the court-martial had “confirmed the guilty verdict” and sentenced three officers. No details were provided on the perpetrators, their crimes, or sentences.
Estimates from survivors in Bangladesh put the death toll from the village in the hundreds. The government has largely supported the army’s justification of the 2017 operations as a means of rooting out insurgents. Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi admitted at the International Court of Justice in December, however, that disproportionate force may have been used.
The military has maintained any atrocities were committed by a few maverick individuals.
U.N. investigators also found evidence of extrajudicial killings in other Rakhine villages, Maung Nu and Chut Pyin. The army chief’s office said yesterday a court of inquiry would “continue to investigate” events at both villages.
In 2018, the military sentenced members of the security forces to a decade in prison for the killing of 10 Rohingya in Inn Din village, but they were released after serving less than a year.
Two journalists who exposed that massacre were detained for more than 16 months before they were pardoned following a global outcry.
According to the U.N. figures, the Rohingya are the most persecuted minority in the world. The Myanmar government claims that Rohingya people are Bengalis and should go to Bangladesh,
ignoring the fact that Rohingyas were living in the Rakhine state for centuries. The country of Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, has refused to grant citizenship to Rohingyas ever since, issuing temporary identity cards known as “white cards” to these internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Amid increasing pressure from Buddhist extremists, the government canceled the Rohingyas’ right to vote, previously granted in 2015, immediately before a constitutional referendum was held. Furthermore, the government interferes in every aspect of their daily lives, barring everything from the establishment of businesses to obtaining work and even marriage. Ongoing violence and discriminatory state policies have compelled the Rohingya to flee.