Report: Myanmar’s military planned Rohingya genocide
BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military systematically planned a genocidal campaign to rid the country of Rohingya Muslims, according to a report released Thursday by the rights-advocacy group Fortify Rights based on testimony from 254 survivors, officials and workers over a 21-month period.
The 162-page report says that the exodus of around 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh last year — after a campaign of mass slaughter, rape and village burnings in Rakhine state in Myanmar — was the culmination of months of meticulous planning by the security forces.
Fortify Rights names 22 military and police officers who it says were directly responsible for the campaign against the Rohingya and recommends that the United Nations Security Council refer them to the International Criminal Court.
“Genocide doesn’t happen spontaneously,” said Matthew Smith, co-founder of Fortify Rights. “Impunity for these crimes will pave the path for more violations and attacks in the future.”
Beginning in October 2016, Myanmar’s military and local officials methodically removed sharp tools that could be used for selfdefense by the Rohingya and shut off the spigot of international aid for the impoverished Rohingya community, the Fortify Rights report says.
Most of all, more troops were sent to northern Rakhine state, where the bulk of the largely stateless Rohingya once lived. Fortify Rights says that at least 27 Myanmar army battalions, with up to 11,000 soldiers, and at least three combat police battalions, with around 900 personnel, participated in the bloodletting that began in late August.
U.S. officials have said that the violence amounted to a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The report rebuts the government’s contention that the military-led atrocities were a response to attacks by Rohingya militants on army and police posts on Aug. 25, 2017.
Zaw Htay, a government spokesman, said that the Myanmar government would be forming an “investigation team … to investigate the human rights violations in Rakhine.”