Seeking justice for the Rohingya
Investigators in Bangladesh to document suffering of refugees
COX’S BAZAR: Cross-legged in a windowless, almost pitch-black bamboo shack, the investigator pressed record on a video camera and asked the young Rohingya woman to describe the night the Myanmar soldiers came.
“They broke down our door. They took my husband outside and shot him,” recalled the 20-year-old, one of around 700,000 Rohingyas driven from Myanmar into Bangladesh a year ago.
“Then they killed my son. Four of them raped me,” said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, only her eyes visible beneath a veil covering her face.
Different teams of investigators in the world’s biggest refugee camp in Bangladesh, home to a million people, have been quietly documenting what the Myanmar Muslim minority suffered in 2017.
From seasoned professionals working for governments, the United Nations and international rights groups, to grassroots volunteers armed with pen and paper, a trove of evidence is being amassed which it is hoped will help bring the Rohingya some justice.
Another of those giving testimony is Nurjahan, whose husband and son were also murdered.
She has taken it upon herself to secure justice for them and for all the girls in her village raped at gunpoint.
She was among the first of 400 Rohingya women to put their inked thumbs to a legal document formally requesting a probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The group of largely illiterate women she is part of, “Shanti Mohila” (Peace Women), has also collected victim testimonies and signatures to lobby the ICC thousands of miles away.
“We’ve lost our sons. Our daughters have been violated. We want justice for them,” the 45-year-old said.
The only other Rohingya submission before the world’s only permanent war crimes court is for the victims of Tula Toli, a Myanmar village whose Muslim inhabitants were rounded up and methodically slaughtered on August 30, 2017.
Some testimony for a broader enquiry has already reached The Hague, where the ICC is being urged to investigate crimes against humanity, something that Myanmar denies.
There is a new Myanmar-led commission to examine abuses, but this has been denounced by many observers as an empty stunt that will fail to establish accountability. — AFP