GENEVA (12 March 2018) \u2013 Experts of the UN Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar called on Myanmar authorities Monday to stop dismissing reports that serious human rights violations have been committed in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe body of information and materials we are collecting is concrete and overwhelming,\u201d the three experts of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar noted in their interim, oral report to the 37th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.
\n\u201cIt points at human rights violations of the most serious kind, in all likelihood amounting to crimes under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marzuki Darusman, former Indonesian Attorney-General and chair of the Fact-Finding Mission, delivered the oral report. He was joined on the podium by fellow experts Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka and Chris Sidoti of Australia.<\/p>\n
The interim report was based on information gathered from a series of missions to Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand, where teams of investigators conducted over 600 in-depth interviews with victims and witnesses of reported human rights violations and abuses. The teams have also collected and analysed satellite imagery, photographs and video footage of events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe events we are examining in detail in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states are products of a longstanding, systemic pattern of human rights violations and abuses in Myanmar,\u201d report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny denial of the seriousness of the situation in Rakhine, the reported human rights violations, and the suffering of the victims, is untenable,\u201d the experts said. \u201cWe have hundreds of credible accounts of the most harrowing nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report listed eight major findings in relation to allegations in Rakhine State where so-called \u201cclearance operations\u201d of the Myanmar security forces, in response to ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army) attacks, have driven nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh since August.<\/p>\n
\u201cCredible accounts are rife of the State\u2019s various security forces having committed gross human rights violations in the course of these operations,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese operations resulted in a very high number of casualties,\u201d the report said. \u201cPeople died from gunshot wounds, often due to indiscriminate shooting at fleeing villagers. Some were burned alive in their homes \u2013 often the elderly, disabled and young children. Others were hacked to death.\u201d<\/p>\n
Satellite imagery shows that at least 319 villages were partially or totally destroyed by fire after the \u201cclearance operations\u201d began on 25 August 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have hundreds of eyewitness accounts. We have seen unsettling photographs and satellite images of Rohingya villages flattened to the ground by bulldozers, erasing all remaining traces of the life and community that once was,\u201d Darusman said on the margins of the Council meeting, \u201cnot to mention destroying possible crime scene evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the information collected so far points to violence of an extremely cruel nature,\u201d the report said. \u201cWe have ample and corroborated information on brutal gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against women.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have numerous accounts of children and babies who were killed, boys arrested, and girls raped.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe widespread and systematic nature of the State-led violence,\u201d the report added, \u201cpoints to prior planning and organisation, which we are examining in detail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are analysing the respective roles and command structures of the security forces and the involvement of others\u2026 We will attribute responsibility where it is due.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report highlighted the Fact-Finding Mission\u2019s concerns over a spike in reported human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law in Kachin and Shan states. These resulted in significant displacement of population, further exacerbating a \u201clongstanding humanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRegarding the Myanmar military, we are receiving credible reports of indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearances, destruction of property and pillage, torture and inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced labour, and the recruitment of children into armed forces,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
Appointed by the UN Human Rights Council last March, the Fact-Finding Mission accepted a mandate to \u201cestablish the facts and circumstances of alleged human rights violations by military and security forces, and abuses, in Myanmar.\u201d Their focus is on the States of Rakhine, Shan and Kachin since 2011.<\/p>\n
The Myanmar Government has refused to give the Fact-Finding Mission access to the country and it has blocked attempts to mount an independent and impartial investigation.<\/p>\n
Darusman noted that the representative of Myanmar has alluded to a suppression of the \u201cMyanmar narrative.\u201d He responded that the Fact-Finding Mission is ready to hear that narrative, but regardless \u201cwe have no shortage of credible information.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final report of the Fact-Finding Mission will be presented to the Human Rights Council in September.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n