UN Says Myanmar Military Leaders Must Face Genocide Charges For Killing Thousands Of Rohingyas

A United Nations report today called for Myanmar¡¯s military leaders to be investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The report comes after a massive ethnic cleaning of Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, a religious minority, by the Myanmar army, known as the Tatmadaw.

The damning report contains allegations of murder, imprisonment and sexual violence against the Rohingyas.

"Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages. The Tatmadaw's tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats, especially in Rakhine State, but also in northern Myanmar," the report said.

This, perhaps, is the strongest condemnation of the military actions in the country.

Reuters

Myanmar¡¯s army commander and other top generals must face trial in an international court for genocide against Rohingya Muslims, said United Nations experts.

A report detailing military campaigns involving atrocities against the ethic community that ¡°undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law¡±, names Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief of Myanmar¡¯s army as priority subject for investigation and prosecution by a United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.

The Buddhist-majority security forces unleashed a ferocious campaign against Rohingyas and the UN has levelled the most serious charge, genocide, against the military leaders.

The campaign forced more than 7,00,000 Rohingyas to flee the state and cross into Bangladesh.

Myanmar has rejected the claims of widespread atrocities, asserting that the country¡¯s security forces were only responding to the attacks by Rohingya militants.

reuters

In an 18-page report released on Monday, the panel described the Rakhine operations as a ¡°foreseeable and planned catastrophe¡±.

For long, Myanmar has falsely classified the Rohingya as Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. They have been denied citizenships, making them vulnerable to attacks.

The UN panel said that Nobel Peace prize winning Myanmar leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other civilian authorities ¡°contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes¡±.

Reports suggest that so far more than 10,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee the state.

Just after the report was released, Facebook took a massive step and removed 18 Facebook accounts, one Instagram account and 52 Facebook pages ¡ª including that of the commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing. The accounts had 12 million followers.

reuters

¡°International experts, most recently in a report by the UN Human Rights Council-authorized fact-finding mission on Myanmar, have found evidence that many of these individuals and organizations committed or enabled serious human rights abuses in the country,¡± Facebook said in a post. ¡°We want to prevent them from using our service to further inflame ethnic and religious tensions.¡±