Myanmar says military operation in troubled Rakhine has ended

Myanmar's military has ended a clearance operation in the country's troubled Rakhine State, government officials said, ending a four-month sweep that the United Nations said may amount to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing </s> Army completes ‘clearance operation’ which UN says has caused 69,000 people to flee to Bangladesh

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Myanmar’s military has ended a clearance operation in the country’s troubled Rakhine state, government officials said, ending a four-month sweep that the United Nations said may amount to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.

The security operation began in October when nine policemen were killed in attacks on security posts near the Bangladesh border. Almost 69,000 Rohingyas have since fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, according to UN estimates.

The violence has renewed international criticism that Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has done too little to help members of the Muslim minority.

Free speech curtailed in Aung San Suu Kyi's Myanmar as prosecutions soar Read more

The government has denied almost all allegations of human rights abuses in Rakhine, including mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya Muslims, and said the operation was a lawful counter-insurgency campaign.

“The situation in northern Rakhine has now stabilised. The clearance operations undertaken by the military have ceased, the curfew has been eased and there remains only a police presence to maintain the peace,” newly appointed national security adviser Thaung Tun was quoted as saying in a statement released by state counsellor’s office late on Wednesday.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rohingya refugees gather for aid supplies in Chittagong. Photograph: Allison Joyce/Getty Images

“There can be no excuse for excessive force, for abuses of fundamental human rights and basic criminality. We have shown that we are ready to act where there is clear evidence of abuses,” he told a group of diplomats and UN representatives in a meeting, according to the statement.

Two senior officials from Myanmar’s president office and the ministry of information confirmed that the army operation in northern Rakhine had ended but said the military force remained in the region to maintain “peace and security”.

Myanmar military did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rohingya refugees unpack relief supplies at the Leda Rohingya refugee camp in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Photograph: Allison Joyce/Getty Images

The military and police have set up a team to investigate alleged crimes after Suu Kyi promised to probe UN allegations of atrocities against the Muslim minority.

More than 1,000 Rohingyas may have been killed in the crackdown, two senior UN officials dealing with refugees fleeing the violence told Reuters last week.

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A Myanmar presidential spokesman has said the latest reports from military commanders were that fewer than 100 people had been killed in the counterinsurgency operation.

Rohingya Muslims have faced discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for generations. They are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, entitled only to limited rights and some 1.1 million of them live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar. </s> Myanmar’s military has ended a clearance operation in the country’s troubled Rakhine State, government officials said, ending a four-month sweep that the United Nations said may amount to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing. The security operation had been under way since nine policemen were killed in attacks on security posts near the Bangladesh border on Oct. 9. Almost 69,000 Rohingyas have since fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, according to UN estimates.

The violence has renewed international criticism that Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has done too little to help members of the Muslim minority.

The government led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has denied almost all allegations of human rights abuses in Rakhine, including mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya Muslims, and said the operation was a lawful counterinsurgency campaign.

“The situation in northern Rakhine has now stabilised. The clearance operations undertaken by the military have ceased, the curfew has been eased and there remains only a police presence to maintain the peace,” newly-appointed national security advisor Thaung Tun was quoted as saying in a statement released by State Counselor’s Office late on Wednesday.

“There can be no excuse for excessive force, for abuses of fundamental human rights and basic criminality. We have shown that we are ready to act where there is clear evidence of abuses,” he told a group of diplomats and U.N. representatives in a meeting, according to the statement.

Two senior officials from Myanmar’s President Office and the Ministry of Information confirmed that the army operation in northern Rakhine had ended but said the military force remained in the region to maintain “peace and security”.

Myanmar military did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

The military and police have separately set up a team to investigate alleged crimes after Suu Kyi promised to probe UN allegations of atrocities against the Muslim minority.

More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims may have been killed in the crackdown, two senior UN officials dealing with refugees fleeing the violence told Reuters last week.

A Myanmar presidential spokesman has said the latest reports from military commanders were that fewer than 100 people had been killed in the counterinsurgency operation.

Rohingya Muslims have faced discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for generations. They are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, entitled only to limited rights and some 1.1 million of them live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar. </s> YANGON: Myanmar's army has halted "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine, a senior official said on Wednesday (Feb 15), ending a four-month crackdown by security forces the UN has warned may amount to crimes against humanity.

Hundreds from the Muslim minority are thought to have died and almost 70,000 have fled to Bangladesh since the military launched a campaign to find militants who attacked police border posts.

Escapees have given harrowing accounts of how security forces raped, killed and tortured Rohingya and burnt their houses to the ground during the four-month operation.

A UN report based on accounts from refugees in Bangladesh said troops had carried out a "calculated policy of terror" that probably amounted to crimes against humanity.

For months Myanmar has dismissed similar testimony gathered by foreign media and rights groups as fabricated and curtailed access to the region.

But the UN allegations have piled pressure on Myanmar's civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to rein in the military, which still controls key levers of power.

Late Wednesday her office said the troops had ended their campaign and left the locked-down area under police control.

"The situation in northern Rakhine has now stabilised," newly appointed National Security Advisor Thaung Tun was quoted as saying in a statement.

"The clearance operations undertaken by the military have ceased, the curfew has been eased and there remains only a police presence to maintain the peace."

The government has tasked a state-backed commission led by former military man turned Vice President Myint Swe with investigating the allegations in the UN report.

"We have shown that we are ready to act when there is clear evidence of abuses," Thaung Tun added in the statement.

More than a million Rohingya Muslims live in Rakhine state, where they are treated as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denied citizenship. Vicious communal conflict between Buddhists and Rohingya in 2012 drove tens of thousands of them into camps, where they live today in conditions rights groups have compared to apartheid.

Suu Kyi has been criticised for not speaking out against the recent crackdown, which has sapped the goodwill she built up during years fighting for democracy under the former military government.

Last week Pope Francis weighed in, saying Rohingya had been tortured and killed "simply because they wanted to live their culture and Muslim faith".

Suu Kyi's power is curtailed by a junta-era constitution that gives the military control of key ministries, including defence, and a quarter of parliamentary seats. </s> Government officials in Myanmar say the army has ended the “clearance operations” in the country’s troubled Rakhine State, where a four-month, all-out military crackdown targeted ethnic Rohingya Muslims.

“The situation in northern Rakhine has now stabilized. The clearance operations undertaken by the military have ceased, the curfew has been eased and there remains only a police presence to maintain the peace,” Myanmar’s newly-appointed national security adviser Thaung Tun said in a statement on Wednesday.

He did not explain, however, whether the military had also lifted the siege that had been laid on the state in October last year. Two officials with Myanmar’s presidential office also said military forces had remained in the region to maintain “peace and security.”

It was also not clear why the government had decided to end the military operations. While there had for some time been massive international outcry over the abuses that went on against the Muslims in Rakhine, officials had displayed little regard, carrying on with the crackdown.

Hundreds of people from the ethnic Rohingya minority are thought to have lost their lives and almost 70,000 to have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since the military crackdown began late last year, when an attack on the country’s border guards was blamed on the Rohingya.

Thaung, the national security adviser, further said, “There can be no excuse for excessive force, for abuses of fundamental human rights and basic criminality. We have shown that we are ready to act where there is clear evidence of abuses.”

But his claim that the government would act to counter abuse contradicted its record. The numerous reports of abuse against the Rohingya by the military forces have in the past months either gone uninvestigated or been completely rejected at the end of government probes.

This is while there have been countless eyewitness accounts of summary executions, rapes, and arson attacks against the Rohingya by security forces.

At least 30,000 Rohingya have been internally displaced in Rakhine, while thousands of others have tried to reach Bangladesh over the last months to seek refuge among the Rohingya refugee population that already lives there.

Bangladesh has also started to crack down on the incoming refugees by either preventing them at border transit points or confining them to refugee camps.

Rakhine, home to around 1.1 million members of the minority Rohingya Muslim community, has been the scene of violence against the ethnic Muslims since 2012. Before the military assaults, extremist Buddhists would routinely attack the minority Muslims.

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been hailed by some as a “democracy icon” and has been awarded the Nobel peace prize, has remained largely silent on the plight of the refugees. She has also overseen investigations into claims of abuse that have concluded by denying violations all together. </s> UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 (APP):Myanmar’s army commander and other top generals should face trial in an international court for genocide against Rohingya Muslims and for crimes against humanity targeting other ethnic minorities, United Nations experts said Monday after a year-long investigation.

 Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander in chief of Myanmar’s army, is one of six generals named as priority subjects for investigation and prosecution by a independent United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar in a report detailing military campaigns involving atrocities that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.”

 The three-member panel leveled the most serious charge, genocide, over the ferocious campaign unleashed by the Buddhist-majority security forces against Rohingya Muslims a year ago. That campaign, in the state of Rakhine, sent more than 700,000 fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.

 The Mission, established by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council in March 2017, found patterns of gross human rights violations and abuses committed in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law”, principally by Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, but also by other security forces.

 “Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages. The Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats, especially in Rakhine State, but also in northern Myanmar,” the report states.

 “They are shocking for the level of denial, normalcy and impunity that is attached to them. The Tatmadaw’s contempt for human life, integrity and freedom, and for international law generally, should be a cause of concern for the entire population.”

 The crimes against humanity committed in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine States include murder; imprisonment; enforced disappearance; torture; rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence; persecution and enslavement. In addition, in Rakhine State, the elements of the crimes against humanity of extermination and deportation are also present.

 The Mission also concluded “there is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.”

 “The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts,” the report states. “Factors pointing at such intent include the broader oppressive context and hate rhetoric; specific utterances of commanders and direct perpetrators; exclusionary policies, including to alter the demographic composition of Rakhine State; the level of organization indicating a plan for destruction; and the extreme scale and brutality of the violence.”

 The Mission has drawn up a list of alleged perpetrators as priority subjects for investigation and prosecution, whom it believes had effective control and bear the greatest responsibility. Responsibility starts at the top, with the Tatmadaw Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing. Five other military commanders are also named in the report: the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Vice Senior-General Soe Win; the Commander, Bureau of Special Operations-3, Lieutenant-General Aung Kyaw Zaw; the Commander, Western Regional Military Command, Major-General Maung Maung Soe; the Commander, 33rd Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Aung Aung; the Commander, 99th Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Than Oo. A longer list of names will be kept in the custody of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and can be shared with any competent and credible body pursuing accountability in line with international norms and standards.

 The report notes that civilian authorities had little scope to control the actions of the Tatmadaw. It also finds that “through their acts and omissions, the civilian authorities have contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes.”

 “The State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has not used her de facto position as Head of Government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events in Rakhine State,” the report states.

 “Impunity is deeply entrenched in Myanmar’s political and legal system, effectively placing the Tatmadaw above the law,” the report states, adding that justice has therefore remained elusive for victims in the country for decades. “The impetus for accountability must come from the international community.”

 The Mission called for the situation in Myanmar to be referred to the International Criminal Court or for an ad hoc international criminal tribunal to be created. In the interim, it called for an independent, impartial mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of violations. It also recommended targeted individual sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible.

 A fuller report, containing detailed factual information and legal analysis will be published and presented to the Human Rights Council on 18 September. It will include a significant amount of satellite imagery analysis. </s> United Nations investigators on Monday called for an international probe and prosecution of Myanmar's army chief and five other top military commanders for genocide against the country's Rohingya minority.

"Myanmar’s top military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in the north of Rakhine State, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States," a UN-backed fact-finding mission said.

Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled northern Rakhine state to Bangladesh after Myanmar launched a brutal crackdown last August on insurgents amid accounts of arson, murder and rape at the hands of soldiers and vigilante mobs in the mainly Buddhist country.

Myanmar has vehemently denied allegations of ethnic cleansing, insisting it was responding to attacks by Rohingya rebels.

But in Monday's report, the UN mission insisted the army tactics had been "consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats."

The mission, which was created by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2017, concluded in a report that "there is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) chain of command."

"The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts," the report said.

The investigators named Min Aung Hlaing and five other top military commanders, adding that a longer list of names could be shared with "any competent and credible body pursuing accountability in line with international norms and standards."

Criticism was also directed at Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been the target of global vitriol for a perceived failure to stand up for the stateless minority.

The report found that she had "not used her de facto position as head of government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events."

While acknowledging that she and other civilian authorities had little influence on military actions, it said that they "through their acts and omissions... have contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes."

The investigators called on the UN Security Council to refer the Myanmar situation to the International Criminal Court, or for an ad hoc international criminal tribunal to be created.

They also recommended an arms embargo and "targeted individual sanctions against those who appear to be most responsible." </s> YANGON
• Myanmar forces are conducting new rounds of "clearance operations" in conflict-hit Rakhine state after four Buddhists were attacked and two killed, the commander-in-chief's office said yesterday. One of the incidents was blamed on Rohingya Muslims.

The violence occurred on Monday evening along Pyu Ma creek in northern Rakhine state's Maungdaw township, the same area where forces had waged a bloody crackdown against the Rohingya last year.

More than 720,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar launched clearance operations in August last year, and United Nations investigators want the country's top brass prosecuted for genocide for alleged abuses carried out during the expulsion.

Myanmar said it was defending itself against Rohingya militants who attacked police posts and has denied almost all claims of atrocities.

But commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing's office said in a statement posted on his official website yesterday that security forces were active again and had been carrying out "area clearance operations along Pyu Ma Creek".

The post said the activity was sparked after two ethnic Rakhine Buddhist men did not return from fishing and were later found on the creek bank with their throats slit.

On the same day, two members of another ethnic Buddhist minority were attacked while fishing along the creek by six men "speaking Bengali language", but they escaped and were treated at a local hospital. The authorities said they did not know the identities of the attackers.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as one of its national races and refers to them as Bengali to falsely imply that they are newly arrived immigrants from Bangladesh. Tensions are high in northern Rakhine as the government seeks to kick-start a repatriation process, but Rohingya in Bangladesh have refused to take part without being guaranteed rights, citizenship and safety.

The Rohingya still in Rakhine are increasingly isolated, and several boats full of men, women and children trying to flee the state have been stopped in recent weeks and turned around. </s> GENEVA, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with "genocidal intent" and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for orchestrating the gravest crimes under law, U.N. investigators said on Monday.

The civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi has allowed hate speech to thrive, destroyed documents and failed to protect minorities from crimes against humanity and war crimes by the army in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states, they said in a report.

In doing so, it "contributed to the commission of atrocity crimes", the report said.

A year ago, government troops led a brutal crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state in response to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on 30 Myanmar police posts and a military base.

Some 700,000 Rohingya fled the crackdown and most are now living in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The U.N. report said the military action, which included the scorching of villages, was "grossly disproportionate to actual security threats".

The United Nations defines genocide as acts meant to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part. Such a designation is rare under international law, but has been used in countries including Bosnia and Sudan and in the Islamic State campaign against the Yazidi communities in Iraq and Syria.

"The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts," said the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.

In the final 20-page report, it said: "There is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw (army) chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine state."

The Myanmar government, which was sent an advance copy of the U.N. report in line with standard practice, has not commented.

Contacted by phone, Myanmar military spokesman Major General Tun Tun Nyi said he could not immediately comment.

The U.N. panel, led by former Indonesian attorney-general Marzuki Darusman, named the Myanmar army's commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and five other generals who should face justice.

They included Brigadier-General Aung Aung, commander of the 33rd Light Infantry Division, which oversaw operations in the coastal village of Inn Din where 10 Rohingya captive boys and men were killed.

Reuters was unable to contact Min Aung Hlaing or Aung Aung on Monday.

The massacre was uncovered by two Reuters journalists - Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28 - who were arrested as a result last December and are being tried on charges of violating the country's Official Secrets Act. The court had been due to deliver its verdict on Monday, but at a brief hearing earlier the proceedings were postponed until Sept. 3.

In April, seven soldiers were sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour for participating in the massacre.

The report said Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, "has not used her de facto position as Head of Government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events, or seek alternative avenues to meet a responsibility to protect the civilian population".

Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.

The top U.N. human rights official Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has called the crackdown against the Rohingya a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

Suu Kyi's government has rejected most allegations of atrocities made against the security forces by refugees. It has built transit centres to receive Rohingya returnees to western Rakhine state, but U.N. aid agencies say that it is not yet safe for them to return.

The U.N. Security Council should ensure all perpetrators are held to account, preferably by referring Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or by creating an ad hoc tribunal, the investigators said.

The Security Council should "adopt targeted individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against those who appear most responsible for serious crimes under international law" and impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, they said.

The four other generals the U.N. panel said should be prosecuted were named as the army deputy commander-in-chief, Vice Senior-General Soe Win; the commander of the Bureau of Special Operations-3, Lieutenant-General Aung Kyaw Zaw; the commander of Western Regional Military Command, Major-General Maung Maung Soe; and the commander of 99th Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Than Oo.

Reuters was not able to contact those four generals on Monday.

The panel, set up last year, interviewed 875 victims and witnesses in Bangladesh and other countries, and analysed documents, videos, photographs and satellite images.

Decades of state-sponsored stigmatisation against Rohingya had resulted in "institutionalised oppression from birth to death", the report said.

The Rohingya, who regard themselves as native to Rakhine state, are widely considered as interlopers by Myanmar's Buddhist majority and are denied citizenship.

"The Tatmadaw acts with complete impunity and has never been held accountable. Its standard response is to deny, dismiss and obstruct," the U.N. report said.

The report also criticised Facebook's response to allegations, including by members of the same U.N. panel in March, that the social media giant had been used to incite violence and hatred against the Rohingyas.

"Although improved in recent months, Facebook's response has been slow and ineffective. The extent to which Facebook posts and messages have led to real-world discrimination and violence must be independently and thoroughly examined," it said.

Facebook declined to comment in an emailed statement, saying it had not yet seen the report.

Facebook said in a statement issued 10 days ago following a Reuters investigative report into its failure to combat hate speech against the Rohingya and other Muslims that it had been "too slow" to address the problem in Myanmar and was acting to remedy the situation by hiring more Burmese speakers and investing in technology to identify problematic content.

International courts have a mixed record on prosecutions for genocide.

In 2008, a U.N. court sentenced former army colonel Theoneste Bagosora, accused of masterminding the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994, to life in prison on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. His sentence was later cut to 35 years on appeal.

In 2016, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was convicted by U.N. judges of genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. He is appealing against the conviction.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Sudan President Omar al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010 over his alleged role in war crimes including genocide in Sudan´s breakaway Darfur province in 2003. He remains in office. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Adrian Croft)
According to Myanmar's military, it has ended its "clearance operation" against the country's Rohingya minority in Rakhine State, which the United Nations says may amount to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.