Myanmar begins court martial over atrocities against Rohingya

Myanmar’s military has begun a trial of soldiers for atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, as the Southeast Asian country also braces for genocide charges at an international court in The Hague.

News ID: 447753

Date: 27 November 2019 - 21:47

RNA - Military spokesperson Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun said on Tuesday that soldiers and officers from a regiment deployed to the Gu Dar Pyin Village of Buthidaung Township in Rakhine — the site of a massacre of Rohingya Muslims — were “weak in following the rules of engagement.”

In a statement published on its website, the military confirmed the soldiers being court-martialed were involved in “accidents” in Gu Dar Pyin.

The Associated Press earlier reported the existence of at least five mass graves in the village, through interviews with survivors in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Myanmar has brazenly resisted international calls to investigate the horrific state-sponsored atrocities against the Rohingya or to punish those responsible. The military has been actively involved in the crimes, and possible criminality reaches all the way up to the military chief.

Seven soldiers jailed for 10 years for killing 10 Rohingya men and boys in the village of Inn Din were granted early release last November, after serving less than a year in prison.

The developments come as the country is facing a wave of international pressure over its treatment of the Rohingya, with cases filed against it at courts around the world.

Gambia, a mainly Muslim West African state, lodged a lawsuit accusing the country of genocide after winning the support of the 57-nation Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also recently approved a long-awaited full investigation into the crimes against the Rohingya minority, which has systematically driven Muslims across the border to Bangladesh.

Thousands of Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape the Myanmarese military offensive launched in August 2017, which UN investigators have described as having been executed with genocidal intent.

Soldiers and Buddhist mobs razed hundreds of villages in the remote western Rakhine State, torturing, killing, and raping the Rohingya.

The Rohingya have inhabited Rakhine state for centuries, but the state denies them citizenship.

847/940