Watchdogs claim 'mounting evidence' of Myanmar genocide

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Watchdogs on Wednesday have accused Myanmar security forces of slitting the throats of Muslim Rohingya and burning victims alive.

The allegations were made in a report that cited mounting evidence of genocide against the minority group.

The report by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Southeast Asia-based Fortify Rights documents "widespread and systematic attacks" on Rohingya civilians between October 9 and December of last year, and from August 25 of this year.

The 30-page report, entitled "They tried to kill us all," is based on more than 200 interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, as well as international aid workers.

A Rohingya refugee woman taking shelter along the roadside cooks food after crossing Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 13, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Some world leaders have already described as "ethnic cleansing" the scorched-earth military campaign against the Rohingya.

Evidence gathered by Fortify Rights and the Holocaust Museum demonstrates that "Myanmar state security forces and civilian perpetrators committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing" during two waves of attacks in the majority Buddhist nation, the report says.

"There is mounting evidence to suggest these acts represent a genocide of the Rohingya population," it says.

Almost 700,000 Rohingya, more than half of the population in northern Rakhine state, have been forcibly displaced since October last year when Myanmar's army began "clearance operations" after a previously unknown group attacked and killed security officers.

Those operations were, in practice, "a mechanism to commit mass atrocities," the report said. "State security forces opened fire on Rohingya civilians from the land and sky.

Rohingya refugee workers carry bags of salt in a processing yard in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. /Reuters Photo

Soldiers and knife-wielding civilians hacked to death and slit the throats of Rohingya men, women, and children," it said. "Rohingya civilians were burned alive. Soldiers raped and gang-raped Rohingya women and girls and arbitrarily arrested men and boys en masse."

The report said investigators from Fortify Rights and the Holocaust Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide traveled to Rakhine and the Bangladesh-Myanmar border area, where Rohingya have fled. It quoted eyewitness testimony of mass killings in three villages in late August.

"When the killing was complete, soldiers moved bodies into piles and set them alight," after soldiers reportedly murdered hundreds in one attack, the report said, adding to chilling and consistent accounts of widespread murder, rape and arson at the hands of security forces and Buddhist mobs.

Myanmar's army insists it has only targeted Rohingya rebels.

The watchdogs' report came a day after Washington's top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said there were "credible reports of widespread atrocities committed by Myanmar's security forces and vigilantes." Speaking during a visit to Myanmar, he urged authorities there to accept an independent investigation into those allegations.

Nevertheless, Tillerson stressed that broad-based sanctions against Myanmar are "not advisable at this time" and the US would provide additional 47 million US dollars in aid for Rohingya refugees.

"We want to see Myanmar succeed... I have a hard time seeing how that (sanctions) helps resolve this crisis," he added.

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, criticized by Western media for her "silence" over the violence, said she has not been silent and stressed that she had tried not to set ethnic communities against each other.

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Source(s): AFP