US declares 'ethnic cleansing' against Rohingya in Myanmar

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US declares 'ethnic cleansing' against Rohingya in Myanmar

2017-11-23 13:54 Last Updated At：13:54

Widespread atrocities against Rohingya Muslim women and girls have been orchestrated and perpetrated by Myanmar's military and may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the U.N. envoy on sexual violence in conflict said Wednesday.

Pramila Patten, who met many Rohingya victims of sexual violence in Bangladesh camps during a visit this month, said she fully endorses the assessment by U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein that Rohingya have been victims of "ethnic cleansing."

Patten said at a news conference that the widespread use of sexual violence "was clearly a driver and push factor" for more than 620,000 Rohingya to flee Myanmar. It was "also a calculated tool of terror aimed at the extermination and removal of the Rohingya as a group," she added.

Myanmar's government has denied committing any atrocities as has its military. The government refused a request from Patten to visit northern Rakhine state where many Rohingya lived.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar doesn't recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country. It has denied them citizenship, leaving them stateless.

The recent spasm of violence began when Rohingya insurgents launched a series of attacks Aug. 25. Myanmar security forces then began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages that the U.N. and human rights groups have called a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Patten said that during her visit to camps for the displaced, she heard "the most heartbreaking, most shocking, and horrific accounts of abuses committed cold bloodedly with unparalleled hatred against the Rohingya community."

Patten, a former member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, said sexual violence including gang rape by soldiers, forced public nudity and sexual slavery and it was clearly being used "as a tool of dehumanization and as a form of punishment."

She said a number of eyewitnesses "reported rapes of the most extreme and brutal nature, which included the tying of women and girls to a rock or tree before being gang raped by multiple soldiers — and many were literally gang-raped to death."

Some girls who were raped in their houses were left to die when their houses were torched, she added.

Witnesses also said that even before Aug. 25, Myanmar troops would throw Rohingya babies into fires or into village wells to contaminate the water and deprive residents of drinking water, Patten said.

"My observations point to a pattern of widespread atrocities, including sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls who have been systematically targeted on account of their religion and ethnicity," said Patten, a lawyer from Mauritius.

"And a clear picture has emerged about the alleged perpetrators of these atrocities and their modus operandi," she said. "The sexual violence has been commanded, orchestrated, and condoned and perpetrated by the armed forces of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw. And other actors involved include the Myanamar border guard police and militia composed of Rakhine Buddhists and other ethnic groups."

Patten said the U.N. population agency has provided services to 1,644 survivors of various forms of sexual and gender-based violence. "My guess is that this is the tip of the iceberg," she said.

Patten said she believes "there is a prima facie case for pursuing these atrocities in an international court, especially given that the sexual violence was targeted against the women on the basis of their religion and ethnicity as a form of collective punishment and persecution against the group as a whole."

"I can also see a basis for characterizing these violations as war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide, but it is not my role to make that determination," she said.

Patten said she plans to participate in a Human Rights Council meeting on Myanmar in Geneva on Dec. 5 and hopes to be able to brief the Security Council in New York on sexual violence against Rohingya on Dec. 12.

The council would have to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court for the violence against Rohingya to be considered as possible war crimes. That appears highly unlikely as China, an ally of Myanmar, is one of the council's five powers that can veto any action.

Nonetheless, Patten said she plans to meet with the court's prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, next month at U.N. headquarters in.

Myanmar military begins basic training for draftees as resistance forces keep the pressure on

2024-04-09 18:58 Last Updated At：19:00

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military has begun basic training at military bases and schools across the country for draftees called up under the country’s recently activated conscription law, state-run media reported on Tuesday.

The authorities activated the conscription law in February in a bid to to replenish the ranks that have been depleted in nationwide battles against ethnic minority armed groups and armed pro-democracy resistance forces opposed to military rule. The struggle began when the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

Over the past five months, the army has lost territory in northern Shan state and in Rakhine state in the west, and is under growing attack elsewhere. It appeared this week that it may also lose the important trading town of Myawaddy, in Kayin state on the border with Thailand.

Opening ceremonies for training were held in various regional commands and military schools in Mon and Shan states and Tanintharyi, Magway and Mandalay regions, as well as in the capital, Naypyitaw, the state-run Myanma Alinn newspaper reported Tuesday.

It said the first batch of trainees were those who voluntarily reported to the army after the military government sent letters summoning them.

The conscription law’s activation has created fear, anxiety and defiance among young people and their parents. Some are leaving the country, while others are fleeing into border areas controlled by ethnic minorities or joining resistance groups.

Independent Myanmar media reported Tuesday that a few young people staged brief protests against conscription at three locations in Yangon, the country’s largest city. The protests on Monday were carried out as flash mobs to evade attacks or arrests by the authorities.

Under the law, men aged 18 to 35 and women 18 to 27 can be drafted into the armed forces for two years. The military has said about 14 million men and women of the total 56 million population of the country are eligible for military service and it will draft 5,000 people at a time and up to 60,000 people a year. Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine.

Myanmar’s military is also reportedly tapping an unlikely source to fill its depleted ranks, turning to members of the the Muslim Rohingya minority, who seven years ago were the targets of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign incorporating rape and murder that saw an estimated 740,000 flee to neighboring Bangladesh as their villages were burned down.

Analysts say the move is meant not only to counter the army’s attrition though deaths, desertions and defections, but also constitutes a divide and conquers strategy meant to reignite tensions between ethnic groups in Rakhine.

Rohingya have lived especially in Rakhine for generations, but they are not officially recognized as an indigenous ethnic minority, instead being called Bengalis and described as illegal immigrants. They have been denied citizenship and other basic rights including freedom of movement, and are the targets of widespread social discrimination. The U.N. has estimated that 600,000 Rohingya are still living in Myanmar.

The main anti-military resistance force in Rakhine state is the Arakan Army, which is part of the movement seeking greater autonomy for the Rakhine ethnic group that dominates the area. Rakhine nationalists were among the leading persecutors of the Rohingya minority, but now the Arakan Army and the Rohingya have a common enemy in the military government to took power in 2021, making them uneasy allies.

Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya who is deputy minister for human rights in the shadow National Unity Government, said last month that the military is creating a conflict between the Rohingya and Rakhine ethnic groups in hopes of regaining the military advantage in Rakhine.

“The military council is losing the battles nationwide. Especially in Rakhine, military camps are being abandoned almost every day, and the towns controlled by the military council are falling. In Rakhine, the military council is in need of a lot of human resources due to the depletion of the army. It seems that they have calculated that only by creating a conflict between Rakhine and Rohingya can the current situation be changed,” Aung Kyaw Moe said.