Tatmadaw – Myanmar (Burma) armed forces – committed large scale gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence (against Rohingya Muslim Women) in Rakhine State, a shocking report by UN fact finding mission found.
Constituted by Human Rights Council, the report further stated that the rapes were often perpetrated by Tatmadaw soldiers in public spaces and in front of the families and the communities to maximize humiliation and trauma.
Women and girls were systematically abducted, detained, and raped in military and police compounds. The victims were brutally tortured with knives and sticks before and during rape and marked by deep bites.
Thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed and injured as well. Mass killings were perpetrated in several areas while in some cases, hundreds of people died. In Min Gyi and Maung Nu, men and boys were separated and killed.
In Min Gyi, women and girls were taken to the nearby houses, gang raped, then killed or severely injured. Houses were locked and set on fire. Bodies were transported in military vehicles, burned, and disposed of in mass graves.
Villagers were killed by soldiers, and sometimes by Rakhine Buddhists, using large bladed weapons. Others were killed in arson attacks, burned to death in their own houses. In some cases, people were forced into burning houses, or locked into building set on fire.
Children were also subject to serious human rights violations including killing, maiming, and sexual violence. Children were killed in front of their parents, and young girls were targeted for sexual violence.
Of approximately 500,000 Rohingya children in Bangladesh, many fled alone after their parents were killed or after being separated from their families. The mission met many children who were shot, stabbed, and burned.
An unknown number of people were drowned from capsized boats, or crossing river. The Tatmadaw also killed Rohingya Muslims during their journey and border crossings. At least 392 villages were partially or totally destroyed.
Two waves of violence swept in Rakhine State in June and October 2012 after the murder and alleged rape of a women and the killing of 10 Muslim pilgrims. The State’s two largest groups are Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.
A campaign of hate and dehumanization of the Rohingya Muslims had been underway for months and escalated after 8-June-2012, led by Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), various Rakhine organizations, and radical Buddhist monk organizations, and several official and influential figures.
It was spread through anti-Rohingya or ant-Muslim publications, public statements, rallies, and boycotts of Muslims shops. The Rohingya Muslims were labeled ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘terrorists’, and portrayed as an existential threat that might ‘swallow other races’ with their ‘incontrollable birth rates’. In November 2012, the RNDP cited Hitler and argued that ‘inhuman acts’ were sometimes necessary to ‘maintain a race’.
The international independent group termed these gross human rights violations, shocking for their horrifying nature and ubiquity as well as amount to the gravest crimes under international law.
It pressed the international community, through the United Nations, should use all the diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means to assist Myanmar in meeting its responsibility to protect its people from genocide, and humanitarian and war crimes.
The mission also urged the Security Council to ensure the accountability for crimes under international law in Myanmar, preferably by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court. It also recommended the Security Council to adopt targeted individual sanctions, including travel bans and assets freezes and arms embargoes on Myanmar.
Relevant regional organizations, including the European Union and ASEAN, should develop strategies to ensure accountability for perpetrators of crimes under international law in Myanmar, the report recommended.