"Shoot All You See and All You Hear", Myanmar Soldiers Tell of Rohingya Slaughter

 

The two soldiers confess their crimes in a monotone, a few blinks of the eye their only betrayal of emotion: executions, mass burials, village obliterations and rape. 

The August 2017 order from his commanding officer was clear, Pvt. Myo Win Tun said in video testimony. 

         “Shoot all you see and all you hear.” 

He said he obeyed, taking part in the massacre of 30 Rohingya Muslims and burying them in a mass grave near a cell tower and a military base.

Around the same time, in a neighboring township, Pvt. Zaw Naing Tun said he and his comrades in another battalion followed a nearly identical directive from his superior: 

         “Kill all you see, whether children or adults.”

The testimony from the two soldiers is the first time that members of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, have openly confessed to taking part in what United Nations officials say was a genocidal campaign against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. 

On Monday, the two men, who fled Myanmar last month, were transported to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court has opened a case examining whether Tatmadaw leaders committed large-scale crimes against the Rohingya. 

The testimony from the two soldiers is the first time that members of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s military is known, have openly confessed to taking part in what United Nations officials say was a genocidal campaign against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. 

On Monday, the two men, who fled Myanmar last month, were transported to The Hague, where the International Criminal Court has opened a case examining whether Tatmadaw leaders committed large-scale crimes against the Rohingya. 

“This is a monumental moment for Rohingya and the people of Myanmar in their ongoing struggle for justice,” said Matthew Smith, chief executive officer at Fortify Rights, a human rights watchdog. 

“These men could be the first perpetrators from Myanmar tried at the I.C.C., and the first insider witnesses in the custody of the court.” 

And multiple villagers independently confirmed the whereabouts of mass graves that the soldiers provided in their testimony — evidence that will be seized on in investigations at the International Criminal Court and other legal proceedings. 

The Myanmar government has repeatedly denied that such sites exist across the region. The crimes that the soldiers say were carried out by their infantry battalions and other security forces — some 150 civilians killed and dozens of villages destroyed — are just a part of Myanmar’s long campaign against the Rohingya. And they portray a concerted, calculated operation to exterminate a single ethnic minority group, the issue at the heart of ongoing genocide cases.

Source : NYTimes