ReliefWeb

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“There is no one in Wa Peik [village] now. All the houses are destroyed… We are in very difficult times, no food, no clothes, we are just sleeping in the fields. We rely on the other villagers to support us, but this can’t continue for much longer. We are at breaking point…” A Rohingya farmer, displaced from his home in Wa Peik village, northern Rakhine State, after his home was burned down by the military.

In the pre-dawn hours of 9 October 2016, several hundred men attacked three border police posts in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State. Nine police officers were killed and weapons and ammunition were seized. The attackers are believed to be part of a militant group called Harakat Al-Yaqin (Faith Movement), composed primarily of individuals from the Rohingya ethnic group.

The government immediately tightened security throughout northern Rakhine State. Large numbers of soldiers were immediately deployed in the region and began search operations to apprehend the attackers and recover the weapons seized by them. A curfew in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships in place since 2012 was extended, and people were ordered not to leave their villages. The government sealed off the area, forcing the suspension of humanitarian aid and precluding access by journalists and rights monitors.

The situation has had a devastating impact on the Rohingya, a Muslim minority that has suffered decades of severe persecution in the country.

In the past two months, the government has repeatedly insisted that their security operations are aimed at apprehending “violent attackers” and are being conducted “in accordance with the law”. However, the evidence presented in this report suggests that security forces in their response to the 9 October attacks, have perpetrated widespread and systematic human rights violations against the group including by deliberately targeting the civilian populations with little, or no, regard for their connection to militants. While some unknown number of Rohingya participated in the 9 October attacks and subsequent clashes with security forces, the overwhelming majority did not.

Amnesty International has found that security forces have been guilty of deliberately killing civilians, firing at random in villages, arbitrarily arresting Rohingya men, raping Rohingya women and girls, and destroying homes and property. The authorities also suspended humanitarian access to the area imperilling the lives of a population that was heavily reliant on such assistance prior to the attacks.
The below sections outline some of our key findings:

Random attacks and killings

According to eyewitnesses, military personnel attacked Rohingya villagers at random, leading to deaths and injuries. People described how soldiers would enter villages during security sweeps and fire indiscriminately at women, men and children, often as they were fleeing in fear. On one occasion, soldiers dragged three people out of their homes and shot them dead, including a 13-year-old boy.

Through interviews with multiple eyewitnesses, the report also documents specific incidents in detail. On 12 November, for example, the Myanmar military deployed two helicopter gunships to a group of villages, where soldiers had engaged in a skirmish with suspected militants. The helicopters fired indiscriminately on, and killed, people as they fled in panic, although the exact death toll is difficult to determine.

One 30-year-old man said: “We got scared when we heard the noise from the helicopter… The soldiers were shooting randomly. If they saw someone, the helicopter shot. They were shooting for a long time… We could not sleep that night. The next morning the military came and started shooting again.”

Arbitrary arrest and detention

Myanmar authorities have also carried out mass arrests of hundreds of mainly Rohingya men over the past two months according to state media, which has confirmed that at least six people detained since 9 October have died in custody, raising serious concern about the use of torture in custody.

Amnesty International has documented the cases of 23 men who were taken away by security forces, without any information about their whereabouts or charges against them. Authorities have appeared to target prominent community members for arrest, including village leaders and religious leaders. These arbitrary arrests could amount to enforced disappearances under international law. Multiple eyewitnesses also described brutal tactics, including physical violence, used by security forces during arrests.

Rape and other sexual violence

Myanmar security forces have raped and sexually assaulted Rohingya women and girls during security operations in northern Rakhine State. Evidence collected by Amnesty International suggests that Rohingya women and girls were mostly raped during security raids on their villages after the men had fled. Amnesty International spoke to six women and their relatives who told the organization they had been raped or sexually assaulted by soldiers. Fatimah,3 a 32-year-old Rohingya woman who has fled to Bangladesh, said that military entered her village and dragged her out to a paddy field where they raped her: “Three military officers raped me… I don’t remember what happened next because I fell unconscious… I woke up early the next morning. I could not get up so I crawled across the paddy field.” Aid workers in Bangladesh also confirmed that survivors of sexual violence had crossed the border and sought treatment. These accounts, taken together with interviews by other independent human rights groups and journalists, indicate an alarming pattern of rape and other sexual violence against Rohingya women during security operations.

Scorched earth

Amnesty International has confirmed that the military has torched over 1,200 Rohingya homes and other buildings, including schools and mosques. Sometimes, whole villages have been burned down. Several eye witnesses also described how soldiers used weapons which resembled rocket launchers to destroy houses.

The Myanmar government has insisted Rohingyas the militants were burning the homes and buildings in an attempt to garner international aid and support, but all eyewitnesses Amnesty International spoke to said security forces had burned down the houses. Analysis of satellite imagery shows patterns of burning consistent with targeted and systematic attacks by the military rather than ad hoc burning by militants.

During security sweeps, the military also frequently looted Rohingya homes for valuables, including gold and cash. Soldiers sometimes confiscated important documents, including temporary identity documents, which can have long-lasting impacts as it restricts the ability to travel or to restoring citizenship rights.

Humanitarian catastrophe

The Myanmar authorities have imposed severe restriction on humanitarian access in the “operations zone” since 9 October, which has placed tens of thousands of people’s lives at risk. According to the UN, some 150,000 people in the region were dependent on food aid before the current crisis. Pregnant women and new mothers, many of whom now have no way to access medical care, are thought to be facing particular health risks.

Political failure

Since security operations were launched on 9 October, the Myanmar government and military have issued a series of blanket denials of human rights violations committed by state security forces. For example, on 7 December, Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that “Burmese security forces have not committed any human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, rapes, or arson.” At the same time, the authorities placed northern Rakhine State under effective lockdown, imposing severe restrictions on the ability of journalists and independent human rights monitors to travel there.

The research presented in this report, however, adds to a growing body of evidence that the Myanmar security forces are committing widespread human rights violations in northern Rakhine State. While the military bears ultimate responsibility for the violations, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi – the de facto head of Myanmar’s civilian government – has failed in her political and moral responsibility to speak out.

Desperation across the Bangladeshi border

Unfortunately, Rohingya fleeing violence at home have also suffered further human rights violations as they crossed the border into Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities have refused to treat the fleeing population as asylum seekers and refugees and have partially denied considerable numbers of recent arrivals access to humanitarian assistance.

Fearful of creating conditions that would encourage more refugees to enter the country, the Bangladeshi government has strengthened its long-standing policy of sealing the border with Myanmar and has pushed back thousands who have crossed into Myanmar. Such pushbacks are illegal under international law as they violate the principle of non-refoulement – which absolutely prohibits forcibly returning people to a country or place where they would be at real risk of serious human rights violations. The border closure has also forced people to take dangerous, irregular routes to enter Bangladesh.

Still, at least 27,000 refugees are believed to have entered Bangladesh since 9 October. Due to the fear of arrest and deportation, these desperate people have been forced into hiding in villages, refugee camps and even forests. They are by and large living without adequate access to food, clothing, shelter and medical care. The Bangladeshi authorities have imposed severe restrictions on the ability of aid agencies to access and provide services to the newly arrived refugees, despite the obvious humanitarian needs.

Instead, many of the new arrivals have been dependent on longer-term refugees or the local population for food and other necessities, straining their already meagre resources even further. As one long-term Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh told us: “I am the only breadwinner in my family. We are seven people, but some family members arrived from Myanmar last week so now we are 15 people living in the same small hut. We did not have any food this morning.”

Collective punishment and possible crimes against humanity

The response of the army to attacks on security forces went far beyond what is necessary and proportional.

Instead of investigating and arresting specific suspects, the army carried out operations which amount to collective punishment, targeting individuals clearly not involved in such attacks, whole families and whole villages. These operations appear to target Rohingya collectively on the basis of their ethnicity and religion.

Evidence collected by Amnesty International also gives rise to a serious concern that human rights violations by Myanmar security forces described in this report are part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State and may therefore constitute crimes against humanity. At the very least, the concerns substantiated in this report that crimes against humanity may have been committed in Rakhine State warrant a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation.

Crimes against humanity are exactly what the term suggests – crimes so serious that they are the concern not only of their victims, survivors or the state in question, but of humanity as a whole

Recommendations

The unlawful killings, random attacks, destruction of property and restriction of aid and services in Myanmar are part of a long-standing pattern of persecution of the Rohingya community that has been entrenched for decades. To resolve the current crisis will take more than the establishment of government commissions and investigations.

It is essential that Aung San Suu Kyi, as Myanmar’s de facto leader, shows strong moral and political leadership by condemning human rights violations and committing to a genuinely impartial and independent investigation into the events of the last two months. Ending the absolute impunity of the Myanmar security forces is an essential step if Myanmar is to continue on the path of reform. Equally essential is that Rohingyas, ethnic Rakhines and other minorities in Myanmar are able to live their lives in dignity, free from violence and discrimination.

Amnesty International strongly urges the Myanmar authorities to take immediate steps to address the unfolding situation in Rakhine state. These must include:

• Ordering members of all state security forces to halt all conduct which violates international law and refrain from any further violations;

• Publicly condemning human rights violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine State;

• Granting humanitarian organizations, as well as independent journalists and local and international human rights monitors, unimpeded access to northern Rakhine State; and

• Initiating an independent, impartial and, effective investigation, with the assistance of the UN, into alleged violations of international law. Where there is sufficient, admissible evidence, all individuals suspected of involvement in crimes under international law – including those with command responsibility – must be [or you can say “ensure that”] brought to justice in trials which meet international standards of fairness and without resorting to the death penalty.
  Amnesty International also urges the government to take effective steps to address and dismantle longstanding, systematic discrimination against the Rohingya, ethnic Rakhine and other minorities in Rakhine State. Further recommendations are provided in the final chapter of this report Amnesty International also urges the government of Bangladesh to:

• Allow all persons fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar to enter Bangladesh without delay or restriction;

• Strictly apply the principle of non-refoulement, by ensuring that no one fleeing Myanmar is transferred to any place, including Myanmar, where their lives or human rights are at risk; and

• Provide for the immediate humanitarian needs of refugees and asylum-seekers, including food, water, shelter and health care, as well as education for children.