GENEVA (AN) — A U.N. investigative panel has "substantial evidence" that the Myanmar military committed war crimes and crimes against humanity over the past year as citizens challenge the junta's grip on power.
What's new: The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, says in its annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday that the conflict in Myanmar escalated substantially, with "more frequent and brutal crimes committed across the country." Most evidence points to crimes committed by Myanmar's military, it says, but credible information also points to crimes committed by some armed groups fighting the military. The IIMM is "examining evidence of alleged crimes regardless of the affiliation or ethnicity of the perpetrators or victims."
What's next: U.N. investigators are looking into what they describe as the unlawful imprisonment, including arbitrary detention and manifestly unfair trials, of perceived opponents of the junta. They says there is abundant evidence of systematic torture, including severe physical and mental abuse such as beatings, electric shocks, strangulations and sleep deprivation, along with evidence of gang rape, burning of sexual body parts and other violent sexual and gender-based crimes committed in detention. The victims include people of all genders and ages, including children. “No one has been held accountable for any crimes, which emboldens perpetrators and deepens the culture of impunity in the country. We are trying to break this cycle," says Nicholas Koumjian, an American lawyer and international prosecutor who heads the IIMM.
What's important: Myanmar's military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in a Feb. 2021 coup, bringing an end to a fledgling democracy a decade in the making. The military is now struggling to crush opposition from ethnic rebel groups and pro-democracy forces. The report, which covers the year ending on June 30, observes that armed conflicts increased as challenges to military rule intensified. During this time, the IIMM collected evidence of aerial attacks on schools, religious buildings and hospitals with no apparent military target, and of physical mutilations against people who were detained, including beheadings and public displays of disfigured and sexually mutilated bodies. “We have collected substantial evidence showing horrific levels of brutality and inhumanity across Myanmar," Koumjian says. "Many crimes have been committed with an intent to punish and induce terror in the civilian population."
Who's involved: The report is based on almost 28 million items of information and evidence collected from 900 sources, including 400 eyewitness testimonies and evidence such as photographs, videos, audio material, documents, maps, geospatial imagery, social media posts and forensic evidence. IIMM is sharing this work with authorities bringing cases in the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice and Argentina concerning the Myanmar military's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. The U.N. panel is "proactively sharing evidence that may be relevant to the proceedings and is also responding to targeted requests from these authorities for specific information and analysis."
What's happening now: While most information collected by the IIMM concerns crimes committed by the Myanmar security forces, there is also credible evidence of crimes committed by armed groups fighting against the military since its takeover of the government in Feb. 2021. This includes summary executions of civilians suspected of being military informers or collaborators. The IIMM, which was created in 2018, is also investigating earlier crimes committed against the Rohingya during the Myanmar military’s 2016 and 2017 clearance operations.
