Rohingya Mass Graves: HRW Demands Serious Response from UN Security Council, EU and US – Investigate Prosecute Burma’s Military

Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch issued a statement following Associated Press’s reporting on the discovery of additional Rohingya mass graves in Rakhine State. Mr Robertson said on the 1 February,that AP’s reporting had raised “…the stakes for the international community to demand accountability from Myanmar.

The AP’s report that Tatmadaw [Burma Army] soldiers brought along to Gu Dyar Pin village containers of acid to disfigure the bodies and make identification more difficult is particularly damning because it shows a degree of pre-planning of these atrocities.”

Mr Roberston said it was time the international community, including the EU and the US got “serious about identifying and leveling targeted sanctions against the Burmese military commanders and soldiers responsible for these rights crimes, and for the UN to lead the charge for a global arms embargo, and an end of training and engagement for the Tatmadaw.

Mr Robertson urged the UN Security Council to “take a decision to refer the Myanmar security forces actions to the International Criminal Court for a thorough investigation and effective prosecution.”

Associated Press in its report on the mass graves said it has established that there were many more graves yet to be found. AP said it had held “multiple interviews with more than two dozen survivors in Bangladesh refugee camps and through time-stamped cellphone videos. The Myanmar government regularly claims such massacres of the Rohingya never happened, and has acknowledged only one mass grave containing 10 “terrorists” in the village of Inn Din. However, the AP’s reporting shows a systematic slaughter of Rohingya Muslim civilians by the military, with help from Buddhist neighbors — and suggests many more graves hold many more people.”