The grainy black-and-white photograph, printed in a new book on the Rohingya crisis authored by Myanmar’s army, shows a man standing over two bodies, wielding a farming tool.
“Bengalis killed local ethnics brutally,” the caption says.
The photograph appears in a section of the book covering ethnic riots in Myanmar in the 1940s. The text says the image shows Buddhists murdered by Rohingya — members of a Muslim minority the book refers to as “Bengalis” to imply that they are illegal immigrants.
Photo: AFP
However, an examination of the photograph showed that it was taken during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, when hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis were killed by Pakistani troops.
It is one of three images that appear in the book — published in July by the Burmese Ministry of Defense’s Psychological Warfare and Public Relations Department — that have been misrepresented as archival photographs from the western state of Rakhine.
Reuters found that two of the photographs were originally taken in Bangladesh and Tanzania, while a third was falsely labeled as depicting Rohingya entering Myanmar from Bangladesh, when it showed migrants leaving the country.
Photo: AFP
Burmese government spokesman Zaw Htay and a military spokesman could not be reached for comment on the authenticity of the images. Ministry of Information Permanent Secretary U Myo Myint Maung declined to comment, saying that he had not read the book.
The 117-page Myanmar Politics and the Tatmadaw: Part I relates the army’s narrative of August last year, when about 700,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine state to Bangladesh, according to UN agencies, triggering reports of mass killings, rape and arson.
Tatmadaw is the official name of Myanmar’s military.
Much of the content is sourced to the military’s “True News” information unit, which since the start of the crisis has distributed news giving the army’s perspective, mostly via Facebook.
The book is on sale at bookstores across the commercial capital of Yangon.
Facebook on Monday banned the army chief and other military officials who were accused of using the platform to “inflame ethnic and religious tensions.”
The same day, UN investigators accused Senior General Min Aung Hlaing of overseeing a campaign with “genocidal intent” and recommended that he and other senior officials be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
In its new book, the military denies the allegations of abuses, blaming the violence on “Bengali terrorists” that it says were intent on carving out a Rohingya state named “Arkistan.”
Attacks by Rohingya militants calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the military’s crackdown in August last year in Rakhine state, in which the UN investigators say 10,000 people might have been killed.
The group denies it has separatist aims.
The book also seeks to trace the history of the Rohingya — who regard themselves as native to western Myanmar — casting them as interlopers from Bangladesh.
In the introduction to the book, the writer — listed as Lieutenant Colonel Kyaw Kyaw Oo — says the text was compiled using “documentary photographs” with the aim of “revealing the history of Bengalis.”
“It can be found that whenever a political change or an ethnic armed conflict occurred in Myanmar, those Bengalis take it as an opportunity,” the book reads, arguing that Muslims took advantage of the uncertainty of Myanmar’s nascent democratic transition to ignite “religious clashes.”
Reuters was unable to contact Kyaw Kyaw Oo for comment.
Reuters examined some of the photographs using Google Reverse Image Search and TinEye, tools commonly used by news organizations and others to identify images that have previously appeared online. Checks were then made with the previously credited publishers to establish the origins of those images.
Of eight photographs presented as historical images, Reuters found the provenance of three to be faked and was unable to determine the provenance of the five others.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not