A government-appointed panel established in Myanmar to probe allegations of abuses in Rakhine state in 2017 that drew global outrage on Monday said that they had found no evidence of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.
More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine during weeks of brutal violence, with the UN saying gang rapes and mass killings were carried out with “genocidal intent.” Hundreds of villages were burned to the ground, and later razed and scraped.
Although the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) acknowledged “war crimes” had taken place, rights groups and Rohingya leaders dismissed the report as a “whitewash” days ahead of an expected ruling by the UN’s highest court on a genocide case against the country.
The commission said there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude members of the security forces among “multiple actors” were responsible for possible war crimes and serious human rights violations during a military-led crackdown against the group in 2017.
These included the “killing of innocent villagers and destruction of their homes,” it said.
However, in its statement, issued to mark the finalization of a full report based on interviews with villagers and members of the security forces, the panel blamed Rohingya militants for attacking 30 police posts and “provoking” the crackdown, and described the situation as an “internal armed conflict”.
“The ICOE has not found any evidence suggesting that these killings or acts of displacement were committed pursuant to an intent or plan to destroy the Muslim or any other community in northern Rakhine State,” the statement read.
“There is insufficient evidence to argue, much less conclude, that the crimes committed were undertaken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, or with any other requisite mental state for the international crime of genocide,” it said.
Burmese President Win Myint said in a statement yesterday that the government “concurred” with the findings of the commission and vowed to pursue further investigations, specifically into alleged crimes by civilians and Rohingya militants.
He said he had given the report to the army chief, so that the military might extend ongoing investigations, adding that the executive summary would be made public.
The army began a rare trial in November last year of soldiers and officers from a regiment deployed to Gu Dar Pyin village, the site of an alleged massacre of Rohingya.
Two spokesmen for the military could not be reached for comment.
In Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled Myanmar have taken refuge, a Rohingya leader, Dil Mohammed, described the report as a whitewash.
“We have been persecuted for decades. So many of our people were killed, our women were raped, our children were thrown into fire and our homes were torched. If it is not genocide, what is it?” he said.
The International Court of Justice, the highest UN court, is this week to issue a decision on a request for emergency measures in a genocide case against the country.
The Gambia filed the suit in November alleging Myanmar was committing “an ongoing genocide” against the Rohingya.
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