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| Ethnic Arakanese with weapons walking away from a village in flames while a soldier stands by. Arakan State, Burma, June 2012 |
April 22, 2013
Human Rights Watch
Unpunished Crimes Against Humanity, Humanitarian Crisis in Arakan State
Bangkok – Burmese authorities and
members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a
campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State
since June 2012, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
The 153-page report, “‘All You Can Do is Pray’: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State,”
describes the role of the Burmese government and local authorities in
the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other
Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Burmese officials,
community leaders, and Buddhist monks organized and encouraged ethnic
Arakanese backed by state security forces to conduct coordinated attacks
on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in October 2012 to terrorize and
forcibly relocate the population. The tens of thousands of displaced
have been denied access to humanitarian aid and been unable to return
home.
“The Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing
against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and
restrictions on movement,” said Phil Robertson,
deputy Asia director. “The government needs to put an immediate stop to
the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable or it will be
responsible for further violence against ethnic and religious minorities
in the country.”
Following sectarian violence between Arakanese and Rohingya in June
2012, government authorities destroyed mosques, conducted violent mass
arrests, and blocked aid to displacedMuslims. On October 23, after
months of meetings and public statements promoting ethnic cleansing,
Arakanese mobs attacked Muslim communities in nine townships, razing
villages and killing residents while security forces stood aside or
assisted the assailants. Some of the dead were buried in mass graves,
further impeding accountability.
Human Rights Watch traveled to Arakan State following the waves of
violence and abuses in June and October, visiting sites of attacks and
every major displaced person camp, as well as unofficial displacement
sites. The report draws on more than 100 interviews with Rohingya and
non-Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese who suffered or witnessed abuses, as
well as some organizers and perpetrators of the violence.
All of the state security forces operating in Arakan State are
implicated in failing to prevent atrocities or directly participating in
them, including local police, Lon Thein riot police, the inter-agency
border control force called Nasaka, and the army and navy. One soldier
told a Muslim man who was pleading for protection as his village was
being burned: “The only thing you can do is pray to save your lives.”
Displaced Rohingya told Human Rights Watch how in October security
forces stood by or joined with large groups of Arakanese men armed with
machetes, swords, homemade guns, and Molotov cocktails who descended
upon and attacked their villages. In some cases, attacks occurred
simultaneously in townships separated by considerable distance.
Satellite images obtained by Human Rights Watch from just 5 of the 13 townships that experienced violence since June show 27 unique zones of destruction, including the destruction of 4,862 structures covering 348 acres of mostly Muslim-owned residential property.
In the deadliest incident, on October 23, at least 70 Rohingya were
killed in a daylong massacre in Yan Thei village in Mrauk-U Township.
Despite advance warning of the attack, only a small number of riot
police, local police, and army soldiers were on duty to provide
security, but they assisted the killings by disarming the Rohingya of
their sticks and other rudimentary weapons they carried to defend
themselves. Included in the death toll were 28 children who were hacked
to death, including 13 under age 5. “First the soldiers told us, ‘Do not
do anything, we will protect you, we will save you,’ so we trusted
them,” a 25-year-old survivor told Human Rights Watch. “But later they
broke that promise. The Arakanese beat and killed us very easily. The
security did not protect us from them.”
“In October, security forces either looked the other way as Arakanese
mobs attacked Muslim settlements or joined in the bloodletting and
arson,” Robertson said. “Six months later, the government still blames
‘communal violence’ for the deaths and destruction when, in truth, the
government knew what was happening and could have stopped it.”
Considerable local organizing preceded and backed October’s attacks. The
two groups most influential in organizing anti-Rohingya activities were
the local order of Buddhist monks (the sangha) and the regionally
powerful Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), which was
founded in 2010 by Arakanese nationalists. Between June and October,
these groups and others issued numerous anti-Rohingya pamphlets and
public statements, explicitly or implicitly denying the existence of the
Rohingya ethnicity, demonizing them, and calling for their removal from
the country, at times using the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” The
statements frequently were released in connection with organized
meetings and in full view of local, state, and national authorities who
raised no concerns. Local authorities, politicians, and monks also
acted, often through public statements and force, to deny Muslims their
rights to freedom of movement, opportunities to earn a living, and
access to markets and to humanitarian aid. The apparent goal has been to
coerce them to abandon their homes and leave the area.
“Local officials and community leaders engaged in an organized effort to
demonize and isolate the Muslim population as a prelude to murderous
mob attacks,” Robertson said. “Moreover, since the bloodshed, the
central government has taken no action to punish those responsible or
reverse the ethnic cleansing of the forcibly displaced Muslims.”
Human Rights Watch uncovered evidence of four mass-grave sites in Arakan
State – three dating from the immediate aftermath of the June violence
and one from the October violence. Security forces actively impeded
accountability and justice by digging mass graves to destroy evidence of
crimes.
For instance, on June 13, a government truck dumped 18 naked and
half-clothed bodies near a Rohingya displaced person camp outside of
Sittwe, the state capital. Some of the victims had been “hogtied” with
string or plastic strips before being executed. By leaving the bodies
near a camp for displaced Rohingya, the soldiers were sending a message –
consistent with a policy of ethnic cleansing – that the Rohingya should
leave permanently.
“They dropped the bodies right here,” said a Rohingya man, who saw the
bodies being dumped. “Three bodies had gunshot wounds. Some had burns,
some had stab wounds. One gunshot wound was on the forehead, one on the
chest.”
Arakan State faces a major humanitarian crisis brought on by the Burmese
government’s systematic restrictions on humanitarian aid to displaced
Rohingya.
More than 125,000 Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims, and a smaller
number of Arakanese, have been in displaced person camps in Arakan State
since June. While President Thein Sein’s government has hosted
high-profile diplomatic visits to displacement sites, it has also
obstructed the effective delivery of humanitarian aid. Many of the
displaced Muslims have been living in overcrowded camps that lack
adequate food, shelter, water and sanitation, schools, and medical care.
Security forces in some areas have provided protection to displaced
Muslims, but more typically they have acted as their jailers, preventing
access to markets, livelihoods, and humanitarian assistance, for which
many are in desperate need.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya face a range of deadly waterborne diseases
if they are not moved to higher ground before the rainy season begins
in May.
“The problem with aid delivery in Arakan State is not a failure of
coordination, but a failure of leadership by the government to allow
displaced Muslims access to aid and freedom of movement,” Robertson
said. “An entirely predictable and preventable humanitarian crisis is
just weeks away when the rains fall and camps flood, spreading
waterborne diseases.”
The displaced Rohingya have not been consulted on their right to return
to their original towns and villages, heightening concerns of a
long-term intent to segregate the population.
Lacking aid, protection, and facing violence and abuses, tens of
thousands of Rohingya have fled the country by sea since June with hopes
of reaching Bangladesh, Malaysia, or Thailand, and many thousands more appear ready to do the same – several hundred people have already died at sea.
Under international law, crimes against humanity are crimes committed as
part of a widespread or systematic attack by a government or
organization on a civilian population. Among the crimes against humanity
committed against the Rohingya since June were murder, deportation and
forcible transfer of the population, and persecution.
“Ethnic cleansing,” though not a formal legal term, has been defined as a
purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to remove by violent
and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or
religious group from certain geographic areas.
Central to the persecution of the Rohingya is the 1982 Citizenship Law,
which effectively denies Burmese citizenship to Rohingya on
discriminatory ethnic grounds. Because the law does not consider the
Rohingya to be one of the eight recognized “national races,” which would
entitle them to full citizenship, they must provide “conclusive
evidence” that their ancestors settled in Burma before independence in
1948, a difficult if not impossible task for most Rohingya families.
The government and Burmese society openly consider the Rohingya to be
illegal immigrants from what is now Bangladesh and not a distinct
“national race” of Burma, denying them consideration for full
citizenship. Official government statements refer to them as “Bengali,”
“so-called Rohingya,” or the pejorative “kalar.”
Human Rights Watch urged the Burmese government to urgently amend the
1982 Citizenship Act to eliminate discriminatory provisions and to
ensure that Rohingya children have the right to acquire a nationality
where otherwise they would be stateless.
“Burma should accept an independent international commission to
investigate crimes against humanity in Arakan State, locate victims, and
provide redress,” said Robertson. “Burma’s donors need to wake up and
realize the seriousness of the Rohingya’s plight, and demand that the
government urgently stop abuses, promote the safe return of displaced
Muslims, and ensure accountability to end the deadly cycle of violence
in Arakan State.”
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