Myanmar's'special command' has given the go-ahead for fatal assaults against civilians

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

According to human rights investigators, Myanmar's junta head established a special command a day after the coup that was entirely responsible for troop deployment and operations in urban areas, and authorised violent attacks on unarmed civilians.

According to a collaborative study by Fortify Rights and Yale Law School's Schell Center, the junta leadership used snipers to kill protestors in order to instil fear, while soldiers were taught to commit crimes and given a "fieldcraft" manual with no instruction on rules of war.

 

In a 193-page report released on Thursday (Mar 24), the investigators looked at leaked documents and 128 testimonials from survivors, medical professionals, bystanders, and former military and police officials regarding the upheaval in Myanmar in the six months following the February 1 coup.

They claimed to have collected and validated internal memoranda to police ordering them to arbitrarily arrest protestors, activists, and members of the deposed ruling party, as well as testimonies from torture and other abuse victims.

 

"All persons responsible for these crimes should be sanctioned and prosecuted," said Matthew Smith, the head of Fortify Rights and a co-author of the study, which calls for a worldwide arms embargo on Myanmar and international legal action against its generals.

When contacted for comment on the report's conclusions, a representative for Myanmar's military did not immediately react.

 

Fortify Rights is a non-profit organisation centred in Southeast Asia that was created in 2013 and is supported by donations from Europe, Asia, and the United States, as well as private foundations.
It has done a lot of research on Myanmar.

In 1989, Yale Law School established the Schell Center for International Human Rights to train law students and graduates in international human rights and to support human rights organisations.

The probe will add to international pressure on the military to stop repressing opponents and using air strikes and shelling in civilian areas.

 

It comes just a week after a UN report found Myanmar's army guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The junta has yet to comment, but has routinely denied allegations of massacres as fabricated foreign influence.

The paper, titled "Nowhere is Safe," also listed 61 military and police commanders who, according to the researchers, should be probed for crimes against humanity, aided by information regarding the chain of command obtained from security sources.

Six active-duty army personnel were among them, including a colonel and two majors.