Myanmar’s army clears itself of accusations it committed atrocities against Rohingya
The Rohingya, stripped of citizenship by Myanmar’s then-military leaders in 1982, are loathed by many in the Buddhist-majority country
Myanmar’s army on Tuesday cleared itself of allegations that troops may have carried out ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, but said a soldier had been jailed for taking a motorbike.
More than 70,000 members of the persecuted minority fled to neighbouring Bangladesh after the military launched a widespread crackdown late last year in the north of Rakhine state to hunt down insurgents who attacked police border posts.
UN investigators who interviewed hundreds of escapees documented reports of mass killings, widespread rapes and horrifying accounts of babies being thrown into burning houses.
In a report released in February they said security forces may have committed atrocities so severe they amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
But on Tuesday the military said the results of its own investigation, led by army chief Aye Win, showed those charges were “false and fabricated”.
“Out of 18 accusations included in the OHCHR report, 12 were found to be incorrect, with [the] remaining six accusations found to be false and fabricated accusations based on lies and invented statements,” said a report by the army’s “True News” team carried in state media, using the abbreviation for the UN’s rights body.