Chin refugees request criminal investigation of Myanmar junta officials by Philippine authorities

/in

If the government proceeds with the investigation, the Philippines will be the first country in Asia to invoke universal jurisdiction to hold foreign nationals accountable for crimes against humanity

Displaced members of Myanmar’s Chin community have turned to courts in the Philippines to bring war crimes charges against Myanmar junta officials, according to a statement released by activists and the accusers’ attorneys on Wednesday.

With legal representation from Philippine attorneys and support from the activist organisation Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), five displaced residents of Chin State filed a criminal complaint with the Department of Justice in Manila, requesting an investigation into 10 regime officials, including junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. 

The complainants accuse the junta of murdering civilians, including their own relatives, as well as desecrating bodies, burning churches and houses, and withholding aid from people impacted by conflict or natural disasters. All five sought refuge abroad following assaults by junta forces that forced the entire surviving population of the town of Thantlang, Chin State to flee in 2021.

In the statement released on Wednesday, they allege that the military killed civilians when they tried to put out fires deliberately started by soldiers. 

“I will not accept that my nephew’s death was in vain. He died attempting to save fellow citizens from the raging fires. I beseech the authorities here in the Philippines to grant us the justice we pray for,” said one of the complainants, whose name was withheld for security reasons.  

A total of 528 ethnic Chin people have been killed in military atrocities since the coup, of whom 217 were civilians and the rest were resistance fighters, according to the advocacy group Institute of Chin Affairs.

Salai Ling, the deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organisation, is among the complainants and spoke on their behalf. 

“The atrocities of the regime forces against the Chin people and residents of Thantlang have put all of our lives upside down: Our losses are permanent and irreplaceable. The destruction of the whole town was painful to watch, the loss of our loved ones, our community, our churches, and all of our historical roots and lifetime of memories are indescribable,” Salai Ling told Myanmar Now on Wednesday.

“We are asking for justice because for far too long the Myanmar military has been allowed to commit war crimes and atrocity crimes with complete impunity,” he added.

When reached for comment, MAP executive director Chris Gunness noted the importance of involving Myanmar’s fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in holding the junta accountable.

“Various international mechanisms and bodies, such as the UN Security Council, have said repeatedly that ASEAN should be in the lead. The cases MAP is supporting in places like the Philippines and Indonesia puts ASEAN in the driving seat,” Gunness said. 

MAP has also requested that Indonesia’s human rights commission investigate state-owned companies that have allegedly supplied weapons to the Myanmar military, and has petitioned the constitutional court in Jakarta to proceed with a universal jurisdiction case.

“It allows survivors of gross violations to tell their stories and validate their narratives in their own home regions. And finally it promotes the concept of ‘no safe havens’ such that Min Aung Hlaing and his criminal clique will think twice before they swan around the region with their families, doing their shopping and dealing with their healthcare,” the MAP director added.

Romel Bagares and Gilbert Andres, the attorneys representing the Chin refugees, argue that a Philippine law enacted in 2009 allows authorities to try foreign nationals for crimes committed outside the country under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction. 

According to this principle, states have the right to prosecute certain egregious crimes—including crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, and war crimes—regardless of where the crime occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims.

If the requested investigation proceeds in Manila, the government of the Philippines will be the first in any Asian country to invoke universal jurisdiction in investigating and prosecuting such crimes.

Spanish courts previously invoked universal jurisdiction in prosecuting an Argentine former naval officer for crimes against civilians during a military dictatorship in his native country. Germany also convicted foreign nationals under this principle for their involvement in genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Earlier this year, the human rights organisation Fortify Rights supported a criminal complaint against Myanmar military officials—also invoking universal jurisdiction—filed with authorities in Germany. 

Before supporting the case in the Philippines, MAP helped file a criminal complaint with the Turkish government in March of 2022, leading to an investigation of Myanmar junta officials accused of using torture.

Myanmar Now News

Newborns and women among 50 detained in southern Myanmar

/in

Junta troops arrested civilians after soldiers died in a nearby clash.

Myanmar troops arrested around 50 villagers in an act of retaliation, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. After a local People’s Defence Force attacked a junta outpost, soldiers captured women, children and entire families from a nearby village.

While the army has already released some detainees, others remain in custody in Tanintharyi, the country’s southern coastal region. Locals from Myeik township said soldiers captured them on Monday following a clash that allegedly left several junta soldiers dead.

The arrests are ongoing, a resident who did not want to be named for security reasons told RFA on Wednesday.

“They arrested all the villagers in Tone Byaw Gyi village. There are entire families, even mothers with newborn babies,” he said. “Some were released. Some are still being arrested.”

The militia group attacked the post in Tone Byaw Gyi last week, an official from the local People’s Defense Force said.

“We tried to seize the outpost, but we couldn’t because they laid many landmines around it,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. 

“We left the battle because we were out of arms and ammunition. Our side lost a drone in the battle.”

Junta forces are treating villagers harshly because of their heavy losses, he said, adding that 12 soldiers were killed and six were injured.

RFA has been unable to confirm these claims.

Tanintharyi region’s junta spokesperson Thant Zin did not respond to RFA’s request for comment by the time of publication. 

The junta outpost in Tone Byaw Gyi is the site of many ongoing clashes since the country’s 2021 coup, with local resistance groups bombing the outpost in July. 

Regime troops arrested over 3,200 people in Tanintharyi region between April 2022 and September 2023. Among them, 2,141 were released, according to the independent research group that goes only by the initials FEB Tanintharyi.

More than 25,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

RFA News

Myanmar victims file war crimes complaint in Philippines court

/in

Lawyers and advocates are relying on the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’ to have the case heard.

UPDATED on Oct. 25, 2023 at 1:40 p.m. ET

Five Myanmar nationals on Wednesday asked the Philippines’ Department of Justice to open a war crimes investigation into 10 members of the Burmese junta for a range of alleged atrocities, including the killing of civilians, mutilation of bodies and torching hundreds of homes and churches.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief whose forces ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in a February 2021 coup, was named among the 10 targeted in the criminal complaint. 

It comes two years after a mass arson attack by junta forces on the town of Thantlang, which was part of an offensive in Chin state in northwestern Myanmar that saw some 2,000 homes destroyed, at least 250 people killed and 60,000 driven into India, according to the plaintiffs and rights groups.

The alleged crimes committed in the region were “part of Myanmar’s forgotten war against the Chin,” said one of the complainants, Salai Za Uk Ling, who is also the deputy executive director of the Chin Human Rights Organization.

“We are a Christian people whose pastors are being murdered and whose churches and faith-based schools are being destroyed in a systematic campaign by junta forces,” Salai, who lives in exile in India, told a news conference in Manila. 

“With this persecution of Myanmar’s Christians continuing, we pray that our brothers and sisters in the Philippines will hear our cry and grant us justice.”

Thantlang residents were quick to oppose the military coup, which toppled an elected government, and by September of that year had formed several anti-junta People’s Defense Force groups. Their resistance put them firmly in the sights of Myanmar’s feared military, known as the Tatmadaw.

Another claimant, Zing Ral Tu, described how her father Pul Ral Tu was shot and killed by junta troops in Thantlang in 2021 along with his friend, Pu Hram Cung.

The men, who were senior members of the local Baptist church, were transporting medicine for civilians fleeing the violence.  

“We will never get justice through Burmese courts,” the 47-year-old said on Wednesday through tears. “We pray the Filipino people will hear our cry for help.”

Landmark case

But whether the claimants will find justice in the Philippines is far from certain.

Lawyers are relying on the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” a concept in international law which recognizes that some crimes are so serious that they transcend borders and national courts can prosecute perpetrators. There is no precedent for such a case in the Philippines.

The claimants’ Filipino lawyers, Romel Bagares and Gilbert Andres, argue that the landmark Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law obligates Manila to prosecute “war crimes” committed anywhere in the world. 

“The law builds on a long humanitarian legal tradition in the Philippines,” said Andres in a statement. “It doesn’t matter that the crimes were committed by non-Filipinos against non-Filipinos outside Philippine territory.” 

Prosecution in the Philippines would send a “strong statement” to the international community, he separately told RFA-affiliated news organization BenarNews. However, he acknowledged the country’s notoriously backlogged justice system would be an obstacle.

“We can only hope and pray,” he said. “It is only up to the discretion of the DOJ. We hope that the prosecutors here are really up to the challenge.”

Speaking to RFA Burmese, Andres noted that this is the first time that universal jurisdiction had been invoked through the Filipino penal code, calling it a “history-making filing.”

“I think the filing in itself will be a form of victims’ rights, access to justice,” he said. “The mere filing in itself [makes] a strong statement both for the Philippines and also for the Myanmar military junta, because, in fact, the Philippines has been declaring before the United Nations that we have universal jurisdiction and we have jurisprudence that says that there’s no jurisdiction for war crimes.”

Fellow lawyer Bagares said there was already a plethora of evidence gathered by the U.N.’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar concerning the alleged crimes in Chin state, as well as by rights advocacy groups.

“We have also petitioned ASEAN to promote regional justice mechanisms and this case in the Philippines sends a powerful signal to our regional partners,” he said in a statement, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

IMG-8889.JPG
Salai Za Uk Ling, one of the five Myanmar nationals who filed a criminal complaint against the military junta, addresses reporters during an impromptu news conference outside the Philippine justice department in Manila, Oct. 25, 2023. Credit: Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews

The Philippines is already struggling with its own allegations of human rights abuses after the blood-soaked presidency of Rodrigo Duterte from 2016-22. 

His brutal war on suspected drug addicts and dealers left 8,000 dead. He now faces at least two cases before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, though he is not facing prosecution at home. 

Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meanwhile said at an ASEAN summit in September that the solution to the Myanmar crisis should be Myanmar-led.

Chris Gunness, the director of the Myanmar Accountability Project, which is supporting the case, said Philippine law “allows” the case to be heard in the country’s courts.

“If your house has been burned down, if your town has been destroyed, if 60,000 of your own people have been driven to another country … how desperate can you be?” Gunness told reporters.

He said this was an opportunity for Manila to show the world an image “rooted in the rule of law, in decency, democracy and Christian values,” rather than one where daily murders occurred under Duterte.”

RFA News

Freedom of Movement (Cartoon Animation)

/in , ,

(က) နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေအရဆိုလျှင် လွတ်လပ်စွာ လှုပ်ရှားသွားလာခွင့်ကို ပိတ်ပင်ဟန့်တား ခြင်း၏ အင်္ဂါရပ်များကား အဘယ်နည်း။          လွတ်လပ်စွာ လှုပ်ရှားသွားလာခွင့်အပေါ် ပိတ်ပင်ဟန့်တားခြင်းကို လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှု တရပ်အဖြစ် မှတ်တမ်းပြုနိုင်ရန်အတွက် အောက်ပါ အင်္ဂါရပ် (၃) ရပ် ထင်ရှားကြောင်း ဖေါ်ပြရပါမည်

Human Rights Situation weekly update (October 15 to 21, 2023)

/in ,

Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Oct 15 to 21, 2023

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Bago and Mandalay Region from October 15th to 21st. Military Junta arrested 17 civilians and used as human shields in Sagaing Region. The civilians from Sintgu Township, Mandalay Region, fled from the Military attack from the ship, and a civilian was killed and two were injured from Salingyi Township, Sagaing Region. October 20th, 7 civilians from Pyapon Township, Ayeyarwady Region were sentenced to death by District Judge who works under the Military Junta.

About 11 civilians were killed and over 17 injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. Over 10 civilians were arrested and 14 were killed by the Military Junta within a week. Civilians left their places 7 times within a week because of the Military Junta Troop’s raiding and matching.

Authorities retaliate against political prisoners after Monywa Prison strike

/in

Just over a month after agreeing to negotiate with protesting prisoners to end a hunger strike, authorities are singling out the participants for punishment

Political prisoners who participated in the September hunger strike in Sagaing Region’s Monywa Prison are facing retaliatory legal penalties a month later, the Monywa People’s Strike Committee said. 

In early September, close to 50 inmates took part in the strike to protest repressive treatment at the prison in the Sagaing Region capital, provoking further crackdowns by the prison authorities. After negotiating an end to the strike, authorities are now reportedly adding time to the participants’ sentences. 

The Monywa People’s Strike Committee, an activist civil society organisation, said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday that their imprisoned leader Wai Moe Naing was one of nine political prisoners who participated in the strike who have since had their prison terms extended by one year.

Wai Moe Naing, 28, has been serving a sentence for more than 50 years since regime forces arrested him in 2021, after the military coup.

The Monywa People’s Strike Committee also said that 17 other inmates, who protested when prison authorities initially refused to respond to the hunger strike, have now incurred charges under Penal Code Section 147—on rioting—which carry a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

In solidarity with their oppressed fellow prisoners, other Monywa Prison inmates are challenging the authorities to charge them under the same statute, said strike committee member Shin Thant, citing first-hand accounts from inside the prison.

“Along with the 17 political prisoners who have been charged, the rest of the political prisoners are going to request that the court prosecute all of them together. They say this is to show that all the political prisoners are united,” Shin Thant said. 

According to the law, prisoners who adhere to rules set by the prison administration are eligible early release or a reduction of their sentences. 

The military council has yet to issue any public statement about extending sentences or bringing additional charges against Monywa Prison inmates. 

Last month’s strike began after a special inspection team made up of junta personnel from the military, police, general administration department, and fire department carried out an unannounced raid at Monywa Prison on September 8, confiscating books, food and other personal items from the inmates.

That day, 15 political prisoners collectively demanded the return of their confiscated property. When prison authorities ignored the 15 inmates’ demands, other prisoners including Wai Moe Naing joined them, with nearly 50 initiating a hunger strike the day after the surprise search and confiscation. 

Monywa protest leader Wai Moe Naing 

The punishment against participating political prisoners comes more than a month after the prison authorities made concessions to the striking prisoners, agreeing to return their property as well as provide them with adequate medical care and ease restrictions on the delivery of care packages from outside the prison. 

The additional punishment imposed by prison authorities was gratuitous and a violation of the political prisoners’ rights, Shin Thant said. 

“This is just treating them as enemies. They’re already in prison and have already been arrested… So they continue to torture our comrades psychologically. This only shows the brutality of the military dictators,” he said.  

Following the hunger strike at Monywa, the military council sacked five members of the prison’s staff, including the superintendent. The Monywa People’s Strike Committee also reported that four prison officials at the rank of corporal received demotions for a period of six months.

Myanmar Now has not been able to verify the military council’s action against the members of the prison administration independently. 

According to Shin Thant, some of the hunger strike participants were in poor health. 

“As for the health situation, the situation was serious from the beginning. Some have been suffering from the effects of starvation: malnutrition, reduced body weight, and needing injections of intravenous supplements and drugs,” he said.

Since Myo Swe of the junta Ministry of Defense was appointed director general of the Prison Department in July this year, repressive conditions in the prisons have reportedly become worse.

Family members of political prisoners at Monywa Prison have said there are strict limits on items delivered to political prisoners in parcels, and that their movement within the prison and access to television and books is also severely restricted.

The military junta continues to arrest opponents as well as those merely under suspicion of supporting its opponents throughout the country. 

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the regime continues to keep 19,600 people in detention throughout Myanmar as of October 19, 2023, of whom only 7,799 have been tried and sentenced. 

Myanmar Now News