GENEVA: UN investigators said today that serious international crimes had been committed in the four years since Myanmars military coup, warning this would only worsen unless the perpetrators faced justice.
Nicholas Koumjian, head of the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), said impunity was emboldening the perpetrators to commit further violence.
Myanmars ruling junta seized power in a Feb 1, 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyis elected government, ending a 10-year experiment with democracy and plunging the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil and a humanitarian crisis.
Since then, according to substantial evidence collected and analysed by the IIMM, serious international crimes have been committed across the country, Koumjian said in a statement.
Myanmar has been rocked by fighting between numerous ethnic rebel groups and the army.
The civil war has displaced more than 3.5 million, according to the UN.
Protests against the military regime were suppressed with often lethal violence. Thousands of perceived opponents have been unlawfully imprisoned, where many have suffered torture, sexual violence and other abuses, said Koumjian.
Increasingly frequent and indiscriminate air strikes, artillery and drone attacks have killed civilians, driven survivors from their homes, and destroyed hospitals, schools and places of worship.
He said that while most of the evidence collected so far concerned crimes committed by the military, investigators were also probing disturbing reports of atrocities committed by other armed groups, including rape, killings and torture.
The IIMM was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes and prepare files for criminal prosecution.
In November, the International Criminal Courts prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for junta chief Min Aung Hlaing for alleged crimes committed against the Rohingya minority during clearance operations in 2016 and 2017.
There are no judicial proceedings under way for any serious international crimes committed since the military takeover, said Koumjian.
We believe that impunity for crimes emboldens perpetrators to commit more violence, and ending this impunity is necessary, he said.
The mechanism stands ready to assist authorities who are willing and able to investigate and prosecute these cases. Until the perpetrators are brought to justice, violence will continue to spiral.
The UN estimates that 19.9 million people, or more than a third of Myanmars population, will need humanitarian aid in 2025.