Reuters :
Myanmar’s army-controlled home ministry is investigating a cover-up by the country’s border force of the deaths in custody of two Rohingya Muslims in troubled Rakhine State, according to a police report reviewed by Reuters and interviews with two senior security officials.
The internal document is the first official admission of serious wrongdoing by security forces in their crackdown against insurgents in northwestern Myanmar that has sent more than 70,000 people fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. When contacted by Reuters, the Home Affairs Ministry denied an investigation was under way, but the commander of the Border Guard Police (BGP) in the area where the incident took place and a senior home ministry security official confirmed the authenticity of the document and said it was not the
only such case that was being looked into. The home ministry oversees the national police force, which includes the BGP. The ministry is headed by an army general. Myanmar is under growing international pressure to take action against those who are alleged to have committed atrocities in Rakhine. The United Nations has documented mass killings and rapes it says may amount to crimes against humanity. About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship. Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The civilian government led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has repeatedly denied almost all allegations against the country’s still-powerful armed forces during what it has said was a lawful counterinsurgency campaign that began in October.
The undated document reviewed by Reuters, titled “A cover-up of two deaths by Border Guard Police”, was compiled by a BGP unit in northern Rakhine and focuses on two men who were arrested on Oct 18 and questioned on suspicion of aiding insurgents. The men died in custody, the document says, without specifying a cause of death. Instead of reporting the deaths, it says BGP officers in the village of Nga Khu Ya, in Maungdaw township, recorded that they had been transferred, with eight others, to another police detention centre.
Thura San Lwin, BGP chief in Maungdaw township, near the border with Bangladesh, said the document outlining the findings of the investigation had been submitted to police headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw.
“We are taking actions to punish those who lied in their reports. We won’t forgive them. We are also taking actions to punish those who did not follow the rule of law,” he said. He said two other incidents of BGP officers on the ground “not telling the truth” in reports on the security crackdown were also being investigated by the home ministry. He declined to provide further details about the nature of those other two incidents, or about the probe into the Nga Khu Ya case.
Contradicting the local commander, Home Ministry spokesman Police Colonel Myo Thu Soe denied that any BGP officers had lied to conceal the deaths of the two detainees. He said the pair, who were father and son, died from asthma on the way to a hospital on Oct 18. Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said the government “has instructed the police to look into unreliable reports” during their operation in Rakhine.
Myanmar’s army-controlled home ministry is investigating a cover-up by the country’s border force of the deaths in custody of two Rohingya Muslims in troubled Rakhine State, according to a police report reviewed by Reuters and interviews with two senior security officials.
The internal document is the first official admission of serious wrongdoing by security forces in their crackdown against insurgents in northwestern Myanmar that has sent more than 70,000 people fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. When contacted by Reuters, the Home Affairs Ministry denied an investigation was under way, but the commander of the Border Guard Police (BGP) in the area where the incident took place and a senior home ministry security official confirmed the authenticity of the document and said it was not the
only such case that was being looked into. The home ministry oversees the national police force, which includes the BGP. The ministry is headed by an army general. Myanmar is under growing international pressure to take action against those who are alleged to have committed atrocities in Rakhine. The United Nations has documented mass killings and rapes it says may amount to crimes against humanity. About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship. Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The civilian government led by Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has repeatedly denied almost all allegations against the country’s still-powerful armed forces during what it has said was a lawful counterinsurgency campaign that began in October.
The undated document reviewed by Reuters, titled “A cover-up of two deaths by Border Guard Police”, was compiled by a BGP unit in northern Rakhine and focuses on two men who were arrested on Oct 18 and questioned on suspicion of aiding insurgents. The men died in custody, the document says, without specifying a cause of death. Instead of reporting the deaths, it says BGP officers in the village of Nga Khu Ya, in Maungdaw township, recorded that they had been transferred, with eight others, to another police detention centre.
Thura San Lwin, BGP chief in Maungdaw township, near the border with Bangladesh, said the document outlining the findings of the investigation had been submitted to police headquarters in the capital, Naypyitaw.
“We are taking actions to punish those who lied in their reports. We won’t forgive them. We are also taking actions to punish those who did not follow the rule of law,” he said. He said two other incidents of BGP officers on the ground “not telling the truth” in reports on the security crackdown were also being investigated by the home ministry. He declined to provide further details about the nature of those other two incidents, or about the probe into the Nga Khu Ya case.
Contradicting the local commander, Home Ministry spokesman Police Colonel Myo Thu Soe denied that any BGP officers had lied to conceal the deaths of the two detainees. He said the pair, who were father and son, died from asthma on the way to a hospital on Oct 18. Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said the government “has instructed the police to look into unreliable reports” during their operation in Rakhine.
