Myanmar Faces Truth, Admits Soldiers Behind Rohingya Mass Grave

An internal military investigation in Myanmar found that Burmese soldiers and Buddhist local villagers were responsible for the murder of 10 captured Rohingya Muslims who were found buried in a mass grave in the western state of Rakhine. 

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The statement, published  Wednesday on the Facebook page of Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, explained that security forces had been conducting a “clearance operation” when “200 Bengali terrorists attacked using sticks and swords.”

Rohingya people are referred to as Bangladeshi as they have not been granted citizenship status. According to the statement, there were "no conditions" to hand the ten captured "bengali terrorists" over to the police, so "it was decided to kill them." 

Human rights organization Amnesty International claimed the admission exposes the extrajudicial killings of Rohingya, marking a "sharp departure from the army’s policy of blanket denial of any wrongdoing."

However, Regional Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, James Gomez, cautioned: "the full extent of the violations and crimes [...] will not be known until the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission and other independent observers are given unfettered access to Myanmar.” 

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Human rights groups have denounced systematic state sponsored violence against the religious group and ethnic minority, which includes mass murders, rape, laying landmines, and burning entire villages that has driven more than 655,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.

The head of Myanmar's government and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to recognize the crimes committed against the Rohingya people, denying charges of "ethnic cleansing." The United Nations however, has called Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”  

Myanmar's military targeting of an ethnic minority in the country n an attempt to uphold Buddhist nationalism is not unprecedented. The Rohingya people have been previously targeted during 1999 and 2012, and the Karenni people suffered a similar fate when their villages were burned and they faced massive killings that forced them to flee to Thailand.