An independent US group will carry out unprecedented studies to determine whether Myanmar’s military rulers, accused of rampant human rights abuses, have committed international crimes.
The Center for Constitutional Democracy at Indiana University’s school of law said it would launch the research based on anecdotal human rights evidence of “severe mistreatment” of marginalized ethnic groups by the military junta.
“At this stage of the project, I can’t honestly say that there are international crimes,” David Williams, the center’s executive director, said by telephone.
“What I can say is there may be, and part of our goal would be to gather the evidence and try to come out with some objective conclusions about whether there are or not,” he said.
The center’s goal is to make focused research “in areas where perhaps it is most likely that international crimes were committed,” he said.
Only the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) can determine whether international crimes have been committed by any individual or group.
So far, Williams said, there has been no institutional focus on possible international crimes committed by Myanmar’s junta, which imposed a bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protests in September last year that was condemned worldwide.
UN figures showed that the crackdown left 31 people dead and 74 missing, and resulted in thousands of arrests.
The military rulers had also come under international fire and were called “heartless” by some humanitarian groups for initially not allowing foreign aid into the country when a cyclone left 138,000 people dead or missing in May.
Myanmar also houses more than 2,100 political prisoners, including democracy icon and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.
Williams said that although the ICC had not initiated any study on the military junta’s record so far, “ours might be a good place for them to get started.
“It might help the various investigators know where to go and what allegations to examine and so forth,” he said.
When asked whether in his personal opinion some of the junta’s actions could be deemed as international crimes, Williams said: “What I might be able to say is that it looks to me, in my professional opinion, like there is a good chance that it is.”
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