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GENEVA / HRC MYANMAR
STORY: GENEVA / HRC MYANMAR
TRT: 2:52
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 18 SEPTEMBER 2018 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, podium in Human Rights Room
3. Pan right, Human Rights Room
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Marzuki Darusman, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar:
“The democratic transition in Myanmar had barely begun and now it has come to a standstill. Repressive laws are being used to silence those that seek to scrutinize. We have verified instances of reprisals against individuals for sharing information with the United Nations”.
5. Wide shot, podium
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Marzuki Darusman, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar:
“The reality is that there is no law and no institution in Myanmar that is above the Tatmadaw. Its supremacy is guaranteed in the Constitution. As such, it enjoys complete impunity for its actions. This must change”.
7. Med shot, Myanmar delegate
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Marzuki Darusman, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar:
”Our analysis leads us to conclude, on reasonable grounds, that in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States, the underlying acts of crimes against humanity have been committed, as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at civilian populations. Ethnic Rakhine also suffered grave human rights violations. They may cross the threshold of crimes against humanity, but this requires further investigation”.
9. Wide shot, Bangladesh delegate
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Marzuki Darusman, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar:
”With respect to war crimes, we consider that non-international armed conflicts existed in Kachin and Shan States for the entire period under review and in Rakhine State since August 2017. Such as in Kachin and Shan States, much of the conduct that amounts to crimes against humanity on the part of the Tatmadaw and other security forces will also satisfy the criteria for war crimes”.
11. Wide shot, Human Rights Room
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Marzuki Darusman, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar:
“Let us be clear here: any hope that Myanmar’s national justice system will provide justice and truth for human rights violations committed by the military would be unfounded”.
13. Med shot, delegate Thailand
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Kyaw Moe Tun, UN Ambassador of Myanmar:
“There are many obvious reasons to question the impartiality and objectivity of the FFM advance report. The way the report portrays about the national races in Myanmar is misleading. Instead of encouraging integration, the report seems encouraging disunity of the nation, dividing between the national races”.
15. Med shot, Indian delegate
16. Med shot, cameramen
17. Close up, delegate of Russian Federation
18. Wide shot, delegates
Senior generals of the Myanmar military should be investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in an international criminal tribunal, UN investigators said Tuesday in the final version of a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, for abuses perpetrated against the Rohingya minority population.
The UN's 444-page probe, compiled by the International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (FFM), makes concrete recommendations that the military's top leadership, the Tatmadaw, including commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, should be overhauled and have no further influence over the country's governance.
Marzuki Darusman, chairperson of the FFM, said that “the reality is that there is no law and no institution in Myanmar that is above the Tatmadaw. Its supremacy is guaranteed in the Constitution. As such, it enjoys complete impunity for its actions. This must change”.
He also said “the democratic transition in Myanmar had barely begun and now it has come to a standstill. Repressive laws are being used to silence those that seek to scrutinize. We have verified instances of reprisals against individuals for sharing information with the United Nations.”
Myanmar only recently emerged from almost a half century of military junta rule and Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically-elected government remains in a delicate power balance with the generals.
Based on 18 months' work and more than 850 in-depth interviews, the FFM report Darusman details horrific attacks launched beginning on 25 August 2017 by Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State. These attacks brought on the deaths of at least 10,000 people, the destruction of over 37,000 Rohingya homes, and a mass exodus of three-quarters of a million people to neighbouring Bangladesh.
The Fact-Finding Mission, which was created by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2017, established consistent patterns of serious human rights violations and abuses in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States principally committed by the Myanmar security forces, particularly the military. Myanmar's military dominates the Buddhist-majority nation, holding a quarter of seats in parliament and controlling three ministries.
Darusman said ”Our analysis leads us to conclude, on reasonable grounds, that in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States, the underlying acts of crimes against humanity have been committed, as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at civilian populations. Ethnic Rakhine also suffered grave human rights violations. They may cross the threshold of crimes against humanity, but this requires further investigation”.
With respect to war crimes, the FMM said that “non-international armed conflicts existed in Kachin and Shan States for the entire period under review and in Rakhine State since August 2017. Such as in Kachin and Shan States, much of the conduct that amounts to crimes against humanity on the part of the Tatmadaw and other security forces will also satisfy the criteria for war crimes”.
Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Kyaw Moe Tun, rejected the panel’s detailed findings as “one-sided”.
He said that “there are many obvious reasons to question the impartiality and objectivity of the FFM advance report. The way the report portrays about the national races in Myanmar is misleading. Instead of encouraging integration, the report seems encouraging disunity of the nation, dividing between the national races”.
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