Myanmar’s military junta must be brought to justice through international courts

As Myanmar’s dictatorship perpetrates atrocities on earthquake survivors, the cases against it on behalf of previous victims are lining up, says Christopher Gunness

Under the cover of the international rescue effort following last week’s earthquake, evidence has emerged that Myanmar’s dictatorship is systematically exploiting the disaster as cover to commit further atrocities against its own people. Despite declaring a 20-day humanitarian ceasefire, in the first seven days after the quake, junta forces conducted 67 well-documented airstrikes across non-junta areas, including in Sagaing, the quake’s epicentre. Far from leading the aid effort, the junta has been conducting indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on quake victims.

As the list of post-quake atrocities grows, so does the determination within Myanmar to seek legal redress for some of the deadliest massacres in the country’s history.

The Pazigyi massacre in 2023 was one of the deadliest atrocities perpetrated by Myanmar’s military since independence in 1948. It is probably the deadliest. We will never know with certainty, because for 53 of its 77 post-independence years, Myanmar has languished under military rule, and the excesses of state-sponsored repression – for example some of the mass killings during the 1988 student-led uprising that I covered for the BBC – remained undocumented. As a result, the army has enjoyed virtual impunity, as the post-quake strikes have shown.

But that is now changing.

Myanmar’s democratic, but ousted, National Unity Government (NUG), along with partner organisations, have been investigating a series of massacres since the coup on 1 February 2021. The initiative is led by the NUG’s human rights minister Aung Myo Min, who is unstinting in his quest for justice. “Pazigyi was Myanmar’s most egregious ‘My Lai’ moment,” he says, referring to the mass murder of South Vietnamese villagers by US soldiers in 1968. “Sadly, there have been dozens of My Lai moments since Myanmar’s military seized power and turned the guns of one of southeast Asia’s most powerful armies against our people.”

A volunteer tends to a patient after the recent Myanmar earthquake (AP)

In the early morning on 11 April 2023, some 200 civilians at Pazigyi, a non-junta village in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing Region, were preparing for the opening ceremony of a People’s Administration, or local government office. Rural folk from surrounding villages had gathered with their families to enjoy the celebrations.

At 7.30am, without warning, an air force YAK-130 fighter jet dropped two 500lb bombs on this mainly civilian gathering. More disproportionate and indiscriminate airstrikes followed. First responders and medical workers were killed and maimed as they attempted to rescue the wounded and recover bodies. Junta jets returned just before 6pm to kill any remaining survivors.

The NUG has documented 157 deaths, including 30 children, among them an 11-month-old baby, 27 women and 13 people over 60 years of age. Human rights groups put the death toll as high as 180. Amid the carnage of mangled corpses and scattered body parts, and under constant fear of attack, counting the dead with precision was virtually impossible.

“Even by the standards of some of the world’s most vicious dictatorships, Pazigyi stands out as an icon of mankind’s inhumanity”, says Myo. “Bodies were blown to pieces, up to 300m in different directions. One woman told our investigation, ‘I believe I would recognise my daughter, even if I saw any pieces of her flesh, no matter how small the piece, even a finger or toe. But I could not find any.’”

In the first week of May, I will accompany the human rights minister to file evidence on behalf of the victims of the Pazigyi Massacre at the Office of the Chief Prosecutor in Istanbul. My organisation, the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), opened a case in Turkey in 2022, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, allowing grave international crimes committed in Myanmar to be adjudicated there, and for evidence to be submitted to the open investigation.

MAP has also been working with grassroots investigators in Rakhine State, home of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, to document junta atrocity crimes. In Istanbul, we will also be filing evidence of a three-day junta killing spree in January last year against the Muslim village of Hpon Nyo Leik, where rebels of the anti-junta, Arakan Army, had taken up positions. According to these local investigators, “18 people were killed and dozens injured by disproportionate and indiscriminate junta artillery strikes, followed by arson attacks in which whole villages were burnt down”. These local investigators responded quickly and boldly, gathering evidence in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which is of critical importance to the case. Our hope is that Turkey will issue arrest warrants for the perpetrators we are naming in our submission.

Cases are being brought against the junta in national jurisdictions around the world, but also at the two international courts in the Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), which hears cases against individuals and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which adjudicates disputes between states.

Under the principle of regional solutions for regional problems, MAP and the Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO) have initiated universal jurisdiction action against the Myanmar junta in East Timor and the Philippines, which we hope will lead to indictments. The recent arrest in the Philippines of former President Rodrigo Duterte and his transfer to the ICC is a hopeful sign that southeast Asian governments can, if the political will is there, live up to their international obligations to bring war criminals in the region to justice.

There are encouraging signs too from Argentina, in a case brought by the London-based Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). An Argentine court in February issued arrest warrants for 25 suspects from Myanmar, including junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, and the imprisoned state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, for their alleged involvement in the genocide against the Rohingya in 2017. Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, argues the case against his mother is based on exaggerated claims about her involvement in the genocide, but sources at the court insist that the arrest warrants are based on sound legal considerations.

The Argentina case is supported by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), a Geneva-based organisation consisting of former prosecutors and investigators and Myanmar experts. The IIMM has worked diligently since its creation to collect and analyse a vast body of evidence. More importantly, it stands ready and willing to support the kinds of cases that MAP and others are bringing, under its mandate from the UN Human Rights Council. This is key. The IIMM’s input would be a huge asset to domestic accountability efforts and significantly increases the prospects for prosecutions.

Meanwhile, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, has requested an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing, which we urge the court to issue soon. However, at the other court in the Hague, the ICJ, the case brought by the Gambia against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention has been mired in procedural delays.

The proliferation of universal jurisdiction cases is slowly having a transformative impact, at the personal, societal and national levels. This will intensify as post-quake atrocities continue. Victims are telling their truths, validating their narratives, becoming advocates for themselves and their communities. Moreover, grassroots victims’ groups are creating institutions that promote the rule of law, a key element of “bottom up, federal democracy”.

According to the human rights minister, accountability is indispensable if Myanmar is ever to be peaceful, stable and prosperous. “The widespread and systematic use of disproportionate and indiscriminate air strikes after the quake are clear violations of international humanitarian law. Unless perpetrators of gross human rights abuses are held to account, Myanmar will be condemned to further cycles of massacres, impunity, injustice and military misrule. Through global, national and grassroots justice efforts, the cycle will be broken. That is why accountability is so deeply important to my country, right now.”

Chris Gunness is the director of the London-based Myanmar Accountability Project, which brings cases against war criminals in the Myanmar military