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12A Midweek Edition - September 9-10, The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com WORLD Myanmar army deserters confirm atrocities against Rohingya villages STR I Associated Press Houses are on fire Sept. 7, 2017, in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. BY GRANT PECK Associated Press BANGKOK - Two sol diers who deserted from Myanmar’s army have testi fied on video that they were instructed by commanding officers to “shoot all that you see and that you hear” in villages where minority Rohingya Muslims lived, a human rights group said Tuesday. The comments appear to be the first public confession by soldiers of involvement in army-directed massa cres, rape and other crimes against Rohingya in the Buddhist-majority country, and the group Fortify Rights suggested they could provide important evidence for an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myan mar to neighboring Ban gladesh since August 2017 to escape what Myanmar’s military called a clearance campaign following an attack by a Rohingya insur gent group in Rakhine state. Myanmar’s government has denied accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes. Fortify Rights, which focuses on Myanmar, said the two army privates fled the country last month and are believed to be in the custody of the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, which is examining the vio lence against the Rohingya. According to Fortify Rights, privates Myo Win Tun, 33, and Zaw Naing Tun, 30, who served in separate light infantry battalions, gave “the names and ranks of 19 direct perpetrators from the Myanmar army, including themselves, as well as six senior command ers ... they claim ordered or contributed to atrocity crimes against Rohingya.” The videos were filmed in July while the soldiers were in the custody of the Arakan Army, an ethnic guerrilla group in Rakhine engaged in an armed conflict with the government, and included subtitled translations into English, the human rights group said. They were posted on Fortify Rights’ page on a video-sharing site, where the Associated Press viewed them. The AP was not able to independently corroborate the soldiers’ accounts or ascertain whether they made statements under duress. However, U.N. agencies and human rights organiza tions have extensively docu mented atrocities carried out against the Rohingya by Myanmar security forces. The International Court of Justice agreed last year to consider a case alleging that Myanmar committed genocide against the group. The court’s proceedings are likely to continue for years. Myanmar has long consid ered Rohingya Muslims to have migrated illegally from Bangladesh, even though their families have lived in Myanmar for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effec tively rendering them state less. They are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights. In separate videos, the two soldiers were shown seated stiffly in military uniforms with a sheet covering the background, as an off-screen male voice asked them ques tions. The details in the ques tions, as well as the ready answers about events that occurred about three years earlier, made it evident the content was prepared, if not actually rehearsed. How ever, the violent acts the men described echoed the vast number of accounts of atrocities collected by U.N. investigators and indepen dent human rights workers from Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. After answering ques tions about his name, serial number and military units, Myo Win Tun said the com mander of the 15th Military Operations Center, whom he named as Col. Than Htike, gave an order to “shoot all you see and all you hear” when raiding Muslim vil lages. He said in one opera tion, they killed and buried 30 people: “eight women, seven children and 15 men and elderly.” He asserted that Col Than Htike ordered his unit to “exterminate all Kalar” — a derogatory name for the Rohingya — and that they shot the men in their fore heads and kicked their bod ies into a hole. Activist resists effort to deport her to Ukraine BY YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press KYIV — A leading opposition activist in Belarus was held on the border with Ukraine on Tuesday after she resisted an attempt by authorities to deport her as part of government efforts to end a month of protests against authoritar ian President Alexander Lukashenko. Maria Kolesnikova, a member of the Coordination Council created by the opposition to facilitate talks with the longtime leader on a transi tion of power, was detained Monday in the capital of Minsk along with two other council members. They were driven early Tuesday to the border, where authorities told them to cross into Ukraine. When they arrived in a no-man’s land between the countries, Kolesnikova ripped her passport into small pieces to make it impossible for the authorities to expel her. She has remained in custody on the Belaru sian side of the border since the incident. Two other council members who crossed into Ukraine, Ivan Kravtsov and Anton Rodnenkov, described Kolesnikova’s action with open admiration. “She was shouting that she won’t go anywhere,” Rod nenkov said at a news conference in Kyiv. “Sitting in the car, she saw her passport on a front seat and tore it into many small fragments, crumpled them and threw them out of the window. After that, she opened the back door and walked back to the Belarusian border.” He said that “Maria is in great shape, full of energy and spirits, as always.” Anton Bychkovsky, spokesman for Belarus’ Border Guard Committee, confirmed she is in the custody of Belarusian authorities but refused to give any details. Belarus has used similar tactics to force other oppo sition figures to leave the country, seeking to end a month of demonstrations that followed the reelection of Lukashenko in a vote that protesters see as rigged. Lukashenko has ruled the country for 26 years, relent lessly stifling dissent and keeping most of the economy in state hands. The 66-year-old former state farm director has rejected criticism from the United States and the European Union, which said the Aug. 9 election was neither free nor fair and shrugged off their demands to open a dialogue with the opposition. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition challenger to Lukashenko, left for Lithuania a day after the election under pressure from authorities. China, India increase dispute despite talks Associated Press BEIJING — India and China accused each other on Tues day of making provocative military moves and firing warning shots along their disputed border despite talks on ending the escalating tensions. China said Indian forces on Monday crossed into territory it holds and fired warning shots at a Chinese patrol in what it called a violation of their agreements. India denied that and said Chinese soldiers tried to surround one of its forward posts in a “grave provocation” and also fired warning shots. China described it as the first exchange of fire between the countries in 45 years. The nuclear-armed rivals have been engaged in a tense standoff in the cold-desert Ladakh region since May, and their defense ministers met Friday in Moscow in the first high-level direct contact between the sides since the standoff began. China’s western military command said the incursion occurred Monday along the southern coast of Pangong Lake in an area known in China as Shenpaoshan and in India as Chushul. The two countries’ local military commanders have held several rounds of talks to defuse the tense standoff. After shots were fired, Chinese forces took “necessary measures to stabilize and control the situation,” the com mand said in a statement citing spokesman Zhang Shuili. It demanded the Indian forces withdraw and investigate the move to open fire. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian repeated that Indian troop were the first to shoot. He said it was the first exchange of fire between the sides since 1975, despite the increasing tempo of recent clashes. “We, the Chinese side, has been been stressing repeatedly that the two sides should peacefully settle our differences through dialogue and consultation. Confrontation will not benefit either side,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing. Col. Aman Anand, an Indian army spokesman, said China continues “provocative activities to escalate” tensions and called the Chinese military statement an attempt to mislead domestic and international audiences. Anand said the Chinese soldiers tried to surround an Indian military post and fired a few shots in the air when the Indian soldiers “dissuaded” them. He said Indian troops “exercised great restraint.” He accused China’s military of “blatantly violating agree ments and carrying out aggressive maneuvers while engage ment at military, diplomatic and political level is in progress.” There was no word of casualties on either side. Late last month, India said its soldiers thwarted Chinese military’s moves “to change the status quo” in violation of a consensus reached in past efforts to settle the standoff. In turn, China accused Indian troops of crossing established lines of control. The activities last month and on Monday were alleged to have occurred on the southern bank of Pangong Lake, a gla cial lake divided by the de facto frontier and where the India- China face off began on its northern flank in early May. The standoff escalated to a nighttime clash on June 15 that was the deadliest conflict in 45 years between the countries. According to Indian officials, Chinese troops atop a ridge at the mouth of the narrow Galwan Valley threw stones, punched and pushed Indian soldiers down the ridge at around 15,000 feet. India said 20 of its soldiers were killed, including a colonel. China did not report any casualties. The disputed and undemarcated 2,175-mile border between India and China, referred to as the Line of Actual Control, stretches from the Ladakh region in the west to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in the east. China also claims all of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory. The Asia giants fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. They have been trying to settle their border dispute since the early 1990s, without success.
