Front Burner - “Shoot all that you see”

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Justice has not come easy for the Rohingya Muslim victims of what serveral countries call a genocide in Myanmar. But a turning point could stem from the testimony of two men claiming to be deserters from the Myanmar army. Today, the CBC’s Nahlah Ayed on how these men say they committed acts of violence under orders from their military superiors.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. In 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the state of Rakhine in Myanmar. Those who made it to refugee camps in Bangladesh described a litany of horrors, brutal murders, whole villages burned, women raped repeatedly.

All at the hands, they say, of Myanmar's army. They were firing in my area and even called us out from our home and then slit my father's throat. Several countries, including Canada, have labeled the atrocities as a genocide. Canada have labeled the atrocities as a genocide. And since last year, lawyers have been building a case to prosecute high-ranking members of the Myanmar military at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. They've heard countless victim stories and evidence from multiple fact-finding missions, but what they have not had is testimony from any of the people who perpetrated these crimes. Now, that may have changed. Two men who claim they deserted the Myanmar army are now in the custody of the International Criminal Court. And they say they participated in acts of violence and rape against Rohingya under orders from their superiors. Today, the CBC's Nala Ayed

joins me to talk about the long fight for those seeking justice for Rohingya Muslims, and whether these two men's testimony could be a turning point. I'm Josh Bloch, and this is Frontburner. Hello, Nala. Hi, Josh. So what do we know about who these two men are and how they came to be in the custody of the International Criminal Court? What we know is that these two men, what we believe is that they were both deserters from the Myanmar army. They're both privates. They're 33 and 30 years old. We also know that they belong to two different ethnic minorities, which are also treated badly in Myanmar. We don't know exactly how they got to the border.

What we know is that they were somehow in the company of or possibly captives of an insurgent army called the Arakan army. And they gave video testimony, which we can't confirm whether it was done under duress or not, but nevertheless, they gave this testimony, which they have repeated since, even outside of Myanmar as well, which was quite extraordinary, in which they talk about their involvement in the events in Rakhine State in 2017. And what do the two men say that they were ordered to do by the Myanmar army? Well, it was really quite arresting testimony. And again, testimony that they've repeated since and that several organizations believe is quite credible.

In fact, obviously credible enough to warrant their transfer to the Hague eventually. The two men operated in totally different areas around the same time, and yet they report very similar instructions. They talk about being essentially told to kill all Rohingya they come across. So in the words of both of them, one of them says, When we conducted the clearance operations in the villages, we shot dead and wiped out according to the command of kill all, irrespective of children and adult.

The other one said, The second in command of the military operations commands 15 gave us an order. Shoot all you see and all you hear. You know, one of them talks about having to destroy village after village. So they really kind of indicate the systematic nature of what was happening and also that the orders came directly from above. And so if you look at the aggregate of what they say,

the two of them just alone in these two stories talk about that they were maybe involved in the killing of up to 180 people that they dug between them, at least two mass graves. One of them admitted that he had committed rape. The other man said that he provided sentry duty while his superiors committed sexual assault. So very stark testimony and very detailed accounting of some events we have heard of in the past. accounting of some events we have heard of in the past.

Well, I mean, I know that you were in Bangladesh in 2017 at the border with Myanmar to interview the Rohingya refugees in the camps there. How did the stories that you heard then on that trip match up with what these two soldiers are now saying in this testimony? Well, it's quite stark, Josh, because, I mean, what we heard repeatedly from people, and we, you know, the very first day we arrived, I remember in Cox's Bazaar, we weren't even in the refugee camp before we came across people who were in horrific ward. I mean, ward is a strong word, you know, people lying on the floor in a hospital. You know, telling us, injured and still kind of recovering from their journey, which was all done on foot, telling us about what had happened. And so a lot of it sticks in my mind. You know, people talking about villages being entirely destroyed, set on fire.

They talked about police and military coming into town, early morning raids, that men and women and children were shot, sort of point blank, that mass graves were being dug, and that people, out of fear, if they weren't already involved in the violence, you know, fled their villages. And the one thing that repeatedly came up in almost every tent, every person we spoke to knew of or was a woman who had been sexually assaulted. It was a major feature of this campaign. And I remember from your reporting that time, you speaking with a mother as well, talking about sitting next to her one surviving son.

It's hard to forget that little chat with her and another woman. It was in no man's land between Myanmar and Bangladesh. And these people were stuck in the middle and they were sitting on this little island. And yeah, they brought these two women across the water and one of them was sitting across from me. And the translator, as he spoke to these women, broke into tears. And I didn't understand why until he gave me the translation. And in the one case, it was because this woman had been raped repeatedly and was still in pain several weeks later. been raped repeatedly and was still in pain several weeks later.

There's pain in my back, pain in my belly, and when I cough, blood comes out. And the other woman, it was because her child had been taken from her and thrown into a fire. They snatched my three-month-old baby and turned him to ash. And this is a story that we heard over and over later. It became another hallmark of this campaign. Just remind us what allegedly happened in Rakhine State. I mean, what do we know about this campaign of violence against the Rohingya and how it all started? Well, it's important to remember that this is just the latest episode of violence against Rohingya.

There have been several others in the past. In this case, it began with an attack on August 25th, 2017. And it was an attack against security forces by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. They are a militant Rohingya group that has clashed with the military before, the Myanmar military before, and they killed 12 security personnel. That unleashed violence in the area, and that is where the wave of violence began. Reports of villages surrounded, homes burned to the ground, torture, executions. Seems like the whole horizon is on fire. People started running, and as they did, the military started shooting.

Even when we were in the mountains, thearies were firing at us and killing us. In 2018, a UN fact-finding mission called for senior military members to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court for genocide. But the patterns of gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law that it has found amount to the gravest crimes under international law. Canada was the first country to label the violence a genocide, and many other countries have since followed. You went back to the region soon after, this time to the Myanmar side of the border. And I know you spoke to local officials when you were there. How did they respond to these allegations?

Well, I remember very clearly meeting some of the local officials who were gathered to talk to us as a delegation of foreign journalists, and they said straight up that no genocide happened there. For me, I don't believe it. I wonder who you blame for the burnings of these buildings.

It was the terrorist group. And the argument that the man at the time told me, well, if there had been a genocide, why are there still Muslims around? And it's true. In the area we were in, there were still Muslims around, but they were about 10% of the number that had been there a couple of years earlier, which, you know, using their own numbers,

it was a very stark indication of just how changed the landscape had been because of what had happened there. And also we spoke to members who were close to Aung San Suu Kyi, you know, the Myanmar civilian leader. They said it was a local conflagration that was poorly understood outside and that it was far more complicated than it seemed. So there was a very concerted effort to deny what the international community had begun to really build a consensus around, which is that at the very least there needed to be an investigation into genocide if it had not actually happened. Well, on that trip to Myanmar and to Rakhine State, what evidence did you see for yourself about what might have happened there? Well, it was obviously a very well-controlled trip, and the idea was for us not to see any kind of evidence. Can we spend just a little bit more time in Indien then? But the very first place we stopped actually was a small village, And it was, in fact, the site of a massacre that we already knew about. And oddly, we were allowed to be there. And it was partly because the country had actually

acknowledged that violence had happened there that perhaps was outside the norm. So we saw the part of town that was inhabited by Muslims and had been completely burnt down and destroyed. We also, just by driving around, saw the tops of trees in several spots, which we could tell just by looking at, you know, an app on our phone that these were pre-existing villages where there were no human beings left, and all you could see were burnt trees. Look at that right there. What looked like coconut trees that have had their tops taken off. Oh, here's a few more here.

And what we've been told is that those are the remnants of villages that have been burned. Right. I mean, I've seen those satellite images showing where, you know, hundreds of villages used to be and now are just burned out. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so to drive by on the highway, beautiful, lush greenery, you know, no sense of anything having gone awry, but looking at your map and saying, hey, there's a village there and looking up and seeing nothing really was an indication of, I guess, you know, we're told that up to 400 villages have been destroyed, and it showed. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because

money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So what's the situation for Rohingya still in Rakhine State right now? I mean, is the violence and the displacement continuing on right now? Well, there are reports that violence continues in the area, not just against Rohingya, but against other ethnic groups as well. So both in northern Rakhine state and in Chin state as well. And there have been, still has been widespread displacement. But even more basic than that, Josh, is that the situation really that underlies all of this hasn't changed for Rohingya throughout Myanmar, which is that they are treated like second class citizens. They are limited in their movement and their ability to travel,

their education, the way they get married, and even having basic ID and citizenship. They don't have citizenship, and they're in fact considered to be foreigners. So none of that has really changed, and it's not expected to really change at this stage. So I know that there's these two processes going forward right now at courts in The Hague.

So we have one at the International Criminal Court that could potentially put senior members of Myanmar's military on trial for crimes against humanity. But there's another more active case going on at the UN's top court, the International Court of Justice, that accuses the government as a whole of genocide. Yes, that's correct. That court is actually designed to help countries, you know, lodge complaints against other countries as opposed to individuals. So the International Criminal, International Court of Justice is about to begin formally, you know, looking into a case that Gambia brought forward against Myanmar, basically what people are calling altruistic litigation, which means that Gambia wasn't directly affected itself, but it was coming forward to call out Myanmar, essentially, for lack of a better word, for its possible violation of the Genocide Convention.

Every day of inaction means that more people are being killed, more women are being ravaged, and more children are being born alive. For what crime? Only because they were born different. And so Gambia has brought that forward, supported by a number of countries, including most recently, we understand that Canada and the Netherlands have signed on to help bring this case forward. So yeah, that is going on as we speak. So I know that you were in The Hague in January, and there was this significant development that happened on that case. Can you tell me about that?

Yeah, initially, when the case first opened last year, what the lawyers on Gambia's side did was they asked the court for what you might call a restraining order or an injunction, essentially, because we all know, everybody knows that these cases take years to be resolved. They requested that the court provide some kind of ruling to try to protect those Rohingya Muslims who remain on Burmese territory in Myanmar. So basically, they were worried that by the time the ruling came in this case, that people who were still in Myanmar. So basically, they were worried that by the time the ruling came in this case, that people who were still in Myanmar would no longer be there and may in fact, you know, be dead or be killed. And so this was a big victory for the Gambian side, they felt,

in that the court 17-0 ruled that, yes, you know, Myanmar should do whatever is possible to ensure that violence isn't continuing. And not only that, it had to report back to the court to show evidence that it is actually protecting Rohingya Muslims in the country. All 17 judges from the different parts of the world have all agreed genocide cannot be tolerated by anyone in the world. And I understand that Rohingya in the camps in Bangladesh were actually watching a live stream of the court. Yeah, in fact, while I was at the Hague, I wanted to hear what they had to say.

And so I was given some contacts of people who were in the camps. Because as you know, these courts these days, they do, you know, it's all online. You can watch the proceedings live online. And so they were doing that just like we were. So I was actually able to speak to a couple of people. And it was extraordinary to hear the hope in their voices, you know, even as they sit in a refugee camp, very far remote from anything going on in this very sterile, you know, very proper courthouse,

and thinking, well, maybe this will mean something for me. Maybe this might change the way my life is going right now. So these people were very moved by the fact that some court very long way away was actually looking out for their interests and looking into their case. So that case at the ICJ is ongoing, but the only place where you can actually prosecute individual members of the military for crimes would be the International Criminal Court. And that's where these two soldiers come in. I mean, how significant is their testimony for that case at the ICC? Everybody we've spoken to who is familiar with this case has said just how important this is,

because it is the very first time that we have heard anyone talk about these atrocities from the side of the perpetrators. And so all the legal experts are saying that this is monumental for the investigation that is still ongoing from the prosecutor's office at the ICC, that to have eyewitnesses at minimum, and perhaps even suspects who might one day possibly be put on trial themselves, this changes everything. Canada's former special envoy to Myanmar says now it seems more systemic. They were told by others to do something. So then the question becomes, how do we go up the chain of command?

I know that Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has previously shown up at the ICJ and testified herself. I mean, how does what we're hearing now from these two soldiers square with the version of events that she spoke about. One of the main things that Aung San Suu Kyi came to say at The Hague last year was to say that if indeed there had been atrocities that had been committed, and Myanmar has admitted that there had been some, that they were isolated acts, that they were the acts of, you know, some bad apples, that this was not a systemic and not a widespread problem. The situation in Rakhine is complex and not easy to fathom. But one thing surely touches all of us equally, the sufferings of the many innocent people whose lives were torn apart.

What these two soldiers are indicating by giving an idea of the instructions they had in two different battalions in the area is that perhaps there was some coordination, that the orders did come from the top, that there was some real organization here in terms of how this campaign had unfolded. And so the people I spoke to who were involved in the cases, all of them said exactly the same thing, that what this indicates is that there was some systematic effort here, that it was not isolated incidents. These two men were low-ranking soldiers,

but as you laid out, they were also saying they participated in really heinous crimes. What might happen to them now? I mean, I know the ICC normally goes after high ranking officials, but you were also saying these two soldiers could possibly be tried as suspects themselves. Well, the short answer is we don't know. The prosecutor at the ICC is still investigating and that still is ongoing and they will not comment and they haven't commented. What is known generally about the ICC is they do tend to, as you say, go after more senior members of the military. That's what's been the case in the past. But when you look at the facts here, if they are able to establish that

what these men are saying is true, it would be at least uncomfortable for this court to use these men purely as witnesses and not go after them as suspects as well. The kinds of crimes they describe, the heinous nature of what they've done will make it extremely difficult for them not to go after them. But again, until this investigation is over, until it's apparent or clear whether anyone else comes forward, it's really hard to say how this case goes forward or if it goes forward at all. Either of these cases at either court in The Hague is a long way from being finished. But even if Myanmar is found guilty of genocide, even if the military generals are found guilty of crimes against humanity, what can that really do for the hundreds of thousands of people in these refugee camps or for the Rohingya who are still in Myanmar? I mean, if you look at the history of the kinds of

cases we've seen end up at the International Criminal Court or other tribunals, we know that this is a long, slow process, that it could take years and years before any, any rulings are made. So we know for a fact that anybody who was a child when this violence broke out, isn't likely to see justice before they become an adult. That means growing up most of your life and doing most of your schooling and living most of your early years in the world's largest refugee camp at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

And so how will it make a difference? I believe when we speak to people there, they do hold on to the idea that they might have justice and perhaps maybe they might get home one day. But the reality is that no matter how quickly the courts get to such a decision, if they do, the fact that these people are living in these refugee camps is not going to change anytime soon. Noah, thank you so much for speaking with me. You're welcome. Before we go today, an update on a story we've been following through the summer.

We Charity announced yesterday that it's closing its Canadian operations. This is the charity founded by Craig and Mark Kilberger, which became embroiled in a political scandal after the Trudeau government awarded the organization a contract to manage a now-canceled $900 million student grant program. It later emerged that Justin Trudeau's brother and mother had received hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking engagements with WE, and that the charity had covered $41,000 in travel costs for then-finance minister Bill Morneau. Morneau paid the charity back, but stepped down soon after the news was revealed. Other members of the Trudeau government have since become implicated in the controversy as well.

We'll keep you posted on this story. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.