Myanmar’s military regime is searching for Muslims from Chut Pyin Village in Rathedaung Township who are believed to have opted not to flee to Bangladesh, unlike much of the state’s Muslim population, during the alleged genocide of 2017.
The military summoned officials of Du-oh-thel-ma (Muslim) Village in Buthidaung Township to a unit in the town on February 26, and asked them about the whereabouts of the Chut Pyin villagers, according to locals.
“A major from Buthidaung tactical command summoned us that day and asked us if Chut Pyin villagers were staying in our village. We said no,” a community elder from Du-oh-thel-ma Village told DMG. “We don’t know why they are looking for them. Most of them fled to Bangladesh following the 2017 incident.”
Another villager suggested that the regime was searching for them to present them as witnesses in the genocide case filed against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“The military is looking for eyewitnesses to put up a defence at the ICJ. They are looking for Chut Pyin villagers who did not flee to Bangladesh,” he said.
The regime announced through its Myanma Alin newspaper on January 24 that it had reconstituted a Special Court of Inquiry regarding Chut Pyin Village, where scores of villagers were allegedly slaughtered by security forces in 2017. Junta-controlled media has described the investigative tribunal as being “established to investigate terror attacks of ARSA extremists,” a reference to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Brigadier-General Soe Tint has replaced Major-General Myat Kyaw as chairman of the tribunal, and Colonel Than Hlaing and Colonel Myo Aung are new members.
The search for the Chut Pyin villagers followed the reconstitution of the tribunal.
Junta-appointed international cooperation minister U Ko Ko Hlaing, border affairs minister Lieutenant-General Tun Tun Naung, and social welfare minister Dr. Thet Thet Khaing visited Arakan State last month.
During the trip, they summoned 30 eyewitnesses from Maungdaw District and told them to sign attestations of their personal accounts of the incident, which the regime reportedly plans to use in its defence before the ICJ.
A Hindu man who met the junta ministers said: “Yes, we were summoned to Sittwe, and signed our accounts. There were around 30 Hindus and Muslims.”
He and others who met with the junta ministers refused to provide further details.
The Myanmar military was accused of slaughtering villagers in Chut Pyin, and torching the entire village, in the August 2017 incident.
The Gambia has filed an ICJ case against Myanmar alleging genocide.
“The regime is searching for information to mount a defence at the ICJ,” said former lawmaker U Aung Thaung Shwe from Buthidaung Township.
More than 700,000 Muslims fled to neighbouring Bangladesh when the Myanmar military carried out “clearance operations” following the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on several police outposts in 2017.
The United Nations’ human rights chief at the time described the military’s actions as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” while others in the international community have called it genocide, including Bangladesh’s former foreign minister and the US secretary of state.
