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How Myanmar’s military covers up past crimes against the Rohingya, and erases them from the country’s future

More than five years after the Myanmar army’s genocidal violence that forced some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, Myanmar Now continues to unveil new details about the horrors inflicted at that time, and how the current regime has continued a campaign to erase the minority’s claims to their homeland. Much of what is known about the 2017 attacks has come from witness testimony given by Rohingya refugees forced to live in camps outside the country. Yet among the increasing military defections since 2021 coup have been soldiers who participated in the offensive against the Rohingya. In the first article, Myanmar Now spoke to one such officer, whose accounts confirm and provide new support to survivor testimony as international courts continue investigations into past crimes. The current junta’s forces now occupy much of the land razed and seized by the military in 2017. In the second article, Myanmar Now exposes how hundreds of acres in two townships are set to be handed over to a regime border guard police division, illustrating how Myanmar’s coup has facilitated the continued disenfranchisement of one of the region’s most persecuted communities. ‘Trail of bodies’: defector says military’s top judge came to Rakhine to…