![The Myanmar military has been accused of human rights violations going back years [File: Lynn Bo bo/Pool via AFP]](/Uploads/Images/News/2023/11/Image-2032-20231101111138.jpeg)
Myanmar military’s human rights abuses a ‘system exercised from the top’
Early one morning in March, a group of Myanmar soldiers marched into a village in the country’s east near the border with Thailand.
They had been engaged in days of intense fighting with armed groups opposed to the February 2021 coup – in which the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders and took power – subjecting the area to intense shelling and aerial bombardment.
Many of the people of Nam Neang village had taken refuge in the surrounding jungle but 18 had sought sanctuary with three monks in the temple, according to the Shan Human Rights Foundation.
On March 11, the soldiers surrounded the temple and demanded those inside come out.
They “shot them dead … took photos of the corpses and shared the photos on social media”, said the foundation, adding that the soldiers claimed to have killed anti-coup fighters.
The incident, a crime under international law, is only one of a number of abuses to have taken place by troops under the command of Lieutenant-General Aung Aung, according to research released on Wednesday by Security Force Monitor (SFM), a project of the Columbia Law Human Rights Institute in the United States.
The study, Under Whose Command?, covers a period of 12 years until March 30, 2023 and sheds new light on Myanmar’s notoriously secretive military – revealing the links between low-level soldiers accused of human rights abuses against civilians and their commanding officers and beyond.
“In many areas of the country, almost every single person who ever held command had disappearances, killings, rape or instances of torture allegedly committed by units under their command,” the report said. “This is particularly true in areas of longstanding conflict and concern for human rights abuses.”
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