‘No Genocidal Intent’ Found in Rohingya Crackdown, Myanmar Commission Says

Myanmar military operations against the Muslim Rohingya community in the country’s Rakhine state in 2017 were marked by war crimes and serious human rights violations, but did not have “genocidal intent,” a Myanmar government commission has concluded in a report released on Monday.

The report by the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE), formed by Myanmar in 2018 to investigate accusations of war crimes that killed thousands of Rohingya and forced over 740,000 others to flee to safety in Bangladesh, was presented on Monday to Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.

“There is insufficient evidence to argue, much less conclude, that the crimes committed were undertaken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” a ruling required to establish a finding of genocide, the report says, contradicting findings and statements by U.N. investigators.

Read more