The footage of the soldiers would represent the first admission by members of Myanmar's military that a campaign of violence against the minority ethnic group took place in the country's western Rakhine State. That campaign has previously been described by the United Nations and human rights organizations as having the "hallmarks of genocide."
The video confessions of Private Myo Win Tun and Private Zaw Naing Tun were filmed in July by the Arakan Army, a rebel group currently in combat with the Myanmar military, and released by the non-government organization Fortify Rights, which says it has analyzed the footage and found it to be credible. "We destroyed the Muslim villages near Taung Bazar village. We implemented the clearance operations in the night-time as per the command to 'shoot all that you see and that you hear.' We buried a total number of 30 dead bodies in one grave," said Myo Win Tun in his video statement.
