NAYPYIDAW
\nMyanmar\u2019s junta chief created a special command a day after last year\u2019s coup that was solely responsible for deployment and operations of troops in urban areas, and authorised lethal attacks on unarmed civilians, human rights investigators said.
\nThe group Fortify Rights and Yale Law School\u2019s Schell Center said after a joint investigation the junta leadership deployed snipers to kill protesters to instil fear, while soldiers were instructed to commit crimes and given a \u201cfieldcraft\u201d manual that contained no guidance on rules of war.
\nThe investigators, in a 193-page report released on Thursday, analysed leaked documents and 128 testimonies from various sources including survivors, medical workers, witnesses and former military and police personnel, about the turmoil in Myanmar in the six months after the coup on Feb. 1 last year.
\nThey said they had obtained and verified internal memos to police ordering them to arbitrarily arrest protesters, activists and members of the ousted ruling party, and cited testimony from victims of torture and other abuses.
\n\u201cAll individuals responsible for these crimes should be sanctioned and prosecuted,\u201d said Matthew Smith, head of Fortify Rights and co-author of the report, which recommends members of the United Nations push for a global arms embargo on Myanmar and international legal action against its generals.
\nA spokesman for Myanmar\u2019s military did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the report\u2019s findings.
\nFortify Rights is an independent non-profit organisation based in Southeast Asia and founded in 2013, funded by donations from Europe, Asia and the United States, including from private foundations. It has carried out extensive work on Myanmar.
\nThe Schell Center was set up at Yale Law School in 1989 for law students and graduates to specialise in international human rights and to assist human rights organisations. The investigation will add to global pressure on the military to halt its crackdown on opponents and the use of air strikes and shelling in civilian areas.
\nIt comes a week after a U.N. report concluded that the Myanmar army was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The junta has yet to respond but has previously dismissed accusations of atrocities as foreign interference based on falsehoods.
\nThe report, called \u201cNowhere is Safe\u201d, also identified 61 military and police commanders who the researchers said should be investigated for crimes against humanity, helped by information from security sources about the chain of command.
\nAmong those were six active-duty army personnel, including a colonel and two majors.
\nThe researchers said they established locations of more than 1,000 military units at the time of the crackdown, which they said could help prosecutors geo-locate perpetrators of crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAYPYIDAW Myanmar\u2019s junta chief created a special command a day after last year\u2019s coup that was solely responsible for deployment and operations of troops in urban areas, and authorised lethal attacks on unarmed civilians, human rights investigators said. The group Fortify Rights and Yale Law School\u2019s Schell Center said after a joint investigation the junta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n