February 2018 issue / In-Depth Analyses / Op-ed article

Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik, A Massacre BY Rohingya? – PART II of the series “Fake News & Massacre Marketing in the Rohingya Crisis”

by The Indicteron
By Adam Larson Editor’s Note: This is the second part of the series in The Indicter, which comprises the following sections: Part 1. Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya? Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)   Part 2: […]

By Adam Larson

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of the series in The Indicter, which comprises the following sections:
Part 1. Introduction to Questioning the Massacre Stories
Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?
Part 3: Other Massacre Stories that Fall Apart (and conclusion)

 

Part 2: Men in Black at Kha Maung Seik: A Massacre BY Rohingya?

Besides Inn Din, there is at least one other massacre where bodies have been found as proof. This is near Kha Maung Seik, locally known as Fakira or Fawira Bazar, in the far north of Rakhine state. This was a mixed area, predominantly Rohingya Muslim, but including villages and areas where Rakhine Buddhists and others lived.

Here it wasn’t ten apparent fighters that were killed, but about 45 civilians, including women, babies, and elderly alike. The bodies were found over two days in three pits,  badly decomposed, some with throats sliced or with heads or limbs cut off. Another 48 bodies were expected to be found eventually, for a total of about 93 presumably slain citizens of the Hindu, not Muslim faith.  [1]

2.1. Version 1: Buddhists Killing Muslims and Hindus

The best evidence suggests the victims were taken captive and massacred by men in black, on the morning of August 25 by most accounts. That’s just a few hours after ARSA launched its attacks on army posts all over, perhaps eliminating security in this area.Yet this first story of a massacre at Kha Maung Seik blamed government forces. A Reuters report published September 6 gives this as when “the military brought some Rakhine Buddhists with them and torched the village,” as one witness said, targeting Muslims. Some were shot but most of the 10,000 Rohingya who lived there fled and “there’s not a single person left.”  [2]

In that version, they were “forced out of their village … on Aug. 25.” But sometimes those telling this story give a different date. Rohingya news source Kaladan Press later reported from the Muslim camp at Kutupalong that refugees “say that Burmese security forces began attacks on Kha Maung Seik on August 26.” A 64-year-old  man said they “shelled our village in the middle of the night (on August 26). My wife and two young children are now missing.” And again, “Burmese security forces began attacking on August 26,” so by definition nothing at all happened on August 25, when ARSA may have  just taken over. [3]

Or as Dhaka Tribune reported, nothing happened on the 26th either, and “the morning of August 27 started as any other for Anika Dhar, 18,” when armed men burst into her home, tying up her and her husband Milon, and looting their valuables. They did the same in other homes and then, Anika told the Tribune, they “marched us with more than a hundred of our neighbours to a secluded spot …They  had dug holes in the ground. They shot and stabbed people and dumped the bodies into the holes.” Over one hundred people were killed that day, according to Anika.” [4] But this too is a rare, if interesting, aberration: the same woman and others agree elsewhere the killings were on the 25th.

Whatever the day, Hindus were targeted along with Muslims in this narrative. The general story didn’t get much clearer, but a dramatic core of it was relayed by a group of Muslims and Hindus who escaped, and had just arrived to live together at the Kutupalong camp, one of whom is Anika/Anica Dhar.

In a video posted August 29, eight very attentive Hindu women and older girls speak briefly on the recent events (frames shown). They speak in the local Rohingya dialect shared by everyone of Bengali origin in the area, Muslim, Hindu or otherwise (and it has English subtitles). Here they don’t specify a date, but the essence is that Muslims never harmed them. In fact they helped the women escape when ethnic Rakhines killed their husbands – for refusing to help them kill Muslims. They apparently were doing some last-minute recruiting that went wrong. [5]

The September 6 Reuters report heard from part of this group – interviewed in late August – who “saw eight Hindu men killed by Buddhist Rakhines after they refused to attack Muslims.” That’s one man lost per woman. In some cases it’s a father, but for Anika Bala, 15, “they asked my husband to join them to kill Rohingya but he refused, so they killed him.” The report adds “Six months pregnant, she said Muslims helped her get to Bangladesh.” [6] Anica Dahr said that, after a massacre two days later, she managed to escape in the chaos, with the help of “friendly people” and, as she explains “I joined the Muslims and escaped with them.” That report hears her story as its own singular one, but did hear “at least eight Hindu women refugees, who fled to Bangladesh from Rakhine in the last few weeks, said armed men killed their husbands in front of them.” [7]

These women will be central players in the following sections. It’s not usually clarified here, but these eight are in fact the only adult survivors from a group of about 110 civilians taken from the villages of Ye Baw Kya and Taung Ywar. (Some small children are also seen with them, as it turns out ten total, but they aren’t remarked on much.) Muslim refugees refer to one of these villages in telling Kaladan Press “they saw the Hindu residents of Yebawkya fleeing together with them.” [8]

There are a few videos where the women give this basic story, all filmed in the camp and mostly over a couple of days in late August. It’s notable that they tend to be unusually young and attractive (reportedly aged 15-25 or perhaps up to 28 – of age in their culture). They profess Hindu beliefs, but lack traditional makeup and bangles. They aren’t in Burqas, but don’t look fully Hindu. Only once in these early videos and reports does Rekha Dhar, 25, mention how she and the other survivors had converted to Islam, as part of the deal by which they were rescued by a “Muslim family.” [9] One woman in the August 29 video knows to call the area they left “Arakan” instead of Myanmar or Burma. [10]

2.2. Mystery Men in Black: Who Are the “Kala Party”?

These women never explain how they knew the killers were Rakhines, and in some accounts, they’re strangely unclear about that detail. Rekha Dhar described them wearing black outfits with even “faces covered so we could not identify them.” [11] Anika Dhar told Dhaka Tribune of “a group of men wearing black uniforms … armed to the teeth with guns and long knives” but with no mention of what made them seem so Buddhist. [12]

Several other Hindu refugees report being imprisoned in their homes by the dark attackers, not allowed out even for water for at least five days, and then somehow they wound up in camps in Bangladesh. Their story is different from the eight kidnapped women, and not as clear. But there’s a similar lack of clarity about who was behind it. “Nalanjan,” age 50, mentioned men dressed in black with  no insignia. He says he didn’t recognize them, so he couldn’t be sure if they were Muslims or not, but they killed Muslims as well as Hindus. The proportions aren’t clear, and the killed Muslims might have been a few “government collaborators” for all we know. But Nalanjan has been cited by Shafiur Rahman to suggest it was government forces or Rakhines under the hoods, so Rahman would suggest they mainly killed Muslims. [13]

Another Hindu refugee cited by Shaikh Azizur Rahman (no known relation) is named Shib Kumar, whose parents and an aunt were killed by the black-clad men. She  likewise said “I could not recognize those men who killed Hindus as well as Muslims. We the Hindus and Muslims fled together.” [14] All these people and the eight women tend to agree on the unclear identity of the killers, their killing of Hindus and Muslims, and the joint flight of those groups. These sound almost like memorized talking points, but it’s not clear how most Hindus could be threatened or coerced even here in the camps.

The black attire  is more credible, partly because it’s not any known military uniform. Rather it’s a style of dress we can see on video of ARSA fighters preparing for their jihad, reportedly on August 20 – five days before these people were attacked. They don’t have uniforms, just mostly-black civilian clothes – as if there’s no dress code except “try for black” and “wear a ski mask or hood, leaving only your eyes visible.” Several dozen of them stand in formation with sticks and swords, chanting things like (per the subtitles) “we will give lives and take lives for Arakan” and “Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest).” A few men with guns partol them, perhaps looking for weaker spirits. [15]

Fortify Rights took reports of “Rohingya militants” wearing “civilian clothing or all-black “uniforms” – black pants and black short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts.” A Rohingya man from Kha Maung Seik said that some of these hassled his group of refugees, though covered faces aren’t mentioned here.  [16] But ARSA fighter Mohammad Ayes denied these are signs of their group, arguing to Mahadi Hasnat that they have no “dress code” favoring black, and wouldn’t wear masks. “Whoever uses masks, it means they want to hide their identities and commit atrocities,” he said. “It is a conspiracy against the Rohingya Muslims,” to make them look bad. [17] But how would this make them look bad, if that’s not how they look?

But men who, by Ayes’ definition “want to hide their identities and commit atrocities” are seen in that video that doesn’t appear to be staged. Others with faces hidden, sometimes in black, are seen on either side of ARSA’s supreme commaner Ata Ullah on almost every video, as any image search will show. In other scenes, he and his men aren’t masked, but all dressed in black, out in the field, maybe after a night-time or early-morning raid. It seems likely they’d implement a special dress code for their 2017 early-morning offensive – like all masks, mostly black. A decaying Rohingya man found half-buried in “Ghuta Pyin” (Chut Pyin?) on August 31 has his face covered with and swelling up around a black ski mask. That’s an apparent militant dead for about a week, likely half-buried by his comrades as they retreated under fire. [18]

So this August 25/26/27 regime/Rakhine massacre would be perhaps the cleverest one yet reported, complete with ARSA costumes. And it was hatched to frame them just hours into the crackdown, as the best accounts suggest, and despite some apparent efforts to confuse that. In most other cases even days later, the killers are said to make no effort at concealment. They come in army uniforms and whatever Buddhist monks usually wear when slaughtering people, [19] or even to have uniforms delivered halfway through the operation by helicopter, to make sure everyone’s allegiance is clear. [20]

And the trick didn’t work on everyone; Mahadi Hasnat wrote on how the truth of the incident was “shrouded” in a “fog of claims and counter-claims.” He heard the mysterious killers were called “Kala Party” (Black Party) by one set or another of witnesses. One woman is said to describe them as part of “the army’s persecution.” She said they “confined us to our houses for five consecutive days. We managed to escape the confinement with a Muslim neighbour’s help.” But other Hindu refugees said “they believed these people were Rohingya Muslims.” A young Hindu woman whose husband was killed  by them on August 25 calls them “Muslim terrorists.” A photo of another young widow, Anika Dhar, is included (credited to Dhaka Tribune, Sept. 19). Considering the above, there’s little fog evident in the photo caption stating “her husband Milon was shot dead by the Myanmar army on August 27.” [21]

Bangladeshi bdnews24.com  heard from at least 10 Hindu refugees also speaking of the “’Kala Party’.” One who requested anonymity told them “the Burmese usually don’t know the Rohingya language. Though the attackers covered their face with dark clothes, they seemed to be Rohingyas.” [22]

2.3. Women Freed, Second Story Told, Bodies Found

Mohammad Nurul Islam reported on this story on August 30 for New Age. From interviews in the Kutupalong camp, he heard “eight Hindu women … are living with the Muslims” there after their husbands and fathers “laid down their lives for Muslims in Myanmar.” This was reported to him with approval by “Rohingya leader Mohammad Noor.” [23]

While Nour seemed fine with the arrangement, others weren’t. As the reporters at the state run Global New Light of Myanmar heard, people within the camp noticed a problem with the Kha Maung Seik refugees, as one girl – Raj Kumari, 15 – was being arranged to mary a Muslim man who worked there. They found several of the young widows had already been wedded to the Muslim men living with them. A Hindu religious leader “contacted a member of the BGB (police) and immediately went to the camp. There, the eight Hindu women and children were found. The Muslim terrorists had fled,” perhaps a sign of guilty conscience. This happened right away, on or before August 30. The Hindus were briefly removed from the camp and then put back, but in their own area with a Hindu guard. [24]

The earliest known media report on the girls and their second story was on September 5. The Irriwady reported how an 8-year-old girl from the area was luckily away on the 25th,, working in another village. Her family had been killed, except an older sister, who was among the eight kidnapped women and had already made contact with home. They already heard from others that “more than 80 members of their communities in Rakhine State had been killed by unidentified armed men … reportedly … Muslim militants.”  [25]

By September 16 at the latest, two apparent sisters from that group were still in a camp, but  looking more Hindu, and giving a very different and horrifying story on video. They’re quite sure now the killers were genuine Islamists with ARSA, shouting Allahu Akbar behind their ski masks as they attacked. They massacred the girls’ families and husbands, and called the bloodletting their way of celebrating the feast of Eid al-Adha (feast of sacrifice), something they said they had been wanting to do for three years. [25]

Most Muslims wouldn’t mark Eid al-Adha in 2017 until September 1 or 2, but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was marking an extended celebration that began on August 24. So this is a plausible thing to say on the 25th, and it seems their offensive was timed to happen during this important religious event. [27]

As those girls spoke, others like Anika Dhar were still apparently giving fresh interviews relating the first version into mid September; as cited, Dhaka Tribune has her blaming the army on the 19th. But once the survivors returned to Myanmar around the end of September, they gave a fuller account run on October 5 by Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM – state run). As they related  it:

“[A] group of about 500 Muslims terrorists led by a foreigner in black clothing and Noru Lauk from Khamaungseik Village – attacked their village of Ye Baw Kya claiming this “is our territory. … we will murder Buddhists and all of you who worship the statues made of bricks and stones.” [28]

“About 500” might be an exaggeration, but it was a sizeable force. The attackers robbed them of money and valuables and took their phones, tied their hands and divided the men from the women and children. At mid-morning they were marched out, most likely judging by the map, south and then west, headed towards Bawtala Village and the Bangladesh border (see map, provisional from various sources). After marching a while they got “near” Bawtala, where the women “said they saw two pits, with a third pit being dug.” (A government map gives the red circled area as the mass grave location, about 3km north of Bawtala, but that might be incorrect; the location remains uncertain.) [29]

“The terrorists then killed all the Hindu men,” GNLM continues, “slashing their throats, cutting them into pieces and throwing them into the mass graves.” The slaughter the women saw ran from around noon to 6 pm. A three-year-old boy named Phawlar said he “saw his father’s throat slit with knife before he was killed.” Some women and children were taken further away and presumed killed there.  [30]

According to the women via GNLM, it was the Rohingya co-leader “Norulauk” who made the central tactical error here – leaving them alive to tell the tale. They recall him saying “Those girls are beautiful. We must force them into Islam.” This was done and so the women, aged 15-25, could be taken as “wives” and raped under that cover. Their ten young children were also spared in this arrangement. GNLM reports how they all camped for a while in the area, perhaps a honeymoon to some, before they illegally crossed into Bangladesh through a forced gap in the border fence on the morning of the 28th. [31] A government-provided map shows the crossing, with about 15 km direct distance from the Hindu villages to Kutupalong. [32]

The militants now in the camp had the women speaking to foreign media, including English-language ones, the same afternoon, GNLM heard. [33] Maybe the militants figured since the women lived to tell the tale, they should pick the most useful one to have them tell.

Once freed, it was the women’s recall of the forced march that led to the mass graves so far discovered. Tips phoned back to Myanmar led to 28 bodies found on September 24 (said to be 20 women, and eight men and children, but divided 12 in one pit, 16 in the other). Another pit with the remains of 17 men was found the following day, raising the total to 45. Another 48 villagers were presumed dead, but apparently buried somewhere else the women didn’t see. [34]

The mass graves or pits can all be seen in various photos collected and analyzed by the author. [35] All three are  remarkably small in area, or narrow – one body wide at most. To hold 12, 16, and 17 corpses each, as reported, they must be very deep, almost like well shafts. The bodies piled in vertically, perhaps three bodies across across and several layers deep. The first two pits found are shown here (black circles) relative to the bodies pulled from them (red boxes).  Furthermore, the way each of the pits is tucked into the edge of the brush suggests the idea was for them to stay hidden; they might even have been covered with false brush. If it weren’t for the survivors’ tips, they might have never been found. Considering that, it’s likely the remaining 48 bodies exist, and yet will never be located.

After this grisly find, Myanmar’s authorities lifted the ban on media, for the occasion at least. They flew in reporters to see the first 28 bodies and hear the story from locals. AFP reported September 27 on what they heard, but gave more prominence to ARSA’s denial. [36] Reuters filed an equivocal report  describing Hindu refugees as “caught in the middle,” with some “complaining of violence against them by soldiers or Buddhist vigilantes” and others of “being attacked by the insurgents on suspicion of being government spies,” but not just on account of being infidels. [37]

Reuters also published some photos, including the one here, [38] and also ran a follow-up story from reporter Soe Zeya Tun that noted the earlier conflicting story they had run. Tun fleshed out the women’s’ new story by interviewing three of the eight women (apparently still in Bangladesh) “who individually recounted closely matching stories.” Bina Bala, 22, said “We watched as they tied each person, hands behind their back and also legs … They cut all their throats and pushed them into a hole,” A “hospital superintendent …who examined the bodies” confirmed that’s how they appeared, and was cited by GNLM as saying “the evidence points to a massacre by the ARSA terrorists.” [39]

Interestingly, Tun notes, the women “were later able to identify some of the masked men as Rohingya Muslims, although the women said the men spoke several languages they could not identify, besides the dialect spoken by both Muslims and Hindus in the area.” Bina at least added said they were only spared after agreeing to convert to Islam. [40]

2.4. How Their Second Story was Sidelined

So the women were now on record with two drastically different stories. Naturally, this raised suspicions that deception was afoot. Shaikh Azizur Rahman wrote in The Guardian on October 12: “Rohingya refugee Shofi Ullah accused the Myanmar military of “playing a game” with the Hindu bodies.”  He cites a case where Hindus helped sow a false story… of Muslims sowing false stories. (This seems to be the case, but it’s a strange case, and limited to the staging of a single photo – nothing comparable to this. [41]) So “Shofi Ullah” reasoned “they are using some Hindu women to cover up the misdeeds of the security forces and the Buddhist militia. We are sure that the Myanmar government’s dirty trick will get exposed soon.”  [42]

Rahman seems to agree with that, claiming the women’s story changed “when they were subsequently returned to Myanmar,” and likely pressed to lie. But they were telling this story inside the Kutupalong camp in Bagladesh before that, he thinks even before they blamed Rakhines (for 2 story changes, but with versions 1 and 3 being the same). So they said this in the camp, maybe before and surely after they were free of their Muslim friends, and still not in the regime’s clutches. So if there was any pressure to blame Rohingya, the mechanism for it is far from clear. [43]

They’re suspected of lying, but the women have a clear and consistent answer to the controversy: the first or middle version – blaming Buddhists and the army – was coerced. As Reuters heard it, “Muslims who brought them to Bangladesh had ordered them to say it was Buddhist vigilantes who had done the killing.” [44]  GNLM heard the same and added “They were threatened that their children’s throats would be slashed unless they said as they were told.” [45]

HRW’s Meenakshi Ganguly left out the women, and the other Hindu locals speaking and weeping at the “stage-managed tour,” as she wrote on September 27 that “no one has been able to independently verify the Burmese government’s most recent allegations.” Their claims of a massacre by ARSA amounted to “playing politics with the dead.” Ganguly did call for justice if a credible investigation finds ARSA militants guilty, but she reasons that this is unlikely to happen, and doesn’t call for one. [46]

Ganguly then compared this dubious story to “refugees in Bangladesh” sharing “horrific accounts of soldiers conducting summary executions, burning people alive, and rampant sexual violence.” These are also unverified, but HRW has issued two detailed reports and several statements and press releases about them. They’ve called for investigations, conducted their own in the meantime, and presented the results as they demanded accountability. While other refugees there corroborate and are the source for the “government’s most recent allegations,” and HRW would be just as capable of reporting on that, they somehow missed every chance to do so, and have failed to address their horrific accounts except with this hit piece. [47]

Exiled opposition activist Maung Zarni considered the womens’ story part of a disinformation campaign “to expand the circle of enemies against the Rohingya” to hopefully include India. He too ignored the women and all other witnesses, apparently seeing them as irrelevant appendages of the regime. “The information [about the corpses] has come from the Burmese military and government and not an independent source,” he told the Dakha Tribune [48] Zarni’s idea of an independent source would usually be a refugee speaking Rohingya in a Bangladeshi camp. Ironically, it seems some of those first called the mass grave location in to the authorities.

Mahadi Al Hasnat cites ARSA fighter Mohammad Ayes, who joined up just before the offensive: “The army is playing a game. The Buddhists and government agents attacked the Hindu villages so that they can justify the military crackdown targeted on Muslim eradication.” He seems sure that Hindus were killed, but not by them, and alleged that these Hindus “were blaming Muslims to express their loyalty towards the government.” [49]

But another ARSA member who claimed to be a commander told Hasnat the victims were probably Muslims. “Now they are showing those bodies and forcing the Hindu people to cry in front of the bodies and say that those corpses were their relatives … to destroy the evidence they are posing Muslim bodies as Hindu bodies.” [50]

Rohingya news agency Kaladan, as noted above, heard a different date of August 26, helping weaken the case against ARSA and challenge the emerging narrative. As it happens, this was run on on September 27, as the bodies were found. And deeper deception was suspected; that report noted “Rohingya refugees from northern Maungdaw are now wondering about the identities of the bodies allegedly found in the mass graves. There have been reports of killings of hundreds of Rohingya civilians by Burmese security forces in Tula Toli” (see part 3, section 3.3) and other areas to the south “in late August.” [51] This possibility will be considered again in relation to another specific massacre story HRW helped sow that might be the alternate story for the bodies found near Kha Maung Seik (see part 3, section 3.2).

Some of these cite ARSA’s denial of all charges as if it were evidence of some value, as if they would admit to this if they had done it. As their official Twitter account put it September 27: “Burmese Govt has to Stop ‘Victim Blaming’, Allow Investigations into Atrocities; ARSA Denies of Targeting Civilians.” A fuller statement attached denies specific crimes alleged in the Hindu villages on August 25. Someone posted in support a snippet of the August 29 video of the captive Hindu women. [52]

But this is illogical. ARSA is the most likely to dress in black and hack-up non-Muslims while shouting Allahu Akbar. That’s especially so if they overran security in the area just hours before this, as they likely did. And only the Hindu women’s’ second and final story gives a good reason for their survival, and their spouting the Islamist-flavored first story from inside the Muslim camp, after converting to Islam.

It’s also noteworthy that the villages these kidnappings happened in are among areas mapped as Rohingya villages burned in the government’s campaign. [53] Hindu Rohingya residents report ARSA was responsible for the part of the burning they witnessed. For example, an older woman says her home and property were all burned by Arakan party (ARSA). [54]

After hearing different versions, Hasnat’s report captioned a photo of Anika Dhar with the following fact: “Her husband Milon was shot dead by the Myanmar army on August 27.” [55] Anything remains possible, but the reasons are overwhelming to believe  ARSA and/or Islamist allies of theirs are behind this massacre. And if so, how many other killings and burning were by them? How many other stories lodged in their favor are false like the one they coerced from these women?

References

  1. general reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_Maung_Seik_massacre – http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/01/kha-maung-seik-massacre-data-dump.html
  2. “Rohingya say their village is lost to Myanmar’s spiraling conflict” by Reuters Staff September 6, 2017 / 10:25 PM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-village/rohingya-say-their-village-is-lost-to-myanmars-spiraling-conflict-idUSKCN1BI0GI
  3. “Refugees question Burmese government’s report of mass Hindu graves.” Kaladan News, 27 September 2017 www.kaladanpress.org/index.php/news/413-news-2017/september-2017/5149-refugees-question-burmese-government’s-report-of-mass-hindu-graves.html
  4. www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/09/19/rohingya-hindu-horror-myanmar-military/
  5. “Hindu Families’s Statement against pro-axis Rakhines and Govt.” Rohingya VisionTV Published on Aug 29, 2017 (California time, so by mid-day of theb 30th in the area) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1AyY_9v78E
  6. see 2
  8. 5. see 3
  9. See 4
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xrk89bjIw 1:50
  11. see 4, 2:47
  12. see 6
  13. see 4
  14. “Myanmar’s Men in Black Kill #Rohingya Muslims and Hindus” tweets by Shafiur Rahman https://twitter.com/shafiur/status/912498127344562176 – https://twitter.com/shafiur/status/912425300914356224
  15. “Mystery surrounds deaths of Hindu villagers in Myanmar mass graves: Government accused of ‘dirty tricks’ as Hindus who fled to Bangladesh say army was behind massacre, only to blame Rohingya militants once back in Myanmar” By Shaikh Azizur Rahman, The Guardian. October 12, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/12/myanmar-mass-graves-mystery-surrounds-deaths-of-hindu-villagers-dirty-tricks-rohingya
  16. https://twitter.com/rick135b7/status/941940395348434944
  17. http://www.fortifyrights.org/publication-20170901.html
  18. “Who really attacked the Rohingya Hindus in Myanmar’s Rakhine state? The answer is shrouded in fog of claims and counter-claims.” By Mahadi Al Hasnat. Scroll.in. October 2, 2017. 07:30 pm https://scroll.in/article/852527/who-really-attacked-the-rohingya-hindus-in-myanmars-rakhine-state
  19. Bing image search https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=arsa%20ata%20ullah&qs=n&form=QBIRMH&sp=-1&pq=undefined&sc=0-14&sk=&cvid=16509F73F233428E87B52F046CDC78EB – decaying militant – video included here: http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2017/08/updates-into-seventh-day-of-military.html
  20. http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/Rohingya-crisis-lives-in-limbo/
  21. http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/asia/ethnic-cleansing-rakhine-rohingya/index.html
  22. see 17.
  23. https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/09/24/hindu-refugees-blame-rohingya-militants-for-attacking-them-in-myanmar
  24. http://www.newagebd.net/article/23064/hindus-lay-down-lives-for-muslims-in-myanmar “Hindus lay down lives for Muslims in Myanmar” By Mohammad Nurul Islam in Cox’s Bazar. New Age, Published: 00:05, Aug 30,2017 Updated: 02:01, Aug 30,2017
  25. “This area is our territory”: ARSA extremist terrorists: Hindu women return from Bangladesh, recall horrific massacre” Posted by Global New Light of Myanmar October 05, 2017 http://www.globalnewlightofmyanmar.com/area-territory-arsa-extremist-terrorists/
  26. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/dozens-hindus-killed-maungdaw-relatives.html
  27. Sep 16 video – pic: girls in camp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jB8K0pVAe8
  28. “Saudi Arabia, the destination for all pilgrims, is already amidst of a 16-day public holiday which began August 24 and will continue until September 9. ” https://www.yahoo.com/news/hajj-2017-eid-al-adha-110429688.html

28, 29, 30, 31. see 24

32 October 4 tweet: https://twitter.com/inewsagency/status/915607357853392897

  1. see 24
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_Maung_Seik_massacre
  3. 3 analysis images: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/956134397312344064 – first two pits, 9/24 https://twitter.com/KhinMaungHtay18/status/911952735162920960 – pit 3, 9/25 https://twitter.com/phoe_my/status/912336331027521537
  4. “Rohingya crisis: Hindus recount massacre in Myanmar as mass graves unearthed in Rakhine.” By: AFP | Cox’s Bazar | Published: September 27, 2017 4:15 pm http://indianexpress.com/article/world/rohingya-crisis-hindus-recount-massacre-in-myanmar-as-mass-graves-unearthed-in-rakhine-state-4863922/
  5. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya/myanmar-finds-more-bodies-in-mass-grave-u-n-seeks-rapid-aid-increase-idUSKCN1C01GT
  6. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4561396/mass-grave-burma-myanmar-hindu-muslim-conflict/

39, 40. “Slaughtered Hindus a testament to brutality of Myanmar’s conflict” By Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters. September 27, 2017 5:43 AM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-hindus/slaughtered-hindus-a-testament-to-brutality-of-myanmars-conflict-idUSKCN1C21M6

  1. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/burmese-attempt-to-show-rohingya-torched-their-own-homes-unveiled-as-fake-news.html

42, 43. see 14

  1. see 39
  2. see 24

46, 47. “Burma is Playing Politics with the Dead: Alleged Atrocities Need International Inquiry”  By Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch. September 27, 2017 7:19AM EDT https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/27/burma-playing-politics-dead

  1. “India, Myanmar, and the convenient discovery of Hindu mass graves” By Fazlur Rahman Raju. Dhaka Tribune. Published at 01:50 PM October 01, 2017 http://www.dhakatribune.com/world/south-asia/2017/10/01/india-myanmar-convenient-hindu-graves/ Thursday January 18, 2018 04:56 PM

49, 50. See 17

  1. see 3
  2. https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/913061262958911494
  3. comparison (using a rough mapping) https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/951807813038194688 – from graphic by Reuters – http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/010060630DW/index.html –
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNAScc1P8A8
  5. see 17

 

__

The author

Adam Larson is an independent investigator in Spokane, Washington, United States. He studied history at Eastern Washington University. He has since 2011, on a volunteer basis, studied events in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine following Western-backed regime-change operations, often under the screen name Caustic Logic. Using open sources, with an emphasis on video analysis, Mr. Larson and research associates have often deconstructed or disproved alleged “regime” crimes from shooting protesters to sectarian massacres. He’s the co-founder of Citizen’s Investigation into War crimes in Libya (and Syria, Ukraine, and beyond – CIWCL-SUB – website), a core member of the wiki-format research site A Closer Look On Syria, and runs the site Monitor on Massacre Marketing. He can be contacted at adam@ciwclibya.org.

 

 

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