Criminal case filed in Germany against Myanmar military generals for war crimes, genocide

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – An international human rights group and 16 people have filed a joint criminal complaint in Germany against senior Myanmar military generals and others, accusing them of genocide and war crimes, particularly against Rohingya Muslims.

The complaint was filed with the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Germany under the principle of "universal jurisdiction," according to Fortify Rights, an international human rights defender, in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday.

The 215-page complaint and more than 1,000 pages of annexes provide evidence to assist the Office of the Federal Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Rohingya genocide as well as atrocity crimes related to the military junta’s coup on Feb 1, 2021, the statement said.

The complaint also pertains to other ethnic groups, including Arakanese, Chin, Karen, Karenni, Burman, and Mon, said the rights group that conducts worldwide human rights investigations and works on evidence-based research.

The complaint was filed on Friday, and the rights group is represented by a law firm with offices in Germany, the statement said.

About half of the individual complainants are the survivors of the Rohingya genocide and Myanmar military-led “clearance operations” in Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017, while the rest are victims of post-coup atrocities between 2021 and 2022, the statement said.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country in South Asia, is currently hosting over 1.2 million persecuted Rohingya in 33 squalid refugee camps in the country's southern border district of Cox's Bazar. The majority of them fled a brutal military crackdown in their home country's Rakhine State in August 2017.

“The criminal complaint filed with the German Prosecutor requests an investigation and prosecution of identified individual perpetrators who are responsible for committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide,” Pavani Nagaraja Bhat, investigations associate with Fortify Rights, told Anadolu.

Explaining the difference between the Gambia's formal complaint to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2019 and the most recent one in Germany, Bhat said “The ICJ proceeding is not a criminal prosecution of individual perpetrators. And the ICJ proceeding, which is critically important, focuses on the genocide of Rohingya, but not (on) related war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The criminal complaint filed in Germany includes evidence of not only the Rohingya genocide but also mass atrocities against all other ethnic groups, she said, adding that “we believe that the criminal complaint complements other ongoing accountability proceedings.”

Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle enabling a state to prosecute individuals responsible for mass atrocity crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes – regardless of where the crimes occurred or the nationality of the perpetrator or victims, according to the statement.

The complaint draws on more than 1,000 interviews with survivors of international crimes in Myanmar conducted by the rights group since 2013, as well as leaked documents and information provided by Myanmar military and police deserters and others that shed light on the military's operations, crimes, and command structures, the statement said.

“Despite international attention and several ongoing accountability initiatives, the Myanmar military still enjoys complete impunity, and that must end. These crimes cannot go unpunished,” said Matthew Smith, the rights group's chief executive officer and co-founder, in a statement.

“Germany is in a unique position to help thwart impunity in Myanmar,” he said.​​​​​​​