As part of the ongoing global initiative to bring the Myanmar dictatorship to justice, war crimes survivors from north-western Chin State have filed their second “motion to resolve” at the Philippines Department of Justice, the next step in a case initiated in 2023, according to the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP) and the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) 31 July.
The motion brings further pressure on the authorities in Manila to open an investigation into the massive arson attack in 2021 by junta forces on the Chin town of Thantlang. In the junta assault, some fifteen hundred houses, churches, schools, medical facilities and other civilian structures were destroyed, and thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced, many into India.
A Christian Pastor, Cung Biak Hum, was deliberately targeted and his body mutilated, while Pa Ral Tu, an unarmed church official, was also deliberately shot and killed. Both men were attempting to bring medical aid to survivors.
“To mark this milestone in our case in the Philippines, we are publishing a new report into attacks on religion in Chin State,” said Salai Za Uk, Executive Director of the CHRO, one of the complainants in the case, who was born in Thantlang. “The facts bear witness to dictator, Min Aung Hlaing’s unrelenting annihilation campaign against Myanmar’s Christian minority. In Chin state between January and July this year, 83 civilians were killed, of which 21 were children, while 102 civilians were injured, including 15 children and 4 religious leaders. In the same period, CHRO has documented 1,543 indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes by the junta, which have destroyed 353 civilian structures, including 319 homes, 4 schools, 5 hospitals or clinics, 9 churches and 16 public facilities. We pray that the Philippines Government, one of the most fervently-Christian in South East Asia, will show solidarity with Myanmar’s persecuted religious communities and open an investigation into these crimes.”
One of the lawyers for the Chin complainants is Atty. Gilbert Andres, who is also a common legal representative of the victims of the “war on drugs” in the International Criminal Court (ICC) case in the Hague, against former President Rodrigo Duterte said there was “an undeniable legal basis for the Department of Justice to open an investigation for war crimes, even if they were committed in Myanmar. Section 17 of Republic Act No. 9851 or the Philippine International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Act makes clear that the war crimes committed against my clients are criminal offences under Philippine criminal law.”
He continued “interestingly, this same Section 17 of the IHL Act was invoked by the Philippine Government as the legal basis for surrendering Mr Duterte over to the ICC for his so-called “war on drugs” and it is also being used by the government to legally justify the implementation of an ICC arrest warrant against Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, Duterte’s former police chief. If Section 17 of the IHL Act can be used in these two instances, then it must also be used for my clients. And if the government does not act on our motion to resolve, we will go the Court of Appeals in the coming months.”
The other lead lawyer on the case, Atty. Romel Bagares, also urged action from the Philippines, which holds the current chair of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations. “We fully support the Manila Government’s proposal for a permanent Myanmar envoy as part of efforts to see the full implementation of ASEAN’s Myanmar plan, the Five Point Consensus (5PC). All ASEAN members accept the 5PC while Min Aung Hlaing is alone in rejecting it. Moreover, I urge ASEAN to include accountability as one of its benchmarks of success in implementing the 5PC, along with efforts to protect civilians, such as the cessation of airstrikes and the delivery of humanitarian aid, which the junta is blocking.”
The case in the Philippines is one of three in South East Asia against the Myanmar junta. The others are a Rohingya genocide litigation which was opened in Indonesia in April, and a war crimes and crimes against humanity case in Timor-Leste initiated in January and which led the Myanmar junta to expel the top Timorese diplomat. All three cases are supported by MAP, whose Director, Chris Gunness argued that the “tide is turning in ASEAN towards accountability. To quote Martin Luther King, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice’. Min Aung Hlaing is a wanted war criminal on the run from justice. Like Duterte, he should be turned over to face the consequences of his criminal acts.”
Mizzima