More than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were shot, burned and beaten to death in the first month of the brutal campaign against them that began in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August. According to this estimate from Médecins Sans Frontières, they included at least 730 children, some plucked from their mothers’ arms to be murdered. The Myanmar government version is that 400 died as security forces battled terrorists. There is no ethnic cleansing and no genocide, it says. The army cleared itself of all allegations of rape and killing. But extensive testimony from survivors, and the sheer number who have fled to squalid conditions in Bangladesh – more than 640,000, more than half the Rohingya population – speak for themselves. Multiple previous reports have described murder, the systematic use of rape and other crimes against humanity by soldiers, police and local militias. In this context, the arrest of two journalists working on stories about the violence might sound a minor concern. But it is both alarming and telling. The Ministry of Information has said that the reporters “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”. The arrests reflect the authorities’ determination to suppress the truth about what is happening in Rakhine state; they continue to tightly control access for even humanitarian aid. UN officials, the US and others are increasingly outspoken about what is happening. Though the UN security council should refer the country to the international criminal court, no one expects it to do so. But the courage of survivors, and others, means that the lies will not stand for ever.
