IIMM - Press Briefing: Annual Report

Very good morning and thank you for joining us here at the UN office at Geneva for this prequel to our regular briefing. Very pleased to welcome Mr. Nicholas Kungjyan, head of the independent investigative mechanism for Myanmar, otherwise known as the IIMM. which you know was established by the Human Rights Council back in 2018. Mr. Khumjian has been in his role since 2019. He's going to brief you on their latest annual report, which I understand has just been published. You should have received it earlier. So without further ado, over to you, Nicholas.

Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much for your interest in Myanmar. Often, called a forgotten conflict, so it's very important that you have keep this situation in the news and it's a matter obviously of concern, should be, to the international community. Our mechanism was established by the Council with the mandate to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011 and analyze that in order to facilitate criminal prosecutions in national or international courts. When we were created, it was largely in response to the Rohingya crisis and the long history of civilians suffering in the conflicts in Myanmar. But what wasn't anticipated at the time was the 2021 coup. which has led to a great, great increase in violence and the suffering of civilians in Myanmar. So our work is concentrated on these two different main aspects, what has happened to the Rohingya since in 2012, 2016, 2017, and ongoing conflict in Rakhine State, and also the violence related to the post-coup situation and the conflict between various armed forces opposed to the military junta and the military forces. One of the areas that we're concentrating on is because of the suffering that's happening in Myanmar are the airstrikes that are occurring. And we note in particular there are many airstrikes targeting, hitting schools, Children are often the victims of these airstrikes, and also hospitals. So our team is collecting that evidence on where it has occurred, the kind of munitions that are used. We're looking at the command structure and how the orders would be given for such airstrikes. We're also very concerned, of course, with crimes in detention. Tens of thousands have been arrested since the coup. In detention, we have collected testimonies of individuals who talk about torture, seeing it or themselves being the victims of it, and sexual violence in detention. And that's another area where we're collecting evidence in order to share it with courts that may have the ability and the willingness to exercise jurisdiction over those offenses. We rely very much on brave individuals who are willing to talk to us and share their testimonies. We've collected information from over 1,600 sources. We try to make every effort to keep our interactions as safe as possible, but we know that these individuals are taking risks to speak to us, and we're very grateful to them. for their willingness to do so. We're not a court, we're not police, so we depend upon courts, judicial authorities, taking an interest in our case and having the willingness to prosecute the cases. So far, we're sharing evidence with three distinct entities: the International Criminal Court, which has an investigation about the Rohingya in 2017 and earlier violence against the Rohingya. We know that back in November of 2024, the ICC prosecutor announced a request he was requesting an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing. We're also sharing evidence with the federal prosecutor's office in Argentina, in Buenos Aires. which has responded to a complaint filed by Rohingya victims living in the UK and in Bangladesh with no connection to Argentina, but the Argentine courts have said because the allegations are crimes against humanity, it means just that, and under the Argentine constitution, they said there's an obligation to investigate. So we've shared our evidence with the Federal Prosecutor's Office. in order to enable them to conduct an investigation. And then finally, we shared a great amount of evidence and our analysis with the parties at the International Court of Justice. That case is a little different. It's not a criminal case, a civil case where the Gambia has alleged that as a signatory to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, that Myanmar, another signatory, has violated its obligations. You all know that in January, the court held hearings where it discussed the evidence. There was quite a lot of discussion about evidence that we had and analysis that we had provided to the court. And it's been reported that the court is hoping to issue a decision on the case this year. We continue to look for other opportunities to share our evidence. including looking at who is is there a possibility that those that are providing the means for crimes from outside Myanmar could be in violation of national laws, such as sanctions or possibly money laundering, by providing weapons and materials that are fueling the conflict. So we've been in discussions with national authorities in several jurisdictions, an early stage about potential investigations in those countries. With that, I'll open it up for questions from you. Thank you again for your interest.

Thanks to you, Mr. Kumjian. Okay, let's turn to your colleagues for questions. Okay, we'll take one online from Antonio of the Spanish news agency. Antonio.

Thank you. Good morning. So my question is on the process that you mentioned and that Jamaica is helping. What are your hopes for this? these three processes, do you think that a change of regime in Myanmar is necessary for them to make progress? And also, do you think it would be better to bring them together into a single process? Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question. Well, the processes are quite distinct, and I don't think it would be possible to bring them together. So the International Criminal Court and the Argentine investigation involve individual criminal responsibility. They look at whether individuals have contributed to a crime under international law. Well, the International Court of Justice is looking at has the state of Myanmar violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention. I think that all these processes are important even at this stage, even if there is obviously going to be if there was indictments, there's obviously an issue about how do you make arrests. But it's very important, I think, these processes to keeping the matter before the public, before the international community, reminding people about what has happened. reminding other potential perpetrators the conflict is still going on, that someone is watching, that those who commit such crimes could be held to account. And we've often had this debate about whether having criminal investigations under international law is conducive to peace or not. And in many other contexts where initially people thought, well, no one will ever be arrested, it complicates the process, it's turned out not to have been an impediment to peace negotiations. So Charles Taylor was indicted when he was president of Liberia and involved in peace negotiations. Eventually he resigned and was eventually brought to justice some years later. The Khmer Rouge were in the process of surrendering. The court was created to try those most responsible for the Khmer Rouge crimes. So I think there are many other instances also where international criminal justice, I think, think has contributed has not impeded peace processes and I think arguably has contributed to the ability of victims to see some measure of justice for what's happened to them.

Thank you, and also for providing that important context. Okay, we'll take a question now from Nick, New York Times.

Oh yeah, thank you for the briefing. Could you just dig in a little bit more into the kind of criminal liability of states that are assisting the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity? Are we talking purely about arms supplies? Are we talking about the kind of trade and investment that is flourishing with some of its ASEAN neighbors? Are you aware of any particular prosecutions? that can be really developed by the ICC or other bodies that look into that. Secondly, I wonder also if I know that your main concern is with the hostilities that are going on in Myanmar, but do you also look at the scam centers and are you coming across anything that sheds light on abuses linked to those businesses and those who are leading that process. Thank you.

Thanks very much for the question. Well, to be clear, we're not looking at state responsibility for supplying weapons. We're looking at whether there's a potential criminal prosecutions in these states. And in these states, so far, it's individuals. And in very few states it may be possible to prosecute a corporation, but generally criminal prosecutions are limited to individuals. So we'd be looking at whether individuals who may be part of a corporation or business have provided the means for the crimes. And it's possible to hold them responsible under aiding and abetting under international criminal law if you can show that they knew that they were making a contribution to the crimes and still continued that. But that's to be honest, that is very difficult to prove. What may be easier is to show violations of national laws about sanctions, about what kind of material is allowed to be provided to the state in question. So those are the kinds of matters that we're examining and looking at along with a few national jurisdictions, judicial officials in national jurisdictions. In regards to your second question about the scam centers, thank you very much for that. Obviously, I think the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights no, sorry, the Special Envoy of the Secretary General said last year, I think, that scam centers in Myanmar is now the world's number one source of international crimes, drug dealing and scam centers. And the scam centers are obviously of great concern. But for it to fall within our jurisdiction, we need to find evidence that these scam centers are contributing to international crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, or war crimes. So we're certainly looking to see if that evidence exists, but I would not say right now that we're examining the scam centers.

Thanks again. Question now from Olivia Reuters. Olivia.

Thanks very much for this briefing. Good morning. I do appreciate the report overwhelmingly focuses on the military government, but I did also note the report mentions abuses by members of the People's Defense Forces and other non-state armed groups. I was just wondering when it comes to the PDF, if you have any kind of further details on exactly which groups are alleged to be involved in some of those abuses, just conscious that's quite a broad term and actually it's not very practical level when we seek comment. It was a bit vague perhaps. So I was just wondering if you could maybe detail a bit more what you found and who you believe to be responsible as part of those groups?

We've collected evidence about allegations of serious crimes from a number of different groups, and that includes PDFs or other groups opposed to the military regime that are battling the military regime. I agree with you, it's very difficult sometimes to describe the chain of command or the exact characterization of what is a PDF as opposed to an allied or just another opposition group. But we have, for example, also reached out to the National Unity Government about one crime that we knew that they had investigated. We asked them to share their investigation with us, and they did so, which we're very grateful for that kind of cooperation. We've also reached out to other armed groups about allegations of crimes that we've seen or videos we've seen posted online that show things like executions of soldiers. They haven't been as cooperative with us in providing information. And of course, we've reached out multiple times, dozens of times, to the Myanmar military seeking information from them, and they have never cooperated with us.

Well noted. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll go back to you, Antonio, Spanish news agency.

Thank you. Regarding the airstrikes, I would like to know if all these attacks denounced in the report come from the junta, from the army, or given that drones and paramotors are also used, that also some other armed groups have the ability to conduct them. And also in one paragraph, the report says that there is attacks against the facilities under the control of opposition armed groups, does it mean that the junta is, and these attacks are killing Myanmar soldiers? So does it mean that the junta is killing its own soldiers with some of these attacks? Thank you.

That is an allegation that we're investigating. That's correct. The allegation is that the military bombed detention facilities where some of its own soldiers and their families were present, and we're collecting evidence to determine the truth of that. In regards to the airstrikes, of course, if it is an airplane, it's the military. The military is the only force that has airplanes in Myanmar. But you're also correct, of course, that some opposition have used drones. There's one strike in particular, a drone strike, where we're looking where there are allegations that it was an armed group that was responsible for the attack, and we're collecting evidence in order to examine those allegations.

Thank you again. Let's see if we have yes, Robin, AFP.

Thank you. Forgive me if you've already gone over this, but these new methods of attack that you're documenting in your report, drone strikes, paragliders, et cetera, where are they getting these drones from? What is the source of this new material which is playing a factor in the conflict? Thank you.

Well, thank you. That is one of the areas that we hope to examine. where material is coming from. So, you know, it depends upon the sophistication of the drone, I think, where the materials are coming from. But we're looking into that. I really don't have an answer to your question right now.

Okay, thank you. Fair enough. Any further questions? No, I don't see any. if you had any final comments before we wrap up or.

-- I just want to thank you again for your interest, for coming. This is a very difficult process to try to collect evidence and hope for criminal prosecutions around the world for crimes in a country that's in the midst of a very serious civil conflict. But we think it's still very important that victims know someone is collecting evidence, someday there may be justice for what has happened to them, and also that potential perpetrators know, again, someone is watching, someone is collecting evidence. You can't be sure that you won't be prosecuted if you commit the crime that you're contemplating. So thank you again for your interest.

Thanks to you. Thank you. Colleagues, we'll be back at 10:30 sharp to start our regular briefing. Thanks.