Description:
''On April 30, 2015, Thai authorities announced the discovery of a mass grave in a makeshift
camp in a forested area near the Malaysian border. The grave contained more than 30
bodies of suspected victims of human trafficking believed to be Rohingya Muslims and
Bangladeshi nationals. Less than one month later, on May 25, the Royal Malaysian Police
announced the discovery of 139 graves and 28 suspected human-trafficking camps in
Wang Kelian, Perlis State, Malaysia.
Rohingya Muslims have faced military-led attacks and severe persecution in Myanmar
for decades. Fortify Rights, the United Nations, and other organizations determined
that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the Myanmar authorities committed
genocide against Rohingya—a crime that continues to today. These crimes forced
hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee the country in recent years. Most fled
with hopes of finding sanctuary in Bangladesh and Malaysia, the nearest predominantly
Muslim countries. This report documents how a transnational criminal syndicate—a group of individuals or organizations working together for common criminal interests—
in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia preyed on Rohingya refugees, deceiving
them into boarding ships supposedly bound for Malaysia.
Motivated by profit, between 2012 and 2015, a transnational criminal syndicate held
Rohingya as well as Bangladeshis at sea and in human-trafficking camps on the MalaysiaThailand border. Traffickers provided their captives with three options: raise upwards
of 7,000 Malaysian Ringgit (US$2,000) in exchange for release, be sold into further
exploitation, or die in the camps. Members of a syndicate tortured, killed, raped, and
otherwise abused untold numbers of men, women, and children, buying and selling them
systematically in many cases, in concert with government officials.
Days after the mass-grave discovery in Thailand in 2015, Thai authorities arrested a
Rohingya man from Myanmar named Anwar, also known as Soe Naing, for alleged
involvement in a human-trafficking ring. Thai authorities went on to arrest 102 other
suspects, including senior Thai government officials.
Thai authorities then began the largest human-trafficking trial in the history of Southeast
Asia. On July 19, 2017, a newly established, specialized human-trafficking court in
Bangkok convicted 62 defendants for crimes related to the trafficking of Rohingya and
Bangladeshis to Malaysia via Thailand. Those found guilty included nine Thai government
officials, including Lieutenant General Manas Kongpaen, a military general who reportedly
received approximately US$1 million (3.49 million Malaysian Ringgit) in profits from the
trafficking trade, including payments amounting to more than US$400,000 (1.39 million
Malaysian Ringgit) in just over one month alone.
In contrast, since 2015, Malaysian courts convicted only four individuals of traffickingrelated offenses connected to the mass graves discovered at Wang Kelian. All those
convicted were foreigners, including one Thai national, two individuals from Myanmar,
and a Bangladeshi national. The Royal Malaysian Police reportedly arrested 12 police
officers but eventually released them due to a lack of evidence.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—the agency mandated
to protect refugees—estimates that more than 170,000 people boarded ships from
Myanmar and Bangladesh bound for Thailand and Malaysia from 2012 to 2015 and that the
criminal syndicate organizing the vessels generated between US$50 million (174.5 million
Malaysian Ringgit) and US$100 million (349 million Malaysian Ringgit) annually. Each
ship reportedly earned traffickers an estimated US$60,000 (209,400 Malaysian Ringgit)
in profits, according to UNHCR. The majority of people trafficked during this period
were Rohingya Muslims; however, in late 2014 and 2015, the syndicate began targeting
Bangladeshi nationals as well.
This is a joint report by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM, referred
to in this report as “the Commission”) and Fortify Rights. It documents human rights
violations perpetrated against Rohingya Muslims trafficked from Myanmar and
Bangladesh to Thailand and Malaysia from 2012 to 2015, the discovery of mass graves
in Wang Kelian in Malaysia’s Perlis State, and the Malaysian authorities’ response to
the discovery of the mass graves. It analyzes the violence against Rohingya within the
framework of relevant international law...''
Date of Publication:
2019-03-27
Date of entry:
2019-04-05
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Countries:
Myanmar
Language:
English
Resource Type:
text
Text quality:
- Good