Figuring out of Geneva, there are consultants in gender violence and crimes towards kids; analysts with expertise in worldwide justice; specialists in open supply proof; and investigators working with subtle data techniques.
The workforce of execs are formally referred to as the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, (IIMM) or Myanmar Mechanism, and was created in 2018 by the Human Rights Council.
The Mechanism was established after an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission discovered “clear patterns” of violations by the navy, referred to as the Tatmadaw, and insisted that the perpetrators of the “gross human rights violations”, together with these towards the Rohingya, should not go unpunished.
The IIMM just isn’t a court docket, neither does it have the ability to prosecute. The hope is that each one the data that might in any other case be misplaced, is preserved, and then shared with nationwide, regional or worldwide courts.
In an intensive interview with UN Information, the pinnacle of the Mechanism, Nicholas Koumjian, explains the significance of preserving this proof earlier than it is doubtlessly misplaced.
“Crime scenes get disturbed, our bodies decompose, wounds can heal, individuals’s reminiscences can fade, witnesses with data can cross away”, he explains. “So it’s essential to gather the knowledge whilst you can.”
The interview has been edited for readability and size.
UN Information: You and your colleagues have been working for over two years. What has been your focus? What has been achieved to date?
Nicholas Koumjian: We began two years in the past, in July of 2019, and we have been build up the Mechanism, buying all of the experience that we imagine can be crucial.
We now have these with experience in Worldwide Legal regulation, in issues like gender violence, investigation of crimes towards kids, investigation of sexual assaults, analysts with expertise in very complicated worldwide circumstances.
We now have these with expertise in utilizing open supply proof and really subtle and safe data techniques, in order that the knowledge that we gather and protect, is held confidentially and nobody has entry to it, and that additionally permits us to analyse the very huge portions of information that we have now collected.
We’re now trying on the proof that we have collected, over two million items, and analysing that in varied conditions, that we imagine have the potential to quantity to felony circumstances towards people chargeable for these offences.
UN Information: Are there any preliminary conclusions? Are you able to share any?
Nicholas Koumjian: What’s totally different about our mechanism is that we’re not likely a reporting mechanism. We’re not a court docket or prosecution service. We’re gathering the proof and getting ready information to share them with these courts which may, or judicial authorities which may have the authority, and the willingness, to carry honest proceedings to carry people to account.
We have particularly been requested to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has an investigation associated to Rakhine State [home to many of those mostly-Rohingya Muslims who have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh], and we’re doing that.
We even have been requested by the events on the International Court of Justice to share proof, and we checked out that state of affairs. We wish to assist the judges in that case attain the most effective determination, and so we have agreed to search for related proof that we are able to share, with the permission of people who supplied it to us.
Nicolas Koumjian, Head of the Independant Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar., by UN Picture/ Jean Marc Ferré
🎧 Listen to the interview with Mr. Koumjian.
UN Information: Are you able to inform me the way you’re conducting this work with out getting access to the nation?
Nicholas Koumjian: It is unlucky that we do not have entry. The Human Rights Council particularly requested Myanmar to cooperate with us and we have reached out to them and we’ll proceed to succeed in out and search cooperation and entry to the nation, to the crime scenes, and to witnesses inside Myanmar once we can accomplish that safely.
UN Information: Do you’ve any hope that it may well occur at any time quickly?
Nicholas Koumjian: I do not suppose there’s an instantaneous prospect of that taking place. However what I’ve discovered is, in Worldwide Legal regulation, and usually in historical past, it is very laborious to foretell the long run. Issues can change a lot faster than we imagined, so we’ll proceed to succeed in out and hope that issues do change and that we are going to ultimately have entry.
UN Information: Relating to the navy coup in in February, has it impacted your work? If so, in what methods?
Nicholas Koumjian: We mentioned, when the coup first occurred, that the change of presidency itself, the overthrow of the constitutional authority, the query of honest elections and democratic course of, just isn’t inside our mandate, which is proscribed to essentially the most critical worldwide crimes and violations of worldwide regulation.
However we mentioned that we had been very involved, given the historical past of Myanmar, of so many crimes towards civilians occurring in political conflicts, that we might be watching the state of affairs intently.
What we have seen since then is, sadly, that it seems that very critical crimes have been occurring, all through the nation, in several areas, systematically and on a widespread foundation. So, we’re gathering that data.
Many various sources have been voluntarily reaching out to us to supply us with data.
Others we have now contacted. I imagine we acquired over 200,000 communications simply within the first few months after the coup, so it is elevated the burden on us, however it’s additionally given us the alternative to have extra people and organizations prepared to talk to us, extra alternatives to speak to those that have details about what is going on or has occurred prior to now in Myanmar. And this has created some alternatives for investigations.
Circumstances have ‘worsened’ in Myanmar following a navy coup in February 2021, in response to a UN human rights rapporteur., by Asian Improvement Financial institution
UN Information: Is it right to say that a few of these investigations, a few of the data you are gathering, would not in any other case occur, or be collected, in case your mechanism did not exist?
Nicholas Koumjian: Sure, I imagine that it is completely honest to say that.
I’ve labored on totally different warfare crime tribunals, totally different processes to hunt accountability, and one of many issues that we have seen in different conflicts is the significance of preserving data whereas it is nonetheless recent, whilst you can, as a result of, in fact, crime scenes get disturbed, our bodies decompose, wounds can heal, individuals’s reminiscences can fade, witnesses with data can die, can cross away with out that data being collected.
So, it is essential to gather the knowledge whilst you can, as a result of sadly worldwide justice typically is an extended course of.
I got here to the Myanmar mechanism from being the co-prosecutor on the Extraordinary Chambers for the courts in Cambodia, in any other case referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, which was trying into crimes dedicated between 1975 to 1979.
Even in 2019, 40 years after these crimes had been dedicated, that course of was ongoing, and the proof was getting used. Thankfully, loads of the proof that was used there had been collected by a civil society group, DC-Cam, within the Nineties, and that was very useful to us.
So we expect what we’re doing now is essential, to protect the proof in order that sometime – and we hope it definitely will likely be a lot earlier than 40 years – this proof can be utilized in courts that may maintain these chargeable for crimes accountable.
UN NEWS: Once you speak about data and proof, what are you speaking about? Digital communications? Forensic proof?
Nicholas Koumjian: It is a broad class of data. We will likely be gathering data from people, generally interviewing people, gathering data that totally different organizations have beforehand collected, consolidating that, and analysing it.
digital data, taking a look at photographic and video data, analysing that with essentially the most fashionable data applied sciences. We will find the place movies had been taken and determine the duplicates, as a result of we’re getting so many hundreds and hundreds of movies and pictures, this is essential for us to do.
UN NEWS: And also you’re getting these from civil society organizations? Individuals within the nation?
Nicholas Koumjian: We’re getting it from a broad vary of various sources, and naturally one of many fundamental premises of our work is that we do not identify the people or organizations that we acquired the knowledge from. However I might say from a really broad vary of various sorts, organizations, companies, people, many several types of sources.
UN NEWS: You spoke about having justice. What does it appear to be on this case?
Nicholas Koumjian: I believe in Myanmar, as in lots of different conflicts around the globe, many, many individuals have suffered. A few of them proceed to undergo. There are tons of of hundreds of refugees residing outdoors of their houses, both inside Myanmar or outdoors the borders of the nation, eager to go residence.
Sadly, the crimes that they fled from proceed to happen in a roundabout way or one other, so they do not really feel it is secure to go residence.
A part of justice is assuring that those that dedicated crimes beforehand with impunity will now be held accountable, in order that hopefully that may deter future crimes from occurring, and that the individuals of Myanmar who suffered can have some hope that these crimes will finish and that they may obtain some justice for what occurred to themselves or to their relations.
