8/8/22, 9:18 PM New evidence shows how Myanmar's military planned the Rohingya purge Nay Myo Thet and another member of the security forces told Reuters they were surprised by the army’s disproportionate response to what they said were small and poorly organized attacks compared with insurgencies conducted by well-equipped militias in other parts of the country. A log of army activities compiled by military authorities and obtained by CIJA records 18 attacks that morning by “Bengali insurgents,” starting with several explosions from handmade bombs. The log doesn’t record the deaths of any members of the security forces, though it does say militants killed Rohingya informers and several Rakhine civilians. The next morning, the burning of Rohingya villages began. The log describes “arson attacks” in the Rakhine township of Maungdaw, with lists of houses, shops, mosques and Arabic language schools destroyed. Hundreds of houses are recorded as burned after “a fire broke out.” The arson continued for weeks. More than 7,000 structures are recorded in the log as having been burned to the ground between August 25 and mid-September. Sometimes the arson is ascribed to “Bengali insurgents.” Sometimes no perpetrator is listed. RELATED CONTENT Myanmar Burning: Inside the expulsion of the Rohingya Biden administration rules Myanmar army committed genocide against Rohingya The young generation risking all to topple the Myanmar junta Moe Yan Naing, a police captain who was stationed in Rakhine, told Reuters there were no attacks by ARSA after August 25, but his superiors ordered him and his colleagues to burn villages. There were many dead bodies in the villages, said Moe Yan Naing. “The troops shot into the village before entering,” he said, referring to the village of Inn Din, where Reuters uncovered a massacre of civilians. “They shot and killed whoever they found in the village.” Moe Yan Naing was the police captain who testified in the 2018 trial of Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were arrested after they uncovered the killings in Inn Din and spent 511 days behind bars. Moe Yan Naing undercut the official narrative in court, saying that the two reporters had been set up by the authorities. He fled the country after the coup, fearing arrest by junta forces. Approximately 392 villages were either partly or completely destroyed, largely by fire, according to UN investigators, who blamed the arson on the Myanmar security forces and local Rakhine residents. This amounted to 40% of all villages in northern Rakhine state. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rohingya-warcrimes-investigation/ 21/34