8/8/22, 9:18 PM New evidence shows how Myanmar's military planned the Rohingya purge overran several border guard posts in northern Rakhine state, killing nine police officers. The army sealed off the area and began hunting the attackers. Nay Myo Thet, the soldier who deserted, said he and others in his battalion were told they were conducting “clearance operations” in Rakhine. But their superiors didn’t give specific orders of what to clear. They should have given the soldiers a target – “who was the leader, who were the followers, which weapons they had,” he said. The military cleared out entire populations, he added. For months, security forces pillaged and burned villages across the north of Rakhine, according to human rights groups and the United Nations, which said about 70,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in that purge. Security forces carried out killings and gang rape, according to a UN report. In February 2017, the military declared the operations over. But hostility towards the Rohingya continued. In July 2017, a group met in private to discuss operations in Rakhine, one record shows. Those present included Maung Maung Soe, the head of the Western Command, which had overseen the previous year’s crackdown, and Thura San Lwin, the head of the Border Guard Police. There were also commanders from the Military Operation Command-15 division and several local administrators.  Thura San Lwin talks to the media in front of his headquarters outside Maungdaw in Rakhine in October 2016, when he was chief of the Border Guard Police. According to an o icial document, he told a meeting in Rakhine in August 2017 that security forces would carry out “area clearance.” REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun One senior official said that at least 50% of the Rohingya population supported terrorism. A senior member of the security forces said Muslim villages were providing “protection” to militants. Maung Maung Soe expressed frustration about the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the security forces in Muslim villages. A MOC-15 commander spoke about recruiting “kalars as spies and underlings” to obtain the latest news. “Kalar” is another racial slur for Muslims. In the end, the group agreed to send health workers to villages to gather “valuable information.” They also determined that the army’s actions needed to be concealed from the outside world. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rohingya-warcrimes-investigation/ 18/34