A 38-year-old man told Amnesty: “My sister and brother were both kidnapped by the army. I saw with my own eyes how the military burned down our village, and how soldiers raped women and girls.”
Another man, aged 58, said: “We saw helicopters firing on the village. We ran into the forest to save our lives.”
A woman aged 44 said soldiers had handcuffed young men in her village before shooting them dead and pushing their bodies into mass graves.
“The response of the army to the attacks on security forces six weeks ago went far beyond what was necessary and proportionate,” said Patel. “Instead of investigating and arresting specific suspects, the army carried out operations amounting to collective punishment.”
There are about 1 million Rohingya in Myanmar who are denied citizenship. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh, many of whom live in camps in Cox’s Bazaar. The Bangladesh government has refused to grant refugee status to Rohingya arriving from Myanmar since 1992.
Thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar where they have been attacked by security forces are being pushed back by the Bangladeshi authorities, according to Amnesty International.
Those that do make it to makeshift camps in the town of Cox’s Bazaar are facing shortages of food and water, and some are suffering from severe malnutrition.
The Rohingya are fleeing military operations in Myanmar in which scores of people have been killed and as many as 30,000 displaced. The attacks are in reprisal for an assault on three border posts last month that left nine Myanmarpolice officers dead, but the Rohingya have been persecuted in the country for years.
Bangladeshi border guards have detained and forcibly returned hundreds of people, Amnesty said on Friday. The actions were in violation of international law, which prohibits the return of people to a country or place where they are at serious risk, it added.
“The Rohingya are being squeezed by the callous actions of both the Burmese [Myanmar] and Bangladesh authorities,” said Champa Patel, Amnesty’s South Asia director.
“Fleeing collective punishment in Burma, they are being pushed back by the Bangladesh authorities. Trapped between these cruel fates, their desperate need for food, water and medical care is not being addressed.”
She added: “The Bangladeshi government must not add to the suffering of the Rohingya. They should be recognised and protected as refugees fleeing persecution, not punished for who they are.”
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, has been criticised for not doing more to end the military actions, which – according to witness accounts given to Amnesty – include firing at villagers from helicopter gunships, torching hundreds of homes, carrying out arbitrary arrests and raping women and girls.
The Myanmar government has denied allegations of human rights violations by the military and has accused “Rohingya lobbyists” of disseminating fabricated accounts. Access to the area for aid workers, human rights monitors and independent journalists is effectively barred, said Amnesty.
Myanmar is seeking the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority from its territory, a senior UN official has told the BBC
Armed forces have been killing Rohingya in Rakhine state, forcing many to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, says John McKissick of the UN refugee agency.
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been conducting counter-insurgency operations since coordinated attacks on border guards in October.
It denies reports of atrocities.
A spokesman said the government was "very, very disappointed" by the comments.
Burmese officials say Rohingya are setting fire to their own houses in northern Rakhine state. The BBC cannot visit the area to verify what is occurring there, as journalists and aid workers have been barred.
The Rohingya, who number about one million, are seen by many of Myanmar's Buddhist majority as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
Media captionRohingya Muslims 'hated and hounded from Burmese soil'
Although Bangladesh's official policy is not to allow in illegal entrants across the border, the foreign ministry has confirmed that thousands of Rohingya have already sought refuge in the country, while thousands more are reportedly gathering on the border.
Efforts to resolve the issue must focus on "the root cause" inside Myanmar, Mr McKissick, head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR in the Bangladeshi border town of Cox's Bazar, told BBC Bengali's Akbar Hossain.
He said the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police had "engaged in collective punishment of the Rohingya minority" after the murders of nine border guards on 9 October which some politicians blamed on a Rohingya militant group.
Security forces have been "killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing these people to cross the river" into Bangladesh, Mr McKissick said.
"Now it's very difficult for the Bangladeshi government to say the border is open because this would further encourage the government of Myanmar to continue the atrocities and push them out until they have achieved their ultimate goal of ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority in Myanmar," he said.
Where is Aung San Suu Kyi? - BBC Myanmar Correspondent Jonah Fisher
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is in a delicate position. She is Myanmar's de facto leader, but security is under the control of the autonomous armed forces.
If Ms Suu Kyi bows to international pressure and sets up a credible investigation into the alleged abuses in Rakhine state, she risks fracturing her relationship with the army. It could jeopardise the stability of her young government.
So for the last six weeks Ms Suu Kyi has kept her head firmly in the sand, avoiding journalists and press conferences.
When forced, she has commented that the military in Rakhine is operating according to the "rule of law". Few believe that to be the case.
While there are loud calls from overseas for action, most Burmese have very little sympathy for the Rohingya. The army's "clearance operations" against the "violent attackers" of Rakhine state appear to have strong popular support, putting Ms Suu Kyi under very little domestic pressure.
Myanmar's presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said Mr McKissick "should maintain his professionalism and his ethics as a United Nations officer because his comments are just allegations".
"He should only speak based on concrete and strong evidence on the ground," he said.
On Wednesday, the Bangladesh foreign ministry summoned Myanmar's ambassador to express "deep concern" over the military operation in northern Rakhine state.
It said "desperate people" were crossing the border seeking safety and shelter and asked Myanmar to "ensure the integrity of its border".
Authorities in Bangladesh have been detaining and repatriating hundreds of fleeing Rohingya, which Amnesty International condemned as a violation of international law.
Bangladesh does not recognise Rohingya as refugees, and many of those fleeing Myanmar have been "forced into hiding and are suffering a severe lack of food and medical care", the rights group said.
Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers have arrived into Bangladesh from Myanmar in waves since at least the 1970s. There are some 33,000 registered Rohingya refugees living in Cox's Bazar's two camps, Kutupalong and Nayapara.
Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch released satellite images which it said showed that more than 1,200 homes had been razed in Rohingya villages over the past six weeks.
Image copyrightHUMAN RIGHTS WATCHImage captionA satellite image of the village of Wa Peik, Maungdaw district on 10 NovemberImage copyrightHUMAN RIGHTS WATCHImage captionThe same area pictured in a satellite image recorded on 18 November
What is happening in Rakhine state?
A massive security operation was launched last month after nine police officers were killed in co-ordinated attacks on border posts in Maungdaw.
Some government officials blamed a militant Rohingya group for the attacks. Security forces then sealed off access to Maungdaw district and launched a counter-insurgency operation.
Rohingya activists say more than 100 people have been killed and hundreds arrested amid the crackdown.
Soldiers have also been accused of serious human rights abuses, including torture, rape and executions, which the government has flatly denied.
It says militants have attacked helicopter gunships providing air support to troops.
Who are the Rohingya?
The estimated one million Muslim Rohingya are seen by many in mainly Buddhist Myanmar as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. They are denied citizenship by the government despite many having lived there for generations.
Communal violence in Rakhine state in 2012 left scores dead and displaced more than 100,000 people, with many Rohingya still remaining in decrepit camps.
They face widespread discrimination and mistreatment.
Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Rohingya are estimated to live in Bangladesh, having left Myanmar over decades.
Is the government to blame?
Myanmar held its first openly contested election in 25 years last November, with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy winning a landslide victory.
Though she is barred from the presidency due to a constitutional rule, Ms Suu Kyi, who serves as State Counsellor, is seen as de-facto leader.
But her government, led as it is by a former human rights icon, has faced international criticism over the dire situation in Rakhine state.
Rights groups have questioned why journalists and aid workers are not being allowed to enter northern Rakhine.
Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay says the international media is misreporting what is going on.
The sun might have set on the formidable British empire, but not on its legacy.
Many of the present day conflicts around the world have deep-seated links with British colonial polices, their mismanagement of the process of independence, and the legacy they left behind in law, by drawing up unviable borders and by migrating cheap labour from one colony to the other.
Shashi Tharoor’s book, ‘An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India’,scheduled to release next month, is expected to talk about the colonial looting of India.
But while it’s up to these erstwhile colonies now to resolve matters on their own and the blame cannot forever lie with the British, in many situations the roots of the conflict lie in imperialism.
Here’s a list of 7 present day conflicts around the world triggered and often exacerbated by the English colonisers.
1. No Country for Rohingyas
Discriminated against for years, the Rohingyas of Myanmar have been classified by the United Nations as one of the ‘most persecuted refugee groups in the world’.
But their origin in fact has been disputed since the British conquest of Arakan – present day Rakhine in western Myanmar – where most Rohingyas live. From 1825 up till 1948, when Myanmar (then Burma) won independence from the British, thousands of Bengalis (or “Chittagonians”) from undivided India arrived at Arakan, to work and boost the colonial economy.
The Muslim minority in a Buddhist-dominated country, the Myanmar government considers the nearly one million strong Rohingya population illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who are often pejoratively called “Bengalis”.
Stateless, persecuted and isolated, the Rohingyas today can claim citizenship neither in neither in Myanmar nor in Bangladesh.
2. Israel-Palestine and the Balfour Declaration
The formation of the Jewish state of Israel in the middle-east is a direct result of Britain’s infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917.
In a letter to Baron Rothschild, a leader of the Zionist movement, Britain’s then Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour declared that his government “would use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object (of establishing a national home for Jewish people in Palestine)“.
As late British author and journalist Arthur Koestler said of the bargain: "One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third."
The declaration was a complete turnaround on Britain’s earlier promise of liberation for the Arabs if they rose up against the Ottoman empire.
It was implemented by the British mandate of 1920 in Palestine that resulted in the creation of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent displacement of Palestinians.
Though several British MPs have voted in favour of recognising a Palestinian state, the country is far from atoning for its actions.
3. Pakistan-Afghanistan and the Disputed Durand Line
The controversial Durand Line, Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan is a colonial legacy that has shaped Afghanistan’s foreign policy with Pakistan for decades.
The line – hastily drawn by the British for the fear of the Russian Empire coming closer to British India via Afghanistan – arbitrarily divides the Pashtun tribal lands into either sides of the border.
In 1893, the British sought control of the strategic Khyber Pass, and a British diplomat, Mortimer Durand, was sent over to the Emirate of Afghanistan to negotiate a border.
The resulting Durand Line also took away the province of Baluchistan, Afghanistan’s strategic access to the Arabian Sea.
The agreement was apparently only a page long, and was drawn up in English, with copies in Daro and Pashto. Though the Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan could neither read nor understand English, Durand decided that would be the definitive copy.
Subsequent Afghan governments have reaffirmed the colonial-era border under British pressure. The Pakistan government’s recent insistence on sending the mostly Afghani Pashtun refugees back has exacerbated tensions between the two countries.
4. The Cyprus Dispute
The dispute over the island of Cyprus on the Mediterranean has been a four-decade-long conflict between Greece and Turkey.
The Cyprus Convention of 1878 between Britain and Turkey made Cyprus a British protectorate – administered by Britain but remaining under Turkish sovereignty – to protect this Ottoman jewel from Russia.
In 1914, however, when Britain and Turkey became adversaries in World War I, Britain formally colonised Cyprus. British occupation was at first celebrated by the Greek Cypriots, who expected the coloniser to transfer Cyprus to Greece.
Britain’s retreat from Cyprus, however, was amidst growing tension between Greece and Turkey over their respective claims on the island.
In 1955, British governor, John Harding offered Greek-Cypriot community leader, Archbishop Makarios the right to self-determination after seven years.
Reaching a dead-end in negotiations, the British began to stoke Turkish interests in Cyprus.
The island was given independence in 1960 with a power-sharing arrangement, which installed Makarios as president and a Turkish-Cypriot as vice-president. From the outset, however, the arrangement was fragile and within three years of independence, the system broke down. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus.
5. Indian Communalism and the Policy of Divide and Rule
While India continues to grapple with communal tensions, several schools of historians argue that Indian communalism has roots in the pre-Independence era, actively aided and abetted by the British Raj.
According to historian Bipan Chandra, communal politics has been organised around government jobs and educational concessions which can provide easier access to economic opportunities. By favouring certain communities over others, the British encouraged communalism to quell popular struggles.
Even in the way the Raj designed the census, identity questions like “Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?” polarised the communities. The policy of divide and rule was actively applied in the re-organisation of the Indian Army after the mutiny of 1857.
6. North Borneo and the Interpretation of 'Pajak'
The North Borneo dispute between Malaysia and Philippines is over the state of Sabah. The territorial dispute pre-dates to the time the British North Borneo Chartered Company operated in the area.
The Philippines assert a territorial claim over much of eastern Sabah as the Filipinos maintain that the territory belonged to and continues to belong to the Sultanate of Sulu.
At the heart of the disagreement between Malaysia and the Philippines is a contract made in 1878 between the Sultanate of Sulu and the British North Borneo Company.
Under the contract, known as pajak, the British could occupy Sabah as long as it paid a regular sum of money. But the British, and subsequently an independent Malaysia interpreted the contract to mean sale, while the Sulu Sultanate continues to maintain it means lease.
The issue between the two erstwhile imperial colonies is still a factor behind growing violence and instability on the islands of Sulu
7. India, China and the McMahon ‘Lie’
The McMahon Line that designates the border between India and China has for decades been a bone of contention between the two neighbours. The line was allegedly agreed upon during the Simla Conference organised by Sir Henry McMahon, the then Foreign Secretary of British India.
Revisionist findings by academic Karunakar Gupta, however, suggests that the line was never actually agreed upon.
At the conference, called by McMahon to settle the border dispute between India and China, only the China-Tibet border was discussed. The Tibetan and Indian representatives signed the agreement. China, who considers Tibet its territory, did not.
In 1929, the 14th volume of the Aitchison’s Treaties – which compiled all the treaties and agreements executed in imperial India – showed that the Simla Conference had only been about China and Tibet and not any McMahon line.
Olaf Caroe, the then deputy secretary, went ahead and ordered the destruction of the 1929 volume. Instead, he released a forged volume with the same date that said Britain recognised Chinese suzerainty over Tibet and the border between Tibet and India was fixed along the McMahon Line.
With the original documents destroyed, this became the accepted truth for the Nehru and the governments that came after.
The Iraqi Army has entered Mosul for the first time in over two years at the start of a battle which is likely to end in a decisive defeat for ISIS. The significance of the fight for Mosul will be all the greater for Isis because its self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be still inside the city, a senior Kurdish official told The Independent.
Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, said in an exclusive interview that his government had information from multiple sources that “Baghdadi is there and, if he is killed, it will mean the collapse of the whole [Isis] system.” Isis would have to choose a new caliph in the middle of a battle, but no successor would have the authority and prestige of Baghdadi, the leader who surprised the world by establishing the caliphate after capturing Mosul in June 2014.
Baghdadi has kept himself concealed for the last eight or nine months according to Mr Hussein, who added that the caliph had become very dependent on Isis commanders from Mosul and Tal Afar, a city just to the west of Mosul. Other senior and better known figures in Isis, particularly those from Syria and other countries, have been killed since their initial triumphs in the summer of 2014 when they took over much of northern Iraq and eastern Syria.
The presence of Baghdadi in Mosul may complicate and prolong the battle for Mosul as his surviving adherents fight to the death to defend him. Mr Hussein said that “it is obvious that they will lose, but not how long this will take to happen.” He said that Kurdish Peshmerga forces had been impressed by the extraordinary number of tunnels that Isis had dug in order to provide hiding places in the villages around Mosul.
Iraqi Special Forces advanced into Mosul, which once had a population of two million, on Tuesday seizing the state television on the east bank of the Tigris River that divides the city in half. Mr Hussein said that the speed of the fall of Mosul would depend on many factors especially whether or not Isis “is going to destroy the five bridges over the river.”
Iraqi army units backed by US-led air strikes have been attacking across the Nineveh Plain to the east of Mosul, capturing empty towns and villages from which the inhabitants have almost entirely fled. Where Christians and other minorities have tried to return to their old homes in towns like Bartella and Qaraqosh, they have found them looted and often burned by retreating Isis fighters.
Iraqi troops entered Gogjali, a district inside Mosul’s city limits, and later the borders of the more built-up Karama district, according to Major General Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces. Under an agreement reached before the offensive began on 17 October, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia-militia paramilitaries known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, will not join the attack into Mosul, which is a largely Sunni Arab city.
As night fell, a sandstorm blew up cutting visibility to only 100 yards making air support for Iraqi forces more difficult and bringing the fighting to an end. “Daesh (Isis) is fighting back and have set up concrete blast walls to block off the Karama neighbourhood and [stop] our troops’ advance,” General Aridi said. He added later that the troops had taken the nearby state television building, the only one in Nineveh province, but there had been heavy fighting when they tried to move further into built-up areas. They are still some six miles from the city centre.
The anti-Isis offensive is dependent on US-led air strikes and the presence of US special forces. “I assure you that the Iraqi Army and the Peshmerga do not move one millimetre forward without American permission and coordination,” said one Kurdish observer. He did not think that the battle for Mosul would necessarily go on a long time. But it is increasingly difficult for the 3,000 to 5,000 Isis fighters in Mosul and the 1,500 to 2,500 on the outskirts to escape, even if they wanted to. The Iraqi Army and the Peshmerga encircle the city to the north, east and west and the Hashd are moving in from the west, cutting the last routes to Syria.
US spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said that the US-led airpowers had noticed that Isis forces could no longer move in large numbers. “And when we see them come together where there are significant numbers we will strike them and kill them,” he said during a televised press conference. Some 1,792 Iraqis of whom 1,120 were civilians were killed in October according to the UN, though the total probably does not include Isis fighters.
Eyewitnesses inside Mosul, where Isis is reported to have killed 40 Iraqi prisoners at the weekend and thrown their bodies into the Tigris, say there are few fighters to be seen in the streets. “There are mostly just teenagers with guns,” said one Mosul resident reached by telephone. Part of the city is shrouded in smoke because of air strikes and artillery fire, but also because Isis fighters are lighting fires to produce a smokescreen which will make observation from the air more difficult.
It has been reported that Isis commanders were divided on whether or not it was better for them to make a last stand in Mosul or withdraw, after inflicting the maximum number of casualties on its enemies, and revert to guerrilla warfare. Last month 100 Isis fighters staged a spectacular raid on the Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk. An advantage for Isis in fighting in Mosul is that it would be more difficult for the US and its allies to carry out air strikes because there may be up to 1.5 million civilians still in the city. Isis has been preventing them leaving though the number is increasing as the anti-Isis forces move forward and it becomes clear that they intend to assault the city.
Isis has never been popular in Mosul according to local residents who detest its extreme violence, religious bigotry and subjugation of women. But it found more support in Sunni Arab villages around the city and among the Sunni Turkman of the nearby city of Tal Afar, who have always been notorious for their religious extremism and hatred for Shia and Kurds. Some observers believe that Isis might want to fight here against the Shia paramilitaries of the Hashd, because the US-led air coalition has not been providing air cover for the Hashd on the grounds that they are sectarian and under Iranian influence.
The fighting is so far on the eastern side of Mosul that traditionally had a Kurdish and Christian population while, if Isis has local support, it will be in the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab west of the city. Life here is said to be still relatively normal with markets open and people in the streets. In addition to the indigenous population of Mosul, there are believed to be several hundred thousand Sunni Arabs, many of them Isis supporters, who fled there from Iraqi provinces such as Anbar, Diyala and Salahudin where Isis has already been defeated.
