Following a United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on Myanmar, a damning U.N. report published Monday concludes that the nation's military leaders, including its top commander, should be further investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims in the wake of a violent crackdown last August that forced more than half a million refugees to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled northern Rakhine state to Bangladesh after Myanmar launc-hed a brutal crackdown on insurgents in August last year amid accounts of arson, murder and rape by soldiers and vigilante mobs in the mainly Buddhist country. According to the UN, Facebook, which has become one of Myanmar’s most used websites in recent years, has been exploited by vigilante groups and the country’s military to propagate hate speech and anti-Rohingya “propaganda.”

Facebook responded immediately to the allegations on Monday by declaring that it has blocked the accounts of 20 Myanmar officials and organizations found by the UN to have “committed or enabled serious human rights abuses.”

The United States, which has long championed Aung San Suu Kyi as a poster girl of democracy promotion, is reportedly conducting its own inquiry into the Myanmar military’s campaign. “Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children and burning entire villages.”

The fact-finding mission concluded that there was “sufficient information” to open a genocide and war crimes investigation of senior Myanmar generals. The Tatmadaw’s tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats.”

The UN points the finger at particular members of the Tatmadaw’s echelon and blames five senior officials for orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The Mission also concluded “there is sufficient information to warrant the investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.”

 “The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts,” the report states. "Myanmar’s top military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in the north of Rakhine State, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States," a UN-backed fact-finding mission said. Five other military commanders are also named in the report: the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Vice Senior-General Soe Win; the Commander, Bureau of Special Operations-3, Lieutenant-General Aung Kyaw Zaw; the Commander, Western Regional Military Command, Major-General Maung Maung Soe; the Commander, 33rd Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Aung Aung; the Commander, 99th Light Infantry Division, Brigadier-General Than Oo. While the report determines that six leaders of the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw—most notably Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing—bear the greatest responsibility for such crimes, it also charges that State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, "has not used her de facto position as head of government, nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events in Rakhine State." It also urges the U.N. Security Council to "ensure accountability for crimes under international law committed in Myanmar, preferably by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court or alternatively by creating an ad hoc international criminal tribunal," as well as to "adopt targeted individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against those who appear most responsible for serious crimes under international law" and to "impose an arms embargo on Myanmar."
A United Nations Human Rights Council report based on 875 interviews recommends Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals in Myanmar be investigated and prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes since the 1960s.