The State Department announced a contribution of $1 million to the UN's Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) for witness and victim protection efforts by the organization.
U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack announced the contribution to IIMM Sept. 19 during an event cohosted by the State Department and Atlantic Council called, Safeguarding Victims and Witnesses in Atrocity Crime Trials: A Call to Courts and Governments, according to a Sept. 20 news release.
“There is a clear and pressing need to protect victims of and witnesses to crimes in Burma. Credible information provided by victims and witnesses of atrocities committed in Burma is a threat to the military regime, which is actively targeting dissenting voices through forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings,” the news release reported. “This contribution will further support the IIMM’s efforts to ensure victim and witness protection, while also increasing the mechanism’s access to important credible information of crimes committed within the scope of the IIMM’s mandate to investigate, collect, preserve and analyze evidence of the most serious international crimes in Burma since 2011.”
The IIMM was established by the Human Rights Council in September 2018 as “an ongoing independent mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011,” according to its website.
Nicholas Koumjian, who heads the IIMM, addressed the Human Rights Council Sept. 12 with disturbing reports of increasing international crimes being carried out in Myanmar, the agency reported. IIMM has gathered numerous reports and evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes, “including murder, torture, deportation and forcible transfer, persecution, imprisonment and targeting of the civilian population,” he said. “Additionally, there has been an increase in sexual and gender-based crimes against women and children.
“Our annual report noted that we had collected and processed almost three million information items from more than 200 sources, including interview statements, documentation, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery and social media material – more than double what we reported last year. Since the Report was drafted, this number of items has more than doubled again,” he added in his report to the Human Rights Council, the IIMM reported.
