This report by the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, for the first time, establishes in detail the degree to which Myanmar’s military has used its own businesses, foreign companies and arms deals to support brutal operations against ethnic groups that constitute serious crimes under international law, bypassing civilian oversight and evading accountability.

It follows recommendations the Mission’s Experts made last year after documenting how Myanmar’s armed forces brutally violated the human rights of ethnic groups nationwide. The 2018 report focused heavily on “clearance operations” against the Rohingya in Rakhine State that began on 25 August 2017, when security forces killed thousands of Rohingya civilians, raped and sexually abused women and girls, and burned their villages to the ground.