Myanmar's junta chief created a special command a day after last year's coup that was solely responsible for deployment and operations of troops in urban areas, and authorized lethal attacks on unarmed civilians, human rights investigators said.
The group Fortify Rights and Yale Law School's Schell Center said after a joint investigation the junta leadership deployed snipers to kill protesters to instill fear, while soldiers were instructed to commit crimes and given a "fieldcraft" manual that contained no guidance on rules of war.
The investigators, in a 193-page report released on Thursday, analyzed leaked documents and 128 testimonies from various sources including survivors, medical workers, witnesses and former military and police personnel, about the turmoil in Myanmar in the six months after the coup on Feb. 1 last year.