Myanmar Military
Myanmar military reverts to strategy of massacres, burnings
When the young farmhand returned to his village in Myanmar, he found the still smoldering corpses in a circle in a burned-out hut, some with their limbs tied.
The Myanmar military had stormed Done Taw at 11 a.m. on Dec. 7, he told the AP, with about 50 soldiers hunting people on foot. The farmhand and other villagers fled to the forest and fields, but 10 were captured and killed, including five teenagers, with one only 14, he said. A photo taken by his friend shows the charred remains of a victim lying face down, holding his head up, suggesting he was burned alive.
“I am very upset, it is unacceptable,” said the 19-year-old, who like others interviewed by the AP asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
The carnage at Done Taw is just one of the most recent signs that the Myanmar military is reverting to a strategy of massacres as a weapon of war, according to an AP investigation based on interviews with 40 witnesses, social media, satellite imagery and data on deaths.
The massacres and scorched-earth tactics — such as the razing of entire villages — represent the latest escalation in the military’s violence against both civilians and the growing opposition. Since the military seized power in February, it has cracked down ever more brutally, abducting young men and boys, killing health care workers and torturing prisoners.
The massacres and burnings also signal a return to practices that the military has long used against ethnic minorities such as the Muslim Rohingya, thousands of whom were killed in 2017. The military is now accused of killing at least 35 civilians on Christmas Eve in Mo So village in an eastern region home to the Karenni minority. A witness told the AP that many of the bodies of the men, women and children were burned beyond recognition.
But this time, the military is also using the same methods against people and villages of its own Buddhist Bamar ethnic majority. The focus of most of the latest killings has been in the northwest, including in a Bamar heartland where support for the opposition is strong.
More than 80 people have died in killings of three or more in the Sagaing region alone since August, according to data from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, a group that monitors verified arrests and deaths in Myanmar. These include the deaths of those in Done Taw, five people in Gaung Kwal village on Dec. 12 and nine in Kalay township on Dec. 23, part of a trend that has made Sagaing the deadliest region in Myanmar.
The military is also reprising a hallmark tactic of destroying entire villages where there may be support for the opposition. Satellite imagery the AP obtained from Maxar Technologies shows that more than 580 buildings have been burned in the northwestern town of Thantlang alone since September.
The violence appears to be a response to the local resistance forces springing up across the country, but the military is wiping out civilians in the process. In Done Taw, for example, the military moved in after a convoy hit a roadside bomb nearby, but the people killed were not part of any resistance, another villager told the AP.
“They were just normal workers on the betel-leaf plantation,” the 48-year-old welder said. “They hid because they were afraid.”
For the investigation, the AP spoke to dozens of witnesses, family members, a military commander who deserted, human rights groups and officials, along with analyzing data on deaths from the AAPP. The AP also reviewed satellite imagery and dozens of images and videos, with experts checking them against known locations and events.
The numbers likely fall far short of actual killings because they tend to happen in remote locations, and the military suppresses information on them by curtailing Internet access and checking cell phones.
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“There are similar cases taking place across the country at this point, especially in the northwest of Myanmar,” Kyaw Moe Tun, who refused to leave his position as Myanmar’s United Nations envoy after the military seized power, told the AP. “Look at the pattern, look at the way it’s happened….it is systematic and widespread.”
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, did not respond to several requests by phone and by email for comment. Three days after the Done Taw attack, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper dismissed reports of the slayings as “fake news,” accusing unidentified countries of “wishing to disintegrate Myanmar” by inciting bloodshed.
“The nature of how brazen this attack was is really indicative of the scale of violence we can expect in the coming months, and particularly next year,” said Manny Maung, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Just in the week of the Done Taw massacre, the military killed 20 more people in Sagaing, the AP analysis shows. And on Dec. 17, soldiers killed nine people, including a child, in Gantgaw township in the neighboring region of Magway, a witness told the AP, confirming AAPP data. Troops brought in by helicopter occupied the village for two days, and those who fled returned to find, identify and cremate rotting bodies, the witness said.
The movement of troops suggests that violence in the northwest is likely to pick up. Two military convoys of more than 80 trucks each with troops and supplies from Sagaing have made it to neighboring Chin state, according to an opposition group. And a former military captain told the AP that soldiers in Chin State were resupplied and reinforced in October, and the army is now stockpiling munition, fuel and rations in Sagaing.
The captain, who goes by the nom de guerre Zin Yaw, or Seagull, is a 20-year military veteran who deserted in March and now trains opposition forces. He said he continues to receive updates from friends still in the military and has access to defense documents, several of which he shared with the AP as proof of his access. His identity was also verified by an organization of military deserters.
“What the military worries about most is giving up their power,” said Zin Yaw. “In the military they have a saying, if you retreat, destroy everything. It means that even if they know they are going to lose, they destroy everything.”
The Tatmadaw overthrew the enormously popular Aung San Suu Kyi in February, claiming massive fraud in the 2020 democratic election that saw her party win in a landslide. Since then, the military and police have killed more than 1,375 people and arrested more than 11,200, according to the AAPP.
One of the earliest mass killings took place on March 14 in the township of Hlaing Tharyar in Yangon, the biggest city in Myanmar, according to a report this month from Human Rights Watch. Witnesses said that security forces fired on protesters with military assault rifles and killed at least 65, including bystanders.
As the military’s tactics have turned increasingly brutal, civilians have fought back. Opposition started with a national civil disobedience movement and protests, but has grown increasingly violent with attacks on troops and government facilities.
In May, the opposition National Unity Government announced a new military wing, the People’s Defense Force, and in September declared a “defensive war.” Loose-knit guerrilla groups calling themselves PDF have since emerged across the country, with varying degrees of allegiance to the NUG.
An early example of the military unleashing its battle-tested tactics on majority Buddhist areas came just 23 miles up the river from Done Taw in Kani township. In July, images circulated of massacres in four small villages that Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations called “crimes against humanity.” Four witnesses told the AP that soldiers killed 43 people in four incidents and discarded their bodies in the jungle.
On July 9, soldiers in trucks rolled into Yin village in Kani, launching an attack that would leave 16 dead, according to three witness accounts. The soldiers started shooting and sent people fleeing. Troops surrounded a group in the nearby jungle, said one woman who was captured with her brother.
She was set free, but would never see her brother alive again. When she returned with others three days later, they discovered his body on the forest floor, already rotting in the heat and showing signs of torture.
“We all live in fear,” said the woman, who like the other villagers asked to remain anonymous for safety. “We are worried that they might come back during the night.”
One 42-year-old man said a search party of 50 villagers found three separate clusters of bodies. Some appeared to have been dragged to death along rocky ground with ropes or with their own clothes. The bodies had been pillaged for gold.
“There were some fleshly remains and the odor was so foul,” the villager said. “We couldn’t even get close because of the smell.”
The village is now terrorized into silence, he said, listening for the next attack with their bags packed and the normal rhythms of life frozen in fear.
Another Kani resident told the AP that when soldiers approached his village of Zee Pin Twin on July 26, he fled into the jungle. He returned to find his home broken and blackened by fire. Precious goods were stolen, and important documents, food, and other belongings like wedding photos lay in a smoldering heap.
Two days later, villagers with search dogs found 12 bodies, some buried in shallow pits in the jungle. A villager told the AP that they saw bruises and other signs of torture on the corpses, and that one man’s hands were tied with military boot laces and his mouth gagged.
The descriptions match photographs and videos of burned and brutalized bodies given to the Myanmar Witness monitoring group.
“When there’s image and videos (in) three separate events…it’s very hard to deny,” said Benjamin Strick, head of investigations for the Britain and Thailand-based group.
The AP could not independently verify the grisly images, but they also match incident reports collected by the AAPP. John Quinley, a human rights specialist with Fortify Rights, said the group believes the violence in Kani and in Sagaing is a “direct result” of PDF operations there.
“The Myanmar junta’s strategy is to try to create an environment of terror and try to silence civilians and also try to drive out the PDF,” Quinley said.
That strategy may not be working. Resistance has only stiffened, according to the Kani villagers.
“The whole village plays a role,” one man said. “Some women make gunpowder; people do not work; all the villagers somehow take part in the revolution.”
Another described a few shattered survivors in a village unified by hatred of the military.
“I am not afraid anymore,” he said. “Instead of dying fleeing, I will use my life for a purpose.”
Thousands of army desertions have been reported, although usually of lower ranks, said Quinley from Fortify Rights.
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“These atrocities are happening to everyday people, you know, engineers, university students, businesspeople,” he said. “And so I think there’s a growing solidarity movement across religious and ethnic lines.”
The Tatmadaw has the advantage of airpower and automatic weapons. But the opposition in Sagaing and Chin state relies on knowledge of the terrain and the support of locals, some lightly armed with muzzle-loaded home-made traditional guns.
“They just modify their skills of fighting to the defensive war and guerrilla warfare,” said Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s minister for human rights, in an interview from Europe.
The army’s attacks in Sagaing are thought to be the opening salvo in a campaign to stamp out resistance in Myanmar’s northwest, called Operation Anawrahta. Anawrahta was an 11th-century Buddhist king who established a Burmese empire, and the name carries a special meaning to the military, said the deserter, Zin Yaw.
“That means they are going to brutally crush the people,” he said.
More than 51,000 people are already displaced in seven Sagaing townships, including Kani, and another 30,200 in Chin State, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs.
“What we’re seeing in Sagaing is really interesting, because we’re talking about the Bamar heartland that basically should be the core foundation of this military,” said Maung of Human Rights Watch. “It’s telling how worried the military is of its own people.”
There are now growing signs that the military is turning its focus on Chin state. Chin fighters claim to have killed dozens of soldiers, according to social media analysis by Myanmar Witness.
As fresh soldiers have flowed into Chin state, residents have reported troops putting down protests with live rounds and brutal beatings. A teacher in the town of Mindat said many fled early on, but she was determined not to be forced out.
Then the military fired artillery into the town so the “houses would shake like an earthquake,” she said. Her cousin, a member of the PDF, was killed by a sniper and his body boobytrapped, the teacher said.
That evening, villagers tried to move the body from a distance with a stick. The body blew up.
“We didn’t get back a body,” she said. “Instead we had to collect pieces.”
She fled to neighboring India in October.
A half-day’s drive west from Mindat lies Matupi, a town with two military camps that is now bereft of its young people, according to a college student who fled with her two teenage brothers in October. She said the military had locked people into houses and set them alight, hid bombs in churches and schools, killed three protest leaders she knew and left bodies in the middle of roads to terrorize people.
Yet the resistance has spread, she said.
“People are scared of the military, but they want democracy and they are fighting for democracy,” she said from India, where she now lives. “They are screaming for democracy.”
Thantlang, a town near the Indian border, has also been emptied of its people after four months of heavy fighting, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. Drone footage shot by the group in October and December and seen by the AP shows fires raging inside buildings and charred churches, collapsed schools and ruined homes. The footage matches fires detected by satellites and interviews with villagers.
Rachel, a 23-year-old who had moved home to Thantlang in June to escape the COVID pandemic in Yangon, said residents started hearing explosions and gunfire in the distance. The sounds gradually got closer starting in September.
As the shelling hit the town, she and others hid on the ground floor of their local church for four days, she said.
She then fled for a nearby village. But she sneaked back into town on Dec. 3 to gather belongings. While she was in her home with three friends, small arms fire and explosions suddenly erupted outside.
She felt a hot burn as a bullet tore into her torso. Two of her friends bolted, leaving her alone with a cousin who has trouble walking due to a birth defect.
She told him she was going to die and asked him to leave. But he stayed, wrapping her scarf around her stomach to stem the bleeding. The two managed to get to her motorbike, and her cousin held her with one hand as he drove with the other.
A local doctor determined that the bullet had hit her cell phone and then gone into the left side of her stomach.
“I think I would have died there if it had not hit the phone,” said Rachel, who asked to be identified by one name only for her safety.
The following day she got across the border to Mizoram in India. In an interview with the AP from Mizoram, she said she would return home despite the danger to look after her ailing 70-year-old mother.
In the meantime, the farmhand who told the AP about the Done Taw massacre is defiant. He had been passively supporting the PDF before, but is now vowing to avenge the killings of his neighbors.
“I have just decided to fight until the end for them,” he said. “I will do whatever I can until I die or until I am arrested.”
Myanmar democracy in new era as Suu Kyi sidelined by army
In sentencing Myanmar’s iconic democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to prison, the country’s generals have effectively exiled her from electoral politics. But that doesn’t mean the Southeast Asian nation is back to square one in its stop-start efforts to move toward democracy.
In fact, a younger generation that came of age as the military began loosening its grip on politics and the economy and has tasted some freedoms is well positioned to carry on the struggle.
A de facto coup on Feb. 1 pushed Suu Kyi’s elected government from power, throwing the country into turmoil. But erasing the gains of a decade of opening up has proved more difficult.
People took to the streets en masse almost immediately and have continued sporadic protests since then. As a military crackdown on demonstrations grew increasingly violent, protesters moved to arm themselves.
Within days, a mix of old and new guard, including elected lawmakers who were prevented from taking their seats by the takeover, announced a shadow administration that declared itself the nation’s only legitimate government. It was very consciously assembled to be a diverse group, including representatives of ethnic minorities and one openly gay member, unusual in socially conservative Myanmar.
It, not Suu Kyi, who was arrested in the takeover, has been at the forefront of the opposition — and has garnered significant support among the general population.
While no foreign government has recognized the so-called National Unity Government, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met virtually with two of its representatives. And it has accomplished a kind of standoff at the U.N., which delayed action on a request by Myanmar’s military government for its representative to take its seat. The country’s current delegate has declared his allegiance to the unity government.
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“The coup and its aftermath are not so much the end of a democratization process in Myanmar as they are proof that democratization has actually taken hold of the younger generation,” Priscilla Clapp, who served as the U.S. chief of mission in Myanmar from 1999 to 2002. “In fact, the coup may ultimately prove to be the dramatic end to the older generation of leadership in Myanmar.”
The pro-democracy movement now faces the challenges of continuing to resist military rule, keeping up international pressure for restoring an elected, civilian government, and consolidating support from ethnic groups that have long fought the central government.
Suu Kyi, whose pro-democracy efforts won her the Nobel Peace Prize, and her allies have played important roles in the past, even when sidelined or jailed by the generals. On Monday, the 76-year-old was convicted on charges of incitement and violating coronavirus restrictions and sentenced to four years in prison, though that was almost immediately reduced to two. She faces other charges that could see her imprisoned for life.
But the younger generation may be better placed to carry the mantle anyway.
Unlike their elders, younger people in Myanmar, especially those in the cities, have spent most of their lives without having to worry about being imprisoned for speaking their minds. They have had access to mobile phones and Facebook and grew up believing the country was moving toward greater, not less democracy.
They also seem more willing to reach out to Myanmar’s ethnic minorities. Not only did the unity government include ethnic minority officials in its Cabinet, but it sought out alliances with the powerful ethnic militias, which are fighting for autonomy and rights over their resource-rich lands.
“Even as they are fighting against the military takeover, they are debating among themselves to determine the outlines of a new form of a more democratic and ethnically diverse political system,” said Clapp, who is also a senior adviser to the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Asia Society. “This did not happen with earlier rebellions against military rule before the people had experience with democratic institutions that gave the public a voice.”
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Suu Kyi’s own reputation abroad was deeply marred by her seemingly condoning, or at times even defending, abuses committed by the military against the Muslim Rohingya minority while her government was in power. She disputes allegations that troops killed Rohingya civilians, torched houses and raped women.
The unity government has also been criticized for seeming to neglect the long-oppressed Rohingya, and it remains to be seen how its uneasy alliance with ethnic groups will play out.
But Suu Kyi’s handling of the Rohingya is just one element that complicates her legacy.
An icon of resistance during her 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi agreed to work alongside the generals after she was freed. It was a gamble that left Myanmar’s fledgling democracy in limbo, with the military keeping control of key ministries and reserving a large share of seats in parliament.
Some overseas admirers were disappointed that during its time in power Suu Kyi’s government used British colonial-era security laws to prosecute dissidents and critical journalists, in part of “an ongoing pattern of silencing dissent,” said Jane Ferguson, a lecturer at Australian National University.
In seizing power, the military claimed there was massive fraud in the 2020 election that saw Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy win in a landslide. It said that justified the takeover under a constitution that allows it to seize power in emergencies — though independent election observers did not detect any major irregularities. Critics also assert that the takeover bypassed the legal process for declaring the kind of emergency that allows the army to step in.
Security forces have since quashed nonviolent nationwide protests with deadly force, killing about 1,300 civilians, according to a tally compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Despite the risks, the verdict against Suu Kyi, who remains popular, provoked more spirited protests. In the city of Mandalay on Monday, demonstrators chanted slogans and sang songs popularized during pro-democracy protests in 1988.
“In Yangon, we are seeing local residents resume banging pots and pans late at night in protest,” said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the U.S. Institute of Peace. “These types of moves by the junta are also a key driver and motivation for local people to join people’s defense forces.”
Those forces, which began as a way to protect neighborhoods and villages from the depredations of government troops, are also being supported by the opposition unity government that hopes to turn them into a federal army one day.
In the meantime, the military will keep trying to “terrorize the public into obedience,” said Christina Fink, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University. “They have done so successfully in the past, but this time the opposition is more widespread and takes many different forms so it has been much harder for the regime to achieve its goal.”
Argentinian judiciary to open case against Myanmar military over Rohingya genocide
The Argentinian judiciary has taken a step to open a case against the Myanmar military – including Min Aung Hlaing and much of the current junta’s senior leadership – over the genocide against the Rohingyas, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) has said.
The Second Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court in Buenos Aires confirmed on November 26 that it would launch a case against senior Myanmar officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that some crimes are so horrific that they can be tried anywhere.
BROUK first petitioned the Argentinian judiciary to open such a case in November 2019.
“This is a day of hope not just for us Rohingya but for oppressed people everywhere. The decision in Argentina shows that there is nowhere to hide for those who commit genocide – the world stands firmly united against these abhorrent crimes,” said Tun Khin, President of BROUK.
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The Second Chamber of the Appeal Court reaffirmed in its resolution that “the gravity of the facts and the violation of ius cogens norms permit that those facts are investigated in our country”.
“We applaud the Argentinian judiciary for showing the courage and moral leadership to take up this case. Justice for decades of dehumanising and killings of Rohingya in Myanmar is now within reach,” Tun Khin said.
“This is not just about accountability for Rohingya, however, but for everyone who has suffered under the Myanmar military’s brutal reign. This includes the thousands killed, injured, tortured or disappeared since the coup in February this year.”
The case relates to crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya by Myanmar authorities in Rakhine State for decades. In 2017, the Myanmar military and its proxies launched a vicious campaign in the region, committing the worst atrocities and driving close to 800,000 Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh. The case includes the particular situation of six women who were raped, tortured and in many cases their husbands and children killed during that genocidal campaign in Rakhine State.
International justice efforts
The case in Argentina is the first universal jurisdiction case concerning the Rohingya genocide anywhere in the world, but not the only international legal process against the Myanmar authorities.
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As mentioned above, the ICC in November 2019 approved an investigation into Myanmar for crimes against humanity against the Rohingya.
The Gambia in November 2019 launched a case against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In January 2020, the ICJ imposed “provisional measures” on Myanmar as part of the case, essentially a legal injunction ordering the end to genocidal practices against the Rohingya.
“There is no question that the Myanmar authorities are feeling the pressure of the many international justice efforts that are under way. The architects of the genocide against the Rohingya can and should soon face a Court of Law. We urge the international community to redouble efforts to bring about justice and ensure that this momentum is not lost,” said Tun Khin.
UN investigator: Crimes against humanity under Myanmar junta
The head of the U.N. body investigating the most serious crimes in Myanmar said Friday that preliminary evidence collected since the military seized power on Feb. 1 shows a widespread and systematic attack on civilians “amounting to crimes against humanity.”
Nicholas Koumjian told U.N. reporters that the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which he heads, has received over 200,000 communications since the army takeover and has collected over 1.5 million items of evidence that are being analyzed “so that one day those most responsible for the serious international crimes in Myanmar will be brought to account.”
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In determining that the crimes against civilians appear to be widespread and systematic, he said investigators saw patterns of violence -- a measured response by security forces to demonstrations in the first six weeks or so after the military takeover followed by “an uptick in violence and much more violent methods used to suppress the demonstrators.”
“This was happening in different places at the same time, indicating to us it would be logical to conclude this was from a central policy,” Koumjian said. “And, also, we saw that particular groups were targeted, especially for arrests and detentions that appear to be without due process of law. And this includes, of course, journalists, medical workers and political opponents.”
Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country.
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The Feb. 1 military takeover followed November elections which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly and the military rejects as fraudulent. Since the takeover, Myanmar has been wracked by unrest, with peaceful demonstrations against the ruling generals morphing first into a low-level insurgency in many urban areas after security forces used deadly force and then into more serious combat in rural areas, especially in border regions where ethnic minority militias have been engaging in heavy clashes with government troops.
Christine Schraner Burgener told The Associated Press shortly before her 3 ½ year term as the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar ended on Oct. 31 that “civil war” has spread throughout the country.
The U.N. investigative body was established by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in September 2018 with a mandate to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyze evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar.
Koumjian, an American lawyer who served as an international prosecutor of serious crimes committed in Cambodia, East Timor and Bosnia, was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as its head in 2019 with instructions to prepare files that can facilitate criminal prosecutions in national, regional or international tribunals to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
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Koumjian said his team has been collecting evidence from a wide variety of sources including individuals, organizations, businesses and governments, and the evidence includes photographs, videos, testimonies and social media posts “that could be relevant to show that crimes happened and who is responsible for those crimes.”
The investigative body has received information from social media companies, which he wouldn't name except for Facebook because it had made its cooperation public.
“We began engaging with Facebook as soon as we were created in 2019, and they have been meeting with us regularly,” Koumjian said. “We have received some, but certainly not all, that we have requested. We continue to negotiate with them and actually I am hopeful that we are going to receive more information.”
He said the Human Rights Council specifically instructed the investigators to cooperate with the International Criminal Court's probe into crimes committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority and the case at the International Court of Justice brought by Gambia on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya.
“So we are sharing documents with those proceedings,” Koumjian said.
The court actions stem from the Myanmar military’s harsh counterinsurgency campaign against the Rohingya in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes.
Koujian said: “All we’re doing is collecting evidence of the very worst violence, hopefully sending a message to perpetrators: `If you commit this, you run the risk that you will be held to account.’”
Civil society calls on UN to retain Myanmar Ambassador Tun's accreditation to UN
UN Member States must ensure that the current Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, retains his position as Myanmar’s representative to the UN, said 358 Myanmar and international civil society organizations on Monday.
They made the call in an open letter to members of the UN General Assembly.
On September 14, the UN’s Credentials Committee, comprised of nine UN Member States (including China, Russia and the United States), will meet to consider which of the competing submissions – Ambassador U Kyaw Moe Tun or the illegitimate military junta that has attempted a bloody coup since February – should be Myanmar’s representative at the UN.
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Since the attempted coup, the Ambassador has provided a crucial voice at the UN for the people of Myanmar and their legitimate government, the National Unity Government (NUG).
Following its deliberations, the Credentials Committee will submit its recommendations to the UN General Assembly.
Khin Ohmar, founder of Progressive Voice, said there is a real risk that complacency from UN member states could result in the Myanmar people being robbed of their rightful voice at the UN, or even in the military junta receiving official UN accreditation as representatives of the people they have murdered and tortured so mercilessly.
"We therefore need any UN member state that values humanity, peace and stability, and respects the will of the people, to reject - as the people of Myanmar categorically have - the military junta and its mass atrocities, and take a stand publicly in support of U Kyaw Moe Tun and the NUG.”
Since the February attempted coup, the military junta has killed 1,058, arrested 7,992, detained 6,343 (including 104 children), sentenced 118 people in absentia and 39 people to death in absentia, and has tortured and sexually assaulted countless more.
The junta has been unable to establish government functions or take effective control over the territory of Myanmar.
Instead of making attempt to control Covid-19, the junta has instead seized medical facilities, hoarded oxygen, persecuting healthcare professionals, and fired on crowds seeking assistance, resulting in an uncontrolled outbreak of the disease that jeopardises global efforts to control it.
Kasit Piromya, a Board Member of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) and former Foreign Minister of Thailand said the junta is the very antithesis of the UN’s core values of peace, human rights, justice and social progress.
"Allowing it to sit at the UN would not only undermine any chance of seeing peace and democracy again in Myanmar, but would undermine the credibility of all UN efforts across the globe.”
Dr. Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect said Myanmar’s military is responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and continues to kill and arrest its own people for resisting the coup.
Read: Myanmar writes to Bangladesh explaining military takeover: FM
The UN General Assembly voted in June to condemn the excessive and lethal violence utilized by Myanmar's armed forces since 1 February 2021 and called upon the military to respect the will of the people.
"This denunciation sent a clear message from the international community that the actions taken by the junta are contrary to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. No country should recognize or support the Myanmar’s military junta.”
Myanmar military forms caretaker gov't with army chief as PM
Myanmar's military announced Sunday the formation of a caretaker government to rule until the next general election in 2023, with army chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as its prime minister.
The commander-in-chief's deputy will be Vice Senior Gen. Soe Win, who also serves directly under him on the State Administration Council, according to an order issued by the ruling body six months after the Feb. 1 military coup.
The council has governed since the coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's government, reversing the country's democratization less than a decade after its transition to civilian rule.
Earlier Sunday, Min Aung Hlaing promised in a televised speech to hold a "free and fair multiparty general election" by August 2023 at the latest, after the two-year state of emergency expires.
The council last month canceled the results of the previous election held on Nov. 8 last year, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a majority of seats in both houses of the parliament.
Read: Rohingya genocide continues after Myanmar military coup: BROUK
In his speech, the top general re-asserted that the last election was rigged, the military's rationale for seizing power.
More than 900 people have been killed in the military's crackdown following the coup.
Suu Kyi remains detained along with former President Win Myint and other senior officials of her government. She faces a slew of charges, while her party faces possible dissolution for allegedly masterminding vote-rigging.
Min Aung Hlaing also showed his willingness to accept the dispatch of a special envoy agreed in April by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to mediate among the parties and find a peaceful resolution to the country's crisis.
"I would like to say that Myanmar is ready to work on ASEAN cooperation within the ASEAN framework including the dialogue with the ASEAN special envoy in Myanmar," he said.
Of the three original nominees for the ASEAN special envoy, he said, his government had agreed to select Virasakdi Futrakul, former Thai deputy foreign minister and veteran diplomat.
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"But for various reasons, the new proposals were released and we could not keep moving forwards," he said.
ASEAN sources have said other nominees put forward include Hassan Wirajuda, a former Indonesian foreign minister, and Razali Ismail, a Malaysian who was a U.N. special envoy for Myanmar in the 2000s tasked with facilitating national reconciliation and democratization in the country.
The envoy's selection is expected to be finalized when ASEAN foreign ministers gather virtually between Monday and Friday for an annual series of meetings.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
UK urged to implement Parliament recommendations on Myanmar, take action at UNSC
Fortify Rights on Thursday said the United Kingdom government should implement recommendations made by the Foreign Affairs Committee and urgently draft a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution to impose a global arms embargo and sanctions against the Myanmar military to deprive it of weapons and financial resources.
On July 16, the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee published its report on the U.K. government’s response to the Myanmar crisis.
The 30-page report stems from the Myanmar military’s attempted coup d’état on February 1 and subsequent deadly crackdown on peaceful protesters and others.
It makes 30 recommendations to strengthen UK leadership on addressing the human rights catastrophe unfolding in Myanmar.
Since February, the Myanmar army and police have killed more than 900 people and imprisoned more than 5,000.
Since the military seized power, its forces have arbitrarily arrested, beat, and killed medical professionals and destroyed medical supplies and facilities, leaving Myanmar’s healthcare system in disarray as COVID-19 spreads throughout the country.
Also read: In Myanmar, the military and police declare war on medics
“As the UN Security Council’s ‘penholder’ on Myanmar, the U.K. is in a unique position to provide decisive leadership on this crisis,” said Ismail Wolff, Regional Director of Fortify Rights.
“With increasing violence as well as mounting COVID-19 cases and deaths, the situation in Myanmar requires urgent international action.”
The committee’s report is the culmination of an urgent inquiry launched on April 29, 2021 into what Committee Chair Tom Tugendhat described as the “flagrant human rights abuses and killings” occurring in Myanmar since the February 1 coup d’état.
The committee received written submissions, including from Fortify Rights, on the Myanmar crisis and heard oral evidence from Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Sasa, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar Thomas Andrews, human rights defender Thinzar Shunlei Yi, and others.
The committee’s report identifies freezing global arms sales to the Myanmar military as a “first priority,” recommending that the U.K. draft a U.N. Security Council resolution that would impose a global arms embargo.
As the Security Council’s “penholder” on the Myanmar crisis, the U.K. has a responsibility to draft and propose resolutions.
As a result of Security Council inertia, on June 18, the U.N. General Assembly took the rare step of issuing its own non-binding resolution calling for an arms embargo against Myanmar.
The resolution enjoyed widespread international support, with 119 member states voting in favor of it and only one, Belarus, voting against it.
Also read: Human rights defenders in Myanmar under siege, say UN experts
The Foreign Affairs Committee report also calls on the U.K. government to use its new status as an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Dialogue Partner as well as its recently announced strategic “tilt” toward the Indo-Pacific arena to pressure regional powers to act.
Fortify Rights noted in its submission to the committee that Singapore continues to extend banking services to the Myanmar military junta.
As a global leader in banking and financial services, the U.K. could compel banking institutions dealing in pound sterling, including those in Singapore, to comply with U.K. sanctions against the Myanmar junta thereby cutting off a major source of revenue.
The committee also recommended that the U.K. government “use its diplomatic influence to encourage border countries such as Thailand . . . to accept more refugees from Myanmar, and to meet their commitments of non-refoulement.”
“The U.K. urgently needs to level up its response to the Myanmar crisis,” said Ismail Wolff.
“People in Myanmar and across the world are calling out for international action to end the bloodshed. The U.K. government is in a unique position to effect change, and the Foreign Affairs Committee has set out a comprehensive road map of actions that the government would do well to follow.”
Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar create "People's Defence Force"
The parallel government launched by pro-democracy forces in Myanmar following a military coup to rival the ruling junta said Wednesday that it has established what it calls "People's Defence Force."
The National Unity Government said the defense force aims to protect supporters and others from violence by the military, but did not say whether it would engage in an armed struggle with the military in earnest.
The statement, issued under its prime minister's name, did not provide details about the force, either.
The National Unity Government has set its sights on creating a federal army with armed ethnic minorities that are seeking greater autonomy and in conflict with the military in the Southeast Asian country.
The National Unity Government said it has a responsibility to stop terrorism committed by the military and end a 70-year civil war, adding that it has already taken up arms and been fighting "terrorist" elements in multiple cities.
The junta has issued arrest warrants against senior officials of the parallel government, saying they will be tried for treason, which is punishable by death.
Violence against anti-coup protesters and others by Myanmar's security forces since the Feb. 1 coup had killed 769 people as of Tuesday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group monitoring the situation in Myanmar.
Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising
Myanmar’s security forces moved in and the street lamps went black. In house after house, people shut off their lights. Darkness swallowed the block.
Huddled inside her home in this neighborhood of Yangon, 19-year-old Shwe dared to peek out her window into the inky night. A flashlight shone back, and a man’s voice ordered her not to look.
Two gunshots rang out. Then a man’s scream: “HELP!” When the military’s trucks finally rolled away, Shwe and her family emerged to look for her 15-year-old brother, worried about frequent abductions by security forces.
“I could feel my blood thumping,” she says. “I had a feeling that he might be taken.”
Across the country, Myanmar’s security forces are arresting and forcibly disappearing thousands of people, especially boys and young men, in a sweeping bid to break the back of a three-month uprising against a military takeover. In most cases, the families of those taken do not know where they are, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than 3,500 arrests since February.
UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, is aware of around 1,000 cases of children or young people who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained, many without access to lawyers or their families. Though it is difficult to get exact data, UNICEF says the majority are boys.
It is a technique the military has long used to instill fear and to crush pro-democracy movements. The boys and young men are taken from homes, businesses and streets, under the cover of night and sometimes in the brightness of day.
Some end up dead. Many are imprisoned and sometimes tortured. Many more are missing.
“We’ve definitely moved into a situation of mass enforced disappearances,” says Matthew Smith, cofounder of the human rights group Fortify Rights, which has collected evidence of detainees being killed in custody. “We’re documenting and seeing widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests.”
The AP is withholding Shwe’s full name, along with those of several others, to protect them from retaliation by the military.
The autobody shop in Shwe’s neighborhood was a regular hangout for local boys. On the night of March 21, her brother had gone there to chill out like he usually did.
As Shwe approached the shop, she saw it had been ransacked. Frantic, she and her father scoured the building for any sign of their beloved boy.
But he was gone, and the floor was covered in blood.
Ever since the military seized control in February, the conflict in Myanmar has become increasingly bloody. Security forces have killed more than 700 people, including a boy as young as 9.
In the meantime, the faces of the missing have flooded the Internet in growing numbers. Online videos show soldiers and police beating and kicking young men as they’re shoved into vans, even forcing captives to crawl on all fours and hop like frogs.
Recently, photos of young people detained by security forces also have begun circulating online and on military-controlled Myawaddy TV, their faces bloodied, with clear markings of beatings and possible torture. The military’s openness in broadcasting such photos and brutalizing people in daylight is one more sign that its goal is to intimidate.
At least 3,500 people have been detained since the military takeover began, more than three-quarters of whom are male, according to an analysis of data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors deaths and arrests. Of the 419 men whose ages were recorded in the group’s database, nearly two-thirds are under age 30, and 78 are teenagers.
Nearly 2,700 of the detainees are being held at undisclosed locations, according to an AAPP spokesman. The group says its numbers are likely an undercount.
“The military are trying to turn civilians, striking workers, and children into enemies,” says Ko Bo Kyi, AAPP’s joint secretary. “They think if they can kill off the boys and young men, then they can kill off the revolution.”
After receiving questions from The Associated Press, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, called a Zoom press conference, during which it dubbed the AAPP a “baseless organization,” suggested its data was inaccurate, and denied security forces are targeting young men.
“The security forces are not arresting based on genders and ages,” said Capt. Aye Thazin Myint, a military spokeswoman. “They are only detaining anyone who is rioting, protesting, causing unrest, or any actions along those lines.”
Some of those snatched by security forces were protesting. Some have links to the military’s rival political party, most notably Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the elected government that the military toppled and is now under house arrest. Others are taken for no discernable reason. They are typically charged with Section 505(A) of the Penal Code, which, in part, criminalizes comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news.”
Both the military and police — who fall under the Tatmadaw’s command via the Ministry of Home Affairs — have been involved in the arrests and disappearances, sometimes working in tandem, according to interviews with detainees and families. Experts believe that suggests a coordinated strategy.
“The Myanmar police force and the Tatmadaw moved in in a very deliberate way, in a coordinated way, in similar ways, in disparate locations, which to us would indicate that they were working according to orders,” says Smith of Fortify Rights. “It would appear as though there was ... some national level communication and coordination taking place.”
Manny Maung, a Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch, says one woman she spoke with described being viciously beaten by police until what looked like a senior military official told them to stop.
“They’re definitely following orders from military officials,” Maung says. “And whether they’re coordinating — they’re certainly turning up to places together.”
So desperate for information are the loved ones of the lost that some families have resorted to a grim experiment: They send food into the prisons and hope if it isn’t sent back out, that means their relatives are still inside.
Myanmar human rights activist Wai Hnin Pwint Thon is intimately acquainted with the Tatmadaw’s tactics. Her father, famed political activist Mya Aye, was arrested during a 1988 uprising against military rule, and the family waited months before they learned he was in prison.
He was arrested again on the first day of this year’s military takeover. For two months, the military gave Wai Hnin Pwint Thon’s family no information on his whereabouts. On April 1, the family learned he was being held at Yangon’s notorious Insein prison.
“I can’t imagine families of young people who are 19, 20, 21, in prison… We are this worried and we’re used to this situation,” she says. “I’m trying to hold onto hope, but the situation is getting worse every day.”
Mee, a 27-year-old villager in the northern region of Mandalay, watched as children on motorbikes raced past her house toward the woods. Not long after, the village elders arrived with a dire warning: All the boys must leave and get somewhere safe. The soldiers might be coming.
Just two hours later, Mee says, the elders asked the girls to hide, too.
The military’s scare tactics have proven enormously effective. In villages and cities across the country, residents regularly take turns holding night watches, banging pots and pans or yelling to neighbors from the street if soldiers or police are spotted.
“I am more afraid of being arrested than getting shot,” says one 29-year-old man who was arrested, beaten and later released, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “I have a chance of dying on the spot with just one shot. But being arrested, I am afraid that they would torture me.”
Fearing for her life on that March afternoon, Mee and hundreds of fellow villagers fled to pineapple farms in the surrounding hills. When she arrived, she saw scores of people from other villages hiding in the forest.
That night, as mosquitos swarmed and sounds from the forest haunted them, the women stayed inside a small bamboo tent while the boys took turns standing guard. No one slept.
Mee was terrified but not surprised. Many of the villagers had run from the military and hidden in the woods before.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she says.
For decades, the Tatmadaw has used arbitrary arrests, disappearances, forced labor and other abuses to crush pro-democracy movements and suppress minorities, including its notoriously brutal 2017 campaign of persecution against Rohingya Muslims.
“Sometimes communities are asked to provide a number of young men on a ‘voluntary’ basis; sometimes they are taken,” Laetitia van den Assum, a former diplomat and a member of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, said in an e-mail.
Arbitrary arrests continue across the country daily. Just two weeks earlier, a few minutes away from Mee’s village, 24-year-old philosophy student Ko Ko was walking home from a protest with a friend when they were arrested. His parents learned of their imprisonment from friends of friends, not officials.
More than a month later, his parents still haven’t heard from their only son, says Han, a neighbor. He’s part of an unlucky cohort: at least 44 people taken from the town are yet to be released, Han says.
While many of the young men in Mee’s village returned home after two nights in the pineapple fields, some continue to sleep there. Mee has since gone back to her village.
Whenever she sees a soldier, she runs. But her fear has largely given way to fury.
“I was angry that night, and I am still angry,” she says. “It’s so frustrating that the people who are supposed to be protecting our lives, our safety, our livelihoods and our homes are the people who are chasing us and killing us. … We are helpless.”
The glass was shattering, and there was nowhere left for the 21-year-old university student to run. The soldiers were smashing through the front doors of the house in Mandalay.
The chaos of such raids is usually followed by a sinister silence, with the families of the taken rarely hearing from officials. But the accounts of some survivors who dare to speak about their ordeals help fill the void of what often happens next.
The student, who asked that his name be withheld out of fear of retaliation, had taken refuge in the house along with around 100 others after security forces stormed a rally they were attending. The soldiers had thrown tear gas at them, forcing them to flee.
Now he and a half dozen others were cornered in a bathroom on the home’s second level. Downstairs, the security forces used a slingshot and the butt of a gun to break through the doors.
The soldiers began beating the boys they found inside, so viciously that a few of their heads cracked open. They urinated on one young man.
The student watched as the glass above the bathroom door imploded. “They are here!” the soldiers yelled, then burst in, guns drawn.
He bowed his head, since anyone who looked at the soldiers was kicked. The soldiers kicked him anyway, twice in the waist, and hit him twice in the head. As he was marched down the stairs, he saw a soldier with a gun standing on nearly every step.
He and around 30 other young men were arrested and ushered into a prison van. Both the military and police were there. The soldiers threatened to burn the van and tauntingly offered the detainees juice before throwing it at them.
When they arrived at the prison, the young man saw 400 to 500 people in the temporary holding area. The next day, he was charged with Section 505(A) of the penal code. He and around 50 others spent nine days jammed into one room.
There were only two toilets. They were allowed out of the cell twice a day to clean themselves. The same water was used for showering, drinking, washing dishes and using the toilet.
When the young man learned he was being transferred to the main prison, he wanted to cry. A few days before his arrest, he had been looking at missing persons posts on social media. Now he realized most of those people were probably in prison like him.
The young man had good reason to be frightened.
“People are disappearing and turning up dead,” says Maung, of Human Rights Watch. “We have had primary reports, also, of torture while they’re in custody.”
The group found that some people detained inside Insein prison were subjected to beatings, stress positions and severe interrogation tactics, up until March 4, Maung says. After that, guards began taking prisoners to second locations and torturing them, then returning them to Insein.
In Mandalay, the young man’s family was sick with worry. Some of his friends told them he had been arrested; the authorities never called them.
His family sent food into the prison for him. But even when it wasn’t returned, they couldn’t be sure he was inside. They heard reports about protesters being tortured. His sisters cried constantly.
Thirteen days after his arrest, the young man was allowed ten minutes to speak with his sister.
A week later, an official ordered him to pack his things. In shock, he realized he was being released.
There was no time to say goodbye to his friends. The officials took videos and photos of him and around 20 others, and told them to sign statements promising they wouldn’t break the law again. Then they were set free.
He didn’t feel lucky — he felt horrible. He didn’t understand why he’d been singled out for release while his friends were still stuck inside.
“None of us really feel safe living our normal lives now. For me now, I have reservations walking alone outside even in my neighborhood,” he says. “And also, I feel worried to see the parents of my friends in the neighborhood, because I am out — and their children are not.”
Back in Yangon, Shwe stared at the puddles of blood on the floor of the shop where her baby brother had been. It looked as if the security forces had half-heartedly tried to wash it away, but red pools remained.
Maybe the blood wasn’t his, she told herself.
Shwe’s brother and three other young men from the shop had been hauled away. Neighbors told the family that both police and soldiers were there. The neighbors said the security forces may have targeted the boys because they spotted someone inside the shop with a steel dart slingshot.
At 2 a.m., a police officer called to say Shwe’s brother was at a military hospital and had been shot in the hand. They later learned security forces had shot another young man’s finger during the raid.
Shwe says her family told the police that her brother was underage. The officer, she says, reassured them that because he was a minor, he probably wouldn’t be charged.
Around 7 a.m., the family went to the hospital to bring him food. But their pleas to see him were rejected. Shwe and her family were later told that he was being moved to a prison hospital.
Then, on the night of March 27, came the news that stunned them: Her brother and the three others had been charged with possession of weapons, and sentenced to three years in prison.
They were allowed one brief phone call with him when he was first in the hospital, and nothing since. Shwe remembers hearing her brother tell their anguished mother, “Thar ah sin pyay tal.” I am OK.
Shwe has no idea if that is still true. She worries for her brother, a quiet boy who loves playing games. She worries, too, for their mother, who cries and cries, and for their father, who aches for his only son.
For now, they can do little more than wait and hope: That he won’t be beaten. That he will get a pardon. That the people of Myanmar will soon feel safe again.
“Even though we are all in distress, we try to look on the bright side that at least we know where he is,” she says. “We are lucky that he was only abducted.”
Media Freedom Coalition concerned over Myanmar military’s efforts to muzzle media
The Media Freedom Coalition have issued a statement expressing deep concern over continued efforts by the military and police to crack down on media freedom in Myanmar.
“Media freedom is a cornerstone of democratic societies. It is essential to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Access to information is vital and journalists must be free to report on the developments in the country, including the protests, without fear of reprisal or intimidation,” reads the statement issued Friday.
Independent reporting, it noted, is all the more important in the current context, helping to counter the disinformation campaigns in Myanmar, both online and offline, and to provide the public with factual accounts of events taking place in the country.
“The importance of the work of journalists, particularly in remote areas, cannot be underestimated,” it said.
Members of the coalition who signed the statement are: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States.
The statement noted that since the Feb 1 military coup, attacks against media professionals by the security forces and their offices have increased significantly. At least 60 journalists have reportedly been detained and some of these now also face charges.
Licences of five news organisations have been revoked by the military and access to local and international news networks have been suspended. The military imposed “draconian measures that repress free speech and the diffusion of reliable and verified information”.
Internet shutdowns have also been used to restrict news coverage, communications and access to information, the statement noted.
“We strongly condemn the military coup and the ongoing violence and call for the restoration of Myanmar’s democratically elected government and parliamentary assemblies elected in November 2020,” the Coalition said.
It called on the military to “immediately and unconditionally” cease attacks on, and intimidation and harassment of, journalists and media workers, and to release all those who have been arbitrarily detained.
“We call for the perpetrators of violations and abuses, including attacks on journalists and media workers, to be held accountable,” the coalition said.
It demanded the military to respect the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, refrain from the use of force, and respect the media’s freedom to report protests independently, safely and without fear of violence or arbitrary detention.
“We call for the end of all Internet restrictions in Myanmar that suppress media freedom and violate the right to freedom of expression, including freedom to seek, receive, and impart information,” the statement said.
Also read: End assault on media freedom, Fortify Rights to Myanmar