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U.N. calls Myanmar junta’s atrocities possible war crimes

FORUM Staff

The Myanmar junta’s wanton attacks on civilians — which the United Nations says are potential war crimes — and its inability to deliver basic services continue to fuel public anger and defections more than a year after the military toppled the nation’s elected government.

“The appalling breadth and scale of violations of international law suffered by the people of Myanmar demand a firm, unified and resolute international response,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a mid-March 2022 statement, according to Reuters.

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has targeted civilian areas with heavy weapons and air strikes and tortured citizens and used them as human shields, Bachelet said as the U.N. released its first comprehensive human rights report on Myanmar since the February 1, 2021, coup.

The junta and its affiliates have killed at least 1,600 people, including peaceful protesters and bystanders, and detained more than 12,500, the U.N. reported. Among the detainees are democratically elected leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been sentenced to prison on what are widely seen as concocted charges.

Although the United States and many other democracies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond have imposed sanctions on Tatmadaw leaders and military-controlled entities, the likelihood of a coordinated arms embargo remains slim with the People’s Republic of China and Russia holding vetoes on the U.N. Security Council. The Tatmadaw is a major weapons customer of both those nations.

About 440,000 Myanmar citizens have been displaced since the coup and 14 million require urgent humanitarian assistance, which the military is blocking, the U.N. reported. (Pictured: Myanmar residents live in makeshift shelters near the Thailand border in January 2022 after fleeing military attacks on their village.)

The Tatmadaw likely has “engaged in violence and abuse as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against civilians — patterns of conduct that may amount to crimes against humanity,” the U.N. found.

Rolling power cuts, meanwhile, are leaving citizens stockpiling candles and firewood as they scramble to heat their homes and feed their families, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported in early March. The elected government kept gas and electricity prices affordable, a resident of the Mandalay region told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“But now, whether you pay your bills or not, you will have to face these power cuts,” he said. “A decent standard of living is possible only if you have adequate electricity.”

For the second straight year, the junta’s atrocities and administrative ineptitude appeared destined to make a mockery of Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day, held March 27 each year to pay homage to the military’s contribution to securing the nation’s liberation during World War II. During the 2021 observance, security forces killed more than 100 people even as the military paraded in the nation’s capital, Yangon, according to media reports.

Such brutality has spurred a surge in Tatmadaw defections, with an estimated 8,000 military and security personnel so far refusing to engage in the junta’s unlawful attacks on the nation’s people, the online magazine The Diplomat reported in early March 2022.

Some defectors have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement or other pro-democracy groups that have emerged since February 2021. For example, the People’s Defense Forces have “become one of the primary agents of anti-coup resistance,” The Diplomat reported.

“Throughout the tumult and violence of the past year, the will of the people has clearly not been broken,” Bachelet said. “They remain committed to seeing a return to democracy and to institutions that reflect their will and aspirations.”

 

IMAGE CREDIT: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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