Campaign organisation Progressive Voice is asking the UN to make sure it does not neglect Myanmar in the face of so many global crises.
As the UN General Assembly (UNGA) meets in New York, understandably preoccupied by the latest horrors occurring in Gaza, Progressive Voice says that it is imperative that the UN stops neglecting Myanmar and puts it higher on its agenda.
It says that UN Member States must take all measures to hold the military junta accountable for its mass atrocity crimes, to work towards an arms embargo, and ensure that international aid agencies uphold the principle of do no harm by ceasing engagement with the junta and ensuring aid reaches those most in need via locally-led, frontline humanitarian responders.
Marking 1,000 days since Min Aung Hlaing launched his coup attempt, a campaign by Blood Money Campaign that has been supported by thousands of individuals and organizations around the world is urging Singapore to “immediately block the Myanmar junta’s access to funds, arms, equipment, and jet fuel.”
This is because Singapore arms brokers continue to sell arms to the junta, while military junta and crony companies continue to access Singapore’s financial system.
But, as Progressive Voice points out, the junta does not only receive arms from Singapore, Israeli companies have also sold weapons to the junta since the coup attempt.
The problematic sale of weapons was echoed by the report submitted to the UNGA by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, who noted how state-owned enterprises from Russia, China, and India, as well as private companies in Thailand and Singapore, among others, continue to sell arms to the junta.
He called for UN Member States to immediately halt “the sale or transfer of weapons and dual-use technologies to Myanmar and holistically sanction arms dealing networks.”
Stopping the flow of arms and related materials, including aviation fuel, to the military junta is all the more urgent given the junta’s increasing use of airstrikes as a reaction to its losing control of more territory and even important towns, as seen in recent days in northern Shan State.
The local research group, Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica has documented 272 airstrikes by the junta between May and August of this year, killing 163 citizens. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, recently told the UN Human Rights Council that “Each day, the people of Myanmar are enduring horrifying attacks, flagrant human rights violations and the crumbling of their livelihoods and hopes.”
But, with the dry season about to begin, a build-up of troops in Karenni State, and an inevitable reaction to recent losses in Shan State, the junta will inflict more aerial assaults, more atrocity crimes, and the humanitarian crisis will surely become more catastrophic.
Progressive Voice believes that at the same time as reducing the junta’s ability to kill and displace the people of Myanmar, UN Member States and agencies must take measures to ensure the effective delivery of humanitarian aid.
This involves recognising the vital role and capacity to deliver assistance of frontline civil society and community-based humanitarian service providers who have the trust of local communities and access to populations who are most in need.
However, recognition should just be a first step, and decision-making on the programming and implementation of the delivery of aid must be in the hands of such local humanitarian, cross-border actors.
In tandem with the above measures, the UNGA must take measures to pursue justice and accountability under international law for the atrocity crimes committed by the military junta.
As a statement submitted to the UNGA by 440 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations outlined, “The Myanmar military’s decades-long impunity, and thus its systematic and widespread violence, will continue to prevail – and thousands of lives will continue to be lost – unless and until the military faces prosecution and is held to account for its genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Whether Rohingya, Karen, Bamar, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, justice and accountability for the Myanmar military’s crimes will serve to restore a semblance of peace and justice for the long-term recovery of the country. Thus, a UN Security Council resolution that includes a referral to the International Criminal Court or the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal, a global arms embargo, and targeted economic sanctions is vital.
Furthermore, Progressive Voice says if such a resolution is vetoed by China and/or Russia, both major suppliers of arms to the junta, then a UNGA resolution must be passed, as happened with Ukraine.
Lastly, UN Member States must stop lending legitimacy to the junta. Instead, they must publicly and substantively engage with the legitimate governance actors of Myanmar, including the National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organisations, and other people’s administrative entities.
The people of Myanmar have had very little support from international institutions and actors. As the UNGA concludes, and with various crises throughout the world taking up their attention, the struggle of the people of Myanmar amid horrific violence at the hands of the military junta must not be neglected, according to Progressive Voice.
There are concrete actions that the UNGA can and must take to tear down the junta and to support the democratic vision of the Myanmar people.
Stopping the flow of arms and aviation fuel to the junta, ensuring humanitarian assistance goes through on-the-ground civil society actors via cross-border channels, and pursuing justice and accountability are three key actions that the people of Myanmar need the world to take.
