Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Progressive Voice is calling for the United Nations (UN) to terminate the job of Special Envoy to Myanmar and have the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres deal directly with the Myanmar problem instead.

Progressive Voice was one of 864 CSOs that signed a petition calling for this on 22 August 2022 and it has outlined the reasoning behind the request.

As Progressive Voice explained, On 17 August, the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar (Special Envoy), Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, met with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and junta-appointed foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin, despite clear warnings from civil society not to lend legitimacy to the junta.

While the Special Envoy attended these meetings, the people of Myanmar further witnessed the military junta ramping up brutal violence aimed at civilians, including the massacring of civilians in Sagaing Region and torching villages to ash in Magwe Region.

This is not the first blunder from the Special Envoy who suggested in an interview with Channel News Asia on the first anniversary of the coup attempt, the need to negotiate a power-sharing settlement with the junta. In addition, during the interview, she erroneously stated that “the military is in control” of Myanmar.

The Special Envoy later walked back on those comments, and agreed to meet with Myanmar civil society members in February and April. At those meetings, she received a set of concrete recommendations from the CSOs.

Among these recommendations, Myanmar civil society expressed clear views against the Special Envoy meeting with the junta under conditions and in a manner that would lend the junta legitimacy. Yet, these recommendations were ignored. The Special Envoy allowed herself and her mandate to be used by the junta to bolster their legitimacy, something they have desperately been trying to attain for almost 19 months, ever since the coup.

The Special Envoy’s mandate, while vague and ineffective since the outset, is nevertheless meant to assist in the promotion and protection of human rights. Predictably, the junta welcomed the Special Envoy with carefully orchestrated pageantry, photo opportunities, warm welcomes and smiles - all to be used as fodder for their propaganda, including being plastered over the junta’s media mouthpiece and claiming that the Special Envoy met with the “current government” of Myanmar.

The junta also released a so-called “description of discussion” between the Special Envoy and Min Aung Hlaing, and claimed among other things, that the Special Envoy did not use the words Rohingya and referred to Min Aung Hlaing as ‘kind-hearted’.

It should have been painfully clear to the Special Envoy from the outset, given past actions of the junta, that there is no appeasing this junta in negotiating - they simply will not comply.

According to Progressive Voice, this is yet another example of the UN actor utterly failing to stand with the people of Myanmar and instead choosing to lend legitimacy to an illegal junta that is continuing to commit mass atrocities. While the Special Envoy met with the junta leadership, protests occurred in Yangon and Sagaing Region, with one group of protesters holding up corrugated iron placards reading “How many dead bodies UN need to take action? [sic]”

In the same week the Special Envoy visited Myanmar and day after she called for an end to violence and aerial bombing, the junta burned down 600 homes and stored rice in Yesagyo Township, Magwe Region, forcing 4,000 villagers to flee, leaving sick and elderly behind. At least three people were killed by junta troops during these raids, including two elderly people.

This followed an incident in Shwebo Township, Sagaing Region, where junta troops tortured and murdered seven civilians, including two 14 and 15-year-old brothers, traveling in search of gold mining work.

A week prior to the Special Envoy’s visit, the burned remains of 18 bodies, including a 10-year-old girl, were found viciously massacred in Yinmabin Township, Sagaing Region, which had also suffered heavy air strikes from Mi-35 fighter jets and ground troop attacks.

A tidal wave of criticism has followed the visit of the Special Envoy, including from Myanmar’s National Unity Government and civil society. On Wednesday, 864 CSOs called for the UN General Assembly to withdraw the mandate of the Special Envoy, as this post has never served a useful purpose, and even more so in the current crisis context because it is actively working against the will of the people of Myanmar.

The groups stressed the need for the Secretary-General to address the Myanmar crisis directly.

Progressive Voice says the UN must take decisive measures to end the horrific acts of the junta, and as the Rohingya genocide commemoration has recently passed, we are reminded about the lack of progress towards justice and accountability for Rohingya and other ethnic communities, who have suffered for decades at the hands of this military.

The UN Secretary General must take the lead and a personal role in responding to the crisis in Myanmar, showing a serious commitment to resolving the devastating human rights and humanitarian crisis that continues to unfold.

Progressive Voice believes the only way forward for Myanmar is through a federal democracy, free from this brutal military.

Thus, the UN as a whole must recognize and work with the National Unity Government, ethnic revolutionary organizations, civil society organizations and other actors to establish a genuine federal democracy in Myanmar; terminate the Special Envoy’s mandate; and push UN Member States to put a global arms embargo and targeted sanctions into effect to end this junta’s reign.

These calls have been made loud and clear by Myanmar civil society and their regional and international solidarity partners since the coup on 1 February 2021.

Progressive Voice and the other 863 CSOs that signed the petition believe it is well and truly time for Mr. Guterres to listen and respond with concrete actions. It is also time that Dr. Noeleen Heyzer proves her commitment to the people of Myanmar by taking one concrete action, which is to recommend that the UN terminate this Special Envoy post in the upcoming 77th session of the UN General Assembly.