Myanmar joins Southeast Asian defence meeting

Myanmar’s defence minister, under sanctions from the United States, Britain and other countries for abuses committed by his country’s military, was welcomed Wednesday to an annual meeting with his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Gen. Mya Tun Oo wore his military uniform as he attended the ASEAN defence ministers’ meeting in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

More than 600 civic groups inside and outside Myanmar had issued an appeal to the ministers not to invite him.

They accuse him of complicity in violence committed by Myanmar’s military as it seeks to crush opposition to its seizure of power last year from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a private organisation that tracks government killings and arrests, said Friday that 2,000 civilians have been killed by Myanmar’s security forces.

The army is also battling anti-government guerrillas in the countryside. Mya Tun Oo has also been accused of involvement in atrocities carried out by the army against the Muslim Rohingya minority in 2017, when he was chief of the military’s general staff, the third most powerful post in the army.

International courts are investigating allegations that the military committed genocide in brutal counterinsurgency campaigns that sent more than 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh for safety.

“The Myanmar military junta’s acts fully meet the definition of terror under international and national law, and is responsible for ongoing violations of international human rights and humanitarian law following the military’s illegal coup attempt,“said the appeal issued by 677 civic groups to the ASEAN defence ministers.

“General Mya Tun Oo plays a leading role in the management of the military, which is responsible for committing ongoing atrocity crimes with total impunity,” it said.