UN rapporteur: Myanmar junta faces ‘existential threat’

GENEVA, Switzerland: Myanmar’s military government is already facing an “existential threat,” but the world could help end its “nightmare” rule with coordinated sanctions, the United Nations’ expert on the country said on Wednesday.

Mass casualties among junta forces, as well as defections, surrenders and recruitment challenges, have led to dwindling troop numbers, posing “an existential threat for the Myanmar military,” special rapporteur Tom Andrews said.

“Those who have bet on the junta to restore order and stability in Myanmar have made a losing bet,” he said.

The junta came to power in the Feb. 1, 2021 coup that ousted 1991 Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, ending a 10year experiment with democracy and plunging the Southeast Asian nation into bloody turmoil.

The junta is struggling to crush resistance to its rule by longestablished ethnic rebel groups and newer prodemocracy People’s Defense Forces.

“The junta is the principal driver of violence, instability, economic decline and lawlessness in the country,” Andrews said.

The former US lawmaker from Maine is the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

Andrews said sanctions — restrictions on financial flows and on equipment for military use — were disrupting the junta’s operations.

He cited Singapore, which has clamped down on sales of equipment for military use, and such transfers fell by 83 percent last year, Andrews told a news conference in the western Swiss city of Geneva.

But he stressed that this was not the case for Russia and China, respectively, the first and second suppliers of arms to the junta.

However, Andrews said, more could be done to stifle the junta financially.

“We need to have a fundamental change in how we’re applying the sanctions. We’ve got to do it in a coordinated, focused way,” he said.