UN: Myanmar headed for ‘full-blown’ conflict
‘Violence all over the country’, says UN’s special envoy for Myanmar
THE UN’s special envoy for Myanmar on Thursday said she does not expect the antijunta movement to let up anytime soon and that she feared the country was headed for “full-blown internal armed conflict.”
Christine Schraner Burgener said there was “violence all over the country” and that “the anti-military movement is increasingly militarised.”
“People will not accept the military” that deposed and arrested Myanmar’s civilian leaders on February 1, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the envoy said in a press briefing at the UN in New York.
“The people will not give up, they continue to resist. They will not go back to work.
They will continue to use violence, probably even more.”
“The situation is really bad in Myanmar,” Schraner Burgener said, citing not only the military’s harsh repression of opponents, but also the high number of internally displaced citizens, as well as the collapse of the banking and health care systems.
More than 1,100 people have been killed so far in the military’s crackdown on protesters, according to the local Assistance Association for Political Prisoners NGO. In many regions, armed resistance movements have formed.
Schraner Burgener said it was critical for the international community not to send signals that could be interpreted as acceptance of the military rulers.
Instead, the Swiss diplomat said, action by the hitherto reluctant UN Security Council is “urgently needed.”
In August, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said there will be no new elections before 2023 and also announced the state of emergency imposed after the coup would be extended until then.
The United Nations has said it fears a greater human rights catastrophe in Myanmar amid reports of thousands of troops massing in the north of the Southeast Asian country which has been in chaos since a February coup.
Meanwhile, UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews, who was presenting the findings of an annual human rights report on Myanmar to the UN General Assembly on Friday, said he had received information that tens of thousands of troops and heavy weapons were being moved into restive regions in the north and northwest.
The findings, he said, also indicated that the military government had engaged in probable crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“We should all be prepared, as the people in this part of Myanmar are prepared, for even more mass atrocity crimes. I desperately hope that I am wrong,” said Andrews.
“These tactics are ominously reminiscent of those employed by the military before its genocidal attacks against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017,” Andrews added.
In 2017, about 740,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state after security forces launched a clampdown that the UN has said may amount to genocide.
Andrews urged countries to deny Myanmar’s military the money, weapons and legitimacy it desired, citing a prisoner release earlier in the week as evidence that pressure was working.
On Monday, Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing announced the release of more than 5,000 people jailed for protesting against the coup.
The move came just days after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) delivered a major snub to the military regime in excluding its head from an upcoming summit of the 10-country bloc.
Andrews said Myanmar forces had displaced a quarter of a million people. Many of those who had been detained were tortured, he said, including dozens who had died as a result.