Myanmar expats’ outrage over invite
Myanmar expats living in New Zealand are calling for the Government to withdraw an invitation to representatives from the Myanmar military junta to attend an economic summit.
New Zealand is hosting a summit for countries from Asean, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in two weeks and Myanmar officials have been invited to the event in Wellington, despite opposition to the Asian country’s military regime.
The Myanmar military staged a coup against the democratically elected government in February 2021 and since then, resistance fighters have been at war with the military. Thousands of people have been killed and injured.
The New Zealand Government ended all high-level political engagement with Myanmar, as well as aid programmes that could benefit the military regime, and senior military leaders were put on a travel ban list.
Kyan Htoo is from Myanmar but lives in Palmerston North and is attending a protest at Parliament today, where New Zealand-based expats are calling for the Government to cancel the invitation to the Asean event.
Htoo was involved with groups who had sent letters to Foreign Minister Winston Peters, the Burmese Community Group Manawatū and a group representing 33 New Zealand-based ethnic groups from Myanmar, asking Peters to withdraw the invite.
The groups were upset officials would be allowed to come to New Zealand while Myanmar was run by a military junta.
“People are really outraged about this invitation,” Htoo said. “New Zealand was the first country in the world who announced they don’t recognise the military regime.”
Htoo said the Government line was that it was within Asean policy to allow non-political-level representatives to attend.
“How can [New Zealand] uphold human rights principles and democratic values? Most of our Burmese members don’t want to invite junta representatives.”
Peters was overseas with ministerial engagements, but a spokesperson said New Zealand’s views on the situation hadn’t changed.
“We continue to strongly condemn the coup and military regime, and the ongoing violence against civilians.”
The spokesperson said the suspension of high-level political and military engagement remained and New Zealand officials would not engage with high-level political or military representatives of Myanmar
They said in hosting the Asean-New Zealand meeting of senior officials, New Zealand was expected to invite all member states. “This is a requirement when it comes to formal bilateral consultations with the Asean bloc. Therefore, as an Asean member, Myanmar has been invited to be represented at the dialogue.”
Representation at the event was at senior official bureaucrat level, the spokesperson said. “Any Myanmar representative travelling to New Zealand would need to meet our entry requirements. Existing travel bans on individuals connected with the regime would prevent any sanctioned individuals from attending.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon previously said the invitation was up to Asean and it would be a mid-level official, not a senior junta leader.
But Htoo said he didn’t believe they should be permitted to enter the country, particularly because the junta had started targeting civilians, hospitals and schools.
“Our resistance, they have had a lot of success in fighting against the military ... the military believe if they target the civilian people, they will stop helping the resistance. So they are intentionally attacking civilians.”
He said the ethnic groups represented in one of the letters all had relatives who had been detained, killed or displaced, with about 2.8 million people displaced.
The resistance hoped to win the war by the end of 2025, and if countries such as New Zealand didn’t co-operate with the military it helped the cause, he said.
“I would like the New Zealand Government to be reminded of the words of Martin Luther King. ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’.”
“How can [New Zealand] uphold human rights principles and democratic values?”
Kyan Htoo, Myanmar expat