CHRO

MPs denounce lack of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar ahead of International Parliamentary Inquiry’s fourth hearing – ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (aseanmp.org)

JAKARTA – The Myanmar people are not receiving the humanitarian assistance they need as the crisis triggered by the coup d’état of February last year worsens, parliamentarians from seven different countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe have denounced, ahead of the fourth public oral hearing of their International Parliamentary Inquiry (IPI) on the global response to the crisis in Myanmar, to be held today, 20 July.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) puts at over 750,000 the number of people displaced by the violence perpetrated by the Myanmar military in order to cement their power since the takeover, bringing the total for the country the record number of over 1 million.

Experts audited by the IPI in previous oral hearings have described a rapidly deteriorating situation, marked by a worsening economic crisis, an almost complete collapse of the health system and the systematic targeting of the civilian population by the military.

“Time is rapidly running out to prevent the worst-case scenario for millions of people in Myanmar. But instead of increased attention to the situation, we are seeing the opposite: less engagement by regional and international actors, less efforts to lead the junta to the negotiation table, and a unconscionable shortfall of almost 90 percent of funding for the humanitarian needs of the country in 2022. Inaction must end now,” said Heidi Hautala, IPI Committee Chair and Vice-President of the European Parliament.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of June 2022, only 11 percent of the 2022 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Myanmar has been funded, “negatively affecting the breadth and quality of assistance delivered by humanitarians.”

“The utter failure of ASEAN’s 5-Point Consensus should be clear to all, yet there has been no effort made to change course. Meanwhile, the international community continues to ignore evidence indicating that a primary reliance on ASEAN has not and will not result in an alleviation of the plight of the Myanmar people. Reliance on ASEAN is not a strategy, but rather a disingenuous deflection of responsibility by international actors which must stop in order for solutions to the humanitarian crisis to be found,” said Charles Santiago, IPI Committee Member, Malaysian MP, and Chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).

To address these and other issues, the IPI will hold its fourth hearing on the global response to the crisis in Myanmar on July 20, at 6 pm (Bangkok time), via Zoom.

Experts who have confirmed their participation at the hearing include:

– Matthew Wells – Deputy Director, Crisis Response, Amnesty International.

– Dr Ashley South – Research Fellow, Chiang Mai University.

– Salai Za Uk Ling – Deputy Executive Director, Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO).

– Adelina Kamal -Former Executive Director for the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), currently Associate Senior Fellow at the Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS).

Join the IPI Fourth Oral Hearing by Zoom by following the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rcOyvqjorHNeUbaXpzbMBClSV1ekKN_ci

Livestream: https://facebook.com/aseanmp

All previous hearings can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpyEyu66jrCv5HORbeIV4w/videos

Myanmar junta troops murder disabled villagers in Chin State | Myanmar NOW (myanmar-now.org)

A deaf woman and a paralysed man were murdered by regime forces in northern Chin State’s Falam Township late last week, according to local sources.

The victims were both killed by a military column of around 250 soldiers that left Kalay in Sagaing Region last Wednesday and arrived in Falam the following day, residents said.

When the junta troops entered Valung, a village some 60km northeast of the town of Falam, on Thursday, it was deserted except for a 60-year-old woman who had been unable to flee.

Days later, residents returned to find that she had been shot in the head.

“The people living there left her behind thinking the military wouldn’t sink so low as to shoot a deaf woman,” said a spokesperson for the anti-junta Chin National Defence Force (CNDF), which recovered the woman’s body on Sunday.

After leaving Valung on Saturday, the junta troops discovered and killed another disabled resident in the nearby village of Hlanzawl, according to the CNDF spokesperson.

“He was paralysed. They tied him up and dragged him along the ground before shooting him,” he said, citing village residents.

The man’s body was also recovered on Sunday and cremated the following day, he added.

According to the CNDF, thousands of local people have fled the area since last week due to the heavy military presence. It also said that the junta troops that arrived last week have been building bunkers in an area about 5km from Hlanzawl.

In a statement released on June 27, the Chin National Organisation, the political wing of CNDF, warned locals to avoid using the Kalay-Falam road.

“We would like to request the public to avoid travel and to stay in safe places, as the military has been arresting and killing people at will,” said the CNDF spokesperson.

There have also been reports that the military has been sending reinforcements to southern Chin State.

Sources in Mindat said that two people had been killed and several others injured by aerial bombing by regime forces on Saturday.

More Myanmar Christian refugees flee to India’s Mizoram – UCA News

UCA News reporter
By UCA News reporter

Published: July 15, 2022 05:36 AM GMT

Hundreds of people from Myanmar’s predominantly Christian Chin state continue to flee the ongoing conflict and seek refuge in neighboring Mizoram state in India.

As of July 1, there were 726 new arrivals in India’s northeast, bringing the total number of refugees to 41,000, according to the latest report issued this week by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

It said over 76 percent sought shelter in Mizoram and 13 percent in Manipur.

The UNHCR said there was an uptick in cross-border movement in June following armed clashes in northwest Myanmar.

“With the start of the monsoon season in June, there is an urgent need for semi-permanent shelters in Mizoram and Manipur,” the agency said.

Mizoram shares a long border with Myanmar, where the military seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, after toppling Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government and putting several political leaders and activists behind bars.

Politicians, lawmakers, police and their families were among the refugees, mostly from Chin state which borders the Champhai district of Mizoram.

Most people who fled to India share an ethnic affinity with the Mizo people in Mizoram and have family ties with people in the Christian-dominated state.

Christians, mostly Baptists and Presbyterians, make up about 87 percent of Mizoram’s 1.15 million people. Catholic number 40,000.

There is ongoing fighting in northwestern Myanmar including Christian-majority Chin state where the military has used air strikes and artillery shelling against strong resistance from new militia groups that has led to thousands of people being displaced, according to media reports.

The impoverished region, which had not seen conflict for decades, has been at the forefront of resistance to the military regime and has witnessed fierce retaliatory attacks including aerial bombing, heavy artillery and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Dozens of churches including Catholic ones have been set ablaze, vandalized and destroyed by junta soldiers while priests and pastors have also been targeted.

The Southeast Asian nation has witnessed intense fighting between the junta and rebel forces in other predominantly Christian regions such as Karen and Kayah states, where civilians have been forced to leave their homes and flee to forests or seek shelter in church institutions.

As of July 4, an estimated 1,116,000 internally displaced persons were reported, including some 769,000 people who have been displaced within Myanmar since February 2021, according to the UNHCR.

The junta has killed nearly 2,100 people including hundreds of children and detained more than 14,000 people since last February’s coup.

Chin State Food Running Out as Myanmar Junta Blocks Roads (irrawaddy.com)

By THE IRRAWADDY 13 July 2022

Residents in Matupi and Mindat townships in southern Chin State are running out of food as Myanmar’s regime has blocked supplies.

The regime has blocked the Paletwa-Matupi, Matupi-Mindat, and Mindat-Kyaukhtu roads which supply the townships.

A Matupi volunteer said communities have almost run out of rice.

“The prices of oil and salt have increased. Three eggs cost 1,000 kyats [compared to around 150 kyats per egg in Yangon] and they are scarce. Most people can’t afford them,” she said.

The roads are blocked by the regime although there is no fighting with the Chinland Defense Force (CDF). A 61-liter rice sack was around 4,000 kyats before the coup in Matupi and they are now 66,000-70,000 kyats, when they are available, according to residents.

Residents are buying broken rice for around 45,000 kyats per sack. The regime is beginning to allow some residents to leave the town in private vehicles, said a Matupi resident.

“Patients who need hospital treatment can leave. Neighbors ask them to bring back food. They bring back eggs and dried fish but no rice and oil,” she said.

Mindat has been isolated and surrounding villages are often shelled, despite the lack of fighting, residents said.

“We have left our villages and farms. We are struggling to survive and concerned for our safety and food,” a villager told The Irrawaddy.

The Mindat CDF said junta helicopters and Light Infantry Battalion 274 based in Mindat are bombing villages.

More than 60 Mindat residents are reportedly in Pakokku Prison and around 30 are being held at Battalion 274 in Mindat.

It called for international charities to help displaced Mindat civilians.

Mindat residents said junta soldiers detained a man and woman in Kyawttaw village on July 6. Some villagers were reportedly injured when two helicopters dropped bombs on two villages on July 2. A school, church and some houses were damaged.

The regime shells villagers because it only controls Mindat town and adjacent villages, said the CDF.

This report details human rights abuses that took place in Mindat Township, Chin State from the period of April to December 2021. In May 2021, Martial Law was imposed on Mindat Town, pre-empting a large-scale assault by air and on the ground in order to engage with the Chin Defense Force – Mindat (CDF-M) and establish military control of the town. During a three-day siege, indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure took place, hospital premises were stormed, and widespread instances of war crimes committed by Tatmadaw forces were reported. Download 

 

Al Jazeera| On January 6, Pu Tui Dim, a human rights defender, journalist and former Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) colleague, was arrested by Myanmar junta solders while visiting his home village in northwestern Chin State’s Matupi Township. Nine other civilians from the same village, including a 13-year-old boy, were arrested alongside him.

A day later, my colleagues and I at the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) learned that Pu Tui Dim and others from his village were missing. Fearing the worst, we began a desperate scramble to establish contacts on the ground and gather information.

We soon learned that Pu Tui Dim and the villagers were detained by junta soldiers as they were travelling by motorbike through an area where junta forces have been fighting against the Chinland Defense Force, a pro-democracy armed group. With the military having cut phone lines and internet connections in the area, however, gathering further information and establishing their whereabouts proved to be an agonising effort.

But just two days later, on January 9, our worst fears were confirmed.

Our sources on the ground informed us that they had found the dead bodies of Pu Tui Dim and other villagers. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They were gagged. Some had had their throats slashed. Others had stab wounds to their abdomens.

This gruesome mass murder was just one example of the horror and destruction the military routinely brings upon the people of Myanmar as it desperately tries to cling to power a year after its coup.

We at the CHRO have been documenting the situation on the ground in Myanmar’s northwest since the coup. Arbitrary arrests and detentions of civilians, torture, summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighbourhoods and towns, violent nighttime raids, and destruction of private property have all become daily occurrences across the entire region in the past year.

The regime’s reign of terror has pushed more and more people to take up arms against the military as a last resort. But as the armed resistance grew, the military’s attacks on the civilian population became more vicious. Tens of thousands have become internally displaced or fled to neighbouring India in a matter of months.

Meanwhile, the military has deliberately sought to obstruct the collection of evidence of its abuses. It has blocked mobile internet services in 24 townships in Myanmar’s northwest since September, and at times, shut down mobile phone networks, as well. On top of this, it has occasionally imposed martial law, including movement restrictions, to make it more dangerous for people to collect information on the ground.

The coup has emboldened the military, which was already accused of genocide for its treatment of the Rohingya, to kill and destroy anyone and anything in its path.

I have been documenting the military’s human rights abuses for more than two decades, so I am well familiar with its brutal tactics. But I have rarely come across the extent of spine-chilling inhumanity that the military has shown across the country in recent months.

On December 23, for example, it launched indiscriminate air strikes on two Chin villages in the Sagaing region after suffering heavy casualties to local resistance forces in the preceding days. As civilians tried to flee, soldiers stormed the village, killing at least 19. On Christmas Eve, military forces massacred at least 35 people, including women, children and aid workers, in Karenni State, and burned them in their vehicles.

The military has also attacked my hometown of Thantlang at least 20 times during the past four months, burning more than 800 houses to the ground and displacing the entire population of more than 10,000. Deprived of access to basic medical attention and nutritious food, more than 30 people from Thantlang, mostly elderly, have died while fleeing, according to a tally conducted by my organisation.

Tragically, these attacks were foreseeable. Time and again, CHRO has joined civil society actors across the country in calling for governments around the world and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to act. Yet the world is doing almost nothing to rein in the junta as it continues to commit atrocities with impunity.

For example, in October, we were among more than 90 civil society organisations to sound an alarm about impending military attacks in northwestern Myanmar, including Chin State. Although the UNSC convened an emergency meeting on November 11, following which it released a statement expressing “deep concern”, we saw no tangible results. In the months since, the military has continued to burn down and destroy houses and places of worship and kill unarmed civilians, while intentionally depriving civilians of lifesaving aid.

In the absence of swift and decisive international action, we at the CHRO expect the situation to worsen. Since January 9, the military has sent at least 500 troop reinforcements as well as large quantities of arms and ammunition to Myanmar’s northwest, while bombarding Loikaw, the capital of Karenni State in southeastern Myanmar and sending about two-thirds of its 90,000 residents fleeing.

This past year, my colleagues and I have seen too many losses and too much suffering and destruction, and we are increasingly feeling abandoned in our efforts to stop the military from committing further human rights abuses. If governments and international bodies that could make an impact instead continue to look the other way, we are almost certain to see a further escalation in preventable violence.

Pu Tui Dim, who was 55 at the time of his death and left behind one son, had spent his entire adult life documenting the Myanmar military’s human rights abuses. During his six years with the CHRO, he had repeatedly put his own life at risk by clandestinely travelling to dangerous areas to collect human rights data. In spite of the nature of his work, Pu Tui Dim had always managed to stay positive and brighten the mood of our team. His selfless work was integral to CHRO’s efforts to give a voice to the Chin people and inform the world about the former military regime’s human rights abuses in Chin State.

After leaving the CHRO in 2002, he co-founded Khonumthung News, a local media outlet covering the situation in Chin State; he has spent the past 16 years serving as the organisation’s editor-in-chief. He was also one of the founders of Burma News International, a network of local media outlets.

Like countless other victims of the regime’s ruthless and arbitrary rule, Pu Tui Dim is an unsung hero of this people’s revolution against military dictatorship. May he rest in peace, and may he be the last human rights defender whose life is needlessly cut short by this regime.

As for those of us human rights defenders in Myanmar and the diaspora – we remain committed to continuing our work until all the people of Myanmar are free and able to exercise their fundamental rights.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A tribute to a human rights defender killed by Myanmar’s junta | Opinions | Al Jazeera


GENEVA (28 January 2022) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Friday urged the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of Myanmar and to insist on the prompt restoration of civilian rule.

“One year after the military seized power, the people of Myanmar – who have paid a high cost in both lives and freedoms lost – continue to advocate relentlessly for their democracy,” Bachelet said. “This week, I had a chance to speak in person with determined, courageous human rights defenders who are pleading to the international community not to abandon them, but to take robust, effective measures to ensure their rights are protected and the military is held accountable.”

“I urge governments – in the region and beyond – as well as businesses, to listen to this plea. It is time for an urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure that perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account.”

Bachelet said she had heard chilling accounts of journalists being tortured; factory workers being intimidated, silenced and exploited; intensified persecution of ethnic and religious minorities – including the Rohingya; arbitrary arrests, detentions and sham trials of political opponents; “clearance operations” targeting villagers; and indiscriminate attacks including through airstrikes and the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas, showing gross disregard for human life.

“And yet, courageous human rights defenders and trade unionists continue to protest, to advocate, to document and accumulate the mounting evidence of violations,” she said.

The brutal effort by security forces to crush dissent has led to the killing of at least 1,500 people by the military since the 1 February coup – but that figure does not include thousands more deaths from armed conflict and violence, which have intensified nationwide.

The UN Human Rights Office has documented gross human rights violations on a daily basis, the vast majority committed by security forces. At least 11,787 people have been arbitrarily detained for voicing their opposition to the military either in peaceful protests or through their online activities, of whom 8,792 remain in custody. At least 290 have died in detention, many likely due to the use of torture.

Armed clashes have grown in frequency and intensity, with every part of the country experiencing some level of violence. In those areas of highest intensity military activity – Sagaing region, Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states – the military has been punishing local communities for their assumed support of armed elements. The Office has documented village burnings, including places of worship and medical clinics, mass arrests, summary executions and the use of torture.*

The crisis has been exacerbated by the combined forces of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the banking, transportation, education and other sectors, leaving the economy on the brink of collapse. The daily lives of people have been severely impacted, with devastating effects on their enjoyment of economic and social rights. There are projections that nearly half of the population of 54 million may be driven into poverty this year.

“Members of Myanmar civil society have told me first-hand what the impact of the last year has been on their lives and those of their families and communities,” Bachelet said. “The people have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in standing up for their basic human rights and support each other.

Now the international community must show its resolve to support them through concrete actions to end this crisis.”

While there has been near universal condemnation of the coup and the ensuing violence, the international response has been “ineffectual and lacks a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis,” Bachelet said. The actions taken by the UN Security Council and by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been insufficient to convince Myanmar’s military to cease its violence and facilitate humanitarian access and aid deliveries. The High Commissioner welcomed some private corporations’ decisions to withdraw based on human rights grounds, as a “powerful tool to apply pressure on the financing of the military’s operations against civilians”.

Bachelet also stressed that the current human rights crisis is “built upon the impunity with which the military leadership perpetrated the shocking campaign of violence resulting in gross human rights violations against the Rohingya communities of Myanmar four years ago – and other ethnic minorities over many decades beforehand.”

“As long as impunity prevails, stability in Myanmar will be a fiction. Accountability of the military remains crucial to any solution going forward – the people overwhelmingly demand this,” Bachelet said.

ENDS

* The UN Human Rights Office will publish a report in March 2022 detailing the human rights situation in the country since the 1 February 2021 coup.

OHCHR | Myanmar: One year into the coup, Bachelet urges governments and businesses to heed voices of the people, intensify pressure on the military

Based on credible sources, the Chin Human Rights Organization has now been able to piece together the chain of command structure of the military hierarchical set up in southern Chin State under the Tactical Operations Command (TOC) based in Matupi. The TOC in Matupi has under its command, Light Infantry Battalion 140, Infantry Battalion 304 and Light Infantry Battalion 274, which is based in Mindat.

CHRO learned that following the embarrassing loss suffered by the military in the battle for Mindat in May, the previous Tactical Operations Commander Col. Thein Htun Aung was demoted after a court martial and deputy commander Lt. Col. Thet Zaw Htet was also court martialed and jailed in Monywa. The shake-up resulted in the appointment of Col. Ye Kyaw as the new Tactical Operations Commander. In the shuffle, Nay Pyi Taw established a new Tactical Operations Command in Mindat with LIB 274, which reports directly to the North Western Regional Military Command in Monwya, as well as the Office of the Commander-in-Chief in Nay Pyi Taw.

Since October 2021, the junta has deployed 100 additional troops to each of all the existing battalions operating in Chin State under the North Western Regional Military Command, with the exception of Paletwa which falls separately under the Western Command in Rakhine State.

To protect and promote human rights and democratic principles