CHRO

Foreign Minister expresses commitment to continue dialogue with Myanmar CSOs

7 September 2022: Representatives of six Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from Myanmar on Tuesday held a 90-minute-long dialogue with the Malaysian Foreign Minister Dato Saifuddin Abdullah and exchanged views on the multi-faceted crises in Myanmar. Present in the meeting were representatives from the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), Myanmar Cultural Research Society (MCRS), Progressive Voice (PV), and Women’s League of Burma (WLB).

In his opening remarks, the Foreign Minister shared his views and the initiatives he has undertaken with respect to the current situations in Myanmar, including his recent communication to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General requesting an update on the steps taken by ASEAN towards resolving the crises in Myanmar in the lead up to the upcoming ASEAN Summit in Indonesia in November. Expressing his concerns regarding the worsening humanitarian situation in Myanmar, the Foreign Minister said he recognized the need to directly support local civil society organizations working on the ground outside of the junta’s control to provide life-saving humanitarian aid to the people. He reiterated his earlier public statement regarding the need for ASEAN member states to urgently decide on whether to continue working with or without the military junta regarding the provision of humanitarian aid in Myanmar.

Representatives of the civil society organizations, in turn, expressed serious concern regarding the senselessness of working with the military junta in providing humanitarian aid to the very people who are suffering and fleeing from the junta’s atrocities. They stressed that current humanitarian aid delivery efforts being made with the focus on partnering with the military junta is completely ill-advised and counterproductive. They pointed out that the military junta, as the primary source of the crisis, cannot be trusted with aid delivery.

Taking the opportunity, participants of the meeting also thanked the Foreign Minister for his leadership in speaking out on the issue of the ongoing crises in Myanmar within the ASEAN membership and beyond the region. They urged him to continue to take a leading role in reaching out to other counterparts within ASEAN in forging a cohesive and coordinated response to the crises in Myanmar. At the same time, the CSOs noted the regional dimension to the Myanmar crisis, which has implications for the well-being and protection of refugees in Myanmar’s neighboring countries, including many thousands who have sought sanctuary in Malaysia following the attempted coup of 2021.

In particular, the CSO representatives raised grave concerns regarding the recent signing of new agreements and the presenting of credentials to the illegitimate junta by some of the UN Agencies working inside Myanmar, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN International Children’s Emergency Fund and UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Foreign Minister noted these concerns with great interest. The CSO representatives emphatically reminded the Foreign Minister that such maneuvers not only embolden the junta to continue committing atrocity crimes, but also serve to legitimize an illegal junta at a time when it is desperately seeking for international recognition ahead of the UN General Assembly session, which is once again set to decide on who will represent Myanmar at the world body.

Foreign Minister Abdullah expressed his commitment to continue interacting with Myanmar civil society organizations, as well as broadening the discussion to include other interested members of ASEAN.

 

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Statement on Meeting with Malaysia FM-

 
 

MAE SOT, Thailand—A few times each month, Saw Khu wakes before dawn and sets out on a dangerous mission to deliver sacks full of Western aid money to conflict-torn areas deep inside Myanmar.

After sneaking across the border from Thailand in a wooden canoe, he is driven through a mountain range strewn with soldiers from Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup last year. Arriving at a rendezvous point, he divvies up the cash among colleagues who either hand it over to families in need or use it to buy rice, instant noodles, tarps, mosquito nets, soap and other essentials for them.

“I’m not afraid,” said Mr. Khu, a 47-year-old Myanmar national whose nonprofit has around 200 members across southeast Myanmar and a handful in Thailand. “It’s something that has to be done.”

Mr. Khu’s missions are illegal in both countries. They are one of the few precarious avenues being used to get aid to Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations since the 2021 coup ended a nascent transition to democracy and aggravated conflict between the army and its opponents, according to interviews with more than a dozen representatives of local and international aid organizations, human-rights advocates and officials from the U.S. and Thailand.

Aid arriving for people who settled temporarily by the Moei River to escape fighting between the Myanmar army and insurgent groups.PHOTO: ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA/REUTERS

While the U.S. Agency for International Development and United Nations agencies continue to operate inside Myanmar, their reach is limited because the junta controls where they can go and to a large degree what they can do. Getting permission to move around involved complex processes even before the coup, but representatives of three aid organizations said there is now an intentional regime tactic of denying them access to large populations to cut off resources to areas where opposition to military rule is strongest. They cited the regime’s denial of travel authorizations and arbitrary delays in issuing staff visas as obstacles.

 

To reach vulnerable communities, Western governments often take the cross-border route—but it is convoluted. Myanmar-focused groups like Mr. Khu’s aren’t eligible for legal status in Thailand, which means most foreign governments can’t send funds directly to them. Instead, the governments contribute to larger, registered organizations that, while primarily focused on Thailand, channel some of the funds to the dozens of smaller groups operating inside Myanmar.

Donors have little visibility on how the aid is ultimately distributed but say that the smaller groups that are capable of navigating Myanmar’s tough conditions are their best hope of reaching at least some hard-hit locations. Aid workers like Mr. Khu operate with the help of armed rebel groups in Myanmar that are fighting the junta, traveling through their territories and under their protection.

Displaced people from Myanmar living in makeshift tents on the Thai side of the Moei River, in Mae Sot, Thailand.PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Myanmar’s regime continues to deny humanitarian access to many populations in need and urged all countries to press them for more. “At the same time, we and others in the international community are identifying alternate means of providing lifesaving assistance that is not dependent upon access permission,” the spokesperson said.

U.S.-based advocacy group Refugees International estimates some $10 million worth of aid has entered Myanmar through Thailand since the coup via these informal channels. It is a fraction of overall aid to the country, which is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Large parts of Myanmar remain inaccessible, such as central-northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region where more than half of those displaced since the coup are located.

The U.N. says the number of people who need aid ballooned from one million before the coup to 14.4 million in its aftermath—more than a quarter of the entire population. Before the coup, roughly 350,000 people were internally displaced by earlier conflicts, forced to flee their homes but staying inside Myanmar. That number has now surpassed 1.2 million. Half of the country’s school-age children have had no access to education for two years.

Nationwide protests broke out last year after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, which ended a nascent transition to democracy.PHOTO: EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Many live in warzones that have no clear front lines. The coup sparked nationwide protests that were met with lethal force by the military, hardening the resolve of the army’s opponents, some of whom turned to guerrilla-style armed resistance. The military responded by bombing and burning villages suspected of harboring insurgents. Conflict is concentrated near the country’s northwest and southeast borders, and increasingly its central plains.

The Myanmar military didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Conditions for the displaced are desperate. Eh Htoo Say, a 30-year-old teacher from Myanmar’s southeast Karen state, fled in December with her 5-year-old son when the Myanmar military bombed and occupied their village, Au Kree Hta. Sometimes they stay under a tarp propped up by bamboo on the bank of a river that separates Myanmar from Thailand. At other times, they hide in a rickety wooden barn just across the river, in Thailand.

She can’t cook after dark because fire would betray her location. She and her son bathe in the open, either in the river or a flooded rice field. She uses banana leaves to collect rainwater to drink and survives on rice and canned fish brought by local charities—part of the patchwork of organizations like Mr. Khu’s.

“I can keep living as long as I have aid,” she said. “But if I don’t get more I’ll really be in trouble.”

Eh Htoo Say, a displaced villager from southeast Myanmar, stands in Thailand looking across the border to Myanmar.PHOTO: FELIZ SOLOMON/WALL STREET JOURNAL

Thailand Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said that cross-border aid is allowed through legally registered groups like the Thai Red Cross Society. But human-rights advocates and aid workers say delivering aid to populations deep inside Myanmar requires familiarity with the country’s languages, terrain and conflict dynamics.

The Myanmar nationals who do that work described living in constant fear of being caught crossing the border. They can’t use Myanmar’s banks or mobile transfer apps, which they believe are monitored by the military.

In early July, an aid worker who was using aid money to buy rice for displaced people in southeast Myanmar’s Bago region was abducted by the Myanmar military and killed, the worker’s organization said. Nearly all of the aid workers interviewed requested anonymity due to fear of arrest, deportation or further restrictions on access.

“We’re just trying to help people, but to do that we have to be tricky, creative, and risk our lives,” said Mr. Khu’s supervisor. “There’s no guarantee—if we die, we die.”

Write to Feliz Solomon at [email protected]

The Dangerous Mission to Sneak Sacks of Cash in Western Aid Into Myanmar – WSJ

Date: July 20, 2022

Testimony_Oral_Presentation

Testimony of Salai Za Uk Ling, Deputy Executive Director of CHRO at the 4th Hearing of International Parliamentary Inquiry on Myanmar

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you this evening to speak about the situation of Chin people under military junta of Myanmar, which calls itself the State Administrative Council. My name is Salai Za Uk Ling and I represent the Chin Human Rights Organization, a group that has been documenting the human rights situation of Chin people for the last 27 years with a UN ECOSOC Special Consultative Status since 2018.

I am here to speak about the humanitarian consequences of the attempted coup with specific regards to the situation in Chin State, where I come from. I am doing so with the view of reminding all of us to stay laser-focused on who is responsible for the horrors of the past year and a half, and the urgent need for accountability and justice for the crimes committed, thus far with complete impunity. Let us be very clear that as we speak here today, the chief criminal mastermind who presided over the killings and mass atrocities against the people of Myanmar, General Min Aung Hlaing, is freely travelling internationally and visiting Russia, and the arm of international justice system is yet to reach him for the crimes he has committed. But I hope that this hearing will be the beginning of laying an important groundwork and providing impetus for advancing accountability and justice process in Myanmar.

That said, for the past year and half, Chin State with a Christian majority and a population of just below half a million, or one percent of the country’s population, has not escaped the kinds of atrocities and terrors at the hands of the Myanmar Army. In fact, the state has been one of the primary targets of military’s campaign of annihilation. I am using the word annihilation here because this is the exact word used by the junta’s spokesperson right before the start of their brutal military campaign around April last year. This should be emphasized because it was a public expression of criminal intent for what the army would do in the ensuing months. Our organization has closely monitored and documented incidents and patterns of the gross violations by the military over the period, and this is what we have found as of this month.

  • The unlawful deaths or extrajudicial killings of over 250 Chin civilians
  • Unlawful arrests and arbitrary detention of over 1100 people
  • The deliberate and intentional destruction of livelihood and civilian properties, including the burning of over 1800 houses across Chin State, the vast majority of which took place in my hometown Thantlang over the course of more than 30 separate attacks
  • The destruction of 65 religious buildings, including over 50 churches or places of worship
  • The forced displacement of an estimated 120,000 people, which constitute 20 percent of the entire population of Chin State

As you can see, despite being only 1 percent of the entire population, Chin State has suffered from disproportionate share of serious rights violations and related humanitarian crisis. The Tatmadaw is currently sending in two large military columns into Chin State, and there has been intense fighting in the north over the past three weeks. Soldiers from LID 22 have burned down three villages in Falam and Hakha Townships and summarily executed two civilians during this latest expedition. Fighting is also flaring up in the south as the reinforcement convoy is traveling from Pakhoku as we speak. The SAC troops are blocking all access routes to Chin State and preventing commercial traffics and basic commodities from entering to the area, including international humanitarian aid. This is all part of a strategy aimed at collective punishment under the four cuts practice. The objective is to establish strategic military dominance in the region by depopulating the entire region or pushing people into starvation, and eventually forcing them into submission under the military’s control. There is no end in sight for these gross violations being committed with impunity. The international community must act swiftly and decisively to tackle the culture of impunity and address the humanitarian needs of the people in the region. Everyday that action is delayed is another day that more people are dying and suffering. Something consequential needs to be urgently done to address the unfolding humanitarian disaster.

CHRO recommends the following course of action for the international community:

  • To take all measures to reject the legitimacy of SAC and deny their participation at any regional, multilateral or international spaces, including all the ASEAN platforms. We applaud countries that have boycotted the security summit in Russia this week, including New Zealand, Australia and the United States, and possibly South Korea and Japan
  • Adopt a more proactive, coordinated and direct approach towards Myanmar by stopping the usual approach of deferring everything to ASEAN, which has failed miserably
  • Directly engage with, and urgently make flexible funding and resources available for local CBOs and CSO networks who are providing humanitarian assistance to IDPs and refugee communities, especially via cross-border operations
  • Enable or increase funding for monitoring and human rights documentation work towards accountability and justice for international crimes committed by the military junta
  • Designate the civil servants across the country who continue to boldly defy the junta through the Civil Disobedience Movement as Frontline Human Rights Defenders to enable them to access channels for direct financial support for their brave human rights work.

 

Thank you

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

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.

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.

The SAC military junta has burned nearly 750 houses or a third of the buildings in Thantlang since September 9. The deliberate arson attacks, which include soldiers physically torching houses and shelling of incendiary rockets, came after repeated warnings issued by Brigadier-General Myo Htut Hlaing, Deputy Commander of the North Western Regional Military Command, based in Hakha in the weeks leading up to the first attacks. The continuing attacks on Thantlang is being carried out as a punishment to the residents who have been accused of harboring the Chin resistance movement, especially members of the Chinland Defense Force (CDF) and to uproot the over 10,000 residents from their habitat. Several civilians have been killed in indiscriminate rocket attacks and targeted shooting over the past four months.

These attacks constitute acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity under international laws. The SAC military junta led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing must be held accountable for his crimes. The international community must not fail the people of Myanmar, especially the victims of Min Aung Hlaing’s crimes in Thantlang.

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IMG_20211118_072115
IMG_20211130_065024
IMG_20211130_134209
IMG_20211203_115623
IMG_20211203_115626
IMG_20211203_115729
IMG_20211203_115739
IMG_20211203_115742
IMG_20211203_115744
IMG_20211208_121213
IMG_20211208_121308
269703232_584029943046562_890494802542915192_n
269737559_507302143917346_58655471298722015_n
269772584_348503123384824_8372940967253229628_n
269960129_7392561367435897_4291219875465993872_n
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IMG_20211029_142340
IMG_20211029_175802
IMG_20211208_121327
IMG_20211208_121356
IMG_20211208_121505
IMG_20211029_175802
IMG_20211118_072115
IMG_20211130_065024
IMG_20211130_134209
IMG_20211203_115623
IMG_20211203_115626
IMG_20211203_115729
IMG_20211203_115739
IMG_20211203_115742
IMG_20211203_115744
IMG_20211208_121213
IMG_20211208_121308
269703232_584029943046562_890494802542915192_n
269737559_507302143917346_58655471298722015_n
269772584_348503123384824_8372940967253229628_n
269960129_7392561367435897_4291219875465993872_n
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To protect and promote human rights and democratic principles