2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état

expand all
collapse all

Individual Documents

Title: WSU Myanmar students share personal stories amid military coup
Sub-title: Situation in Myanmar worsening following Feb. 1 coup; children being targeted
Description: "WSU Myanmar students and alumni are urging their family back home to stay hopeful as the Myanmar military coup that started on Feb. 1. continues. Thaw Zin Naing Civil engineering major Thaw Zin Naing came to the U.S. in May 2016, in pursuit of a higher education. Now only a year away from graduating, the future of his education is uncertain. Naing said the state of his country greatly affects his mental health and education. Along with the stress of the coup, Naing also lost his father eight days after the conflict started due to unrelated health reasons. His remaining family was forced into hiding because of his mother’s role as a student leader in the 1988 Myanmar uprising. While no longer off the grid, they have been forced to lie low and close their business to keep her identity a secret. Naing is unable to receive money from his family for his tuition as the Myanmar military is currently in control of the nation’s banks. WSU placed a hold on his tuition. But if Naing is unable to pay the fees by this December, he will no longer be a student at WSU. He plans on making a crowdfunding account in the near future to help pay his tuition but is having doubts about whether he can raise the money. Naing stressed that while he and his peers struggle, so many other people in Myanmar are losing their homes and loved ones and need the help even more. He said the lack of media coverage led to an absence of knowledge and aid. “It’s a long fight,” he said. “It’s already been eight months. I just hope they can hang on until the military buries themselves.” Sandi Win Thu A few months ago, Sandi Win Thu’s family found themselves in hiding, on the run and at times under direct gunfire, according to a Daily Evergreen article. Since then, Thu, biological sciences doctoral student, said her family reached some level of safety and she has continuous contact with them. She said the only thing that kept her going the last few months is talking to family every day to make sure they are safe. Thu said this is the second year Myanmar has no schooling available. The nation did not have the same access to virtual opportunities as students in the U.S throughout the pandemic. The military continued to keep schools closed in 2021, leaving many without proper education. Thu is very worried for her younger sister and her education as she continues to miss out on another year of school. She said she wants people back home to keep their heads high and to not lose hope. “I don’t want them to be afraid to go back to the academic way,” Thu said. Thu encourages her peers and the WSU community to help by spreading the word in order to gain support and aid for those fighting in Myanmar. To the people in Myanmar, Thu said she wishes they stay safe, stay healthy and do not lose hope. Wint Mon Mon Kway WSU alumni, Wint Mon Mon Kway, said the military’s control over Myanmar’s health care led to many unnecessary deaths resulting from COVID-19 and other diseases. Medical resources are either extremely limited or expensive leaving many people without options for adequate health care. She said those who have contracted COVID-19 had a difficult time obtaining proper oxygen supply, leading to more deaths. Kway said her country is no longer safe for the youth following the military’s takeover. Children are being targeted, with many being arrested or shot. Kyaw began applying to universities in the U.S. for her brother hoping it will get him away from the crisis. She manages her mental health by ignoring the news. Instead, Kway said she gets her information through her parents to avoid any corrupted media. She tries not to focus too much on the state of Myanmar but is concerned about the possibility of war. For now, Kway said she is focusing on her career first so that she can give back to her country later. Garmanie Kyaw Swar Tun Garmanie Kyaw Swar Tun, senior public relations major, said when the military initially cut off communications, he just kept thinking about the “what ifs.” His parents struggled to fund his education but were able to get some help from friends in the U.S. Tun said half of his friends growing up are brainwashed by the military. While he cut off contact with anyone holding those ideals, his father is unable to do the same. The coup majorly affected the Myanmar economy and the success of his father’s business. In order to continue making an income, Tun’s father is forced to stay in contact with military personnel. Tun said that after months of unrest, people feel they can no longer fight against the daily routine of shootings in the streets and bombings. He said the military’s use of weapons desecrated places that once were considered safe. “Where I used to go out, where I used to play around, where I used to eat,” he said. “We can’t even go out.” Tun said he hopes the coup ends soon and the country returns to what it was before. He wants people to know how beautiful and rich Myanmar can be; the country controlled by the military is not the same he once knew. “Never give up on hope. We’ve been under the military for 60 years and this is our chance to win,” he said. “This is our endgame. Either they win or we win.”..."
Source/publisher: The Daily Evergreen
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-22
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Announcement: 2021 MacBride Peace Prize recipients
Description: "Announcement: 2021 MacBride Peace Prize recipients Alexander Kmentt, Ambassador and Director of the Department of Disarmament, Arms-Control and Non-proliferation, Austria Assistant Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Myanmar/Burma About the Sean MacBride Peace Prize Every year the IPB awards a special prize to a person or organization that has done outstanding work for peace, disarmament and/or human rights. These were the principal concerns of Sean MacBride, the distinguished Irish statesman who was Chairman of IPB from 1968-74 and President from 1974-1985. MacBride began his career as a fighter against British colonial rule, studied law and rose to high office in the independent Irish Republic. He was a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1974) The award is decided by the IPB Steering Committee. IPB members are welcome to make suggestions and provide background documentation on potential candidates. The Prize is a non-monetary one. Assistant Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Burma Established in 2000, AAPP is a human rights organization that advocates for the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners within Burma/Myanmar. The organization is headquartered in Mae Sot, Thailand, close to the Burman border as many of AAPP’s staff members are former political prisoners exiled from the country. The organization accurately states that “As long as political prisoners exist inside Burma, Burma will not be free”. Since the military coup d’état staged by the Burman military on February 1 2021, the AAPP have continued to tirelessly and diligently documented each and every death caused by the Junta. Their work makes them targets of the Junta, but this is a sacrifice they willingly embrace, placing the future and wellbeing of their country before themselves. In recognition of their bravery and commitment to securing the freedom and democratic rule of Burma, the IPB decided to award AAPP the Sean MacBride Peace Prize for 2021. The AAPP has graciously accepted this award which will be officially given during a ceremony in 2022. Alexander Kmentt, Ambassador and Director of the Department of Disarmament, Arms-Control and Non-proliferation, Austria Mr Alexander Kmentt is the President-designate for the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a role he fulfils alongside his Directorship of the Department of Disarmament. Arms-Control and Non-proliferation within the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Kmentt has a long career behind him of advocating for a reduction in arms production, sale and use, especially nuclear weapons, bringing these issues to the highest levels of government and imploring decision makers to take notice and take action. Mr Kmentt was one of the key architects to the TPNW. In 2014 he organized the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons which culminated in the Humanitarian Pledge which was endorsed by 135 States and played a significant role in the TPNDW’s fruition. For these reasons, among others, the IPB board decided to award Mr Kmentt the Sean MacBride Peace Prize for 2021. Mr Kmentt has humbly accepted this award, which will also be given during a ceremony in 2022.
Source/publisher: International Peace Bureau ( Berlin)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-21
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 332.38 KB
more
Title: Karen Human Rights Group Commemorates International Day of Peace 2021
Description: "Today, September 21, the world commemorates the International Day of Peace. This annual event was created by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1981. It is a day on which armed actors across the world are expected to cease hostilities for 24 hours as a celebration of the spirit of peace and the shared hope that we will one day live in a world where conflict is resolved without resorting to violence. This year, International Day of Peace is observed in the context of the February 2021 Myanmar military coup. Since this day, the junta has committed serious crimes and violations of international law against the people of Myanmar, including but not limited to the disproportionate use of force against peaceful protestors, arbitrary killings, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and sexual and gender-based violence. Other fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of expression have also been severely curtailed through the restriction of internet and communication services, as well as the junta’s enacted laws that criminalise the legitimate exercise of free expression. All of these have happened against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic that has continued to have detrimental effects on the health and livelihood of the people. Since March 2021, in Karen State, there has been intense fighting between the State Administration Council’s (“SAC”) military and ethnic armed groups. In particular, the SAC’s military has conducted airstrikes and ground attacks that are indiscriminate in nature. The aerial bombings and mortar shelling have caused death and serious injury to villagers, as well as the destruction of homes and other civilian objects. In turn, this has led to a severe humanitarian crisis marked by the displacement of thousands of villagers from their homes and ancestral lands, food shortages, and the lack of adequate healthcare in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The increased militarisation and resumption of intense armed hostilities in Karen State have also led to other violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. KHRG and KWO have been receiving reports of soldiers pillaging villages, the use of women as human shields, forced labour, as well as the use of landmines by all armed actors in a seemingly indiscriminate manner that have maimed and even killed villagers who were often on their way to work at the markets or farms. The theme of this year’s International Day of Peace is “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world.” For Myanmar particularly, this message is a reminder that the ethnic people of the country, who have been marginalised, must have a seat at the table concerning all matters relating to the resolution of the current crisis and the future of Myanmar. It is also a reminder that for peace to be sustainable there has to be justice and accountability for the crimes committed by all armed actors regardless of their ethnic affiliations. In commemoration of International Day of Peace, KHRG calls on the SAC and all other armed actors to observe this important event by participating in the international ceasefire. Let this Day of Peace be a moment of reflection on the countless deaths that have occurred as a result of the conflict and remember the shared responsibility of all actors in bringing about peace in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-21
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 86.03 KB 97.3 KB
more
Title: Myanmar’s Suu Kyi Denies False Reports That She Opposes Armed Resistance to Junta.
Description: "Myanmar’s detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has denied false reports that she didn’t accept armed resistance against the military regime by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Last week, fake news circulated online by military supporters stated that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivered a message to the public that she denounced the NUG and PDFs’ activities as terrorist acts—the same stand as the regime. The report also falsely claimed the detained leader said armed resistance is not the right approach and that she wants a peaceful solution, and that she urged the public not to support the NUG and PDFs. The NUG was formed by elected lawmakers of the National League for Democracy chaired by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, along with ethnic and civil society leaders, to rival the military junta after the Feb. 1 coup. PDFs were formed by local civilian resistance fighters to defend the junta’s offensives against civilians. The false report came amid increasing attacks on the military regime and its assets by civilian resistance fighters following the parallel NUG’s Sept. 7 declaration of a nationwide defensive war against the junta. And the fake report claimed the message was released by the detained leader through her legal team, which is currently the only link between her and the outside world. Her legal team had previously rejected the reports, saying that no one on the team had been relayed any such information from the State Counselor. They said they asked her to comment on the false reports on Monday before her weekly trial hearing. “When we told her about the report, she asked ‘Do people believe that?’ and added that ‘I would never say words which will dismay the public [or go] against their will,” U Khin Maung Zaw, one of her lawyers who was at the brief meeting with her on Monday before the court hearing, told The Irrawaddy. Since her arrest, the leader has met with no outside persons and was only allowed to have a brief chat with her legal team for the first time on June 7, at the first hearing where she appeared in court in person. The junta has brought a total of six charges against her including alleged violations of COVID-19 restrictions, possession of illegal walkie-talkies, sedition and breaching the Official Secrets Act. The military regime has also filed four corruption charges against her. She faces a potential prison sentence of 75 years. By THE IRRAWADDY 20 September 2021 Myanmar’s detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has denied false reports that she didn’t accept armed resistance against the military regime by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). Last week, fake news circulated online by military supporters stated that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivered a message to the public that she denounced the NUG and PDFs’ activities as terrorist acts—the same stand as the regime. The report also falsely claimed the detained leader said armed resistance is not the right approach and that she wants a peaceful solution, and that she urged the public not to support the NUG and PDFs. The NUG was formed by elected lawmakers of the National League for Democracy chaired by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, along with ethnic and civil society leaders, to rival the military junta after the Feb. 1 coup. PDFs were formed by local civilian resistance fighters to defend the junta’s offensives against civilians. The false report came amid increasing attacks on the military regime and its assets by civilian resistance fighters following the parallel NUG’s Sept. 7 declaration of a nationwide defensive war against the junta. And the fake report claimed the message was released by the detained leader through her legal team, which is currently the only link between her and the outside world. Her legal team had previously rejected the reports, saying that no one on the team had been relayed any such information from the State Counselor. They said they asked her to comment on the false reports on Monday before her weekly trial hearing. “When we told her about the report, she asked ‘Do people believe that?’ and added that ‘I would never say words which will dismay the public [or go] against their will,” U Khin Maung Zaw, one of her lawyers who was at the brief meeting with her on Monday before the court hearing, told The Irrawaddy. Since her arrest, the leader has met with no outside persons and was only allowed to have a brief chat with her legal team for the first time on June 7, at the first hearing where she appeared in court in person. The junta has brought a total of six charges against her including alleged violations of COVID-19 restrictions, possession of illegal walkie-talkies, sedition and breaching the Official Secrets Act. The military regime has also filed four corruption charges against her. She faces a potential prison sentence of 75 years. U Khin Maung Zaw said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi urged the team to point out that they were not being allowed to defend her in accordance with due legal process. At Monday’s court hearing, public prosecutors applied to the court to present an additional witness, an official from the Ministry of Communications, and the defense objected..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-21
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Jailed Myanmar Actress Wins Top Award at German Film Festival
Description: "Imprisoned Myanmar actress Eaindra Kyaw Zin has won the Best Performance Award at Germany’s Oldenburg International Film Festival. The famous actress was arrested and jailed for anti-regime activities in early April and is currently spending her 164th day in Yangon’s Insein Prison, alongside thousands of other political prisoners. She won the Seymour Cassel Best Performance Award for the melodrama What Happened to the Wolf? The movie follows two women who meet and fall in love while patients at a hospital for the terminally ill, with Eaindra Kyaw Zin and fellow Myanmar Motion Picture Academy Award winner Paing Phyoe Thu playing the women. At the September 15 opening ceremony of the Oldenburg International Film Festival, the festival director Torsten Neumann and others wore t-shirts in honor of the detained actress. Eaindra Kyaw Zin is among the highest-profile supporters of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). She was arrested along with her husband Pyay Ti Oo, who is also a famous actor. The two face potential three-year prison terms for sedition for their opposition to the military regime The couple, reputedly the highest-paid actors in Myanmar, joined street protests demanding a return to democracy following the junta’s February 1 coup. They urged civil servants to refuse to work for the regime and join the CDM. What happened to the Wolf? is directed and produced by Na Gyi, who made the film before the coup. Na Gyi, along with his wife Paing Phyoe Thu, is in hiding after arrest warrants for sedition were issued for the couple for allegedly using their celebrity status to oppose the coup. Also in hiding are two other actors in the film, Kyaw Htet Aung and Aung Myint Myat. Paing Phyoe Thu was also nominated for the Seymour Cassel Award for Best Performance. “Na Gyi’s What happened to the Wolf? and the performances of the lead actresses left us breathless,” said award-winning actress and festival jury member Deborah Kara Unger as she announced the award. “We celebrate her [Eaindra Kyaw Zin] elegance, her soul, her invaluable gift to cinema with hope that this reaches her,” she added. Over 8,200 civilians including protesters, activists, politicians and celebrities have been detained by the junta since the coup. Another 2,000-odd people are the subject of arrest warrants. The junta has also banned the showing, broadcasting or publishing of works by artists arrested or wanted for their involvement in anti-regime activities..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-20
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar Regime Soldiers Kill Christian Pastor, Cut Ring From His Hand
Description: "A Chin Christian pastor was shot dead and his wedding ring was looted by Myanmar junta soldiers who cut off the pastor’s finger during an urban clash with civilian resistance forces in Thantlang Township, Chin State on Saturday. On the day, a six-hour prolonged firefight between junta forces and a combined force of the Chinland Defense Force-Thantlang (CDF-T) and the Chin National Army (CNA) occurred in Thantlang. The CDF-T claimed that more than 30 junta troops were killed during the firefight with no casualties on the civilian forces’ side. In the afternoon, 19 houses were set ablaze when junta soldiers opened fire randomly into the town with heavy weapons and explosives. Christian pastor Cung Biak Hum was shot dead by the junta forces when he went outside to help put out the fires caused by the military’s artillery fire. Following the killing and burning down of the houses in the town, the Chin Baptist Convention (CBC) on Sunday issued a statement condemning the atrocities of junta forces against civilians in Chin State. “We are deeply hurt and frightened by the killing of the pastor and stripping of a golden ring by cutting off his finger, as well as the looting of other belongings; [a] watch and mobile phone,” the CBC said in a statement. Most of the residents of Thantlang have reportedly fled the town after seeing the intense violence committed by the junta forces. Myanmar has seen armed resistance by civilians against the junta in Chin State since late April, after junta forces failed to release detained anti-regime protesters in the mountaintop town of Mindat. Last week, a combined force of the CDF-T and CNA seized and burned down a military outpost in Lungler Village near the Indian border west of Thantlang. On Saturday night, at least five people including a child were injured and two houses were burnt to ashes when junta forces randomly opened fire with heavy artillery in residential areas in Hakha, the capital of Chin State..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-20
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: The Statement of Kachin Baptist Convention - ကချင်နှစ်ခြင်းခရစ်ယာန်အဖွဲ့ချုပ် ၏ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်း။
Description: "1. CBC (Chin Baptist Convention), one of the 18 Language & Region Conventions of MBC (Myanmar Baptist Convention) released a statement on the 19th of September 2021. Reading upon the shocking news, KBC (Kachin Baptist Convention) members are saddened by the news, and KBC would like to convey that we are in this together. 2. As stated in CBC’s statement, KBC, too, strongly condemns the inhumane murder of Pastor Cung Biak Hum, the torching of churches, buildings, and houses, and the barbaric acts of threatening the security and life of the pastors, the members of churches and the civilians in Chin state. 3. Since 1st of February 2021, the citizens of Myanmar face with immense worries and feeling of hopelessness for the future. Hence, KBC’s stand is: the wills and voices of the citizens must be implemented by standing on the side of the truth..."
Source/publisher: Kachin Baptist Convention
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-20
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 27.69 KB 92.6 KB
more
Title: Statement regarding the internet cutoff in many townships in Sagaing Region and others areas, and recent events happening throughout the country
Description: "1. Fascist Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) forcefully robbed the sovereign power of Myanmar since the coup on February 1. Many strong evidences show that they have been committing hideous crimes against humanity since then. 2. Fascist Myanmar military has intensified raids in cities and villages and arrested unlawfully, tortured and killed many innocent local people with no restraints. Moreover, evidences show that the military has increased their terrifying crimes and even set a whole village on fire time and again. 3. Fascist Myanmar military recently cuts off telephone lines and internet in many townships and areas around the country and also plans to cut off more areas; they are clearly violating the right to information. The unlawful arrests, tortures and killings of villagers under the "Area cleaning" program imply that the military regard the local people as enemy and the cities and villages as battle fields. 4. Fascist Myanmar military has launched offensive attacks in ethic regions, committed crimes against humanity under the program of "Area cleaning", and committed planned genocide on minority ethnic groups for decades. Reflection on the recent incidents happened around the country including Chin State, Sagaing Region and Yaw area indicate that the military is planning to commit similar crimes again across the country. 5. When the fascist military committed the hideous crimes against Rohingya and destroyed villages by setting them on fire, which caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to abandoned their homes and ran for their lives, and when the fascist military launched offensive attacks with disproportioned forces in ethnic regions, they had cut off the internet and telephone lines in those areas to cause news blackout on their crimes of setting villages on fire, arresting and torturing of villagers and killings the masses. 6. Fascist Myanmar military launched airstrikes on defenseless villages, set many villages on fire, killed mass number of villagers, and looted local people's properties across the country especially in Chin State, Chindwin river delta area and Northwest plain region in Sagaing Region, and Yaw area in Magway Region under the "Area cleaning" program. Cutting off internet and telephone lines to create news blackout in these areas are the first step of their future plans on committing more crimes. 7. Fascist Myanmar military uses disproportionate forces in their offensive attacks in ethic regions, Sagaing Region, Chindwin river delta region and Yaw region; these attacks will lead to major humanitarian crisis as millions of people will be forced to abandon their homes and villages and become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). 8. If we cannot prevent further crimes against humanity such as offensive attacks of the Myanmar military led by Min Aung Hlaing using disproportionate forces and brazen violations of international laws and human rights, the appalling stories like the recent Rohingya genocide incidents and violent repressions in ethnic regions will repeat across the country. 9. Thus, we urge all the stakeholders including National Unity Government (NUG), revolution forces, and Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) to formulate necessary plans and implement these effectively and promptly to help protect the lives of civilians. 10. Myanmar will be ungovernable by the military council led by Min Aung Hlaing and the military's violent repressions will spread instability to the neighboring countries and threaten the regional peace. Thus, to prevent the potential humanitarian crisis spreading to the regional countries as many civilians will flee to the neighboring countries to escape the unlawful repression of the fascist military, we earnestly request the international community including the United Nations, neighboring countries, and ASEAN to stop the fascist military's offensive attacks, to stop the military council administration and return to democracy, to be accountable for their crimes by pressuring the military council in all possible ways and by increasing the contact with the NUG, who represent the Myanmar people, and providing more effective support to the NUG. 11. Myanmar people will never accept the military council's governance and the people will keep on fighting against the military until we can put a stop to all the inhumane terrorism of fascist Myanmar military and end the military dictatorship. We will use all measures tomake the fascist Myanmar military accountable for their crimes and to develop and instill federal democracy in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: 98 Organizations from Sagaing Region
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-19
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 69.82 KB
more
Title: စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီးအတွင်းရှိ မြို့နယ်များနှင့် ဒေသများစွာတို့တွင် အင်တာနက်နှင့် ဖုန်းလိုင်းများ ဖြတ်တောက်ခံရခြင်း အပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံအဝန်း ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည့် ကိစ္စရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်းသည့် သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
Description: "Statement regarding the internet cutoff in many townships in Sagaing Region and others areas, and recent events happening throughout the country..."
Source/publisher: 98 Organizations from Sagaing Region
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-19
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 646.03 KB
more
Title: Morrison Government must not recognise Myanmar military dictatorship at UN General Assembly
Description: "The Morrison Government must support the end of the military junta and the return of democracy to the people of Myanmar. This includes the recognition of the National Unity Government (NUG) as the true representatives of the people of Myanmar, and not the military junta, at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly which convenes this week. The ACTU is joining unions around the world today on the UN International Day for Democracy to support the recognition of the NUG. The NUG is the democratically elected government of Myanmar, which was ousted by the military in a coup in February. The junta is responsible for over 1000 civilian deaths. The military junta are attacking and repressing trade unionists and workers, with trade union leaders being arrested, hunted, and driven into hiding. Sixteen trade unions and labour rights organisations have been outlawed. Over 300,000 workers have been dismissed for peacefully protesting and striking against the military. The coup and COVID-19 have pushed more than 25 million people into poverty. Australia is shamefully out of step with international efforts to end military rule in Myanmar. While the USA, UK and EU have all implemented sanctions against the coup leaders and military linked businesses, the Morrison Government is looking to deepen its ties by pushing ahead with ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement. The Government introduced the enabling bill for RCEP into Parliament on 1 September and is expected to be debated when Parliament resumes in October. The ACTU reiterates its call for the Morrison Government to renegotiate the RCEP agreement to address a number of flaws, and to not ratify RCEP with Myanmar until democratic rule is restored. Quotes attributable to ACTU President Michele O’Neil: “The Prime Minister must use Australia’s position at the UN General Assembly to recognise a democratically elected government, and not a military junta which has killed over 1000 civilians since the coup. “The Morrison Government is dangerously out of step with the rest of the world – while the USA, UK and EU have implemented sanctions against the military leaders and businesses, the Morrison Government has failed to implement sanctions and is instead deepening ties by pushing ahead with the RCEP trade agreement with the military junta – in turn legitimising the regime. “25 million people are now living in absolute poverty in Myanmar due to the military coup and COVID 19 – it is critical that Australia shows leadership in the region and stands up for democracy rather than legitimising the military junta. “The Australian union movement stands in solidarity with the trade union movement in Myanmar who are resisting the military dictatorship. They are calling on the international community to support their struggle for democracy through the implementation of sanctions and recognition of the NUG – it’s well past time the Morrison Government took meaningful action to support the people of Myanmar.”..."
Source/publisher: "Australian Council of Trade Unions" (Melbourne)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-18
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar: Military junta intensifies hostility towards media workers
Description: "Myanmar’s military junta is increasingly arresting media workers, a sign of the gradual deterioration of press freedom in the country. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the repeated and increasingly hostile acts of Myanmar’s military junta towards media workers, which are a blatant attempt to supress an objective and independent press in Myanmar. On September 10, the State Administration Council increased the charges against Frontier Myanmar and Voice of America political reporter Sithu Aung Myint. Myint, along with Htet Htet Khine, a freelance producer for BBC Media Action, have been detained in Insein Prison since their apprehension and arrest on August 15. Myint has had an additional charge levelled under Article 505(b) which criminalises speech that could “cause fear or alarm in the public” within Myanmar’s penal law. She was initially charged with the dissemination of false news, a crime under Article 505(a) of Myanmar’s penal code. A sedition charge, under Article 124(a) of the penal code, was also made but has since been withdrawn. Myint has reported on criticism of Myanmar’s military junta. Khine was charged with harbouring Myint, an accused criminal at that stage, and for alleged ties to a shadow National Unity Government under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act. Moreover, Myo Thant, former Mizzima news editor-in-chief, was arrested by the State Administration Council on September 15. A justification for his arrest has not been disclosed. This follows the confirmation of photojournalist Ma Thuzar’s arrest by Myanmar police on September 5. Myanmar’s junta has repeatedly publicised its opposition to independent media during its administration. The Deputy Information Minister, Major General Zaw Min Tin said on July 12, “These media outlets are a danger to the people and traitors to the state, as they are broadcasting fake news and incorrect opinions.” The likelihood of arrest is an “ever-present” consideration for Myanmar’s media workers, according to Aye Chan Naing, chief-editor of independent Myanmar broadcaster DVB News. Recent reporting indicates that 98 journalists have been arrested by the junta since the coup on February 1, 2021. The IFJ said: “We condemn the punitive actions by the Myanmar military junta aimed at curtailing a strong and independent press. The IFJ calls for the immediate release of Sithu Aung Myint, Htet Htet Khine, and Myo Thant as well as for the release of all other media workers enduring detainment in Myanmar; arbitrary detentions must end so that the people of Myanmar can begin to create a safe and secure country.”..."
Source/publisher: "International Federation of Journalists" (Brussels)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-18
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Two more journalists arrested in Myanmar’s continuing crackdown
Description: "Following the addition of two more names to the list of 54 journalists and media workers currently held in the military junta’s jails in Myanmar, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reminds the international community of the need for targeted sanctions against those responsible for the growing terror. Mizzima News former editor-in-chief Myo Thant was arrested yesterday in Kangye Htaung, a township in southwestern Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River delta region. RSF has learned that the security forces went to the township after being told he was there, and threatened to take his aunt if he did not surrender. He was finally arrested at round 8 pm. The Channel Mandalay news agency meanwhile confirmed today that one of its journalists, Win Naing Oo, was arrested with his wife on 31 August. His arrest came to light as a result of official report that he had been charged under section 505(a) of the penal code, under which the dissemination of information contrary to the interests of the armed forces is punishable by three years in prison. He is being held incommunicado at a detention centre in Sint Kaing, a township in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city. “The arrests of Win Naing Oo and Myo Thant sadly illustrate the extreme brutality with which Myanmar’s military treats journalists, pursuing them, pressuring their relatives and holding them incommunicado,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Their names have joined a list that keeps on growing. It is high time the international community reacted to the situation by imposing targeted sanctions on the ruling junta’s leaders.” World’s second biggest jailer of journalists According to RSF’s tally, a total of 53 professional journalists, two non-professional journalists and a media worker are currently imprisoned in Myanmar. In the past seven and a half months, since the coup d’état on 1 February, Myanmar has become the world’s second biggest jailer of journalists. Only China detains more. Myo Thant’s arrest comes two weeks after that of Ma Thuzar, a freelancer for various outlets including the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency and the Friday Times News Journal. As RSF reported last week, the authorities let five days go by before confirming her arrest. Myanmar is currently ranked 140th in RSF's World Press Freedom Index..."
Source/publisher: Reporters Without Borders (Paris)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-18
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Women's League of Burma - August Situation Update
Description: "In the seven months which have now passed since the junta’s attempted coup, the people of Burma/Myanmar have been forced to endure multiple grievances, all of which have taken a toll on the state’s economy and socio-political affairs. The whole country has been pushed back to living under constant threads and insecurity. The military has used all forms of violence including arrest, killing, torture and sexual assault to suppress any actions taken against the coup. The junta also employs state-controlled media to defame women who have joined resistance forces. The junta’s spokesperson in particular has used sexist and patriarchal language against these brave women in an attempt to discredit them. After the arrest, the people continue to suffer from the violence during the interrogation process and in detention. Three dozen civilians have already been tortured to death following interrogations by the military. Many died within 24 hours of being tortured. Eighty- two percent of those in detention are in locations that the junta has not disclosed. At this moment, it is impossible to know how many more women and children are being abused under the scrutiny and increased surveillance of the junta. Women face various challenges as they face the onslaught of the pandemic in the midst of the coup and crippling internal conflict. Female health workers are under attack as they join the hundreds forced to go underground as the junta seeks out medical professionals with any connection to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM)..."
Source/publisher: Women's League of Burma
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-18
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 905.84 KB (12 Pages)
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Arrests Two More Journalists
Description: "Two more Myanmar journalists have been arrested by junta forces, raising the number of journalists being held by the military regime to 53 as of September 16, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Since the military’s February 1 coup, Myanmar has become the world’s second-biggest jailer of journalists, after China, said RSF. On Wednesday night, the former editor-in-chief of Mizzima News, Ko Myo Thant, was arrested in Kangyidaunt Township, Ayeyarwady Region. Junta forces went to Kangyidaunt after being told that Ko Myo Thant was there, and threatened to detain his aunt if he did not surrender, RSF stated in a report released on Thursday. Channel Mandalay news agency journalist Ko Win Naing Oo was arrested on August 31 with his wife. News of his arrest only emerged on Thursday, following a report that he has been charged under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, which criminalizes the spreading of false comments or fake news targeting government officials. Ko Win Naing Oo faces a potential prison sentence of three years. Since seizing power, the junta has targeted journalists with arrests, lawsuits, raids on newsrooms and violence in an effort to silence independent coverage of its daily atrocities. Over 100 journalists and media workers have been detained. In some cases, relatives of journalists have been held as hostages to force the journalists to turn themselves in. “The arrests of [Ko] Win Naing Oo and [Ko] Myo Thant sadly illustrates the extreme brutality with which Myanmar’s military treats journalists, pursuing them, pressuring their relatives and holding them incommunicado,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. Ma Thuzar, a freelance reporter and former member of the Press Council has also been arrested. She was snatched by police as she left her home on the morning of September 1. Her arrest was only confirmed by the police on September 5. Her family were unable to confirm her whereabouts, although there are rumors that she was taken to a military interrogation center in Yangon. The reason for her detention is unknown. RSF has called on the international community to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for the media crackdown..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: MYANMAR’S CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT
Description: "AN INTRODUCTION TO MYANMAR’S CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT: On 8 November 2020, Myanmar held a third round of national elections since the start of an extended reform process instigated by the 2008 Constitution and national elections in 2010 and 2015. This reform process was premised on the country transitioning away from military dictatorship and civil war and towards peace and federalism. During the November 2020 elections, the military-backed political party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), lost decisively to the National League for Democracy (NLD), which is led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Subsequently, the USDP and the military started to make false claims of widespread electoral fraud. Both domestic and international election monitors had deemed the poll fair and credible. Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, launched a coup d’état on 1 February 2021, removing the elected NLD government led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint. The Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing took power, forming a dictatorial body of the “State Administration Council” (SAC), composed largely of generals. The Tatmadaw also announced a “one-year-long state of emergency” and that multi-party elections would be held at the end of this year. This period was subsequently extended by SAC in July. The generals announced, unsurprisingly, that elections would not be held within one year of the coup but instead would not be held until at least August 2023. Despite their own unconstitutional actions in the form of a coup, the Tatmadaw cynically contends that the 2008 Constitution is still sacrosanct. Opposition to the Tatmadaw’s unconstitutional and coercive action was quick and nation-wide. Peaceful protests spread across the entire country demanding the release of all political prisoners and the return of the elected government. The Tatmadaw’s claims of electoral fraud were met with widespread contempt from the Myanmar people because of the military’s distinctly toxic history of launching coups and denying or corrupting elections. As peaceful protests were expanding across the country in early February, a novel movement also began to emerge. This movement intended to demonstrate both moral and ethical repulsion at the actions of the coup leaders but also to begin applying peaceful pressure on the military regime to relinquish power. The first incident of what would quickly grow into a national movement occurred on 2nd February. Medical doctors and other healthcare workers at the Mandalay General Hospital, all civil servants, posted social media statements that they would not work for an illegal military regime. As Naypyidaw surgeon Zwe Min Aung recounted to the Voice of America, “At the time, we really disagreed [with] this [the military coup], and we created [a] small group in Mandalay hospital and other hospitals, too. We distributed the statement on February 2 from Facebook and the nationwide CDM began.”2 Though CDM began as an online campaign but has expanded into a wider prodemocracy movement as civil servants from across the ministries started to boycott the military regime. As the movement gained momentum, ever wider parts of Myanmar society joined to make their opposition to the junta known.....MYANMAR’S PEOPLE REJECT MILITARY DICTATORSHIP: Myanmar is not a failed state. Its condition is not that of chronic state weakness caused by civil war, corruption, or entrenched dictatorship. Rather, it is a country where the public, as well as both the private and public sectors, reject the military coup staged on 1 February 2021. In this sense, Myanmar is a country where the near entirety of the population - including civil servants and the private sector – is staging a general strike to peacefully protest the illegal seizure of power by the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw. This effort is the CDM, a non-violent endeavour of an entire population to resist brutal dictatorship. By early-2021, the public had experienced nearly a decade of civilian leadership, economic growth and more generally reform and positive change. This was particularly so after the fully free elections in 2015 that brought the NLD political party, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to power. The prospects of returning to decades of impoverishment and dictatorial violence through Tatmadaw rule was revolting to the tens of millions of Myanmar citizens who sought to show their unwillingness to accept the coup through peaceful demonstrations in countless villages, towns, and cities across the country. CDM is composed of three major groups from the Myanmar people: the general public, private sector businesses and associations, and civil service personnel. CDM by Myanmar’s Public Since the 1 February coup, countless protests have taken place daily across the entire country to show solidarity for CDM and to demonstrate an absolute rejection of the junta. Over February and March, hundreds-of-thousands of normal Myanmar citizens gathered across the country’s cities, towns, and villages to demonstrate their anger and demand a future of federal democracy. These early mass demonstrations served to unite the various societies within Myanmar. The revulsion of the junta is near universal. For instance, Myanmar’s national football team refused to play under military dictatorship, while hundreds of monks led a prayer session supporting CDM and protestors. Numerous professional associations have regularly demonstrated on the streets wearing their respective attires (doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, and lawyers). Women have been prominent in the protests and LGBTs groups have also joined protests. The mass protests were not limited to one ethnic group or a particular area of the country. They were across the entire country, spanning religious, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. What united all the millions of people peacefully protesting was a shared desire for a better future defined by a path of democratization, peace, and economic development. The traumas of decades of brutal dictatorship, civil war and crushing impoverishment under the military are too painful to accept returning to. As such, some of the most common placards held high delivered the key messages - “Respect Our Votes” and “Say No to Coup.” Some young women joined early protests playfully wearing wedding gowns and holding placards with messages such as “we don’t accept military coup.” Myanmar’s people just want a normal life for themselves and their families. They know the military will never provide that. Given its toxic history, Myanmar’s military predictably resorted to mass violence against peaceful protesters as they have done so many times over the decades since independence in 1948. Large protests were no longer possible by the end of March after the military started regularly using war weaponry automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and machine guns to disperse peaceful protest rallies. Despite this violence by an organization claiming to protect the people, viz. a national army, Myanmar’s people have continued to protest across the country using novel methods - such as so-called ‘flash mobs’ - to avoid opportunities by the junta to kill. Such is their determination and despite the risk of death, Myanmar’s people can still be seen from the smallest villages to the largest cities demonstrating their desire for a return to democracy and a better future..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 2.12 MB(Original version), 428.52 KB (Reduce version) -15 pages
more
Title: National Unity Government: Press Release No. 15/2021
Description: "Republic of the Union of Myanmar National Unity Government https://nugmyanmar.org Weekly Press Release (15/2021) 17 September 2021 1. National Unity Government (NUG) issued a Press Release (14/2021) on 13th September in which the NUG stressed the following points; - That the People’s revolution and uprising against the military council had begun. - That the military council has no interest in finding a peaceful political solution and still clinging onto power by continuing its atrocious inhumane activities. - That the NUG has a duty to protect the lives and livelihood of the populace. - That even though it acknowledges the combined efforts of the international community and that we as a nation united, instead reliant on them, will have to wrest the power back. - That the People’s Defence Forces have started the resistance movement. - That the People’s Defence Forces after joining forces with Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAO) together are preparing to take part in the revolution. - That the general public stay united and offer assistance. 2. NUG collectively with the Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAO) has formed a committee of implementing the Peoples Embrace Project to welcome and embrace those soldiers and police who have defected to take part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). A social network page https://facebook.com/peoplesembrace and telegram Channel - https://t.me/MyanmarPeople have also been created for this purpose. 3. A special announcement prohibiting proposed sale of public estate belonging to diplomatic missions of Myanmar and declaring any purchase thereof to be unlawful, was made by the Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment on 14th September (Announcement 11/2021). All land, buildings,properties and holdings held in the name of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and organs of state, both within and outwith the Union, belong to the people of Myanmar.The illegal military council and its subsidiary institutions being devoid of moral and legal right to represent the people of Myanmar, have no right to control, manage or dispose of these public estates. NUG has declared that any sale, in part or in whole, of any estate belonging to the diplomatic mission of Myanmar, conducted by the military council to be unlawful and therefore prohibited.The NUG reserves the right to persecute either the seller or the purchaser or both partaking in any such transactions at a time and jurisdiction of its choosing. 4. Ambassador and Permanent Envoy HE Kyaw Moe Tun attended the closing ceremony of the 75th Session of (UNGA) United Nations General Assembly and the opening ceremony of the 76th Session of UNGA and the 1st plenary meeting. The first plenary meeting was opened by 76th UNGA incoming President HE Mr. Abdulla Shahid (Maldives). Members of the UNGA’s Credentials Committee were then elected. Members elected were from Bahamas, Bhutan, Chile, China, Russia, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Sweden and the United States of America. 5. Radio NUG owned by National Unity Government is broadcasting daily programmes. once at 8 am on short wave 16 metre (17.71) megahertz, and another at 8 pm on short wave 25 metre (12.00) megahertz. Daily broadcast of television news is also taking place at 8 pm via NUG, CRPH, RadioNUG and PVTV Social media pages. Daily broadcasts of military campaign news by the Ministry of Defence and advisory notices for the public by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration are also taking place. 6. At the request of the National Unity Government, the Directorate of School Education of the Government of Mizoram has made a decision to provide free and compulsory Education, according to their education law (2009), basic education appropriate to school age children between the age of 6 years and 14 years to include those children who have been externally displaced due to conflict. The NUG expresses, on record, their gratitude for the decision made by the Government of Mizoram..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 130.94 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Press Release No. 15/2021 - ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ က သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်အမှတ် (၁၅/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ https://nugmyanmar.org သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် (၁၅/၂၀၂၁) ၁၇ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ၁။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၃) ရက်နေ့က သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် (၁၄/၂၀၂၁) ကို ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်တွင် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက စစ်ကောင်စီအား ခုခံတွန်းလှန်မည့် ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး စတင်ခဲ့သည့်ကိစ္စနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ရှင်းလင်းတင်ပြထားရာ စစ်ကောင်စီသည် နိုင်ငံရေးအရငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာဖြေရှင်းမှုကို လုံးဝစိတ်မဝင်စားပဲ အာဏာဆက်လက် တည်မြဲရေး အတွက် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို ဆက်လက်ကျူးလွန်နေကြောင်း၊ NUG က ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်နှင့် လုံခြုံမှုကို အကာအကွယ်ပေးရန် တာဝန်ရှိကြောင်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ၏ ကြိုးပမ်းမှုများကို အသိအမှတ်ပြုသော်လည်း နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းကိုသာ အားကိုးနေ၍ မရပဲ တမျိုးသားလုံး စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်မှုဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်းရန်ကြိုးပမ်းမှုကို အဆုံးသတ်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ ပြည်သူများက ခုခံရေးအဖွဲ့များ ဖွဲ့စည်းပြီး ခုခံတွန်းလှန်မှုများ စတင်နေပြီဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့များ ကလည်း တိုင်းရင်းသား လက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများနှင့် အတူလက်တွဲ၍ ခုခံတွန်းလှန်သွားရန် ပြင်ဆင်နေပြီဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ ပြည်သူတရပ်လုံးက ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ရန် တိုက်တွန်းကြောင်း ပါရှိပါသည်။ ၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တိုင်းရင်းသားလက်နက်ကိုင်တော်လှန်ရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ(EAOs)နှင့် ပူးပေါင်းကာ ပြည်သူ့ရင်ခွင်ခိုလှုံရေးအစီအစဉ်အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ရေးကော်မတီကို ဖွဲ့စည်း၍ CDM ဝင်ကာ ပြည်သူ့ရင်ခွင် ခိုလှုံလာမည့် တပ်မတော်သားနှင့် ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များကို ကြိုဆိုလက်ခံနိုင်ရေး စီစဉ်ဆောင်ရွက် လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ပြည်သူ့ရင်ခွင် လူမှုကွန်ယက်စာမျက်နှာ https://facebook.com/peoplesembrace နှင့် telegram Channel - https://t.me/MyanmarPeople တို့ကို ဆက်သွယ်ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ပါသည်။ ၃။ တရားမဝင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ရောင်းချရန် စီစဉ်နေသည့် ပြည်ပနိုင်ငံများရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံပိုင် သံရုံးမြေနှင့် အဆောက်အဦများအား ဝယ်ယူခြင်းသည် တရားဝင်မှုမရှိသောကြောင့် ဝယ်ယူခြင်း အလျဉ်းမပြုကြရန် အထူးသတိပေး တားမြစ်သည့် ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁၁/၂၀၂၁) ကို စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုတ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့သည်။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံက ပိုင်ဆိုင်သည်ဟု အမည်ပေါက်သော ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပရှိ နိုင်ငံပိုင်မြေ၊ အဆောက်အဦ၊ ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုအရပ်ရပ်တို့၏ မူရင်းပိုင်ရှင်သည် နိုင်ငံတော်အတွင်း မှီတင်းနေထိုင်ကြသော နိုင်ငံသားပြည်သူများသာ ဖြစ်သည့်အတွက် ပြည်သူလူထုအားကိုယ်စားပြုမှု အလျဉ်းမရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီနှင့် ယင်း၏လက်အောက်ခံ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအနေဖြင့် အဆိုပါ မြေ၊ ဆောက်အဦနှင့် အခြားပိုင်ဆိုင်မှု များအား ထိန်းချုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်၊ စီမံခန့်ခွဲပိုင်ခွင့်၊ ရောင်းချပိုင်ခွင့် အလျင်းမရှိကြောင်း၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ပြည်ပနိုင်ငံများရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံပိုင် သံရုံးမြေနှင့် အဆောက်အဦများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက တစ်စိတ်တစ်ပိုင်း ဖြစ်စေ၊ တစ်လုံးတစ်ခဲတည်းဖြစ်စေ၊ ရောင်းချရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှု မှန်သမျှသည် တရားဝင်မှု လုံးဝမရှိကြောင်းကြေငြာ လိုက်သည်။ ထိုသို့ရောင်းဝယ်မှုများကို လုံးဝမလုပ်ရန်လည်း အထူးသတိပေး တားမြစ်လိုက်သည်။ ဤသို့သတိပေးတားမြစ်ထားသည့်ကြားမှ အရောင်းအဝယ်ပြုခဲ့သည်ရှိသော် စစ်ကောင်စီဘက်မှ တာဝန်ခံရောင်းသူကို သော်လည်းကောင်း၊ လက်ခံဝယ်ယူသူကိုလည်းကောင်း၊ နှစ်ဦးနှစ်ဘက်လုံးကိုလည်းကောင်း သင့်တင့်လျောက်ပတ်သည့် အချိန်တွင် သင့်လျော်သော စီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည့်တရားရုံးတော်၌ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရအနေဖြင့် ဥပဒေကြောင်းအရ အရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်ခွင့် အကြွင်းမဲ့ရှိသည်ဟု မှတ်ယူရမည် စသည့်အချက်များ ပါရှိပါသည်။ ၄။ (၇၅) ကြိမ်မြောက် ကုလသမဂ္ဂအထွေထွေညီလာခံ၊ ပိတ်ပွဲအစည်းအဝေး နှင့် (၇၆) ကြိမ်မြောက်၊ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအထွေထွေညီလာခံ၏ ဖွင့်ပွဲ နှင့် ပထမအကြိမ် မျက်နှာစုံညီအစည်းအဝေးများသို့ ကုလသမဂ္ဂဆိုင်ရာ မြန်မာ အမြဲတမ်း ကိုယ်စားလှယ် သံအမတ်ကြီး ဉီးကျော်မိုးထွန်း တက်ရောက်ခဲ့သည်။ (၇၆)ကြိမ်မြောက်၊ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအထွေထွေညီလာခံ၏ ပထမအကြိမ် မျက်နှာစုံညီအစည်းအဝေး ကို ဆက်လက်ကျင်းပခဲ့ရာ၊ အစည်းအဝေးကို (၇၆)ကြိမ်မြောက် အထွေထွေညီလာခံဥက္ကဋ္ဌ H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid မှ ဖွင့်လှစ်ပေးခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထို့နောက်၊ အထွေထွေညီလာခံ၏ အရည်အချင်းစစ် ကော်မတီ (Credentials Committee) အဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံများကို ရွေးချယ်ခန့်အပ်ခဲ့သည်။ အရည်အချင်းစစ် ကော်မတီ တွင် အဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံများအဖြစ် ဘဟားမားစ်၊ ဘူတန်၊ ချီလီ၊ တရုတ်၊ ရုရှား၊ ဆီရာလွန်၊ နမီးဘီးယား၊ ဆွီဒင်နှင့် အမေရိကန်ပြည်ထောင်စု တို့ပါဝင်သည်။ ၅။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ RadioNUG အစီအစဉ်ကို နေ့စဉ် နံနက် ၈ နာရီ လှိုင်းတို ၁၆ မီတာ (၁၇.၇၁) မက်ဂါဟက်ဇ် တွင် တစ်ကြိမ်၊ ည ၈ နာရီ လှိုင်းတို ၂၅ မီတာ (၁၂.၀၀) မက်ဂါဟက်ဇ်တွင် တစ်ကြိမ် ထုတ်လွှင့်လျက်ရှိသလို၊ နေ့စဉ်သတင်းရုပ်သံအစီအစဉ်ကိုလဲ ည ၈ နာရီခွဲအချိန်တွင် NUG , CRPH , RadioNUG နှင့် PVTV တို့၏လူမှုကွန်ယက် စာမျက်နှာများမှ ထုတ်လွှင့်ပေးလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ကာကွယ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက စစ်ရေးသတင်းအကျဉ်းချုပ်နှင့် ပြည်ထဲရေးနှှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ပြည်သူလူထု၏ခုခံကာကွယ်စစ် သတင်းအချက်အလက်များကို နေ့စဉ်ထုတ်ပြန်ပေးလျက် ရှိပါသည်။ ၆။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ မေတ္တာရပ်ခံတောင်းဆိုချက်များအရ အရွယ်ရောက်ပြီးသော ကလေးငယ်များ လွတ်လပ်စွာ အခမဲ့ပညာသင်ကြားခွင့်ဆိုင်ရာ ဥပဒေ (၂၀၀၉)က အသက် ၆ နှစ်နှင့် ၁၄ နှစ်အကြား ကလေးငယ်များသည် ၎င်းတို့၏ အသက်အရွယ်နှင့်ညီမျှသော အခြေခံပညာသင်ကြားပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည်ဟု ပြဌာန်းထားသည့်အတိုင်း ဒေသစွန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးခိုလှုံလာသော ကလေးငယ်များကို ပညာသင်ကြားခွင့်ရရှိရေး ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးသွားမည်ဟု မီဇိုရမ်အစိုးရ ကျောင်းပညာရေးဒါရိုက်တာအဖွဲ့က ဆုံးဖြတ်ဆောင်ရွက်နေမှုအပေါ် လွန်စွာကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါကြောင်း မှတ်တမ်းတင် အပ်ပါသည်။ ..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 654.75 KB
more
Title: Paris Exhibition Puts Myanmar Junta's Repression on Display
Sub-title: Burmese Artists Send Message to France, Global Community to Address Rights
Description: "The Myanmar military’s February 1 coup sparked the largest and most widespread protests in the country's recent history, showing people’s determination not to be dragged back into a dark past of military dictatorship. The military responded with ruthless repression, killing more than 1,000 people, arbitrarily arresting and detaining thousands, banning independent media, and cutting off internet access. The junta’s widespread and systematic abuses, including murder, rape and other sexual violence, and torture amount to crimes against humanity. From the early months of the protests, many Burmese artists also took to the streets, using their art and creativity to peacefully call for a return to democratically elected civilian government and the end of the junta’s abuses. These artists created amazing visual materials in response to the events. Combining social activism, creativity, and an increasing resolve not to give in to military intimidation, most of their artworks were not designed to be hung in galleries, but rather to serve as messages and images to be displayed at marches or posted on social media. A unique selection of these artworks is being shown in Paris through Fighting Fear: #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar, a month-long exhibition of 14 works from seven young artists from Myanmar set up at the Place du Palais Royal, in the center of the French capital. The exhibition opens on September 18, which coincides with an infamous day in Myanmar’s history when soldiers killed thousands of protesters during a 1988 mass uprising in Yangon, then Myanmar’s capital. Now again in 2021, the people of Myanmar are risking their lives to demand restoration of democratic rule and respect for human rights. These powerful artistic testimonies warn of the urgent need to break the global apathy that has arisen in the face of the junta's brutal crackdown. The Paris exhibition is a wake-up call to France and other governments to be bold and work together in response to the Myanmar junta's atrocities. Coordinated sanctions on oil and gas revenues, which are the junta’s main source of income, and a global arms embargo are urgently needed. This is the least governments around the world can do to support the courageous citizens and artists of Myanmar standing up and risking their lives to resist the junta’s ferocious crackdown..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Days into military’s occupation of Gangaw, five more civilians found murdered
Sub-title: At least 25 civilians are believed to have been killed by the junta in the Magway Region township less than one week after troops began terrorising villages in the area
Description: "Locals found the bodies of five more villagers killed in Magway Region’s Gangaw Township this week, presumably by junta troops who have been occupying this area of northwestern Myanmar since September 9. At least three of the bodies showed signs of torture, according to eyewitnesses. Oo Thu, age 30, and Maung Shwe, 50, were found on Monday just south of their home village of Hmwae Lal, 50km from Gangaw town. Their bodies were bruised and they had been shot in the stomach. Another body of a 30-year-old man with an intellectual disability was found on Tuesday and had been visibly mutilated, according to a local. He was also from Hmwae Lal. “There was a knife wound on his neck. It appears that they slit his throat. We are assuming that they stabbed him first, cut off his private parts and ultimately slit his throat,” the local said. The three villagers went missing on September 11 when the junta soldiers who occupied Hmwae Lal that day arrested them, the local said. The troops moved on to station themselves in other villages the following day. The bodies of two men in their 20s from Yae Shin—15km from Hmwae Lal—were also found on Tuesday afternoon in the forest outside their village. They were identified as Naing Lin Tun and Phoe Phyu, who had gone missing while returning to Yae Shin from Gangaw on September 12. “They were working in Gangaw. One of them worked as a helper on buses. The other was a construction worker. They were coming back home from work when they ran into the soldiers,” a Yae Shin local told Myanmar Now. Citing eyewitnesses, he added that 400,000 kyat (US$218) in cash and the two men’s mobile phones were missing and the motorcycle they had been riding had been burned and destroyed. The men were cremated on the same day they were found. None of the five victims were involved in the anti-dictatorship movement, according to the local sources, who also said they believed the military council’s troops were responsible for the killings. All Myanmar Now’s calls to the junta’s spokesperson regarding the murders went unanswered. On Wednesday morning, resistance forces from the Yaw region of Magway—an area comprised of Gangaw, Htilin and Saw townships—calling themselves the Yaw Defence Force (YDF) ambushed the junta’s troops stationed in the village of Kyauk Pyoke, according to a spokesperson from the group. Kyauk Pyoke is located some 30km from Hmwae Lal in neighbouring Sagaing Region’s Kalay Township on the east side of Myittha River. The YDF collaborated with a Kalay-based guerrilla force to carry out the attack and reportedly killed six soldiers and injured one. “All of our troops came away unscathed. The military units have been patrolling the area around the village. We caught them by surprise,” he told Myanmar Now. Since Monday, the troops had been occupying Kyauk Pyoke and Kyaukse—also in Sagaing—after the Kalay-based guerrilla force ambushed their convoy and killed two soldiers near the villages. Following the National Unity Government’s September 7 declaration of war on the coup regime, the military intensified their attacks on villages in the Yaw region in an effort to crush the armed resistance and local support for it. From September 9 until 14—the first six days of the junta’s terrorisation of Gangaw—locals have said at least 25 civilians were killed and almost 100 houses were burned down. Military units raided the village of Thar Lin on the morning of September 9, then clashed with local resistance forces as they attempted to occupy Myin Thar village, resulting in the deaths of 18 locals, including multiple teenaged minors. Once the troops took Myin Thar, they reportedly burned down some 20 homes in the village. On both September 11 and 13, the junta raided Hnan Khar village on the Kalay-Gangaw road, and burned down nearly 50 homes. On the day between the two raids on Hnan Khar, September 12, soldiers ransacked Htei Hlaw village, killing a member of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) and a 55-year-old man. They also reportedly set fire to 27 homes. In Kyaukse, a village on the border between Gangaw and Kalay Township in Sagaing Region, junta troops burned down two homes and killed two elderly people who had been seeking refuge from the violence in a monastery. Local PDFs have said that the military council has suffered dozens of casualties in attacks by resistance forces. The junta has not made a statement on the matter. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), as of September 14, there have been at least 1,089 civilians killed at the hands of the military council since the February 1 coup..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-16
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Electricity Bill Boycott Denies Myanmar Military US $1 Billion in Power Revenues Since Coup
Sub-title: Customers say they believe the junta would use the money to maintain power instead of help the nation.
Description: "Myanmar’s junta has lost some 2 trillion kyats (U.S. $1 billion) in revenue from its military-operated power company since seizing power seven months ago amid a widespread public boycott of the paying of electricity bills, according to the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG). NUG Minister of Finance and Investment Tin Tun Naing said Tuesday that 98 percent of electricity customers in the country’s Yangon region, 97 percent in Mandalay region, and about 80 percent in the country’s remaining states and divisions have been refusing to pay their bills as part of a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to protest the junta and its Feb. 1 coup d’état. “We have a record of the Ministry of Electricity and Energy’s meter bills, and they have failed to recoup about 2 trillion kyats in the last seven months,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “The people need to keep up with this action. I predict that the junta could lose about 2.5 trillion kyats U.S. $1.43 billion) by the end of the year.” Following its establishment in May, the NUG’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy issued an order exempting all households from paying electricity bills and on June 8 announced that it had also ordered the suspension of payments for commercial entities. According to a leaked departmental directive issued on Sept. 7 by the junta’s Yangon Region Electric Power Corporation, residents of townships in Yangon region alone were in arrears of more than 281 billion kyats (U.S. $161 million) from June to December 2020. The junta recently issued a letter of warning ahead of the close of the 2020-21 fiscal year, instructing district and township level offices to discuss overages with customers and cut off power, if necessary, to ensure that they pay their balances on any overdue electricity bills beginning from March 2021. The directives come after junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, during a May 20 meeting in the capital Naypyidaw, noted that electricity revenues were down and called on the people of Myanmar to pay their bills. The junta’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy acknowledged in a statement on July 8 that it has had to purchase power from privately owned power plants to make up for shortfalls and warned that it would only be able to supply electricity to the country if the government can earn enough revenue. The Independent Economists of Myanmar (IEM) reported in July that the ministry’s revenue had dropped by 90 percent since February this year due to the boycott on the payment of monthly meter fees. The IEM said in a statement that the ministry is currently losing 100 billion kyats (U.S. $57.2 million) a month, with only two percent of customers in Yangon and three percent in Mandalay—the two cities that account for the nation’s highest electricity consumption—making electricity payments in March. More than 4,000 employees have been fired from the department, which is now dealing with a shortage of staff, it added. ‘Trying to starve the junta’ Several people told RFA’s Myanmar Service they are taking part in the boycott because they believe the junta would use electricity tariffs to perpetuate military rule and said they would not pay electricity bills until a civilian government is elected. A resident of Mandalay recently told RFA’s Myanmar Service that he had joined the boycott because he believes the junta would use the money for its own benefit. “We are trying to starve the junta of vital revenues so it will not be able to function by refusing to pay all taxes,” said the resident, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Income from the electricity sector is definitely a part of the government machinery. What benefit will we get from … paying them?” Since the coup, security forces have killed 1,093 civilians and arrested at least 6,533, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)—mostly during crackdowns on anti-junta protests. The junta says it had to unseat Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government because the party had engineered a landslide victory in Myanmar’s November 2020 election through widespread voter fraud. It has yet to present evidence of its claims and public unrest is at an all-time high. Last week, the NUG declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias and ethnic armed groups. Infrastructure targeted Power infrastructure has also been the target of sabotage by the PDF and other armed groups in opposition to the junta. A July 16 bomb blast in Mandalay’s Pyigyidagun township killed an employee of the Electric Power Corp. and a man waiting to pay his meter bill and injured at least seven people. The week prior, on July 7, township power offices in Yangon’s Hlaing, Mayangone, Kamayut, South Okkalapa, and Thingangyun townships were targeted in bomb blasts. The Yangon Revolutionary Front claimed responsibility and said the explosions were a warning to the Department of Electricity to refrain from forcing people to pay their bills. Since then, there have been at least 10 bomb blasts at power offices in Mandalay’s Mogok and Pyigyidagun townships, Yangon’s Lanmadaw township, and Magway region’s Myothit and Yezakyo townships. A 30-year-old man from Yangon’s South Dagon township told RFA that the explosions had made him too afraid to visit a power office to pay his bill. “At first, the reason for not paying was in protest of the junta, but later it was because NUG and PDF groups have warned against paying meter bills,” said the man, who also declined to be named. “There were incidents in Mandalay where two people who went to pay their bills were killed in a bomb blast, so now even those who were not against [the military] dare not go pay their bills.” An employee of the power corporation said he had to be extremely cautious when distributing meter bills to customers. “There are no security guarantees provided by the department, so we have to look out for ourselves,” he said, speaking anonymously due to concerns about his safety. Long term impact Analysts told RFA that Myanmar’s major cities that account for the nation’s largest share of energy consumption could be severely impacted by the boycott and any subsequent power outages. “It’s not as simple as people think because electricity and water are basic requirements,” said Aung Phyo, an energy researcher in Shan state’s Kalaw township. “If a certain situation arises, there will be no money from the people. How can the government prepare a budget without revenue? You need revenue to carry out maintenance and repairs. Without these, factories may have to close. People in urban areas who require a lot of electricity will suffer more.”..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-16
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Cuts Internet Access in Anti-Regime Resistance Strongholds
Description: "Myanmar’s military regime has cut off internet access in several townships in Sagaing and Mandalay regions. The affected townships are strongholds of anti-regime resistance groups who have inflicted heavy casualties on junta forces. Mobile and wifi internet services from Myanmar’s three main telecom operators – MPT, Telenor and Oredoo – have been blocked since 12.30pm Tuesday in Kani, Mingin, Yinmabin, Pale, Shwebo and Budalin townships in Sagaing, and Mogoke and Myingyan townships in Mandalay Region. In the three months from June to August, more than 840 junta soldiers were killed and 355 wounded in Sagaing Region in clashes with local People’s Defense Forces (PDF). 184 civilians in Sagaing have also been slain and 49 wounded by junta forces, according to the parallel National Unity Government. Myanmar military forces are also facing intense opposition from resistance groups in Mandalay’s Mogoke and Myingyan townships. Junta-owned Mytel telecom masts have also been destroyed across the country, including in Sagaing and Mandalay regions, since last week. A resident of Sagaing’s Yinmabin Township said that civilian resistance fighters have managed to defeat junta troops in every clash in the region, because locals and resistance groups are sharing every movement of regime forces online. “Actually, they [junta forces] block the internet access as they are afraid of the people [sharing information],” said the resident. Before the internet blackout, some Facebook users and Facebook pages from Sagaing Region were actively sharing information about regime troop movements in order to have advance notice of potential raids. A spokesperson for the Kani-PDF told The Irrawaddy that the internet blackout likely means that the junta is planning to attack civilian resistance forces in the region, and wants to ensure that locals don’t share information about troop movements. Junta soldiers have been raiding villages in Kani Township over the last few days, while several Myanmar military gunboats have been patrolling the Chindwin River and helicopters have been hovering overhead. “They are frightening the people here by blocking the internet and the information flow. They also frighten us with their helicopters, drones and gunboats. This is a kind of psychological war against our people,” the spokesperson for the Kani-PDF told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday. In August, junta forces raided a series of villages in Kani after blocking phone and internet access. Many locals are also concerned that the internet blackout means that the regime is more likely to use intense violence on anti-regime strongholds in the region. Since August, internet access has also been cut by the junta in the jade-mining town of Hpakant, Kachin State..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-16
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: UN Envoy Joins Her Predecessors in Myanmar’s ‘Graveyard of Diplomats’
Description: "Under the previous military regime, Myanmar was known as a “diplomatic graveyard”, chiefly for the UN’s failed missions to the country on issues ranging from humanitarian assistance to national reconciliation between the junta’s old boys and their democratic opponents—primarily the now ousted and detained leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. That bad reputation persists for the country, which has been undergoing a new bout of military rule since February. Just ask Christine Schraner Burgener! On Tuesday, the 58-year-old, who has been the UN’s special envoy for Myanmar since 2018, acknowledged that she is the latest diplomat to be consigned to the graveyard, tweeting that her efforts to facilitate an “all-inclusive dialogue in the interest of the people were not welcomed by the military,” confessing that her months-long attempts, in the wake of the takeover, to persuade the coup leaders in Naypytaw to engage in dialogue to settle the ongoing political and social turmoil caused by the coup had failed. Her term will end soon. “I regret this clear lack of will for a peaceful solution which could have prevented other stakeholders from feeling they have no choice but to seek violent means,” the Swiss diplomat wrote. She is right to feel regretful, especially after her “several talks” and “long conversation” over the phone with the regime’s second in charge in Naypyitaw, in which she urged him to engage in dialogue, bore no fruit. Another blow to her efforts was dealt by Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) with its recent declaration of revolt against the regime. The parallel government largely made up of elected lawmakers from the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government and its ethnic allies reasoned that it had no option but to resort to armed resistance due to the “diplomatic failure” to pressure the regime to stop its arbitrary killings and arrests of civilians, among other atrocities, and restore to the NLD the political power it seized through the coup. For someone who lobbied for a “peaceful solution” in Myanmar, nothing could be more depressing than learning that a majority of Myanmar’s people heartily embraced the NUG’s call to arms. Myanmar people have good reason to support the NUG’s declaration. By the time Schraner Burgener pressed “Tweet” on her apologetic post about her failed Myanmar mission on Tuesday, 1,089 people had been killed by the regime since February. Another 6,477 had been detained. As they have had firsthand experience of successive regimes’ brutality following coups in 1962, 1988 and now in 2021, many in Myanmar are skeptical of the nonviolent or peaceful approaches favored by the international community, because those means have historically proved ineffective in taming the rogue soldiers who hold power in Myanmar. As the UN special envoy to Myanmar, Schraner Burgener first talked to the regime’s No. 2 leader three days after the takeover. During her phone call to Vice Senior General Soe Win, she warned him that the world’s nations and the UN Security Council “might take huge strong measures” against the regime and that Myanmar would become isolated. “We are used to sanctions and we survived those sanctions in the past. We have to learn to walk with only a few friends,” the special envoy quoted him as saying, during a press conference in March. Since then, the diplomat said, she has spoken several times with the deputy commander-in-chief, whom she described as “always open for my request for meeting” to have “frank and open discussions.” She tried to get the regime’s permission to visit the country, but in vain. At the same time, the regime’s killing spree continued. Despite its condemnation of the coup and subsequent atrocities, the UN proved to be toothless on the Myanmar issue, as China and Russia stood against any resolutions proposed at the Security Council that were critical of the regime. In her effort to find a peaceful solution to the political crisis in Myanmar through dialogue, Schraner Burgener reached out to every stakeholder. She said the country’s ethnic armed organizations “were in the majority very positive of this idea” while the NUG members were “interested in the idea but clearly would have pre-conditions to start such a dialogue.” When she presented her idea of an inclusive dialogue during her long conversation with the regime’s second leader Soe Win in July, “I didn’t receive an answer: not a positive, not a negative,” she recalled during a briefing to journalists in August. Despite the regime’s rebuffs, she refrained from making harsh criticisms of it until now, apart from condemning its crackdowns on protesters. When the junta said no to her request to visit Myanmar, she never took it as a message that they didn’t want to talk to her anymore. “But I assumed that people on the ground would be very encouraged by my presence in the country and that’s something the army doesn’t want to see,” she said, as if she knew the thinking of the regime. Probably her several talks with Soe Win over the months made her think so. It would be interesting to see what she thought of the second-most-powerful person in the Myanmar regime—a moderate or a hardliner?—as the meetings must have left her with some impression of him. With Tuesday’s tweet, Schraner Burgener has made public her view that the Myanmar regime clearly lacks the will to find a peaceful solution to the country’s crisis through dialogue. But she must have seen the writing on the wall before that. She said in August when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing appointed himself prime minister that he would seek to maintain his grip on power. The junta’s annulment of the results of the November 2020 election, which was won by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, prompted the UN diplomat to express her fear that the NLD would soon be disbanded. Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist who has covered Myanmar for decades, said the call for daialogue was doomed to fail from the beginning because the junta is interested only in maintaining power, not in engaging in talks or to compromise with its adversaries. “So it’s hardly surprising that people in Myanmar have resorted to armed struggle against the junta,” he said. As recently as last month, the Swiss diplomat was still hoping that the recent appointment of an ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar would bring an all-inclusive dialogue, as the regime approved the appointment. The ASEAN envoy called for a truce in Myanmar. But, with the NUG’s declaration of war and the regime’s ongoing attacks on civilians in the country, Erywan Yusof’s call for a truce was thrown out of the window. It took Schraner Burgener nearly seven months to see the Myanmar military rulers’ true colors. Coming to her senses, she finds herself in the diplomatic graveyard. “Never Waste Your Time With the Generals in Naypyitaw!” would make a perfect epitaph for her. Yusof will no doubt be her neighbor soon..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-16
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားတယောက်ထံသို့ပေးစာ
Description: "စူဇန်နာ (ကလောင်အမည်) မှ ဖမ်းဆီးအကျဥ်းချခံထားရသူ သူငယ်ချင်းတဦးထံသို့ ပေးစာ ရေးသားသည်။ ရွှေပြည်သာနှင့် အင်းစိန် မှလွဲ၍ နေရာများနှင့် ရက်စွဲများကို လုံခြုံရေးအရ ပြန်လည်ပြင်ဆင်ထားသည်။ ယခုစာကို ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဂျွန်လလယ် တွင်ရေးသားခဲ့သည်။ မူရင်းပို့စ်အား ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဩဂုတ်လ ၃၀ ရက်နေ့တွင် ရေးသားထုတ်‌ဝေခဲ့သည်။ အင်္ဂလိပ်ဘာသာဖြင့် ဤနေရာတွင် ဖတ်ရှုပါ။ အကိုနဲ့ နောက်ဆုံးစကားပြောခဲ့တာ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် မေလ ၂ ရက်နေ့ ညနေ ၄ နာရီပါ။ နောက်နေ့ နေ့တနေ့ရဲ့ အစ ပထမဆုံး ကော်ဖီသောက်နေတုန်းမှာ ရန်ကုန်ကသူငယ်ချင်း တယောက်စီက “နင်သိပြီးပြီလား” ဆိုတဲ့ စာ ၀င်လာတယ်။ ကျွန်မ ဘာကိုသိပြီးရမှာလဲ။ တကယ်တော့ သိပ်မကြာသေးခင်ကမှ အကိုပုန်းရှောင်နေတဲ့ တိုက်ခန်းတခုကို မနက် ၂ နာရီမှာ စစ်သားတွေလာပြီး အကို့ကိုလာဖမ်းသွားတဲ့ အကြောင်းကိုပါ။ ပြီးတော့ အဲ့ကတည်းက အကိုကို့ ဘယ်ခေါ်သွားတယ်၊ ဘာဖြစ်သွားတယ် ဆိုတာ ဘယ်သူမှမသိဘူး ဆိုတဲ့ အကြောင်းကို ပေါ့။ ဖြစ်နိုင်ရင် မေလ ၂ ရက်နေ့ညက အကိုအဲ့လိုအဖမ်းခံရမယ်ဆိုတာ ကြိုသိခဲ့ရင်ကောင်းမှာပဲလို့ တွေးမိတယ်။ အင်တာနက်လိုင်းပြန်ရပြီပဲလေဆိုပြီး အကိုကို့ ချက်ချင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ဖုန်းခေါ် စကားပြောဖို့ ကျွန်မ တွန့်ဆုတ် ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အကိုနဲ့ စာအပြန်အလှန်ပို့တဲ့ အကျင့်ကို မျက်နှာချင်းဆိုင် စကားပြောတဲ့အကျင့်နဲ့ ကျွန်မ တကယ် ပြောင်းလဲချင်ခဲ့တယ်။ အဲ့လိုပြောင်းကြရအောင်လို့ ဘာလို့မတိုက်တွန်းခဲ့မိတာလဲတော့ မသေချာဘူး။ အခု အင်တာနက်တွေ ပြန်ရပြီ၊ မြို့လယ်ခေါင် အင်တာနက်ဆိုင်တွေ ထိုင်ပြီး ဆက်သွယ်ဖို့ သတင်းပို့ဖို့ မလိုတော့ဘူး၊ ကျွန်မတို့ အချိန်မရွေး ဆက်သွယ်နိုင်ပြီလို့ အကို ပြောခဲ့တာကြောင့် မတိုက်တွန်းမိတာလဲ ဖြစ်နိုင်ပါတယ်။ ဟုတ်ပါတယ်၊ ကျွန်မတို့မှာ တယောက်နဲ့တယောက် စကားတွေအချိန်မရွေး ပြောလို့ရတဲ့ ဘ၀တခုရှိခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အဲ့ဒီ ဘဝကို ညတွင်းချင်း ခိုးယူ မခံလိုက်ရခင်ထိပေါ့။ ရန်ကုန်အပြင်ဘက် စိမ်းလန်းစိုပြေတဲ့နေရာလေးတခုမှာပဲ အချိန်တွေရင်းနှီးမြုပ်နှံပြီး ဘေးဖယ်ထားခဲ့တဲ့ အကိုရဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးတက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားမှုတွေဟာ ဖေဖော်၀ါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနေ့မှာ ပြန်အစပျိုးခဲ့တယ်။ အကို ဟာ ဩဂဲန်းနစ် ဟင်းသီးဟင်းရွက်လေးတွေ စိုက်ပျိုးနေခဲ့တယ်။ အကိုဟာ သဘာဝတရားကြီးနဲ့ ပြန်ချိတ်ဆက် မိသွားပြီ၊ အဲ့လိုစိုက်ပျိုးနေရတာ အကို့တွက်ကောင်းတယ်လို့ ကျွန်မထင်တယ်။ မြစ်ဘေးနား ကြိုးပုခက်လေးထဲ က အကို့ပုံတွေ ကျွန်မ ဖေ့စ်ဘုတ်ပေါ်မှာ မြင်တွေ့လိုက်ရတိုင်း စိတ်အေးချမ်းသာမှု ဖြစ်ရတယ်။ ဇန်န၀ါရီလ ကုန်မှာ အကို့ ကံတရားဟာ အကို့အိမ်ရှေ့တံခါးဝကို တံခါးလာခေါက်တော့မလိုမျိုး ပတ်၀န်းကျင်အသစ်မှာ မိတ်ဆွေဟောင်းတွေနဲ့ အကိုပြန်လည်ချိတ်ဆက်မိသွားတာကိုလည်း ကျွန်မ သတိပြုမိပါရဲ့။ ရက်အနည်းငယ်အကြာမှာပဲ အဲ့ကံတရားဟာ ရောက်ချလာတယ်။ မြေအောက်လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွေ စည်းချက်ညီညီ ပြန်စပြီး လူထုဆန့်ကျင်လှုပ်ရှားမှုလမ်းကြောင်းကို ဆက်လျှောက်ဖို့ သူတို့နဲ့ အတူတူ အကိုဆုံးဖြတ်ခဲ့တယ်။ ပို့ပေးနေကြ ခရမ်းချဥ်သီး၊ သခွါးသီး လတ်လတ်ဆတ်ဆတ် ပုံတွေ၊စာတွေဟာ ပျောက်ကွယ်သွားတယ်။ ကျွန်မတို့ ပြောဆိုဆက်သွယ်ရတဲ့ ပုံတွေ၊ အကြောင်းရာတွေဟာ ပြင်းထန်လာတယ်။ အကိုအင်တာနက် ရနေချိန်တိုင်း ကျွန်မတို့အဆက်သွယ် လုပ်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ ကျွန်မတို့ဟာ အချိန်နဲ့ နေရာ ထပ်တူမကျတဲ့ ပြင်ပအရပ်တခုမှာ မမျှော်လင့်ဘဲ ဆက်သွယ်နေခဲ့ကြတာပါ။ မတူညီတဲ့ ကမ္ဘာနှစ်ခုက လူနှစ်ယောက်ဟာ တက်ညီလက်ညီ အလုပ်လုပ်ခဲ့ကြတာပါ။ တခါတခါ လျှပ်စစ်ပစ္စည်းတွေကနေ ဆက်သွယ်ကြ၊ တခါတခါလည်း စိတ်ခံစားချက်တွေပေါက်ကွဲကြ ငြင်းခုံကြနဲ့ ဒါတွေအားလုံးရဲ့ နောက်ကွယ်မှာတော့ ဘာဖြစ်လာမလဲဆိုတာကို ကြိုသိနေတဲ့ စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်မှုတွေ ရှိနေခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အာဏာသိမ်း သတင်းနဲ့အတူ ကျွန်မကိုယ်တိုင်လည်း အလုပ်သစ်ရနေတာကို တွေ့လိုက်တယ်။ ကျွန်မက အကိုရဲ့ သတင်းအချက်သိမ်းဆည်းရာ database တခု၊ သတင်းအချက်လက်အလွယ်တကူသယ်ယူလို့ရရာ hard drive တခု၊ သတင်းရှာတဲ့ ကြားခံ browser တခု၊ ပြီးတော့ အကိုယုံကြည်ရတဲ့ ဘော်ဒါတဦးဖြစ်လာတယ်။ အကိုအဆင်ပြေနေရင်လည်း ကျွန်မသိသလို၊ အကိုအဆင်မပြေနေရင်လည်း ကျွန်မသိတယ်။ အပြန်အလှန် ဆက်သွယ် စကား ပြောနေရင်းနဲ့ မြန်မာမှာဖြစ်နေတဲ့ အကြောင်းရာ၊ အဖြစ်ပျက်တွေကို ကျွန်မသိရှိနေခဲ့တယ်။ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလမှာ လူထောင်ပေါင်းများစွာ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာလမ်းလျှောက်ဆန္ဒပြနေတုန်းကလည်း အကိုလျှောက်သလို ကျွန်မလိုက်လျှောက်ခဲ့တယ်။ လအနည်းငယ်ကြာပြီး အဲ့လျှောက်ခဲ့ဖူးတဲ့လမ်းတွေပေါ်မှာပဲ မီးတွေလောင်၊ သွေးတွေရဲနေတုန်းကလည်း အကိုလျှောက်သလို ကျမလိုက်လျှောက်ခဲ့တယ်။ စစ်သားတွေ သေနတ်နဲ့ပစ်ခတ်တဲ့ အချိန်မှာလည်း အကိုပြေးသလို ကျွန်မပြေးခဲ့တယ်။ အကို တယောက်တည်း ပုန်းရှောင်နေတဲ့ တိုက်ခန်းလေး တခုမှာ အကိုရဲ့ အထီးကျန်မှုတွေကို ကျွန်မခံစားခဲ့ရတယ်။ အကို့ ရဲဘော်တွေရဲ့ ကံကြမ္မာကို မြင်ရတဲ့အခါ အကို့ကိုထိုးနှက်လာတဲ့ ၀မ်းနည်းမှုတွေကို ကျွန်မတွေ့ကြုံခံစားရတယ်။ ဧပြီလညတညမှာ အကိုပုန်းရှောင်နေတဲ့ မြောက်ဥက္ကလာပက နေရာတခုရှေ့တည့်တည့်မှာ စစ်သားတွေ သေနတ်တွေနဲ့ပစ်ခတ် နေခဲ့တဲ့ ညကတော့ ကျွန်မအတွက် ကြောက်စရာအကောင်းဆုံးပါပဲ။ အဲ့တာတွေအားလုံးကို အကိုကနေ တဆင့် ခံစားသိမြင်ခဲ့တာပါ။ လက်တွေ့မှာ ကျွန်မက အဲ့နေရာတွေမှာမှ တကယ်ရှိမနေခဲ့တာပဲ။ အကိုသာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်ရဲ့ မတရားမှုနဲ့ လူသားမဆန်မှုတွေကို ကံတရားနဲ့ ရင်ဆိုင် အလဲထိုးတဲ့ဒဏ္ဍာရီထဲမှာ အခြားထောင်ပေါင်များစွာသော လူတွေနဲ့အတူ ပါ၀င်ခဲ့တာပါ။ အမှောင်ခွင်းပြီးအလင်းဆောင်ဖို့ မြန်မာပြည်ရဲ့ အခြားထောင်ပေါင်းများစွာသော လူတွေလိုပဲ အကိုသတ္တိမွေးခဲ့တယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် အမှောင်ဟာ ဖော်ပြလို့မရတဲ့ နည်းလမ်းမျိုးနဲ့ မျက်နှာပြင်မှာ ဖက်တွယ်ထားတယ်။ မဖြစ်နိုင်တာမဟုတ်ပေမယ့် ဖယ်ရှားဖို့အတွက် ဇွဲရှိဖို့လိုအပ်တယ်။ အကို့မှာ ဒီလို ဇွဲသတ္တိမျိုး ရှိတယ်ဆိုတာလည်း သက်သေပြခဲ့ပြီးပါပြီ။ အကို့ကိုမလိမ်ပါဘူး၊ အကို့ရဲ့ ကံတရားက ကျွန်မကို အစောကြီးကတည်းကစိုးရိမ်စေခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အကိုက ကိုယ်သင်ပြပေးခဲ့ရတဲ့ လူငယ်တွေအပေါ် အမြဲတမ်းဂရုတစိုက် ရှိခဲ့သလို အကို့ ဆီ အကူညီ တောင်းလာတဲ့ သူတွေကိုလည်း ပံ့ပိုးပေးခဲ့တာချည်းပါပဲ။ မြန်မာလူငယ်တွေမှာ အကိုလိုလူမျိုး လိုအပ်တယ် ဆိုတာ မြေကြီးလက်ခတ်မလွဲပါဘဲ၊ အခုလက်ရှိအဖွဲ့လိုပေါ့။ ကံကောင်းတာက အခြားအရာတွေအပြင် စည်လုံးညီညွတ်မှု၊ စိတ်အားထက်သန်မှုတို့ လည်းရှိနေပြန်တယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့်လည်း ဒလန် (သတင်းပေးသူ) တွေများလာတဲ့ ပတ်၀န်းကျင်မှာ အဖွဲ့တွေအများကြီး၊ လူတွေအများကြီးနဲ့ ချိတ်ဆက်တာဟာ တဖြည်းဖြည်းနဲ့ အကို့အတွက် အန္တရာယ်ဖြစ်လာတယ်။ အမှန်တကယ်လဲ ဒလန်ပါခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အကိုဟာ ကျွန်မကို အခြား အန္တရာယ်ရှိနိုင်တဲ့ ကိစ္စတွေနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး အသိပေးခဲ့တယ် ။ ဒလန်တွေအကြောင်းတော့ အကိုမသိခဲ့ဘူး။ ဒီတော်လှန်ရေးအတွက်၊ အမှန်တရားအတွက် အကို့ဘ၀ကိုပေးဆပ်ဖို့ အဆင်သင့်ပဲလို့ အကို ကျွန်မကို မကြာခဏ ပြောခဲ့တယ်။ အဖမ်းမခံရမချင်း ဆက်လုပ်နေမှာလို့ သိပ်မကြာခင်ကလည်း အကိုထပ်ပြောခဲ့တယ်။ အကိုကို့ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံက ထွက်သွားဖို့ တိုက်တွန်းတိုင်း၊ အဲ့လိုဆုံးဖြတ်တာပေါ် မူတည်ပြီး အကိုလုံခြုံ သွားမယ်လို့ ပြောတိုင်း အကိုနဲ့ အပြိုင်မပြောနိုင်ခဲ့ဘူး။ အကို့ ကြယ်လေးတွေမှာ ရေးသားသဘောတူထားပြီးတဲ့ ကံတရားကို ၀င်စွက်ဖက်ရအောင် ကျွန်မက ဘယ်သူမို့လို့လဲ။ အကိုက နှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ အကျဥ်းချခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဥ်းသား သမားတယောက်၊ ထပ်ဖမ်ဆီးခံရတာက အကို့အတွက်ကော ကျမအပါအ၀င် အကိုချစ်ရတဲ့သူတွေအတွက်ကော အရမ်းကိုရက်စက်ရာကျမှာပဲ။ ဒီလိုနဲ့ မေလ ၂ ရက်နေ့မှာတော့ အကို့ သတင်း အစနပျောက်သွားတယ်။ ၀ိုင်ဖိုင်နဲ့ အကိုပုန်းခိုလို့ ရမယ့်နေရာ အသစ်ကို အကိုဆုံးရှုံးသွားတယ်။ ပွင့်ပွင့်လင်းလင်းပြောရရင် အကို့လွတ်လပ်ခွင့်တွေအားလုံး ဆုံးရှုံးသွားပြီး တခြားကမ္ဘာတခုထဲကို ခြေချော်လက်ချော်ကျသွားခဲ့တာပါ။ ဒီဆက်သွယ်မရ ရုပ်ဝတ္တုမဲ့ကမ္ဘာကြီးက လူတယောက်ကို အရိုးထဲထိစိမ့်နေအောင် ‌‌ခြောက်ခြားစေခဲ့တာပါ။ ရူးကြောင်ကြောင်နိုင်တယ်ဆိုတာ ကျွန်မသိပေမယ့် အကျင့်တွေက ပြင်ရခက်တယ်။ အကိုဘယ်မှာလဲနဲ့ အကိုအားတင်းထားရဲ့လားဆိုတာကို စာပို့ပြီးမေးဖို့ အကြိမ်ပေါင်းများစွာကြံမိပြီးမှ ကျွန်မစာကို အ၀တ်အစိမ်းတွေ၊ ဘွတ်ဖိနပ်တွေ ၀တ်ထားတဲ့ အာဏာရူးတွေ ဖတ်မိမှာပဲဆိုပြီး မပို့မိအောင် ကိုယ့်ကိုကိုယ် ပြန်သတိပေးရတယ်။ အကိုဘယ်မှာလဲဆိုတာ ကျွန်မတို့မသိခဲ့ပါဘူး။ အကို အသက်ရှင်လျက် ရှိနေသေးလားဆိုတာတောင် ကျွန်မတို့ မသိခဲ့ပါဘူး။ ညသန်းခေါင်ကြီးမှာ အကို့ကိုဖမ်းတဲ့ အကြောင်းကို ပြန်တွေးရင်တောင် ခေါင်းတွေကိုက်ခဲလာတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့်လည်း ကျွန်မခေါင်းထဲမှာ ခဏခဏပြန်တွေးရလွန်းလို့ အသေးစိတ်တွေတောင် စပြီး စဥ်းစားမိ လာတယ်။ နိုင်ငံရေးတက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူတွေက ညအိပ်၀တ်စုံကြီးနဲ့ အဖမ်းခံသွားရတာလား။ ဒီလို ဘာမဟုတ်တဲ့ အတွေးတွေက အကို့အခန်းတံခါးကို မနက် ၂ နာရီ ဖျက်ပြီး ၀င်လာချိန်မှာ ဘယ်လောက်များ စိတ်မသက်မသာ ခံစားနေရမလဲဆိုတဲ့ အတွေးတွေမတွေးမိအောင် ရပ်တန့်ပေးနိုင်ပါတယ်။ ဒီလိုနဲ့ အကို့ကို ကျွန်မတို့ ရက်ပေါင်းများစွာ ရှာဖွေခဲ့တယ်။ ကောက်ရိုးပုံထဲ အပ်ရှာရသလိုပါပဲ။ ရန်ကုန်က သူတွေကို ဆက်သွယ်တယ်။ အကို့မိသားစုကို တဆင့်ခံ ဆက်သွယ်တယ်။ အကိုဘယ်နေရာမှာ ရှိနေနိုင်မလဲဆိုတဲ့ သတင်းအချက်လက် အရှိနေနိုင်ဆုံးသူတွေ၊ အဖွဲ့တွေကို ဆက်သွယ်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ သူတို့က ရှေ့နေ တယောက်ကို ဆက်သွယ်နိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး အကို ရွှေပြည်သာ စစ်ကြောရေးမှာ စစ်ဆေးမေးမြန်းခံနေရတာ ဖြစ်ဖို့များတယ်လို့ ရှေ့နေက ကျွန်မတို့ကိုပြောပါတယ်။ ကျွန်မ တိတ်ဆိတ်ဆွံ့အပြီး ကြက်သေသေသွားခဲ့တယ်။ ကြားရတဲ့စကားတွေက ခြောက်ခြားစရာကောင်းလွန်းတယ်။ ဒီလိုဆိုတော့ အကို့ကိုလည်း အဲ့နေရာကိုခေါ်သွားခံရတာပေါ့။ အကိုကို ရုပ်ဆင်းရဲ၊ စိတ်ဆင်းရဲအောင် လုပ်တဲ့အတွေ့အကြုံကို ပထမတကြိမ် ထောင်သွင်းအကျဥ်းခံရတုန်းကတည်းက တွေ့ကြုံခံစားဖူးပြီးသားဆိုတာ ကျွန်မသိပါတယ်။ အဲ့မှာ အကိုရှိနေမယ်လို့လည်း ကျွန်မတို့ ၁၀၀ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းမသေချာပါဘူး။ ခန့်မှန်းချက်အများကြီးထဲက တခုပါ။ အဲ့နေရာကို ဘယ်သူမှမသွားနိုင်သလို၊ ဘယ်ရှေ့နေမှလည်း ၀င်ရောက်ခွင့်မရှိပါဘူး။ ဝမ်းနည်းဖို့ကောင်းစွာပဲ အကို့ဆီကသတင်းအချက် လက်တွေ ရဖို့အတွက် နှိပ်စက်ကြမယ်၊ အကိုဟာ စစ်ဖိနပ်တွေ လက်ခုပ်ထဲကရေ ဖြစ်နေတာပါ။ အကိုဟာဘယ်လောက်ခက်ခဲပါ‌စေ၊ ဘယ်လောက်ထိ မခံမရပ်နိုင်အောင် ခံစားနေရပါစေ၊ ဘယ်တော့မှ ဒူးထောက်မှာ မဟုတ်ဘူးဆိုတာ ကျွန်မတို့သိပြီးသားပါ။ နှစ်ပတ်ကြာပြီးတဲ့နောက်မှာတော့ အကိုမိသားစုကို အမည်မဖော်လိုတဲ့ နေရာတခုကနေ ဖုန်းဆက်လာတယ်။ စစ်ကြောရေးမှာ အကို ဒဏ်ရာရသွားတယ်တဲ့။ နောက်ဆုံးမှာတော့ ကျွန်မတို့ အကိုကို့ရှာတွေ့ ခဲ့ပြီ။ ဘယ်လိုအခြေနေမျိုးမှာ ရှာတွေ့ခဲ့တာလဲ ဆိုတာတော့ ကျွန်မတို့မသိပါဘူး ။ ဒါပေမယ့် အကို အသက်ရှုနေတုန်းပဲ။ ရက်ပေါင်းများစွာ ကြာပြီးတဲ့နောက်မှာ နောက်ဆုံးမှာတော့ အကို့ကိုအင်းစိန်ထောင်ကို ရွှေ့ ပြောင်းခဲ့တယ်။ အဲ့ဒီတခဏမှာ ကျွန်မတို့အားလုံး စိတ်သက်သာရာရခဲ့တယ်။ ဒီခံစားချက်နဲ့အတူ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာဖြစ်နေတဲ့ လူသားတွေနဲ့ သူတို့ရဲ့ ရူးသွပ်မှု အဖျက်စွမ်းအားကို လူတယောက်ဟာ နားလည်ခဲ့ရတယ်။ အင်းစိန်ထောင်ဟာ နာမည်ဆိုးနဲ့ကျော်ကြားပါတယ် ။ အင်းစိန်ရောက်ဖူးတဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားတွေက ကမ္ဘာပေါ်ကငရဲ လို့ ပြောကြတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် အခုတော့ အဆိုးဆုံးရဲ့ အဆိုးဆုံးထက် ပိုကောင်းနေတယ်။ အခု အကို့ကို တခါတလေ လာတွေ့မယ့် ရှေ့နေတဦးရှိပြီ။ သူလဲ အများကြီး တတ်နိုင်မှာမဟုတ်ပေမယ့် တနည်းအားဖြင့် အကောင်းဆုံးဖြစ်အောင် ကြိုးစားပေးမယ့် တယောက်တော့ရှိနေပြီ။ အကျဥ်းသားတွေရဲ့ ကံတရားဟာ အင်းစိန်ထောင် ထောင့်က ဖြစ်ကတက်ဆန်း တရားရုံးလက်ထဲမှာရှိနေပြီ။ အကိုကို့ တပတ်နှစ်ပတ်အတွင်း သို့မဟုတ် လပေါင်းများစွာ ကြာပြီးတဲ့အခါမှာ အမိန့်ချမှတ်ပါလိမ့်မယ်။ လွယ်လွယ်ကူကူနဲ့ ပြီးသွားမယ် လို့ တော့ မထင်ပါဘူး။ လွယ်တယ်ဆိုတဲ့ သတင်းကောင်းမျိုးလည်း မရှိခဲ့ဘူးလေ။ ဒီနံရံတွေကြားမှာ အသားကျအောင် အကိုဘယ်လိုလုပ်မလဲ၊ အချိန်တွေကုန်သွားအောင် ဘယ်လိုလုပ်မလဲ ဆိုတာ ကျွန်မမသိပါဘူး။ တခါတလေ တရားထိုင်နေမယ်၊ တခါတလေ မိုးကျမှာကို စောင့်စားနေမယ်လို့ ကျွန်မစိတ်ကူးကြည့်ပါတယ်။ အကို့မှာ အကို့လို အေးအေးချမ်းချမ်းနဲ့ စိတ်အားထက်သန်မှုရှိတဲ့ ပြီးတော့ အကို့ရဲ့ ဆန္ဒမျှော်လင့်ချက်တွေကို ဆက်လက်တောင်လောင်နေဖို့ရာ အပြန်လှန်မျှ‌ဝေနိုင်တဲ့ အခြားနိုင်ငံရေး အကျဥ်းသားအဖော်တဦးရှိမယ်လို့ မျှော်လင့်ပါတယ်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားတွေ အများကြီး ရှိပါတယ်။ ဒီနေ့ ဒီအချိန်မှာ သူတို့ထဲက အချို့ဟာစစ်အာဏာရှင်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ကြတဲ့ ထင်ရှားတဲ့ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်တွေ ဖြစ်လာနေကြပါပြီ။ လူတွေနဲ့ သူတို့လျှောက်ခဲ့တဲ့ခရီးတွေဟာ မသေချာတဲ့ အနာဂတ်ကို ဆေးရောင်စုံခြယ်မယ့် ခွန်အားအရင်းမြစ်တွေ၊ မျှော်လင့်ချက်တွေ ဖြစ်လာပါပြီ။ အကျဥ်းထောင်ထဲက အကိုတို့တွေဟာ လွတ်မြောက်ရေးအတွက် တိုက်ပွဲ၀င်နေတဲ့၊ ဒီပန်းတိုင်ကို ရောက်အောင်ကြိုးစားနေတဲ့ ပြယုဒ်တွေပါပဲ။ အဲ့ဒီအတွက် အကိုတို့အားလုံးကို အရမ်းပဲလေးစားပါတယ်။ သူတို့ဘာပဲပြောပြော လွတ်မြောက်မှု အလင်းရောင်ကိုဆုပ်ကိုင်ထားတာက အပြောင်းလဲတခုကိုဖြစ်စေနိုင်တယ်ဆိုတာ အကိုလည်းသိနှင့်ပြီးသားပါ။ အကို့ရဲ့ စွန့်လွှတ်အနစ်နာခံမှုတွေက အလကားမဖြစ်ပါဘူး။ တလက်လက်တောက်နေတဲ့အလင်းစက်တွေက အမှောင်ထုကိုခွင်းနေပါတယ်။ …. ကိုယ့်ကိုကိုယ် ဂရုစိုက်ပါ။ ကျွန်မလမင်းကြီးကိုမေးလိုက်တယ်။ အဲ့ဒီမီးခိုးရောင်နံရံတွေရဲ့ တဖက်ခြမ်းမှာ တော်လှန်ရေးက ခရီးဆက်နေတယ်၊ ကျွန်မတို့ကလည်း အကို့ကိုစောင့်နေပါတယ်။ ကျွန်မတို့ တယောက်နဲ့တယောက် ခဏ အဆက်သွယ်ပြတ်သွားခဲ့ပေမယ့် ကြယ်တွေလင်းလက်တဲ့ တခုသောကောင်းကင်ကြီးအောက်မှာ အတူတူရှိနေတုန်းပါပဲ။ တကယ်လို့သာ ဘယ်လိုနားထောင်ရ မယ်ဆိုတာကိုသိရင် ကြယ်တွေဟာသတင်းစကားတွေကို လက်ဆင့်ကမ်းပေးနိုင်တယ်လို့ ကျွန်မကြားဖူးပါတယ်။ သိပ်မကြာခင်ပေါ့ အကို… ညီမ။ “မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားတွေ ရှိနေသရွေ့ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဟာ မလွတ်မြောက်သေးပါဘူး။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားတွေဟာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲ့ ပြည်သူတွေလွတ်မြောက်ရေးနှင့် တန်းတူညီမျှမှု၊ လူ့အခွင့်ရေး၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီရရှိရေး တိုက်ပွဲများကို ကိုယ်စားပြုပါတယ်” နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေး အသင်း (အေအေပီပီ)..."
Source/publisher: "Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-16
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: New Briefing Paper by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland Condemns Privacy Violations & Increased Surveillance by the Junta
Description: "HURFOM: A new briefing paper by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM), “We have lost our private sphere:” the infringement of privacy rights under the military junta in Mon State, Karen State and Tanintharyi region, finds civilian rights to privacy have been eroded by the power-seeking junta. Since the attempted coup on 1 February, the regime has taken steps to extend their authority into civilian homes and their personal devices. Through premeditated amendments to Burma’s legal framework, the junta has endeavored to justify their assault on fundamental privacy rights. Homes of prominent activists and democratically elected officials have been raided by military forces. Innocent civilians have been forced to hand over their mobile devices as soldiers try to extract evidence of pro-democracy activities. Their actions are all in violation of basic privacy laws which grant citizens protection from excessive state-oversight into their personal belongings and housing. In pursuit of evidence to criminalize civilians who have overwhelmingly opposed the coup, the junta has made amendments to several laws. Based on cases HURFOM collected between March and August 2021, the following laws were violated by the junta in Mon State, Karen State and Dawei: Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens: 89 cases Ward or Village Tract Administration Law: 62 cases Penal Code: 35 cases Electronic Transactions Law: 14 cases In the strongest possible terms, HURFOM condemns the attacks on civilian livelihoods, which have created a climate of fear and intimidation. The junta is deliberately violating democratic norms and principles by extorting local people for information and financial gain. Changing the laws to accommodate their ruthlessness is cowardly and shows signs of weakness, not strength. We call for an immediate end to the junta’s illegitimate oversight and access into civilian lives and property. Laws must be reformed to protect the people – not advance the interests of the regime. HURFOM’s extensive documentation of crimes against civilians since the coup is evident that no matter how brutal or harsh their policies are, the military cannot break the spirit of the people..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 3.99 MB
more
Title: Open letter to MAN SE regarding Sinotruk’s business dealings with Myanmar’s military
Description: "Re: Sinotruk’s business dealings with Myanmar’s military We are writing to you to express our concerns regarding the deployment of fleets of Sinotruk vehicles in the ongoing violent repression and lethal crackdown on anti-coup protests, civil society and independent journalists by military forces of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Since 2009 MAN SE has owned 25 percent of Sinotruk Hong Kong and – as a blocking minority shareholder – has significant influence on the governance of Sinotruk’s operations. Myanmar’s military ousted the civilian government in an attempted coup on 1 February that shattered the country’s limited democracy. In the bloody and ongoing crackdown on public protests opposed to the attempted coup, more than 1000 civilians including children have been killed by military and security forces under their command, in what may amount to crimes against humanity. Thousands have been arbitrarily arrested and tortured. It has been well-documented that the Myanmar military forces have used Sinotruk vehicles during the crackdown of anti-coup protests in several cities across the country. Extensive photo and video evidence of the deployment of Sinotruk vehicles – what appear to be Sinotruk’s HOWO truck model – to execute the crackdown were published on social media, in Myanmar media and in a Süddeutsche article on 28 March 2021. This includes armed soldiers being transported to protest sites in Sinotruk vehicles, soldiers shooting at protesters with slingshots and air rifles from these vehicles, and arbitrarily detained protesters being taken away in these vehicles. It is likely that the Myanmar military may also be using Sinotruk vehicles within its military operations in ethnic areas, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed. In 2011, Sinotruk entered into a business partnership with No. 1 General Heavy Industries Enterprise in Myanmar to upgrade the No. 1 Myanmar Automobile Plant. This upgrade allowed for production and assembly of Sinotruk’s HOWO model truck at the plant. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Myanmar military produces heavy duty MILTRUK vehicles under a Sinotruk licence. Myanmar’s armed forces are in the possession of MILTRUK military trucks mounted with rocket launch systems, as seen during military parades in Myanmar in recent years. In response to requests by Süddeutsche Zeitung in March 2021, a MAN spokesperson stated that it had been unaware of Sinotruk vehicles being deployed by the Myanmar military. MAN furthermore reported that Sinotruk provided assurance in a letter that there is “no cooperation whatsoever between Sinotruk and the current military regime in Myanmar.” After writing to MAN and 11 other international corporations in April about their activities in Myanmar, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has written to them again in July, urging them to take concrete steps to ensure its companies are not in businesses with the military junta, either directly or indirectly, in order not to be complicit in the relentless horrific crackdown currently under way. MAN noncommittally responded to the first letter and so far has not reacted to the second letter. In light of the widespread and grave human rights abuses perpetrated by Myanmar’s military with the aid of Sinotruk military vehicles and potentially MAN technology, we strongly believe that it is insufficient to merely rely on this assurance by your business partner. We urge you to conduct a thorough investigation into Sinotruk’s business links to the Myanmar military and security forces under their command, including possible active licence agreements. Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Responsible Business, MAN has the responsibility to ensure that human rights are respected in all its business operations and relationships. The UN Guiding Principles stipulate that businesses have the responsibility “to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.” We therefore call on MAN SE to act promptly to conduct a transparent investigation into any links between Sinotruk Hong Kong and the Myanmar military, either directly or indirectly through other Sinotruk subsidiaries and associates. Should any links exist, MAN must take immediate action to ensure the company cuts all business ties to the Myanmar military, as recommended by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in August 2019, and to ensure that MAN technology does not benefit the military in any form..."
Source/publisher: FIAN Deutschland, Info Birmanie, Justice For Myanmar, Reporter ohne Grenzen, Stiftung Asienhaus, urgewald and U.S. Campaign for Burma
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 430.54 KB
more
Title: Statement on International Day of Democracy 2021
Description: "1. The countries around the world have proudly celebrated the international day of democracy events on 15 September annually since 2007 to promote democracy, human rights, and human dignity. 2. The theme of this year for International day o f democracy is " Is democracy really in crisis " and it truly reflects the current and concrete situation in Myanmar where all the people are bearing the brunt o f the junta's tyranny. The inhumane persecution o f the entire population by the terrorist military council reveals that the democracy is in peril and the dictatorship is making a comeback with a vengeance. 3. The fact that the terrorist military junta abrogated the outcome o f the 2020 General Election which was held according to electoral laws and by-laws and unseated the democraticallyelected government means democracy was supplanted by dictatorship. Nullifying the people's votes for democracy by the brute force o f arms is a grave threat to Myanmar as well as to the world's democracy. 4. The entire people o f Myanmar are outraged by the military junta who demolished democracy in Myanmar by rejecting the results o f the free and fair 2020 general election held in accordance with electoral laws and by-laws and removing the people's democratic government through military force against the constitutional protocols. The coup d'etat by the terrorist military council put an end to the nascent democratic transition evolving under the severe constraints o f the military-crafted constitution. Simultaneously, all the democratic institutions such as judiciary, legislature, executive and free press and news media as well as the people's fundamental rights were nipped in the bud. 5. The terrorist military council have been committing crimes like arresting arbitrarily, imprisoning and killing the MPs truly representing the people, massacring the democracysupporting, peacefully-demonstrating innocent people, looting their possessions until now. Despite these atrocities, the Myanmar people are sacrificing their lives and blood in order to abolish military dictatorship, to reinstate democracy, and to build a nation where human rights and human dignity are respected. 6. Additionally, because o f the suppression and mismanagement of the junta's lackeys, there has been a higher rate o f covid 19 infection in prison, and the political prisoners, activists are badly in need o f rights for health care and other human rights. Therefore, we strongly exhort the UN organizations, the international governments, and the regional groupings to do their utmost to protect and fulfi l these rights as soon as possible. 7. We, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), pledge again to continue to do our utmost to reinstitute democracy and abolish military dictatorship once and for all in accordance with the people's mandate bestowed upon us. 8. We solemnly urge the international governments, the United Nations, MPs from the democratic community, and fraternal democratic countries to cooperate and collaborate with the Myanmar People in their endeavor to prevent the military junta from committing terrorist crimes, to reinstitute democratic system, and to build the future federal democratic union o f Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 110.39 KB
more
Title: Statement on International Day of Democracy 2021 - ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုင်ငံတကာဒီမိုကရေစီနေ့အခမ်းအနားနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
Description: "၁။ ၂၀၀၇ ခုနှစ်မှစ၍ နှစ်စဉ်စက်တင်ဘာလ ၁၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် ကမ္ဘာတစ်ဝှမ်းရှိ နိုင်ငံများတွင် ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေး၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် လူသားဂုဏ်သိက္ခာစံနှုန်းများပိုမိုအားပေးမြှင့်တင်နိုင်ရေး ရည်ရွယ်ချက်များဖြင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီနေ့အခမ်းအနားများ အလေးထားကျင်းပလေ့ရှိပါသည်။ ၂။ ယခုနှစ်အတွက် အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ဒီမိုကရေစီနေ့ ဆောင်ပုဒ်(Theme)မှာ “ ဒီမိုကရေစီ သည် တကယ်ပင် အကြပ်အတည်းနဲ့ရင်ဆိုင်ရနေပြီလား(Is democracy really in crisis)” ဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ပြည်သူလူထုတစ်ရပ်လုံးအပေါ် ဖိနှိပ်သတ်ဖြတ်နေခြင်းသည် ဒီမိုကရေစီအကြပ်အတည်းဆိုက်ရုံမျှသာမက အာဏာရှင်စနစ်များ ပြန်လည်ဦးမော့လာစေမည့် လက္ခဏာများ အစပြုနေခြင်းပင်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ယင်းသည် ယခုလက်ရှိ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တစ်စု၏ မတရားဖိနှိပ်မှုကို အပြင်းအထန်ရင်ဆိုင်ခံစားရ လျက်ရှိသည့် မြန်မာ ပြည်သူလူထု တစ်ရပ်လုံးနှင့် ယနေ့ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အခြေအနေမှန်နှင့် ပကတိ အနေအထားကို ထင်ဟပ်နေပါသည်။ ၃။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဆိုင်ရာ ဥပဒေများ၊ နည်းဥပဒေများ နှင့် အညီ တရားနည်းလမ်းကျစွာ ကျင်းပခဲ့သည့် ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ရလဒ်များကို အဓမ္မနည်းလမ်းဖြင့် ပယ်ဖျက်ခဲ့ခြင်း၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီနည်းကျ ရွေးကောက်ခံထားရသည့် အစိုးရအား ဖယ်ရှားခြင်းသည် ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ဖြင့် အစားထိုးလိုက် ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူများ၏ ဒီမိုကရေစီဆန္ဒမဲများကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် ဖျက်စီးခြင်းသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ အတွက် သာမက ကမ္ဘာ့ဒီမိုကရေစီအတွက်ပါ ခြိမ်းခြောက်မှုဖြစ်သည်။ ၄။ စစ်အာဏာရှင်သည် ရွေးကောင်ပွဲဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများ၊ နည်းဥပဒေများနှင့်အညီ ကျင်းပခဲ့သည့် လွတ်လပ်၍ တရားမျှတသည့် ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲရလဒ်များကို လျစ်လျူရှုခဲ့ပြီး ပြည်သူလူထု၏ လွတ်လပ်သောဆန္ဒမဲဖြင့် ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ခဲ့သည့် ပြည်သူ့အစိုးရ၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီ အစိုးရကို လက်နက်အားကိုး၍ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ၊ လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများနှင့် ဆန့်ကျင်လျက် အာဏာသိမ်းယူ၍ ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို ဖျက်သိမ်းခဲ့သည့်အတွက် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု တစ်ရပ်လုံး မခံမရပ်နိုင်ဖြစ်ခဲ့ရသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အာဏာသိမ်းမှုသည် ၂၀၀၈ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေ၏ အကန့်အသတ်များစွာ အောက်တွင် ဆောင်ရွက်နေရသည့် နုနယ်သော ဒီမိုကရေစီ အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းမှုကို အပြီးတိုင်ဖြိုဖျက်လိုက်ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီဆိုင်ရာ မဏ္ဍိုင်များဖြစ်သည့် ဥပဒေပြုရေး၊ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး၊ တရားစီရင်ရေး၊ လွတ်လပ်သောသတင်းမီဒီယာ တို့နှင့် ပြည်သူတို့၏ ဒီမိုကရေစီဆိုင်ရာ အခွင့်အရေးများအားလုံးကို အညွန့်ချိုးလိုက်ခြင်းလည်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ၅။ ပြည်သူလူထုကို ကိုယ်စားပြုသည့် ဥပဒေပြုလွှတ်တော်အမတ်များကို မတရားဖမ်းဆီး သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ထောင်သွင်းအကျဉ်းချခြင်း၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ပြန်လည်အသက်သွင်းရန်အတွက် ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန္ဒထုတ်ဖော်ကြသည့် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများကို ရက်စက်စွာ ပစ်ခတ်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ ၎င်းတို့၏ ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများကို လုယက်သိမ်းယူခြင်းများကို အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီက ယနေ့တိုင် ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ယင်းသို့ ရက်စက်သော ဖိနှိပ်မှုများ ရှိနေသည့်တိုင် မြန်မာပြည်သူ များသည် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် ချုပ်ငြိမ်းရေး၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီပြန်လည်ထွန်းကားရေး နှင့် လူ့အခွင့် အရေး များကို လေးစားတန်ဖိုးထားပြီး၊ လူ့ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာနှင့်လျော်ညီသည့် နိုင်ငံတစ်ခု တည်ဆောက်ရေး အတွက် အသက်သွေးချွေးများကို ပေးဆပ်ကာ ခုခံတော်လှန်နေကြသည်။ ၆။ ထို့ပြင် စစ်ကောင်စီလက်ပါးစေများ၏ ဆိုးရွားစွာဖိနှိပ်မှု၊ အထွေထွေစီမံခန့်ခွဲမှုအလွဲများ ကြောင့် ထောင်အတွင်း ကိုဗစ်၁၉ ကပ်ရောဂါကူးစက်မှုနှုန်း မြှင့်မားခဲ့ရပြီး နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဥ်းသားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများသည် အကျဉ်းထောင်အတွင်း၌ ၎င်းတို့ရရှိရမည့် ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် တခြားသော လူ့အခွင့်အရေးများ လုံလောက်စွာရရှိရေး အဆောတလျင် လိုအပ်လျက် ရှိပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ကုလသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာအစိုးရများနှင့် ဒေသတွင်းအဖွဲ့ အစည်းများအနေဖြင့် ထိုအခြေခံအခွင့်အရေးများ ကာကွယ်ပေးရေးနှင့် ပြည့်ဝစွာရရှိရေး အဆောတလျင် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်ရန် ဖြစ်နိုင်သမျှသော နည်းလမ်းများဖြင့် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးကြပါရန် တိုက်တွန်းတောင်းဆိုပါသည်။ ၇။ မိမိတို့ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီအနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူလူထုက အပ်နှင်းထား သည့် အခွင့်အာဏာကိုကျင့်သုံးလျက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ဒီမိုကရေစီပြန်လည်ရရှိရေးနှင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင် စနစ် အပြီးတိုင်ချုပ်ငြိမ်းရေး အစွမ်းကုန်ဆက်လက်ကြိုးပမ်းသွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထပ်လောင်းကတိ ပြုပါသည်။ ၈။ ကမ္ဘာတစ်ဝှမ်းရှိ နိုင်ငံတကာအစိုးရများ၊ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီ အသိုက် အဝန်းမှ လွှတ်တော်အမတ်များနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီမိတ်ဖက်နိုင်ငံများအနေဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်တပ်မှ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များရပ်တန့်ရေး၊ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ် ပြန်လည်ထွန်းကားရေးနှင့် အနာဂတ်ဖက်ဒရယ် ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စု တည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရေး မိမိတို့နှင့် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက် ကြပါရန် လေးနက်စွာ တိုက်တွန်းအပ်ပါသည်။ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 423.95 KB
more
Title: The UN Credentials Committee Must Reject Junta’s Claim
Description: "Burma Human Rights Network calls on the United Nations Credentials Committee to reject the Burmese military’s attempt to represent the country at the UN. UN member states must instead support the credentials of the National Unity Government as the legitimate representative of the people of Burma. The NUG is composed of party members of the elected government of Burma that the military overthrew on 1 February 2021. To recognize the military would give credibility to brute force and ignore the will of the people of Burma. “The crisis facing Myanmar is not just about the coup or the power struggle between two entities. It is a war between corrupted authoritarian and democratic forces. It is a struggle between a mass murderer and defenseless civilians,” said BHRN’s Executive Director Kyaw Win. The UN’s Credentials Committee is set to meet today to consider who will represent Burma at the UN. Disputes between parties seeking representation at the UN are settled by the body, which is composed of nine member states. This is the junta who have been accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya people in 2017 by UN Fact Finding Mission. Since February coup the junta has killed more than 1200 peaceful protesters. By accepting the military’s credentials the UN would give credibility to their ill-gotten claims to power and solidify their control. In doing this they would help ensure that the people of Burma would continue to suffer under the military’s tyranny. If they instead accept the credentials of the NUG they would send a sign to Burma and the world that authority comes from the people, not from cruelty and force. Over the past 30 years, the UN has rejected credential claims from regimes that gained power through force. To change course now and allow Burma’s military to claim power would undermine any progress the world has made for democracy and representation. In considering what party is given authority in a divided nation the UN has and must continue to consider the rights of the civilians in those countries. In the case of the Junta, they have already proven that they have no respect for human life, democracy, or any fundamental freedom. The UN cannot reward this with any legitimacy. “Although the decision could be based on national interests, this is a much bigger issue. Any decision made by UNGA would be historical with deep ramifications. We can’t let the mass murderers win,” said Kyaw Win. Yet, by accepting the NUG’s credentials the UN would signal to the world the value of human rights and the value of the democratic will of the people of Burma. The NUG represents a new page for Burma, one where the civilian government may represent the interests of all of Burma’s people, including minorities that have been oppressed and marginalised for years. While supporting the NUG may not solve all of Burma’s problems overnight, it is a step towards achieving justice and peace for the country. Organisation’s Background BHRN is based in London and operates across Burma/Myanmar working for human rights, minority rights and religious freedom in the country. BHRN has played a crucial role in advocating for human rights and religious freedom with politicians and world leaders..."
Source/publisher: Burma Human Rights Network
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 126.96 KB
more
Title: ခေါင်းစဉ်က “မြန်မာ့ဂေါ်ရခါး ဒီမိုကရေစီလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Gurkha Movement for Democracy in Myanmar) အားအသိအမှတ်ပြုဂုဏ်ပြုလွှာ”
Description: "၁။ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး နှင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်အပြီးသတ်ကျဆုံးရေးအတွက် ကူညီအားပေးထောက်ပံ့ပေးခဲ့ကြသော ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံအတွင်းရှိ ဂေါ်ရခါးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများအားလုံးကို စုစည်းပြီး “မြန်မာ့ဂေါ်ရခါး ဒီမိုကရေစီလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Gurkha Movement for Democracy in Myanmar)” ကိုဖွဲ့စည်းနိုင်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ကြားသိရ၍ ဝမ်းမြောက်မိပါသည်။ ၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ စီမံကိန်းဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာနမှ “မြန်မာ့ဂေါ်ရခါး ဒီမိုကရေစီလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Gurkha Movement for Democracy in Myanmar)" အားအသိအမှတ်ပြုအပ်ပါသည်။ ၃။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် အကြွင်းမဲ့ချုပ်ငြိမ်းပျောက်ကွယ်သွားစေရေး၊ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ပေါ်ပေါက်လာရေးအတွက် မြန်မာ့ဂေါ်ရခါးဒီမိုကရေစီလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Gurkha Movement for Democracy in Myanmar) မှ ဆက်လက်၍ တက်ကြွစွာ ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်လှုပ်ရှားကြလိမ့်မည်ဟု ခိုင်မာစွာယုံကြည်ပါသည်။ တင်ထွန်းနိုင် ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment - NUG
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-15
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 118.15 KB
more
Title: Civilians Arrested as Myanmar Military Cracks Down in Kayah State
Description: "Almost 30 civilians in Kayah State have been detained recently by the Myanmar military on suspicion of anti-regime activities, the Karenni Human Rights Group (KHRG) told The Irrawaddy. 26 people were arrested between August 27 and September 12 in Demoso and Loikaw townships. Military tensions are running high between junta troops and Karenni resistance forces in those areas, according to the KHRG, an independent civil society organization that monitors the human rights situation in Kayah State for the United Nations and international human rights agencies. On September 9, four timber truck drivers were detained in Demoso. Prior to that, 12 farmers were arrested in Tee Lon village in Loikaw, according to Ko Banyar of the KHRG. Another five men were detained in Loikaw after junta forces found anti-regime photos on their phones. A photo widely circulated on social media recently shows two teenage boys making a three-finger salute – a sign of opposition to military rule – with their hands tied and the rope being held by a man in Myanmar military uniform who was sitting beside them. Reports said that the photo was taken before the teenagers were shot dead by junta troops. However, the two were later identified as 14 and 15 year-olds from Demoso who were subsequently sent to a junta interrogation center, said Demoso residents. In August, regime troops detained seven men, including a 15-year-old, in Demoso, and eight villagers including a woman in Hpruso. Four men, including the 15-year-old, were released in the first week of September. The others are believed to still be under detention. The KHRG reported that junta troops had tortured detained civilians and also used them as human shields when travelling in conflict zones. Military regime spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun denied arresting civilians in Kayah State. “We haven’t arrested anyone who is not a member of a People’s Defense Force (PDF). We have only arrested those who were involved in clashes. We don’t arrest people if we have no evidence. All those who were detained were caught along with weapons and ammunition. There might have been interrogations [of civilians]. But it is done for security,” said the regime spokesman. Kayah State is largely stable except in certain villages that are rebelling, added Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun. Karenni resistance forces from the Karenni Army, the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force and local PDF’s have been fighting regime troops in Demoso and Loikaw since late May. Clashes intensified after the parallel National Unity Government declared a nationwide war against the junta on September 7. Fighting broke out on the evening of September 7 between local resistance forces and junta soldiers stationed in Daw Poe Si village at the border of Demoso and Loikaw townships. Six houses in 5th Mile and 6th Mile villages burned down after junta forces fired artillery following the clash, forcing residents to flee their homes. Clashes have ceased since September 12, but locals are not yet returning to their homes as military tensions remain high in the area. Junta troops have been making surprise checks on travellers in Loikaw and Demoso, as well as detaining and beating suspects, said a displaced woman from Ngwe Taung Village. “Men are checked more especially. Previously, they only asked you where you are going and what you are going to do. But now they are asking your name, your ID number, phone number, and they note down your motorbike or car number plate. They even check the gallery and contacts on your phone. You can get arrested if they find a photo that they think is suspicious. So many people are not returning to their villages. The checks and inspections are quite tight,” she said. Kayah State has a population of over 280,000 people, according to 2019 statistics, and half of them have been displaced by the recent fighting in the state, the Karenni State Consultative Council told The Irrawaddy..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Interim University Council - University of Yangon: Order No.1/2021 - ကြားကာလရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ်ကောင်စီ အမိန့်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ကြားကာလရန်ကုန်တက္ကသိုလ်ကောင်စီ အမိန့်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၁) ၁၃၈၃ ခုနှစ်၊ တော်သလင်းလဆန်း (၉)ရက် (၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၄) ရက်)..."
Source/publisher: Interim University Council - University of Yangon
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 301.36 KB
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Kills At Least 12 Civilians Over Weekend
Description: "At least a dozen civilians were killed by junta forces in Magwe, Sagaing and Yangon regions during the weekend. On Sunday, junta forces killed two brothers in Taungdwingyi Township, Magwe Region, after a telecom mast belonging to the military-owned Mytel, one of four telecom operators in Myanmar, was destroyed. Resistance fighters said in a statement that the troops tortured villagers as they interrogated them over the incident and two were killed. Four other villagers were detained, it added. Telecom towers owned by Myanmar’s military are being targeted by resistance fighters following the shadow National Unity Government’s declaration of war against the junta on September 7. The junta troops also burned several houses during raids on Hnan Khar and Htet Hlaw villages on Gangaw Township in the region, a resistance stronghold, over the weekend. According to residents, a villager and resistance fighter were shot dead by junta troops in Htet Hlaw on Sunday morning during a raid. Around 30 houses were also burned down during the raid, forcing villagers to flee. Villagers said they found the two bodies when they returned to put out the fires. On Monday morning, junta troops torched Hnan Khar, burning at least 10 houses. Nearly 40 houses have been partially or completely destroyed in the village since Friday. In Myaung Township, Sagaing Region, seven villagers, who were trapped in their village during clashes between junta forces and resistance fighters, were reportedly shot dead by regime soldiers. In Yangon Region, 36-year-old Ko Aung Ko was shot dead after he reportedly failed to stop his car at a checkpoint on Saturday night. His wife, who was a passenger, was shot and is in a critical condition. Since the February coup, junta forces have killed at least 1,080 people, including teenagers, children, student activists, protesters, politicians, bystanders and pedestrians. More than 8,000 people have been detained of whom 6,398 remain in custody, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Education Announcement No.32/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေငြာချက် အမှတ် (၃၂/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၂/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၄) ရက် အသိအမှတ်ပြုကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း (ကျန်ရှိသော စာရင်းများကို နောက်နေ့ရက်များတွင် ဆက်လက်ထုတ်ပြန်ပေးသွားမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။)..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 411.44 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment Announcement No.11/2021
Sub-title: Special announcement prohibiting proposed sale of public estate belonging to diplomatic missions of Myanmar and declaring any purchase thereof to be unlawful
Description: "1. The illegitimate military council, the so-called State Administration Council or the provisional caretaker government, is an unlawful association that has seized power by from the people of Myanmar solely through force of arms and against the expressed wishes of the people. Neither the United Nations nor any nation state has accorded recognition to the military council as representative government of Myanmar. 2. The National Unity Government has determined that the illegitimate military council is as unlawful association under Section 16 of the Unlawful Associations Act 1908 and that the military council and any of its successor or subsidiary organisations shall be deemed unlawful associations irrespective of any change of title, composition or dissolution under Section 18 of the said Act. 3. All land, buildings, properties and holdings held in the name of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and organs of state ('public estates’), both within and outwith the Union, ultimately belong to the people of Myanmar. The illegal military council and its subsidiary institutions and organisations, being devoid of the moral and legal right to represent the people of Myanmar, have no right to control, manage or dispose of those public estates. 4. The National Unity Government hereby declares that any sale, in part or in whole, of public estate belonging to the diplomatic missions of Myanmar conducted by the illegal military council to be unlawful and therefore prohibited. 5. The National Unity Government reserves the right to prosecute either the seller or the purchaser or both partaking in any such prohibited transaction at a time and jurisdiction of its choosing. 6. On behalf of the National Unity Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shall consult and collaborate with relevant authorities in the host countries of Myanmar diplomatic missions to preclude unlawful transactions prohibited by this announcement..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment - NUG
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 33.55 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment Announcement No.11/2021 - စီမံကိန်း ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ ကြေညာချက် (၁၁/၂၀၂၁)
Sub-title: တရားမဝင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ရောင်းချရန် စီစဉ်နေသည့် ပြည်ပနိုင်ငံများရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံပိုင် သံရုံးမြေနှင့် အဆောက်အဦများအား ဝယ်ယူခြင်းသည် တရားဝင်မှုမရှိသောကြောင့် ဝယ်ယူခြင်း အလျဉ်းမပြုကြရန် အထူးသတိပေး တားမြစ်ခြင်း။
Description: "ကြေညာချက် (၁၁/၂၀၂၁) စက်တင်ဘာလ ၁၄ ရက် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်။ ============== တရားမဝင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ရောင်းချရန် စီစဉ်နေသည့် ပြည်ပနိုင်ငံများရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံပိုင် သံရုံးမြေနှင့် အဆောက်အဦများအား ဝယ်ယူခြင်းသည် တရားဝင်မှုမရှိသောကြောင့် ဝယ်ယူခြင်း အလျဉ်းမပြုကြရန် အထူးသတိပေး တားမြစ်ခြင်း။ ----------------------- ၁။ မိမိကိုယ်မိမိ နိုင်ငံတော်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီဟုလည်းကောင်း၊ အိမ်စောင့်အစိုးရဟုလည်းကောင်း အမည်တပ်ထားသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် မြန်မာ ပြည်သူလူထုထံမှ အာဏာကို လက်နက်အားကိုး မတရားနည်းသက်သက်ဖြင့် ပြည်သူ့ဆန္ဒကို ဆန့်ကျင်ပြီး အတင်းအဓမ္မ သိမ်းယူထားသော တရားမဝင်အဖွဲ့အစည်းသာဖြစ်သည်။ ထိုသို့ဖြစ်သည့်အတွက် ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့ကြီးနှင့် မည်သည့်ကမ္ဘာ့နိုင်ငံကမျှ ထိုစစ်ကောင်စီသည် မြန်မာ ပြည်သူကို ကိုယ်စားပြုသည့် တရားဝင် အစိုးရတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်ဟု အသိအမှတ်ပြုထားခြင်းမရှိပေ။ ၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ၁၉၀၈ မတရားသင်းများအက်ဥပဒေပုဒ်မ ၁၆ အရ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီအား မတရားသင်းတစ်ခုအဖြစ် အတိအလင်းကြေငြာ ပြီးဖြစ်သည့်အပြင် ယင်းအက်ဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၁၈ အရလည်း ထိုစစ်ကောင်စီနှင့် ယင်းကိုဆက်ခံသည့် မည်သည့်အဖွဲ့အစည်းတစ်ခုခု (သို့မဟုတ်) ယင်း၏လက်အောက်ခံ အဖွဲ့အစည်းတစ်ခုခုတို့သည် ၎င်းတို့၏အမည်၊ ပါဝင်သူနှင့် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံတို့ကို မည်သို့ပင်ပြောင်းစေကာမူ မတရားသင်းအဖြစ်တည်မြဲဖြစ်သည်ဟုလည်း ထင်ရှားစေပြီးဖြစ်သည်။ ၃။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံက ပိုင်ဆိုင်သည်ဟု အမည်ပေါက်သော ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပရှိ နိုင်ငံပိုင်မြေ၊ အဆောက်အဦ၊ ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုအရပ်ရပ်တို့၏ မူရင်းပိုင်ရှင်သည် နိုင်ငံတော်အတွင်း မှီတင်းနေထိုင်ကြသော နိုင်ငံသားပြည်သူများသာဖြစ်သည့်အတွက် ပြည်သူလူထုအားကိုယ်စားပြုမှု အလျဉ်းမရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီနှင့် ယင်း၏လက်အောက်ခံအဖွဲ့အစည်းများအနေဖြင့် အဆိုပါ မြေ၊ ဆောက်အဦနှင့် အခြားပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများအား ထိန်းချုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်၊ စီမံခန့်ခွဲပိုင်ခွင့်၊ ရောင်းချပိုင်ခွင့် အလျင်းမရှိပါ။ ၄။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ပြည်ပနိုင်ငံများရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံပိုင် သံရုံးမြေနှင့် အဆောက်အဦများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက တစ်စိတ်တစ်ပိုင်းဖြစ်စေ၊ တစ်လုံးတစ်ခဲတည်းဖြစ်စေ၊ ရောင်းချရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုမှန်သမျှသည် တရားဝင်မှု လုံးဝမရှိကြောင်းကြေငြာလိုက်သည်။ ထိုသို့ရောင်းဝယ်မှုများကို လုံးဝမလုပ်ရန်လည်း အထူးသတိပေးတားမြစ်လိုက်သည်။ ၅။ ဤသို့သတိပေးတားမြစ်ထားသည့်ကြားမှ အရောင်းအဝယ်ပြုခဲ့သည်ရှိသော် စစ်ကောင်စီဘက်မှ တာဝန်ခံရောင်းသူကိုသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ လက်ခံဝယ်ယူသူကိုလည်းကောင်း၊ နှစ်ဦးနှစ်ဘက်လုံးကိုလည်းကောင်း သင့်တင့်လျောက်ပတ်သည့် အချိန်တွင် သင့်လျော်သော စီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည့်တရားရုံးတော်၌ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အနေဖြင့် ဥပဒေကြောင်းအရ အရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်ခွင့် အကြွင်းမဲ့ရှိသည်ဟု မှတ်ယူရမည်။ ၆။ ဤကိစ္စနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရကိုယ်စား နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ အိမ်ရှင်နိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ အစိုးရ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် လိုအပ်သလို ဆက်လက်ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ပါရန် ညှိနှိုင်းအကြောင်းကြားအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment - NUG
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 218.58 KB
more
Title: U.N. Member States: Recognize Credentials of Myanmar Representative Kyaw Moe Tun
Sub-title: General Assembly expected to determine Myanmar representation at U.N. tomorrow
Description: "United Nations member states should recognize the credentials of the serving Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the U.N., Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, during the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly, Fortify Rights said today. U.N. member states convene tomorrow in New York for the annual General Assembly. “The Myanmar junta is an unlawful, criminal, and terrorizing enterprise that should have no place within the halls of the U.N.,” said Matthew Smith, CEO at Fortify Rights. “Member states should support the credentials of Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun.” Fortify Rights and 357 Myanmar and international civil society organizations today published an open letter to all U.N. member states’ permanent representatives urging them to accept Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun’s credentials, which empower him to attend and speak within the U.N. as Myanmar’s representative. Myanmar’s military junta is expected to seek U.N. credentials for an opposing representative, sparking a dispute that could be settled, for the time being, on procedural grounds by the General Assembly’s Credentials Committee. The Credentials Committee is appointed by the General Assembly on the first day of the session. The committee comprises representatives of nine U.N. member states proposed by the president of the General Assembly. It has become well-established practice that the U.S., Russia, and China all take seats on the committee, and the remaining six members are selected on the basis of equitable geographic coverage. The committee is mandated to examine credentials of proposed representatives of member states and report to the General Assembly on its findings. Prior to the February 1 military coup d’état in Myanmar, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun served as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. and, at the time of writing, retains his credentials. In a speech to the General Assembly on February 26, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun denounced the coup d’état and called on member states to use “the strongest possible action . . . to immediately end the military coup, to stop oppressing the innocent people, to return the state power to the people, and to restore the democracy.” On April 16, elected legislators in Myanmar formed the National Unity Government (NUG) to represent the sovereign will of the people of Myanmar. Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun has pledged allegiance to the NUG. The NUG has taken important steps to address past and present atrocity crimes and human rights violations in Myanmar. On August 19, the NUG announced it had delegated jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute atrocities dating back to 2002. It also acknowledged the rights of the Rohingya ethnic minority and atrocity crimes they faced at the hands of the military, which Fortify Rights, a U.N. fact-finding mission, and others have identified as genocide. Since seizing power, the Myanmar military junta has killed more than 1,000 women, men, and children and arbitrarily arrested, detained, and charged more than 8,000 people in a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population. The U.N. General Assembly issued a resolution on June 25 that “strongly condemned” the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters and, in a rare move, called for a global arms embargo against the Myanmar military. The resolution received widespread international support, with 119 member states voting in favor of it and only one, Belarus, voting against it. When dealing with past disputes, the Credentials Committee has either voted for one party over the other or has deferred their decision, leaving the incumbent Permanent Representative provisionally in place. No authoritative rules or guidance have been developed to assist the credentials committee to decide between rival claims for credentials; however, a General Assembly resolution from 1950 states: [W]henever more than one authority claims to be the government entitled to represent a Member State in the United Nations and this question becomes the subject of controversy in the United Nations, the question should be considered in the light of the Purposes and Principles of the Charter and the circumstances of each case. Article 1(3) of the U.N. Charter notes that the purposes of the global body include “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all.” Further, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights notes in Article 21(3) that “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.” “Member states should urgently support the NUG and the people of Myanmar in their efforts to hold the junta accountable for its crimes,” said Matthew Smith. “The international community is failing the people of Myanmar and should do everything now to correct course.”..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: U.S. and China Reach Deal to Block Myanmar’s Junta From U.N.
Description: "The United States and China have brokered an agreement that will effectively block Myanmar’s military rulers from addressing the United Nations’ General Assembly next week, according to diplomats, dealing a blow to the junta’s quest for international legitimacy after it took power in a coup earlier this year. But the pact—which was hammered out during weeks of behind-the-scenes diplomatic negotiations—will require Myanmar’s defiant, still-serving U.N. ambassador who represented the previous government to hold his tongue during the high-level event, refraining from the tough rhetoric he deployed last year in denouncing the military’s power grab. It will also delay any effort by Myanmar’s rulers to press for U.N. membership to recognize it as the legitimate government in Myanmar, at least until November. The arrangement, which was described by multiple diplomatic sources and representatives of advocacy groups familiar with internal deliberations, has been informally endorsed by representatives of the European Union, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Russia. It comes as the U.N. General Assembly plans to announce the appointment of a nine-member panel on U.N. credentials on Tuesday, which will be charged with determining the rightful U.N. representative of Myanmar. The committee will be chaired by weden and include representatives from Bhutan, the Bahamas, Chile, China, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and the United States. If there is a credential dispute, the incumbent representative keeps his or her seat until a decision is assessed by the credentialing committee and approved by the General Assembly, according to General Assembly rules. The United States and its European allies were concerned that a country sympathetic to the military regime’s claims might appeal to the credential committees to take up the matter before its first scheduled meeting in November. They are hoping to delay any decision on Myanmar’s representation as long as possible, preserving a diplomatic stalemate that ensures Myanmar’s current ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, will maintain his right to Myanmar’s U.N. seat. “We’re interested in keeping the status quo as long as we can,” said one diplomat from a country involved in the discussions. In a brief telephone interview, Kyaw Moe Tun confirmed that international negotiations are underway to determine how to move forward on Myanmar’s U.N. seat. He said he would “most likely not” deliver an address to the U.N. General Assembly, even though the list of speakers for the assembly includes Myanmar along with other countries that face questions about their diplomatic standing, such as Afghanistan, Guinea, and North Korea. “We are still waiting for some sort of outcome from the discussions within the credentials committee,” Kyaw Moe Tun added. The deal involved an arrangement in which U.N. member states would agree to put off any discussion in the U.N. Credentials Committee of the military junta’s diplomatic status until after the U.N.’s annual diplomatic jamboree. In the meantime, Kyaw Moe Tun, who has faced death threats since publicly breaking with the military regime, has agreed not to address the assembly during the session or sit in Myanmar’s seat in the General Assembly. In the telephone interview, Kyaw Moe Tun did not confirm whether Myanmar’s seat will remain empty during the high-level debate. But he said, “now, everything is OK with regard to my security.” In August, the United States arrested and accused two Burmese citizens with conspiracy to assault and possibly kill Kyaw Moe Tun. The alleged plan—which involved tampering with the ambassador’s car—involved a Thai weapons dealer who did business with Myanmar’s military, according to court papers. This behind-the-scenes diplomacy sheds light on how the United States and its allies are seeking to maintain pressure on the ruling junta in the aftermath of the military coup that ousted the elected government in February. It also reflects how seemingly simple logistical matters—such as who gets credentials to speak at an event—can turn into tricky diplomatic battles at the United Nations. The agreement to freeze the military junta out of U.N. deliberations also provides fresh evidence that the United States and China are looking to find areas of diplomatic cooperation, even as they clash over a range of other matters, including China’s detention of millions of Uyghur Muslims in labor and reeducation camps in Xinjiang, a policy the Biden administration has characterized as genocide. Discussion on the fate of Myanmar’s diplomatic representation will be put off until at least November, when the U.N. Credentials Committee will convene to consider a request by Myanmar’s military regime to install its chosen envoy to represent Myanmar at the world body. “What we are hearing, and this seems to be increasingly solid, is that the credential committee will defer. They will say they can’t draw a firm conclusion now, and that will encourage [Kyaw Moe Tun] to stay on,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. representative at the International Crisis Group. But Kyaw Moe Tun will not represent the country’s National Unity Government, made up of ousted Burmese leaders and anti-coup protesters. “Apparently, there has been a quiet gentleman’s agreement that the current ambassador will keep a low profile during [this] high-level week and won’t use it as an opportunity to attack the regime,” Gowan added. Myanmar’s military rulers seized power on Feb. 1, jailing senior government leaders, including then-Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after her party won an overwhelming election victory. The military claimed it removed the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party from power in February because it ignored allegations of fraud in the country’s elections last November. International observers at the time described the elections, where the NLD soundly defeated the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, as mostly free and fair. Kyaw Moe Tun refused to recognize the new regime, denouncing it in an emotional address before the U.N. General Assembly. Flashing the three finger symbol of the Burmese resistance, Kyaw Moe Tun urged the international community to use “any means necessary” to restore democracy in Myanmar. The diplomat then ignored a late-February decision by the regime to fire him and has continued to act as Myanmar’s official representative at the United Nations. The military junta’s choice to represent it at the United Nations, Aung Thurein, has not been able to secure accreditation for the post at the United Nations. The credentialing matter emerged as one of many diplomatic proxy battles for Myanmar’s new rulers as they try to garner international legitimacy after the coup. Human rights organizations and prominent civil society activists in Myanmar have called on the international community to pressure the junta to withdraw from its power grab and reinstate the former government. “The military junta has no democratic legitimacy: It is unable to establish government functions, it does not have effective control over the territory of Myanmar, and it is a persistent perpetrator of international crimes,” wrote more than 350 Myanmar and international civil society groups in a letter to the U.N. Credentials Committee last week. But there is growing fear that aftershocks from the coup could trigger a civil war. Earlier this week, the National Unity Government aligned with deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, calling for support in a “people’s defensive war” to challenge the junta’s rule. A new spate of violence in recent days between the military and opposing militias killed at least 20 people, Reuters reported. Despite the fighting, the United Nations has yet to table a resolution on Myanmar’s situation, with China and Russia still keeping ties with the regime in Naypyidaw. Some in Washington see the effort to keep the junta away from the U.N. gathering as a key step to denying it further international legitimacy. “It would be useful to ensure that the Tatmadaw [military] does not have representatives at the U.N., as you know, because I think that gives them automatic credibility,” said one congressional committee aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s something we don’t want to see.” The former government was widely condemned by the international community for not preventing the country’s military from orchestrating a widespread ethnic cleansing campaign against its Muslim minority population, prompting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Even so, protests swept through the country following the coup, and the military unleashed a massive campaign to crack down on demonstrators, which left an estimated 1,000 people dead and thousands more detained..."
Source/publisher: "Foreign Policy" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-14
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar's Suu Kyi dizzy and drowsy, skips court appearance
Description: "Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was unable to appear at a court hearing on Monday for health reasons, a member of her legal team said, describing her condition as dizziness caused by motion sickness. Suu Kyi, 76, who has been detained on various charges since her overthrow in a Feb. 1 military coup, did not have the coronavirus but felt ill having not traveled in a vehicle for a long time, lawyer Min Min Soe said. The popular Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent about half of the past three decades in various forms of detention over her non-violent struggle against dictatorship and her health is closely watched. "It is not serious sickness... She suffered car sickness. She cannot stand that feeling and told us she wanted to take a rest," Min Min Soe told Reuters. Sept 13 (Reuters) - Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was unable to appear at a court hearing on Monday for health reasons, a member of her legal team said, describing her condition as dizziness caused by motion sickness. Suu Kyi, 76, who has been detained on various charges since her overthrow in a Feb. 1 military coup, did not have the coronavirus but felt ill having not traveled in a vehicle for a long time, lawyer Min Min Soe said. The popular Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent about half of the past three decades in various forms of detention over her non-violent struggle against dictatorship and her health is closely watched. "It is not serious sickness... She suffered car sickness. She cannot stand that feeling and told us she wanted to take a rest," Min Min Soe told Reuters. Suu Kyi's only communication with the outside world has been through her legal team, which says its access to her is limited and monitored by authorities. She is on trial in the capital Naypyitaw over charges that include illegal importation and possession of walkie-talkie radios and violating coronavirus protocols. She has been accused of accepting big bribes, and has been charged with unspecified breaches of the Official Secrets Act in a separate and more serious case, which is punishable by up to 14 years in jail. Her lawyers reject all of the allegations. Khin Maung Zaw, who heads her legal team, said Suu Kyi could not take the stand on Monday and the judge consented to her absence. "She seemed to be ill, sneezing and said she was drowsy. Therefore the lawyers talked only briefly with her," he said in a text message..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar’s junta vies with critic of coup for seat on UN assembly
Sub-title: Both sides have applied for role, raising fears military leadership could be emboldened if chosen
Description: "The United Nations will face a dilemma when its general assembly convenes next week, after both Myanmar’s military junta and the country’s shadow national unity government (NUG) launched rival bids to fill the country’s seat. Myanmar’s military, which seized power in February, has sought to replace the current representative, Kyaw Moe Tun, an outspoken critic of the coup. Both the junta and the NUG, which was set up partly by ousted politicians, are believed to have submitted applications to the UN’s credentials committee. Anti-coup campaigners have warned that a decision that favours the military could further embolden the junta, which has used brutal violence against unarmed civilians and is accused of killing more than 1,000 people since February. Leaving the seat empty, they say, could undermine the chances of a political solution. Others argue that appointing an NUG representative risks isolating the military at a time when regional diplomats are pushing for a ceasefire to deliver humanitarian aid. The junta’s rule is widely opposed by the public, which launched a civil disobedience movement after the coup, with many refusing to work under military rule. Over recent months, groups of civilians have taken up arms, launching guerrilla-style attacks on military targets and defending their areas from raids by security forces. The conflict and unrest after the coup have left an estimated 176,000 people displaced within Myanmar, according to the UN, while the economy is collapsing and the health system is in crisis. A legal opinion signed by a 11 prominent legal scholars argues that the NUG’s representative should be accepted, stating the military has a deplorable record on human rights, has largely ignored condemnation by the UN and others, and that there are “no prospects of dialogue”. “While the NUG does not have effective territorial control over the entire territory of Myanmar, neither does the junta,” it says. It is signed by legal experts including Richard Goldstone, the founding chief prosecutor of the United Nations international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Chris Sidoti, a member of the special advisory council for Myanmar, Yuyun Wahyuningrum, the representative of Indonesia to the Asean intergovernmental commission on human rights, and Dr Sriprapha Petcharamesree, a former Thai representative to the Asean commission. The official criteria for approving envoys is vague, but various factors have been considered in past cases – including “effective territorial control, democratic legitimacy and respect for international human rights standards”, according to the analysis, published by the Myanmar Accountability Project advocacy group. The UN’s credentials committee, which will also consider Afghanistan’s representation after the Taliban’s return to power, could defer a decision. This could mean an empty seat, or it could allow Kyaw Moe Tun to continue on a provisional basis. The junta announced it had fired him after his dramatic address to the general assembly in February, where he called for the “strongest possible action from the international community”. Last month, two Myanmar citizens were arrested in New York for plotting to kill or injure Kyaw Moe Tun in an attempt to force him to step down from the post. Some observers argue that leaving Myanmar’s chair empty is the most pragmatic solution. “An ostracised military would make things difficult for Asean,” said Sharon Seah Li-Lian, a coordinator of the Asean Studies Centre at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Asean – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – has led efforts to alleviate the crisis, with its envoy to the country, Erywan Yusof, stating last week that the military had accepted his proposal for a ceasefire until the end of the year to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid. Days later, the NUG announced a “defensive war” against the junta, calling for civilian armed groups to target the military and to protect the public. “All eyes [in Myanmar] are on that chair, but I don’t think there is going to be a decision,” said Seah. She said it was most likely the committee would defer the matter and that no update would be announced until December..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Education Announcement No.31/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေငြာချက် အမှတ် (၃၁/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၁/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၃) ရက် ရာထူးမှ ထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 212.13 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Press Release No.14/2021
Description: "Republic of the Union of Myanmar National Unity Government https://nugmyanmar.org Press Release (14/2021) 13 September 2021 MYANMAR, September 13, 2021. The Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) announced the people's defensive revolution against the military junta on September 7, 2021. It issued an order declaring a State of Emergency in the country, closing all government offices for an indefinite period, and a directive outlining the Code of Conduct for People’s Defense Forces. The announcement was met with overwhelming support from the people. Min Aung Hlaing’s military junta continues to commit atrocities against the people of Myanmar and has dragged the country into instability and severe economic, humanitarian, and health crises in the last seven months. Immediately after the attempted coup, millions in Myanmar joined non-violent resistance movements and peaceful protests. The military responded with violence, killing more than 1,000 unarmed protesters, arbitrarily detaining more than 7,000 people, looting and destruction of civilian properties, and violating International Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws in its offensive operation against ethnic areas. With the illegal and failed coup having entered its eighth month, it is clear that the military junta is not interested in a peaceful political settlement but will continue to use violence in an attempt to gain power. The NUG, as the legitimate government of Myanmar, has the solemn responsibility to protect the interests and security of our people and bring stability back to the country. With the failure of various political and diplomatic efforts to stop the military’s brutality in the past eight months, local communities are forced to form defense forces and to defend themselves from continuous military atrocities. The NUG restates its commitment to ensuring that needs to create a unified chain of command amongst People’s Defense Forces, respect the NUG’s Code of Conduct which are in line with International Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws, and the Geneva Conventions. The NUG has also accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, meaning that all actors in Myanmar can now be held accountable for their actions under the Rome Statute. The NUG is striving to save Myanmar from the root cause of Myanmar’s civil wars and crises—the military. The People’s Defense Forces will play a very important role in reforming Myanmar’s security sector in the future and ensuring the establishment of a Federal Army that respects and follows international law, protects the people, and serves the Federal Democratic Union under civilian rule. At the same time, the NUG is giving a clear message to the forces of the military that they have a choice – they are ordered to depart immediately from their posts and seek the protection of the People’s Defense Forces and EAOs (Ethnic Armed Organizations). The NUG has invited and continues to invite members of the military and police forces to join with the people and the NUG. The NUG will ensure the security and safety of those who join and of their families, and make arrangements for those who wish to continue their duties as soldiers. The NUG, as the legitimate government of Myanmar, appreciates and recognizes various international efforts in support of Myanmar, and will continue its own efforts to engage the international community and respect international laws in implementing our goals and objectives. We note however, that, by default, the military has been invited to officially participate in some international meetings by some States, and is forging military and economic deals with some other countries thereby illegally encroaching on the legitimacy of the NUG as the sole representative of the people of Myanmar. In addition, the military has rejected the efforts of many international organizations and agencies to deliver health aid to the people, causing countless needless deaths from COVID-19, while generating instability and health crises across the region. The international community obviously cannot be relied upon to intercede on behalf of the democracy movement and secure the safety and well-being of the people of Myanmar from the frontal and brutal assault of the military junta. For that reason, the last seven months have clearly shown that national solidarity and collective action will be the most effective way to end the coup, chaos, and instability caused by the military. As the people continue to resist military rule, escalation of violence from the military is inevitable. The excessive and deadly force already used against peaceful protesters by the military has driven young people to take up a force-ready self-defensive revolution. The people across Myanmar have already formed the defense groups and initiated the defense activities, and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) are preparing to defend themselves from military forces entering into their areas to attack villages. PDF have joined hands with the EAOs in their various states and regions to develop more coordinated defense plans. The NUG calls for the unity of all the people of Myanmar to uproot the military oppressors – the perpetrators of violence against the people – for good and to establish a peaceful federal democratic union that fully safeguards equality, freedom, inclusion and democracy for all. It further calls on the international community to recognize the NUG as the legitimate government of the people. As such, the NUG will listen to the demands of the people of Myanmar and respond to their need for protection from the military’s brutality. We acknowledge and accept our right and our duty to defend the people..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 117.49 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Press Release No.14/2021 - ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ က သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်အမှတ် (၁၄/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ https://nugmyanmar.org သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် (၁၄/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၃) ရက် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက စစ်ကောင်စီအား ခုခံတွန်းလှန်မည့် ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး စတင်ကြောင်း ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၇) ရက်နေ့စွဲဖြင့် ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ တိုင်းပြည်အား အရေးပေါ် အခြေအနေ ကြေညာ၍ အစိုးရရုံးများအား ရက်အကန့်အသတ်မရှိ ပိတ်ထားကြောင်းနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်ဖွဲ့များ လိုက်နာရမည့် ကျင့်ဝတ်စည်းကမ်းများ ကိုလည်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါ ကြေညာချက်ကို ပြည်သူများက တခဲနက် ကြိုဆိုထောက်ခံခဲ့ကြသည်။ မင်းအောင်လှိုင်ဦးဆောင်သည့် စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ခုနှစ်လအတွင်း ပြည်သူလူထုအား ဖိနှိပ်ရက်စက်မှုများစွာ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့်အပြင် မတည်ငြိမ်မှုများနှင့်အတူ စီးပွားရေး၊ လူသားချင်းစာနာမှုနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အကြပ်အတည်း ပေါင်းများစွာ ကြုံတွေ့စေခဲ့သည်။ အာဏာသိမ်းရန်ကြိုးပမ်းမှု ပေါ်ပေါက်ပြီး မကြာခင်မှာပင် သန်းပေါင်းများစွာသော ပြည်သူလူထုသည် အကြမ်းမဖက် ခုခံလှုပ်ရှားမှုများနှင့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန္ဒထုတ်ဖေါ်ပွဲများတွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လုံခြုံရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့များက လက်နက်မဲ့ဆန္ဒထုတ်ဖေါ်နေသည့် လူပေါင်း ထောင်ကျော်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ လူပေါင်း (၇၀၀၀) ကျော် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ ပြည်သူများ၏ အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများကို ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း အစရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြပြီး တိုင်းရင်းသားဒေသများတွင် စစ်ဆင်ရေးများ ပြုလုပ်ကာ နိုင်ငံတကာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှုဥပဒေများကို ချိုးဖောက်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ တရားမဝင်၊ မအောင်မြင်သည့် အာဏာသိမ်းရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုက ရှစ်လအတွင်းသို့ ဝင်ရောက်လာပြီဖြစ်သော်လည်း စစ်ကောင်စီသည် နိုင်ငံရေးအရ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဖြေရှင်းမှုကို လုံးဝ စိတ်မဝင်စားပဲ အာဏာဆက်လက်တည်မြဲရေးအတွက် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို ဆက်လက် ကျူးလွန်သွားမည်မှာ သေချာလျက်ရှိသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ တရားဝင်အစိုးရတစ်ရပ်အနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်နှင့် လုံခြုံမှုတို့ကို အကာအကွယ်ပေးရန်နှင့် တိုင်းပြည်အား တည်ငြိမ်မှုကို ဆောင်ကျဉ်းပေးရန် အလေးအနက် တာဝန်ရှိသည်။ ပြီးခဲ့သည့် ခုနှစ်လအတွင်း နိုင်ငံရေးနှင့် သံတမန်ရေး ကြိုးပမ်းမှုသက်သက်ဖြင့် ပြဿနာများကို မဖြေရှင်းနိုင်ကြောင်း သေချာခဲ့သည့်နောက်တွင် မိမိတို့ဒေသ ရပ်ရွာများကို စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ ဖိနှိပ် ရက်စက်မှုများမှ ကာကွယ်ရန် အဆိုပါ ရပ်ရွာဒေသမှ ပြည်သူများက ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့များကို မလွှဲမရှောင်သာ ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ရသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့များအနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး နှင့် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှုဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများ၊ ဂျီနီဗာသဘောတူညီချက်တို့နှင့် လိုက်လျောညီထွေဖြစ်သော ကျင့်ဝတ် စည်းကမ်းများကို လေးစားလိုက်နာရန် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထပ်လောင်း အတည်ပြုပါသည်။ အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ ရာဇဝတ်တရားရုံး၏ တရားစီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့် အာဏာကို လက်ခံထားပြီး မြန်မာပြည်တွင်းရှိ သက်ဆိုင်သူအားလုံး မိမိတို့လုပ်ရပ်များအတွက် ရောမသဘောတူညီချက် နှင့်အညီ တာဝန်ခံရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ပြည်တွင်းစစ်နှင့် လက်ရှိအကြပ်အတည်းများ၏ အခြေခံ အကြောင်းတရားဖြစ်သော စစ်ကောင်စီကို ဖယ်ရှားရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေခြင်းလည်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်ဖွဲ့များသည် အနာဂတ်တွင်အကောင်အထည်ဖေါ်မည့် လုံခြုံရေးကဏ္ဍ ပြုပြင် ပြောင်းလဲရေးနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ ဥပဒေကို လေးစားလိုက်နာသော၊ ပြည်သူလူထုကို ကာကွယ်သော ဖက်ဒရယ်တပ်မတော်ဖွဲ့စည်းရေးတွင် အရေးကြီးသည့် အခန်း ကဏ္ဍမှ ပါဝင်မည်ဖြစ်ပြီး အနာဂတ် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စု၏ အရပ်သားအုပ်ချုပ်မှုအောက်တွင် အမှုထမ်းမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ တချိန်တည်းမှာပင် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ တပ်ဖွဲ့များအနေဖြင့် မိမိတို့တာဝန်များကို စွန့်ခွာ၍ ပြည်သူ့ ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်ဖွဲ့များ၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားလက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းရန် အခွင့်အရေး ရှိကြောင်း အသိပေးလိုသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရက တပ်မတော်သားများနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင် များအား အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရနှင့် ပြည်သူ များအား ပူးပေါင်းရန် ဖိတ်ခေါ်ခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။ ထိုသို့ ပူးပေါင်းလာသူများနှင့် ၎င်းတို့ မိသားစုများ၏ လုံခြုံရေးကို အာမခံပြီး တာဝန်ဆက်လက် ထမ်းဆောင်လို ပါကလည်း စီမံဆောင်ရွက်ပေးမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တရားဝင်အစိုးရတစ်ရပ်အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ၏ ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်မှု များစွာကို အသိအမှတ်ပြုပြီး ဆက်လက်၍ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားကာ မိမိတို့ ရည်မှန်းချက်အောင်မြင်ရေးအတွက် နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေများကို ဆက်လက်လေးစားလိုက်နာသွားမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ သို့သော်လည်း တဖက်တွင် နိုင်ငံအချို့၏ တရားဝင် ဖိတ်ကြားမှုဖြင့် စစ်ကောင်စီက အချို့သော နိုင်ငံတကာ အစည်းအဝေး များတွင် တက်ရောက်ခွင့်ရနေရပြီး အချို့နိုင်ငံများနှင့် စစ်ရေး၊ စီးပွားရေး သဘောတူညီချက်များပင် ရရှိနေကြောင်း တွေ့ရသောကြောင့် အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ၏ ပြည်သူများ ရွေးချယ်တင်မြှောက်ထားသည့် တစ်ခုတည်းသော တရားဝင်အစိုးရဖြစ်မှုကို ထိခိုက်မှုများရှိလာကြောင်း တွေ့ရသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကုလသမဂ္ဂအပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် အေဂျင်စီ များ၏ ပြည်သူ လူထုအတွက် ကျန်းမာရေး အကူအညီများ ပေးအပ်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းချက်များကို စစ်ကောင်စီက ငြင်းပယ်ခဲ့ သောကြောင့် ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ရောဂါဖြင့် မသေသင့်ပဲ လူပေါင်းများစွာ သေကြေပျက်စီးခဲ့ရပြီး ဒေသတွင်း၌လည်း မတည်ငြိမ်မှုနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အကြပ်အတည်းများ ပေါ်ပေါက်ခဲ့ရသည်။ ဒီမိုကရေစီ လှုပ်ရှားမှုကိုယ်စား ကြားဝင် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်ရန်နှင့် ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်လှသော စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများမှ မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုအား ကူညီကာကွယ်ပေးရန် နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝိုင်းကို အားကိုး၍မရတော့ပါ။ ပြီးခဲ့သည့် ခုနှစ်လတာ ကာလကို ပြန်လည်ဆန်းစစ်ကြည့်ပါက တမျိုးသားလုံး စုစည်းညီညွတ်မှု၊ စုပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှု တို့ဖြင့်သာလျှင် စစ်ကောင်စီကြောင့် ပေါ်ပေါက်ခဲ့သော အာဏာသိမ်းရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုနှင့် မတည်ငြိမ်မှုများကို အဆုံးသတ်နိုင် လိမ့်မည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သိသာထင်ရှား နေပြီဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူလူထုက စစ်ကောင်စီအား ဆက်လက်ခုခံတွန်းလှန်နေချိန်တွင် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ ပိုမို မြင့်တက်လာနိုင်ခြင်းကို ရှောင်လွှဲ၍ရမည် မဟုတ်ပါ။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာဆန္ဒပြမှုများကို သေစေနိုင်သော လက်နက်များဖြင့် အလွန်အမင်း အင်အားသုံးဖြိုခွဲခဲ့မှုများက လူငယ်များကို ရရာအင်အားသုံး၍ မိမိကိုယ်ကိုခုခံရန် တွန်းပို့ခဲ့သည်။ ပြည်သူများ က နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်းလုံးတွင် ခုခံရေးအဖွဲ့များ ဖွဲ့စည်းပြီး ခုခံ တွန်းလှန်မှုများကို စတင်နေကြပြီဖြစ်သည်။ တချိန်တည်းမှာပင် တိုင်းရင်းသား လက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေး အင်အားစုများက မိမိတို့နယ်မြေအတွင်း ကျုးကျော် ထိုးဖောက်ဝင်ရောက်ပြီး ရပ်ရွာများကို တိုက်ခိုက်လာ တော့မည့် စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်ဖွဲ့များအား ခုခံကာကွယ်ရန် ပြင်ဆင် နေကြပြီဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူ့ ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်ဖွဲ့များအနေဖြင့်လည်း တိုင်းရင်းသားလက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေး အင်အားစုများနှင့် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ ဒေသများ အတွင်း အတူပူးပေါင်းလက်တွဲ၍ ခုခံတွန်းလှန်သွားရန် ပြင်ဆင်နေကြပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ၏ တရားခံဖြစ်သော အာဏာရှင် စစ်ကောင်စီအား အမြစ်ပြတ် ခုခံတွန်းလှန် သွားရန်နှင့် ပြည်သူလူထုအားလုံး၏ ညီမျှမှု၊ လွတ်လပ်မှု၊ အားလုံးပါဝင်မှုနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီ အခွင့်အရေးများအား အပြည့်အဝ ကာကွယ် စောင့်ရှောက်မည့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းသော ဖက်ဒရယ် ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပြည်ထောင်စု တည်ဆောက်ရန် အတွက် ပြည်သူ တရပ်လုံးက စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်စွာဖြင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက် ကြပါရန် တိုက်တွန်း အပ်ပါသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရကို ပြည်သူလူထုက ရွေးချယ်တင်မြှောက်ခဲ့သော တရားဝင်အစိုးရတစ်ရပ် အနေဖြင့် အသိအမှတ်ပြုပေးရန် နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းကိုလည်း ထပ်မံတိုက်တွန်းပါသည်။ သို့မှသာ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရအနေဖြင့် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု၏ တောင်းဆိုမှုကို လေးစားလိုက်နာပြီး စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများမှ အကာအကွယ်ပေးရမည့် လိုအပ်ချက်ကို တုန့်ပြန် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်မည်ဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရသည် ပြည်သူများကို အကာအကွယ်ပေးရမည့် တာဝန်ဝတ္တရားနှင့် အခွင့်အရေးအား ကောင်းစွာ အသိအမှတ်ပြု လက်ခံထားပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 897.72 KB
more
Title: What Has Happened to Myanmar’s Tatmadaw?
Description: "The decision by Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) to declare a “defensive people’s war” against the military junta that usurped power in Naypyitaw on Feb. 1 has not been met with much sympathy from the international community. The British ambassador designate to Myanmar, Pete Vowles, tweeted on Sept. 7 that his country “supports peaceful efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar. We strongly condemn the coup’s coup and brutality, we call on all parties to engage in dialogue.” Two days later, The Irrawaddy quoted the US Embassy in Yangon as stating that they encourage “all sides to be peaceful and to avoid an escalation of violence.” Chris Sidoti, a member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, an independent group of international experts, told Reuters on Sept. 8 that “Violence is the cause of the suffering of the people of Myanmar, it is not the solution…We empathize with the NUG, but we fear for what will happen as a result of this decision.” ASEAN has proposed a four-month ceasefire to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid and is also encouraging a dialogue between the junta, the State Administration Council (SAC), and its opponents. The Australian government, which before the coup had a bilateral Defense Cooperation Program with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military), has repeatedly urged the SAC to engage in a dialogue and somehow believes that ASEAN can play a constructive role in solving the crisis in Myanmar. No one in his or her right mind would be against a dialogue leading to a peaceful solution to Myanmar’s escalating civil wars between the Tatmadaw and the ethnic armed organizations and now also a host of new resistance armies which are active not in border areas but in the country’s heartland. But it is recklessly naïve to believe that the Tatmadaw, with or without foreign encouragement, would be even remotely interested in engaging in such a dialogue. Exchanging views and reaching compromises have never been on the generals’ agenda. They have always believed in military might and demanded surrender from their opponents. But if a peaceful solution to Myanmar’s many conflicts is not possible, what’s the alternative? Does the NUG and its armed wing, the loosely organized People’s Defense Force (PDF), and its ethnic allies have any chance of defeating the mighty Tatmadaw? As all the readers of The Irrawaddy are aware, I’ve been writing about Myanmar’s civil war for more than four decades. During that time, I have also on numerous occasions seen the Tatmadaw in action and also been in the middle of two major battles in the frontier areas. The first was in the Naga Hills in December 1985 when the Tatmadaw launched an early morning attack on the headquarters of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland in northwestern Sagaing Region (then Division). It is quite possible that my presence there was a major reason why the Tatmadaw decided to move troops across those remote and rugged hills and attack. The battle was fierce because troops from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) were there, and that made a difference from fighting the poorly armed Naga. But, in the end, the Tatmadaw captured the camp. I and other survivors had to flee and hide in the jungle for days before it was possible to move to more secure locations. The second time was at the battle of Hsi-Hsinwan in northern Shan State in November 1986. I was in a trench together with commanders of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) when their “people’s army” attacked a Tatmadaw position on the top of the mountain. Hundreds of CPB soldiers had been mobilized for the fight, which began at dawn. I have never seen such an arsenal anywhere in Myanmar’s war-torn areas. The CPB’s troops were equipped with 120mm mortars, 75mm recoilless rifles, grenade launchers, machine-guns and automatic rifles. The Tatmadaw camp was blown to pieces and casualties were severe, but the few surviving troops refused to surrender. I did, though, meet a wounded soldier who had been captured by the CPB. I had witnessed the fight from the CPB’s side, but, as I wrote about the encounter in my book Land of Jade: “I was disappointed at not being able to interview him. I would at least have liked to tell him that I had been impressed by the fighting spirit of his unit.” In those days, the Tatmadaw was also an extremely brutal force committing numerous and often unspeakable atrocities on the civilian population in the frontier areas. I had learned that from many interviews with villagers and other victims of Tatmadaw cruelty. At the same time, it was actually quite poorly armed — but, despite all that, a battle-hardened and largely effective light infantry force. Soldiers were constantly on the move and there were fights against the CPB, the Karen on the Thai border, the Kachin in the far north and other pockets of resistance in ethnic minority areas. All that changed after the 1988 pro-democracy uprising. The main fear within the Tatmadaw leadership was that disgruntled soldiers might join the pro-democracy activists and that, in turn, would be the beginning of the end of military-dominated rule in Myanmar. Consequently, in order to prevent a crack in the ranks, everything was done to keep at least the officer corps satisfied. Beginning in 1989, the Tatmadaw spent more than a billion dollars on procuring new, more sophisticated military equipment. It came primarily from China but also from Singapore, Pakistan and Israel. Most of it, however, was materiel that Myanmar did not actually need, such as missile systems that would be of little use in counter-insurgency operations, huge tanks, armored vehicles, naval patrol boats and various kinds of radar equipment. It was simply toys for the boys and the troops also got new, smart uniforms. Before long, Myanmar’s own defense industries began producing new infantry rifles to replace the old, heavy G-3 which was based on German designs. Equally important was a decision to scrap the previous, unpopular system of constant rotations of regional commanders, which had been done in order to make sure that no such officer built up his own power base in a certain part of the country. And then came a series of ceasefire agreements between the Tatmadaw and a number of ethnic rebel armies. The Wa, the Kachin, Khun Sa’s drug army, the Mon and Pa-O and others made peace with the Tatmadaw. Those agreements, initiated by intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt, were struck in order to prevent a link-up between the urban dissidents and the ethnic rebels, which could have proven disastrous for the junta that took over power on Sept. 18, 1988. It worked. Only a few pro-democracy activists remained with the Karen National Union, the only sizable ethnic army that refused to enter into a truce with the Tatmadaw. But, to be on the safe side, the size of the Tatmadaw was increased dramatically. The three services — the army, the air force and the navy — amounted to no more than 195,000 men before 1988. Nearly all of them belonged to the army; the air force as well as the navy were very small and, many would argue, almost insignificant. According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and other international think-tanks, the army has now 507,000 men, the air force 23,000 and the navy 19,000, so altogether 549,000 in total. Those think-tanks may have grossly overestimated the strength of the Tatmadaw because most units are undermanned and many troops may exist only in official reports from the field. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the strength of the Tatmadaw in terms of manpower and equipment is way above that of the 1980s. But, because of the old ceasefire agreements, which lasted for nearly two decades, that also means that a generation of troops have very limited fighting experience. They are, as a source said, better at parades showing off their new uniforms and guns than at combat. And then, the embrace of the market economy that followed the 1988 uprising gave the officers ample opportunities to earn vast amounts of money. As one Myanmar source wrote on social media: “the army officers are only interested in taking bribes and making business deals with the cronies, they don’t want to fight battles anymore, they joined the army to get rich quickly.” Or, as a retired Tatmadaw officer once told me: “luxury when I was in the army consisted of a badminton set and a bottle of army rum, and I was a colonel. Now even captains and lieutenants have more than one car, several sets of golf clubs, and at least two mistresses. And they don’t have to fight.” That changed again when, in June 2011, the ceasefire with the KIA broke down. For the first time in more than a decade, major battles raged in an ethnic minority area. I was at the KIA headquarters in Laiza in December 2012 and I was astonished to observe the poor performance of the Tatmadaw. In the beginning, they sent in the infantry, which was poorly trained and had zero fighting experience. Casualties were extremely heavy as the advancing Tatmadaw troops were mowed down by KIA guerrillas. It became so bad that the Tatmadaw had to withdraw its infantry and rely instead on its Russian-supplied helicopter gunships, attack aircraft and heavy artillery fired from bases far from the KIA’s positions. According to credible reports from Yangon at the time, some officers paid bribes to avoid being sent to Kachin State to fight. This was not the Tatmadaw I saw in the 1980s. Then came another fierce war in Rakhine State as a new rebel force, the Arakan Army (AA), rose up in arms. Tatmadaw dead and wounded numbered in the thousands, including some senior officers. And, again, the infantry’s poor performance prompted the Tatmadaw to resort to air power, firing indiscriminately into villages where they thought the AA would be present — but to no avail. Today, the AA and its civilian wing run a de facto parallel government in Rakhine State. The AA is closely allied with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, a Palaung force, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, which is made up of fighters from Kokang, an area in northeastern Shan State dominated by ethnic Chinese. Judging from independent reports, those three armies, called the Brotherhood Alliance, have fought what appear to be numerous successful battles with the Tatmadaw. According to a November 2020 paper published by the United States Institute of Peace, “Myanmar has not experienced this intensity of fighting in decades.” Nor has it suffered such heavy casualties. The big question now is: What’s next? Today, the Burmese-dominated Tatmadaw is sent out to gun down people not only from the ethnic minorities but also their own kin in parts of the country where there has been no insurgency since the years immediately after independence in 1948. That, and the casualties they are evidently suffering even there, must have a devastating effect on the morale of the troops. For the first time in decades, there are now speculations about possible rifts within the Tatmadaw. If NUG sources are to be believed, more than 2,000 security personnel, most of them policemen but also soldiers, have defected to the pro-democracy movement. None of those reports can be independently verified, but it is clear that something that has never happened before is brewing within the Tatmadaw. It remains to be seen whether the NUG’s “defensive people’s war” will accelerate that process — or have the opposite effect, namely to make the Tatmadaw close ranks even more firmly than before. A main problem is that many officers and even private soldiers must be acutely aware of what they have done when it comes to corrupt practices and atrocities they have committed. They may fear that a change could mean that they would be held accountable for all that — and the brutality that the Tatmadaw now has unleashed in towns and villages all over the country is almost unprecedented. What began as carnival-style protests immediately after the coup became something entirely different when the police and the Tatmadaw began killing peaceful protesters. Such brutality breeds resistance, and that is what we are seeing in Myanmar today. In any case and whatever the future will be, forget about “dialogues” and futile attempts at urging the two sides to refrain from violence..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-13
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: How Myanmar’s junta used a coup to settle old scores
Sub-title: Many of those imprisoned on the day of the military takeover had long been in the generals’ sights for questioning their right to rule
Description: "On February 1, the people of Myanmar woke up to their worst nightmare: the return of military rule after nearly a decade of relative freedom. The predawn arrest of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint signalled the end of a brief era of elected government and set the stage for the massive demonstrations and brutal crackdowns that were to follow. But the country’s civilian leaders were not the only ones detained that day. Many others were also taken into custody, not because they presented any immediate threat to the coup makers, but because they had displeased them in the past. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who orchestrated the military’s return to direct control over the state, moved swiftly to punish perceived enemies, locking them up even before they could utter a word of protest. Besides activists and politicians, his targets included celebrities, monks and other public figures who dared to question the army’s right to rule. Some had already been marked for revenge before the coup. Charged with offenses related to their criticism of the military or its bigoted henchmen, they were among the first to be silenced when the time came to start settling scores. Others, however, were arrested without even a pretence of legal justification. As with the allegations of voter fraud that served as the pretext for the military takeover, no serious evidence of wrongdoing was ever presented against them. In every case, all that mattered was the alleged offenders’ attitude towards the class of men who consider themselves Myanmar’s natural rulers. The profiles that follow provide a glimpse into the thinking of the generals and what they fear most—the prospect of losing power to those who refuse to fear them. Mya Aye Mya Aye, a veteran activist who played a leading role in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, was taken away from his home on the morning of the coup and held incommunicado for the next two months. It was not until April 1 that his family learned that he was being held in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison. Their relief at finally finding out where he was soon turned to dismay, however, when they discovered that Mya Aye had been charged with hate speech under section 505c of the Penal Code, which deals with acts likely to incite a criminal offence against any group or individual based on their ethnic or religious background. What made this so bewildering was the fact that, as a prominent Muslim political leader, Mya Aye had long been involved in interfaith efforts to end tensions between the country’s various religious communities. The charges, which carry a possible sentence of two years in prison, stem from an email he sent from his mobile phone in November 2014. At the time, he was working with the ethnic affairs department of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, led by former student leader Min Ko Naing. The email, which was related to Myanmar’s peace process, touched on the subjects of Burman ethno-nationalism and the need for cooperation among the country’s ethnic groups in order to achieve true federalism. “The only reason he sent that email was for the country’s sake. No conflicts between ethnicities, races or countries resulted from that email sent in 2014,” said his lawyer, Thet Naung. Mya Aye had been on the army’s radar since 1988, when he was a teacher who founded his own party to coordinate the efforts of younger leaders. “We were student leaders and he was the party chair. We usually held our meetings at his party’s office, which was essentially a rebel’s hideout,” recalled former political prisoner Tun Kyi. The only reason he sent that email was for the country’s sake. No conflicts between ethnicities, races or countries resulted from that email sent in 2014 – Mya Aye's lawyer Mya Aye was imprisoned twice, in 1989 and 2007, and spent a total of 12 years behind bars. During his years of freedom, he remained politically active and often courted the military’s ire. When the generals hinted before the coup that they might seize power again, Mya Aye described their words as an act of intimidation. He also rightly foretold the disastrous consequences of such a move. “A coup would be really bad for the country. We’ll be looked down upon by the international community. It’s a losing battle for everyone, including the military itself, the people, the winning party of the election, everyone, really,” he said. For those familiar with his career of speaking truth to power, Mya Aye’s arrest came as no surprise. “They know exactly who their enemies are,” Tun Kyi said of the country’s dictators. “They regard every activist and politician who stands against them as their enemy. And they have a very strong grudge against them.” Thura Aung Ko Thura Aung Ko’s journey from high office to a prison cell was a long and unlikely one. But a full year before his arrest, it was clear that the former army general and government minister was a marked man. In February 2020, after he suggested that the only reason the fugitive monk Wirathu remained at large was because the police answer to the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs, and not to the civilian government, army spokesperson Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun called on the then-ruling NLD administration to “take action” against him for defamation. But it was long before this episode that Aung Ko, a retired brigadier general who once served as deputy minister for religious affairs under the former junta, began his fall from favour with the military’s senior leaders. When Myanmar made a transition to quasi-civilian rule under retired general Thein Sein in 2011, Aung Ko was one of the key holdovers from the military regime that held power until then. As a prominent member of the military-backed USDP, he was elected to the Pyithu Hluttaw, or lower house of parliament, in 2010 and appointed chair of a judicial and legislative review committee. In this capacity, he advocated for the suspension of a clause in the constitution that barred then opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president, signalling a break with the military’s entrenched position on the matter. In August 2015, when Thura Shwe Mann, the speaker of the Union parliament, was removed as chair of the USDP by a faction that felt he had grown too close to Suu Kyi, Aung Ko also found himself on chilly terms with the party. The two former generals, who share the “thura” title signifying courage in battle, were seen as allies who threatened to weaken the army’s hold over Myanmar politics. When the NLD came to power after a landslide win in the 2015 election, Aung Ko was named minister of religion and culture despite losing his seat in parliament. As head of the ministry, he was instrumental in shutting down the ultranationalist group Ma Ba Tha, led by firebrand monk Wirathu, in July 2017. Although Wirathu remained active after this, he was eventually prosecuted for sedition. After more than a year on the run, he turned himself in to the police just days before the 2020 election. (Imprisoned under the NLD government, he was pardoned and released by the junta earlier this month.) On March 5, more than a month after his arrest on the day of the coup, Aung Ko was charged with corruption for allegedly awarding religious titles to individuals in exchange for bribes. Currently being held in Insein Prison, the 74-year-old ex-general who made the mistake of displeasing higher-ranked hardliners now faces a sentence of 15 years behind bars. Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi Documentary filmmaker Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi is well-acquainted with the generals’ vindictiveness. Less than a year before his latest arrest, he was released from prison after serving a one-year sentence for writing Facebook posts critical of the military-drafted 2008 constitution and the army’s role in politics. Accused of making derogatory remarks that harmed the dignity of the military, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi was charged in April 2019 with incitement under section 505a of the Penal Code. He was freed in February 2020 after receiving routine sentence reductions, but was repeatedly denied bail during his incarceration, despite suffering from liver cancer. A long-time critic of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and Ma Ba Tha, the Buddhist nationalist organization that actively promoted anti-Muslim sentiment, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi was “a thorn in the soles of the feet of the fascist generals,” as one colleague put it. Part of the reason for this is that he had long been a supporter of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. One way he demonstrated this was by auctioning off a poem written by Suu Kyi for 240m kyat (nearly $145,000) and donating the proceeds to her party. Despite being a well-respected filmmaker with an international reputation, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi was unable to screen any of his early work in Myanmar because it was banned by the junta that ruled the country until 2011. "a thorn in the soles of the feet of the fascist generals" His 2010 documentary “The Floating Tomatoes”—about the environmental degradation of Inle Lake in Shan State—and his first film, “Human Zoo,” which examines the exploitation of the so-called “long-neck” Padaung people in Thailand, were well-received overseas, but couldn’t be seen at home due to the regime’s censorship. When Myanmar began a partial opening a decade ago, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi started organizing events to bring his own work and that of others to a Myanmar audience. For the first, the Art of Freedom Film Festival, he collaborated with Zarganar, a comedian and fellow director who was also known as a vocal opponent of military rule. This was followed by the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival and the founding of the Human Dignity Institute, which produces documentaries and short films on human rights. "his ideals as an artist and the passion and inspiration he has fostered in young filmmakers cannot be contained and will not be silenced – Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi's colleague" According to his colleague, who asked to remain anonymous, many young filmmakers owe their start to Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi. Through them and through his own films, he continues to influence public discourse in Myanmar, even as he remains a prisoner of the junta. “The fascist regime may have succeeded [in detaining] Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, but his ideals as an artist and the passion and inspiration he has fostered in young filmmakers cannot be contained and will not be silenced,” said the colleague. Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, 59, and his former collaborator Zarganar, 60, are both currently being held in Insein Prison, along with many others deemed a threat to the regime. Htin Lin Oo As he awaited his arrest on the morning of February 1, author and former NLD information officer Htin Lin Oo recorded a nine-minute live broadcast on social media to denounce the military’s actions. No matter what, he said, he would always oppose the dictatorship. “I am not opposing the army. I am opposing the dictators who staged the coup. All of us civilians have to rise up and revolt against the dictatorship,” he said in his final public statement before being taken away. Htin Lin Oo accused the generals of killing democracy in its infancy. Every time they staged a coup, he said, they threw the country decades behind the rest of the world, as they did when they seized power in 1962 and 1988. Not surprisingly, these remarks did not sit well with Myanmar’s newly self-appointed leaders. After arresting him without charges, they hastened to use his online comments to charge him with incitement and spreading false news on social media. As was the case with many others arrested that day, Htin Lin Oo had a history of displeasing the military. In a speech delivered in Magway Region’s Chaung Oo Township in October 2014, he accused the army of using religion to create conflict and maintain control. A 10-minute excerpt from his two-hour speech was circulated widely online and portrayed as an attack on Buddhism, the religion of the majority in Myanmar. It proved so controversial that even his own party distanced itself from his remarks. At the time, the military-backed USDP was in power and the Patriotic Association of Myanmar (the Buddhist nationalist group better known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha) was at the height of its influence. It came as no surprise, then, when Htin Lin Oo was sentenced to two years with hard labour for allegedly violating sections 295a and 298 of the Penal Code, which prohibit “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings” and speaking “with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings”. After his release, Htin Lin Oo resumed his efforts to push the military out of politics, organizing public discussions on amending the military-drafted constitution and founding a weekly journal, D Lann, that raised related issues. His wife, Saw Sandar, said that the regime arrested Htin Lin Oo because it fears anyone who can lead the public. “It’s not fair, but we have the courage to face this. We’re not afraid of anything because we haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, adding that her only real worry is that her husband will fall victim to Covid-19 while behind bars. “What’s important is to stay healthy, especially when the pandemic is getting worse inside the prisons. That’s the only thing I’m worried about,” she told Myanmar Now. Min Thway Thit If he hadn’t been arrested on the day of the coup, Min Thway Thit would likely have been at the forefront of the anti-dictatorship movement. The 38-year-old activist and former political prisoner has long played a leading role in resisting military oppression. He first came to prominence in 2014 during student protests against a new national education law introduced by the quasi-civilian administration of then President Thein Sein. During a violent crackdown on protests in Letpadan, Bago Region, in March 2015, he was one of more than 100 people arrested and imprisoned. The charges against him were eventually dropped, however, when the NLD assumed power a year later. More recently, the former associate secretary of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) and founder of the Oway Library and Education Charity (Thanlyin) led a volunteer group established in Yangon’s Thanlyin Township to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Min Thway Thit was detained for a full month before the regime released any information about him to his family. His wife, Yadanar Su Po Khaing, told VOA’s Burmese-language service in an interview that she wasn’t able to send him any medicine or other necessities until early March, when she first learned that he was being held in Insein Prison. He now faces charges of violating vehicle-licensing regulations under Section 95 of the Vehicle Safety and Vehicle Management Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. However, according to his wife, he has refused to take part in the proceedings against him because he has no confidence in the impartiality of the junta’s judiciary. Ministers, monks and satirists The most common crime committed by those arrested on February 1 was supporting the NLD, the party that won two successive landslide victories against the military’s proxy party, the USDP. Anyone tied to the NLD, either as a leading member or as an outspoken supporter, was fair game for a regime determined to silence the military’s most potent rival for power. Surprisingly, perhaps, only a handful of NLD-appointed ministers have come under sustained pressure. Apart from State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, the only senior figures from the Union government still in custody are Soe Win, the ousted minister of planning and finance, his vice minister Set Aung, and his predecessor Kyaw Win. At the regional and municipal levels of government, however, a number of other senior officials have also been targeted by the junta. In early July, Mandalay’s chief minister, Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, and the region’s minister for electricity, energy and construction, Zarni Aung, were charged with corruption, more than five months after their arrest. Similar charges, made in connection with alleged illegal deals involving Aung San Suu Kyi, have also been laid against Naypyitaw’s former mayor, Dr. Myo Aung, and deputy mayor, Ye Min Oo, as well as Min Thu, a member of the city’s development committee. Of the monks who were arrested on February 1, Ven. Pyinya Thiha, better known as Shwe Nya Wah Sayadaw, was perhaps the most outspoken backer of the NLD. In 2011, long before the party came to power, he was banned from giving public sermons after he commemorated the 20th anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. The abbot of Mandalay’s Myawaddy Mingyi monastery, Ven. Ariyawuntha Biwunsa (also known as Myawaddy Sayadaw), had also earned the military’s ire in the past. In late 2019, he was sued for defamation after he accused the armed forces of supporting ultranationalist monks. He was out on bail when he was arrested on the day of the coup. In an interview with Myanmar Now following his release from Mandalay’s Obo Prison last month, he dismissed the junta’s claims that the NLD was bad for Myanmar’s Buddhist monks and repeated his charge that the military was trying to “exploit the people in the name of religion.” Ven. Thawbita, one of the leaders of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, was taken away from his monastery in Patheingyi, east of Mandalay, in handcuffs on the morning of February 1. Two days later, he was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty under Section 66d of Myanmar’s draconian Telecommunications Law for an online comment he wrote more than two years earlier facetiously comparing Min Aung Hlaing to a cow. As if to prove their utter humourlessness, the generals also went after a pair of prominent satirists on the day they seized power. One was Maung Thar Cho, who wrote satirical articles for the 7Day daily newspaper under the pseudonym of Jack (Kunchan Kone). These pieces proved immensely popular and earned him a following among NLD supporters, who invited him to literary talks around the country. "They were kidnapped and now they are political hostages. The junta chief will use them to ease international pressure" The other was Saw Phoe Khwar, an ethnic Kayin reggae musician who performed at NLD campaign events during last year’s election. Famous for his peace concerts, he is also well-known for his use of wit to skewer the military. “The Son of Daw Sein Aye,” one of his most popular songs, plays on the name of the Defence Services Academy (DSA), the elite institution that produced most of Myanmar’s top military leaders. Ostensibly about an unruly man who makes trouble for his neighbours, it clearly refers to the DSA’s proudest alumni. Since the coup, it has become a popular protest song. Whatever reasons were given for their arrest, most of those detained on February 1 are likely to remain in the junta’s custody until it becomes politically expedient to release them. Locked up for offending the generals, they are now just pawns in their game, according to former political prisoner Tun Kyi. “They were kidnapped and now they are political hostages. The junta chief will use them to ease international pressure. They may be released, but they won’t be free, because they could be arrested again at any time. That’s just how it was done under previous regimes, too,” he explained..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Letter from Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun to Secretary-General H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres on 3 Sep 2021
Description: "Letter dated 3 September 2021 from the Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations, H.E. U Kyaw Moe Tun, addressed to the Secretary-General H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres, on the heartbreaking situation in Myanmar, together with the weekly information update on current situation in Myanmar as of 29 August 2021..."
Source/publisher: Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.04 MB
more
Title: Letter from Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun to Secretary-General H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres on 25 August 2021
Description: "Letter dated 25 August 2021 from the Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations, H.E. U Kyaw Moe Tun, addressed to the Secretary-General H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres, on the worsening situation in Myanmar, together with the weekly information update on current situation in Myanmar as of 22 August 2021..."
Source/publisher: Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1011.49 KB
more
Title: Myanmar Junta to Auction Over 12,000 Tons of Illegal Timber
Description: "Myanmar’s military regime will auction off 12,500 tons of hardwood on September 16 and 30 as it seeks to raise hard currency to fund its coup. Myanma Timber Enterprise, the state-run entity which controls Myanmar’s timber sales, said the timber for sale includes 1,500 tons of teak logs and 1,000 tons of sawn teak. The auction will be held in Yangon’s Insein Township with buyers bidding online. In May, the junta held three separate auctions at which nearly 10,300 tons of timber were sold for around US$5 million, followed by another auction in June of more than 14,000 tons of timber. The wood sold in May and June reportedly came from a stockpile of 200,000 tons of illegally-harvested timber seized by the now-ousted National League for Democracy government. The UK and US-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said in a statement in May that the military regime is seeking an injection of hard currency by selling off thousands of tons of illegal timber to international markets. Faith Doherty, EIA Forests Campaigns Leader, said, “Why would this state enterprise do this, other than to obtain desperately-needed hard currency to continue the junta’s brutal persecution of the people of Myanmar”. Since the February 1 coup, the US, Canada, EU and Britain have sanctioned the regime’s resources and environmental conservation minister, U Khin Maung Yi, as well as other relevant individuals in Myanmar, to prevent the junta from exploiting the country’s resources. However, twenty-seven Italian timber traders imported teak into the EU from Myanmar despite clear regulations, in the form of the EU Timber Regulation, which prohibit such imports, said the EIA in a September 1 report. The Italian traders imported wood worth between US$1.5 million and US$1.77 million from Myanmar between March and May this year. “By continuing the trade, these companies are effectively supporting the military junta and its brutal repression of the Myanmar people as well as the destruction of the country’s forests,” said the EIA’s Doherty. The parallel National Unity government has warned that it will blacklist any bidder and government staff involved in the junta’s timber auctions..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar’s Students Sacrifice Books For Bullets in ‘Fight For Future’ Against Junta
Sub-title: A growing number of children are leaving school and picking up arms out of desperation.
Description: "Security forces in Myanmar are targeting anti-junta youth activists throughout the country, forcing many to drop out of school and take up arms with militia groups seeking to unseat the military regime despite international laws prohibiting children from becoming soldiers, family members said Thursday. Youth activists, many of whom say they felt hopeless about their future under military rule, began to join the widespread resistance movement against the junta after it seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1 coup. Many have been arrested or even killed in clashes with the military, prompting concern from observers who lament what they say is an increasingly lost generation of children forced to sacrifice their dreams in the hopes of reclaiming their country from an oppressive regime. In the seven months since the coup, security forces have killed 1,058 civilians and arrested at least 6,343—mostly during crackdowns on anti-junta protesters—according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The junta says it had to unseat Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD government, claiming the party engineered a landslide victory in Myanmar’s November 2020 election through widespread voter fraud. It has yet to present evidence of its claims, though, and public unrest is at an all-time high. Among the youth activists who have joined the fight against the military is 16-year-old Zaw Myo Mai Laban from the Kachin state capital Myitkyina, who went underground in June after around 50 soldiers and police officers tried to arrest him at his home for taking part in anti-junta protests. “We know young students like us are not physically fit for fighting yet—we’ve only just passed childhood,” the member of the Basic Education Students' Union Network (BESUN) of hundreds of students from more than 50 townships told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “However, we are doing this with the sole intention of fighting injustice and oppression. We give encouragement to one another when we find ourselves weak and try harder to be competent for the revolution.” Zaw Myo Mai Laban said that ethnic armed groups in the liberated areas of the country’s remote border regions had initially refused to allow those under the age of 18 to attend military training, in accordance with international laws prohibiting the use of child soldiers, but eventually relented due to “the strong enthusiasm of the young students.” “It is true that I am underage according to international law and laws against child soldiers, but [the military is] killing people whether they are underage or not,” he said. “International law doesn’t mean anything to the military.” Despite the military’s heavy-handed response to anti-junta protests, many high school students continue to take part in the gatherings, particularly in Myanmar’s largest cities Yangon and Mandalay. A student with BESUN in Mandalay, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said he participates in protests daily “for the future of the country’s youth.” “We are more afraid of losing our future than we are of the military,” he said. “Education in Myanmar at present is completely in shambles. Conditions were just about to see some improvement when they staged this coup. All our hopes were dashed … We had a spirit of revolution long before the coup, and their atrocities made us want to fight back even more.” ”When your friends are killed, there is little you can do but grieve for them. I would rather fight for them instead,” he said. Most of the high school students now involved in the anti-junta movement are minors under parental guardianship. Many parents told RFA they are worried about their sons and daughters being arrested, maimed, or killed, although some have allowed their children to join the protests. The mother of two high school students aged 15 and 17 in Yangon’s South Okkalapa township said she accompanies her children to protests but has asked them not to join the armed uprising. “I went along with them so they would not get into trouble or be harmed, because you can’t stop them from joining the protests,” she said. “However, I asked them not to do anything like take up arms because they are not old enough. If they get arrested and sent to prison for taking part in the protests, at least I could go and see them. I may be selfish, but I cannot allow my young kids to join a revolution.” A student with the Launglon township branch of BESUN in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi division, who also declined to be named, said he regularly speaks with parents as part of an effort to bring more youths into the anti-junta movement. “If students don’t get involved in politics, politics will work against them,” he said. “We enlightened [parents] by explaining that students have been detained and tortured too. This helped them understand why we have taken to the streets, and they allowed their sons and daughters to join us.” Investigating youth activists Meanwhile, authorities have spared no effort in investigating high school students involved in anti-junta activities. In Myanmar’s Bago region, five high school students were arrested in the first week of September, including one who died in detention while being interrogated. According to AAPP, at least 23 school age children were among those killed in the past seven months since the coup, while at least 20 high school students have been arrested. An AAPP spokesman told RFA that school age children are still very much at risk from the military. “If things continue like this, the children in our country will no longer have a future, including those who would one day be the nation’s leaders,” he said. “Children must have the right to freedom of movement and to follow their dreams. They shouldn’t be living in fear. However, at present, they must be careful even of what they wear because of current restrictions. The loss of their future is a loss for the country.” Calls by RFA to military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun seeking comment went unanswered Thursday..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Notification No.4/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် ( ၄/ ၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် ( ၄/ ၂၀၂၁) ၁၃၈၃ ခုနှစ်၊ တော်သလင်းလဆန်း၊ ၃ ရက် ( ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ၊ ၈ရက် ) ၁။နိုင်ငံတော်၏အာဏာကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ မတရားသိမ်းပိုက်ပြီးနောက် နိုင်ငံခြားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ခန့်အပ်သည့် ဦးဝဏ္ဏမောင်လွင် စိတ်တိုင်းကျ ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့သော ဌာနတွင်းစောင့်ကြည့်ရေးအဖွဲ့ဝင်များနှင့် စစ်ကောင်စီအလိုကျ ဌာနတွင်းအရာရှိများကြောင့် ပြည်သူနှင့်အတူရပ်တည်ပြီး အာဏာဖီဆန်ခဲ့ကြသည့် CDM ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများ ဖမ်းဆီးထောင်ချခံရခြင်း၊ အရပ်သားအစိုးရကို ထောက်ခံခဲ့သူများ/ ၎င်းတို့ စိတ်ချယုံကြည်ခြင်းမရှိသည့် တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူဝန်ထမ်းများ ဌာနတွင်း နေရာပြောင်းရွှေ့ ခံရခြင်း၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားမှု မပြုလုပ်ရန်/ထောက်ခံခြင်းမပြုရန် သတိပေး ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခံရခြင်း၊ CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ခြိမ်းခြောက်၍ ရုံးပြန်တက်စေခြင်း၊ စစ်ကောင်စီအား မထောက်ခံ၍ အလုပ်မှ နုတ်ထွက်လိုသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများအား နုတ်ထွက်ခွင့်/လုပ်သက်ခွင့်တင်ခြင်းများ ခွင့်မပြုခြင်း စသည်ဖြင့် ဝန်ထမ်းအခွင့်အရေး၊ နိုင်ငံသားအခွင့်အရေးများ ချိုးဖောက်ခံရလျက် ရှိကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။ ၂။ထို့အပြင် အရပ်သားအစိုးရလက်ထက်၌ ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းနှင့် မိသားစုများအတွင်း COVID-19 ကြောင့် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာနိုင်သည့် အကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှုများကို ကုစားနိုင်ရန် ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့် နှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အတိုးမဲ့ ချေးငွေ(၂)လစာအား ထုတ်ချေးခဲ့ပြီး ပြန်ဆပ်ရန် မလိုအပ်သည့် ချီးမြှင့်ငွေအဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ပေးခဲ့သော်လည်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်ပါးစေများက CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား အဆိုပါ ချီးမြှင့်ငွေများကို (၆)လအတွင်း ပြန်လည် ပေးဆပ်ရန်နှင့် မပေးဆပ်ပါက တရားစွဲဆိုရန် ပြင်ဆင်လျက်ရှိကြောင်း၊ အလားတူ အရပ်သား အစိုးရလက်ထက်တွင် ပြည်ပသို့ ပညာတော်သင် သွားရောက်ခဲ့ပြီး မိခင်ဝန်ကြီးဌာနတွင် ပြန်လည်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ရမည့် သတ်မှတ်ကာလမပြည့်မီ စစ်ကောင်စီအား ဆန့်ကျင်၍ ပြည်သူ့ဘက်မှ ရပ်တည်ခဲ့သည့် CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများကိုလည်း လျော်ကြေးငွေပေးသွင်းရန်နှင့် လျော်ကြေးငွေ မပေးသွင်းပါက တရားစွဲဆိုမည်ဟု ခြိမ်းခြောက်လျက်ရှိကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။ ၃။သို့ပါ၍ အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီလက်ပါးစေအဖွဲ့နှင့် တာဝန်ပေး စေခိုင်းသည်ထက်ကျော်လွန်၍ ပြည်သူ့ဘက်တော်သား CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား စောင့်ကြည့် ဖိအားပေး နှိပ်ကွပ်လျက်ရှိသည့် အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်ပါးစေ ဝန်ထမ်းများ (ပထမအသုတ်) အား ပြည်သူ့အကျိုးငှာ အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း (BLACK LIST) ရေးသွင်း၍ ပြင်းထန်စွာ သတိပေးလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Myanmar - NUG
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 726.07 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment Notification No.3/2021 - စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာ (၃/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြုပ်နှံမှု ဝန်ကြီးဌာန ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးရုံး အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် ( ၃/၂၀၂၁ ) ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ ဆောင်းရာသီ စိုက်ပျိုးစရိတ်ချေးငွေနှင့် Covid 19 ချေးငွေ နောက်ဆုံးပြန်လည် ပေးဆပ်ရမည့် ရက်ကို ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့အစား ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့သို့ သက်တမ်းတိုးမြှင့် ပြင်ဆင်သတ်မှတ်ခြင်း ================================== ၁။ နိုင်ငံတော်အတွင်း လယ်ယာထုတ်ကုန်များ တိုးတက်ထုတ်လုပ်နိုင်စေရန်နှင့် စိုက်ပျိုးရေး သွင်းအားစုများ အသုံးပြုနိုင်စေရန် ရည်ရွယ်၍ မြန်မာ့လယ်ယာဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးဘဏ်မှ မိုးရာသီ စိုက်ပျိုးစရိတ်ချေးငွေ၊ ဆောင်းရာသီ စိုက်ပျိုးစရိတ်ချေးငွေများကို နှစ်စဉ်ထုတ်ချေးပေးလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ၂။ ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်တွင် Covid 19 ရိုက်ခတ်မှုကြောင့် တောင်သူလယ်သမားများ လူမှုစီးပွားရေး အဆင်ပြေစေရန် မြန်မာ့လယ်ယာဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးဘဏ်မှ Covid 19 ချေးငွေကိုလည်း ထုတ်ချေးပေးခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၃။ စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြုပ်နှံမှု ဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ မိုးရာသီ စိုက်ပျိုးစရိတ် ချေးငွေ နောက်ဆုံးပြန်ဆပ်ရမည့်ရက်အား ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဧပြီလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့အစား ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဧပြီလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့သို့ အမိန့်ကြေညာစာအမှတ် (၂/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် သက်တမ်းတိုးမြှင့် ပြင်ဆင်ခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၄။ ယခုအခါ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အဆင်အခြင်မဲ့စွာ အာဏာသိမ်းမှုကြောင့် တောင်သူလယ်သမားများ အပါအဝင် ပြည်သူတစ်ရပ်လုံး ဘက်ပေါင်းစုံ အကြပ်အတည်းနှင့် ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည့်အတွက် တောင်သူလယ်သမားများ သက်သာချောင်ချိရေးကို ရှေးရှု၍ ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ ဆောင်းရာသီ စိုက်ပျိုးစရိတ်ချေးငွေနှင့် Covid 19 ချေးငွေ ပြန်ဆပ်ပေးဆပ်ရမည့် ရက်ကို ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့အစား ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်နေ့သို့ တစ်နှစ်တိတိသက်တမ်းတိုးမြှင့် ပြင်ဆင်သတ်မှတ်လိုက်သည်။ ၅။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ တစ်နှစ်တိတိ သက်တမ်းတိုးမြှင့် ပြင်ဆင်လိုက်သည့် ကာလအတွက် ဒဏ်တိုးပေးဆောင်ရန် မလိုအပ်သည့်အပြင် ချေးငွေအပေါ် ပုံမှန် ကောက်ခံသည့် အတိုး ၅ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းအားလည်း ကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်ပြုလိုက်သည်။ တင်ထွန်းနိုင် ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment - NUG
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 230.68 KB
more
Title: Weekly Updates on Current Situation in Myanmar (5-9-2021)
Description: "After more than 200 days have passed since the coup, the Myanmar military group is still ignoring the will of the people, putting the country into turmoil with disproportionate actions when the people are facing the nationwide health crisis under the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, demonstrations against the military, anti-coup movements, and pro-democracy activities are still actively and coordinately continued across the country. Deaths and Arbitrary Arrests As of 5 September 2021, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a total of people 7,876 have been arrested, 6,230 people have still been detained, whereas 1,984 people have been issued with warrants and 1,046 people were ruthlessly murdered by the military since 1 February 2021 when the military unleashed systematic and targeted attacks and violence against innocent civilians. AAPP also reported that at least 110 political prisoners have died in custody since the coup d’état. Dozens of them died within 24 hours of their arrests after being tortured, whereas many others died due to lack of health care in prisons. A relative of one of the victims reportedly stressed, “We don’t want the international community just to keep sanctioning and condemning the military. We just want them hung. We need to make all the spilled worth something”. Never- Ceasing Groundless Seizures and Arrests On 30 August 2021, in Ingapu township in Ayeyarwady Region, it is reported that the three sons of Mr. Shwe Win (trishaw driver) were arrested at home when they did not find their father. The boys were aged only 11, 13. The 13-year- old was reportedly released the following day. However, the other two were still detained. According to a resident, Mr. Shwe Win is a supporter of the NLD party, and he had attended rallies for the party. Detaining children as a hostage is illegal under customary international laws. The Myanmar military has no regard for international laws. On 31 August 2021, in Sintgaing township in Mandalay, hundreds of police officers and soldiers reportedly arrested 31 young men. According to the news received, the security troops went to Mon Pin, Kan Gyi, and Ywar Bo villages in 10 military trucks. In Mon Pin village, they arrested 25 people after ransacking the village for an hour. A resident reportedly said, “the troops didn’t say what they were looking for. They were here for illegal portering, and those who were detained were farmers. They didn’t involve in political activities ”. During this week, Ms. Win Mar, the mother of Mr. Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing, who was shot dead while protesting against the military in late February, was reportedly arrested at home as a hostage when the security forces could not find the twin brother of the fallen hero. Due to changing the NUG support profiles on Facebook, four youths named Mr. Dezin Htan, Mr. Htaal Twee, Mr. Htaung Pein, and Mr. San Thein, from Chan Pyan Village Matupi Township of Chin State were reportedly arrested on 20 and 22 August 2021. They were charged under Section 52(a) of the Counter-terrorism Law on August 24. Unstoppable Brutal Killings On 30 August 2021, Mr. Kyaw Myo Zin, a village administrator under the NLD government in Thae Phyu Wa Ywarma village in Myingyan Township of Mandalay Region, was reportedly apprehended, and his hands were tied on his back. He was later shot dead at the top of the village. On 1 September 2021 in Paung Township of Mon State, Mr. Min Nay Lwin and his wife, Ms. Ei Thwe Moe, were reportedly shot by the military troops returning from a farm around 10 pm. Mr. Min Nay Lwin reportedly injured eyes and leg, but his wife, Ms. Ei Thwe Moe, who was five months pregnant, died on the spot. According to a local, the incident happened while the military troops were on patrol; around ten gunshots were heard, and they just left the couples at the scene after the shots. On 1 September 2021, in Khin Thar village in Pale Township of Sagaing Region, military troops reportedly killed a local villager named Than Htay. According to the witness, knife injuries were found in the victim's stomach, chest, and neck. On 4 September 2021, Mr. Kan Tun from Falamchai village in Taze Township of Sagaing Region was reportedly shot and killed when he ran into the soldiers to Chaung Sone Village. According to the eye witness, gunshot injuries to his leg and stomach and knife cut injuries were seen on his neck. Destroying Religious Buildings in Chin State It is reported that three regiments have attacked in villages around Mindat Township of Chin State since mid-August. During attacks, the military troops reportedly ransacked and destroyed a church in Chat village on 30 August 2021 and a monastery near Khwee Rein village on 24 August 2021. According to the photos from the credible report, furniture and Bibles were destroyed in the church, and the monastery was looted. The military also reportedly burned motorbikes, destroyed houses, and robbed the villagers. According to the Mindat People’s Administration spokesperson, the soldiers who committed the actions belong to the Myanmar military's 101st and 11th Light Infantry Divisions (LIDs). Failing to Recruit New Military Officers On 2 September 2021, the SAC announced on its controlled media that it had extended the deadline for applications to the military academies for the second time. The deadline was extended to one during August, supposedly due to the COVID-19. According to Captain Lin Htet Aung, who defected from the military, around 100 applications have been submitted to join the military academies. Most of the applicants are from military families. Following the coup d’état in February, it is reported that more than 1,500 soldiers, including a hundred officers, had defected from the military. Activities of the National Unity Government On 27 August 2021, the Ministry of Human Rights of the National Unity Government issued a Statement on International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance on 30 August. In the statement, the definition of the enforced disappearance was explained. That enforced disappearance happened in many countries when dictator governments intentionally arrest or make human rights defenders, their families, and documents for human rights violations disappear. It was further stated that enforced disappearance not only affects individuals, their families, and the justice system, it also is a violation of human rights that affects the right to life, security, and development of every citizen in a country. In the statement, the Ministry has informed that the data collection and archiving is of great importance for those who suffered the human rights violations and the crimes committed by the military group and that it will work together with international organizations, civil society organizations, and people to prevent the crimes from happening again, to reveal the truth, and to remedy the grievances for each disappeared or fallen individuals. The Ministry of Human Rights released an Announcement on the Formation of Advisory Board on the same day. According to the announcement, the Advisory Board was formed to obtain technical inputs in handling human rights issues and is comprised of several activists and experts who have been continuously engaged in the promotion of women’s and ethnic minorities’ rights, including human rights activist U Aung Kyaw Moe and peace educator and member of Muslim of Myanmar Multi-Ethnic Consultative Committee and will be expanded as necessary. The Ministry also stated in the announcement that on August 25, 2021, when Ministry officials discussed documentation and measures to bring justice for human rights violations and ensure NUG functions are in accordance with human rights norms, the Advisory Board held their first meeting and provided recommendations. On 30 August 2021, the Ministry of Planning, Finance, and Investment of the NUG has released the Announcement 10/2021, “Publication of a list of Illegal Investments and a Special Directive demanding their immediate and unconditional suspension.” In the announcement, the Ministry referred to the Announcement 1/2021 of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations of the Cabinet of the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) which declared all investment permits and endorsements to be suspended without exception from 1 February 2021 and Announcement 3/2021 of the Ministry of Planning, Finance and Investment of the National Unity Government dated 16 May 2021, which reaffirmed the earlier statement. The Ministry further recalled the Announcement 6/2021 of 21 July 2021. The NUG stated that new investment proposals, agreements, or approvals made by military-controlled entities on or after 1 February 2021 would neither be recognized nor honoured. In the announcement, the Ministry informed that the indiscriminate issuance of investment permits and endorsements by the Myanmar Investment Commission controlled by the illegal military council runs counter to the tenets of federal democracy, and such actions shall not be tolerated. Together with the Announcement, the Ministry has published a list of companies undertaking illegal investments by seeking permits and endorsements from the Myanmar Investment Commission controlled by the unlawful military council. As the Ministry instructs those companies on the list to cease and suspend those illegal investment activities immediately and unconditionally, the Ministry further warns that any listed company that fails to comply shall be liable to persecution according to the existing laws. On 5 September 2021, the National Unity Government released an Announcement (9/2021), “Announcement on Military Offensive of State Administrative Council in Ethnic Areas. The statement stressed that since the illegal military coup on 1 February 2021, they have killed, detained, and tortured innocent civilians across the country, both in major cities and in rural and ethnic areas. Furthermore, despite the verbal pledges of military leadership and SAC that they are working for peace, they have been waging offensive military operations, including both ground attacks and airstrikes in a disproportionate and indiscriminate manner with excessive forces in EAO-controlled areas causing civilians who were living there to be forced to flee their homes. The announcement further stated that according to the UN reports, the number of IDPs has been over 300,000 due to the ground and airstrikes of the military. It was informed that those military attacks in ethnic areas could further cause a major humanitarian crisis that millions of civilian populations will be forced to leave their homes and that with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, such a situation can seriously impact the security of neighboring countries along with regional stability and security. The NUG has vehemently opposed the foreign governments and organizations cooperating in the procurement of weapons to support those violent acts of the military council against the civilians and requested the international community to work effectively to stop the offensive military operations of the Myanmar military as soon as possible, to end suppression and torture of innocent civilians and to bring an end to the coup d’état and hold generals accountable for the crmes they have committed. Visit of China’s Special Envoy for Asian Affairs to Myanmar Sun Guoxiang, Special Envoy for Asian Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, paid a visit to Myanmar from 21 to 28 August 2021 upon invitation and met with the military leader Min Aung Hlaing, according to the Regular Press Conference by Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin on 31 August 2021. Regarding the Special Envoy’s visit, the Chinese side stated that the friendly policy of China towards Myanmar is for all the Myanmar People, based on the “pauk-phaw” friendship between China and Myanmar. The Press Conference by China’s Spokesperson of Foreign Ministry stated that China hopes for a proper solution through political dialogue with all parties and groups in Myanmar. International Action and Pressure The embassy of the United States in Yangon announced on 30 August 2021 that the United States is providing more than $50 million in critical humanitarian assistance to the people of Myanmar, among them over 700,000 refugees and others internally displaced in the country. The aid will support people fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar following the military coup on 1 February. In the Inaugural Australia-France 2+2 Ministerial Consultations held on 30 August 2021, Ministers underscored their grave concerns about the crisis in Myanmar, particularly the deteriorating COVID-19 situations and its implications for regional stability. They called on the military to immediately end the violence, cease measures to curtail freedom of expression, release those arbitrarily detained, and revert the country to its democratic path. Ministers welcomed the appointment of the ASEAN Chair's Special Envoy on Myanmar, stressed the need for a political dialogue with all relevant parties, and urged the Myanmar military to engage with ASEAN to implement the “Five Point Consensus” fully and swiftly. On 1 September 2021, German wholesale food distribution Company Metro announced that it would cease its operation in Myanmar by October due to its volatile investment and business environment. Following the military coup, 15 Foreign companies have suspended or terminated their operations in Myanmar, and Metro is the latest international company to leave Myanmar. On 2 September 2021, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced new Myanmar sanctions against Myanmar businessman U Tay Za and his business empire Htoo Group, the key business associate of the military. Foreign Secretary said that the military junta had shown no signs of halting its brutal attack on the people of Myanmar, and the UK will continue to restrict the junta’s access to finance. The supply of arms is used to kill innocents, including children, and target those who support the junta’s actions. In response to the new sanctions of the UK against Myanmar, the U.S. Secretary of the State Antony Blinken remarked on 2 September 2021 that he welcomes the announcement of the UK’s new sanctions against Myanmar businessman U Tay Za and his network of companies for providing financial support and arms to the military that help enable its brutal violence against the people of Myanmar. On September 3, 2021, the Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah commented that the situation with the planned trip of the ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar, Brunei's Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof, is that the visit has not yet been scheduled and that Erywan is still trying every available resource and communication channels to do so. Malaysian Foreign Minister also highlighted that “the ASEAN Special Envoy must be given access to meet as many groups as possible in line with the point number five of the consensus.” In addition, he also highlighted the difficulty of providing humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, particularly to the conflict zone, through the AHA Centre. ASEAN Special Envoy Erywan Yusof, Second Foreign Minister of Brunei, said on 4 September 2021 that he is still negotiating with the military for his visit to Myanmar and has requested the military to get access to State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He also added that he wants to go to Myanmar before the ASEAN summit held in October, yet no date has been finalized for his visit to Myanmar. In addition, he remarked that there is an urgent need to go to Myanmar now, and it is also required to talk to all the parties concerned. ***** Date: 5 September 2021 Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations, New York..."
Source/publisher: Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 752.94 KB
more
Title: Weekly Updates on Current Situation in Myanmar (29-8-2021)
Description: "After 200 days have passed since the coup, the Myanmar military group is still ignoring the will of the people, putting the country into turmoil with disproportionate actions when the people are facing the nationwide health crisis under the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths and Arbitrary Arrests As of 28 August 2021, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a total of 7, 627 people have been arrested, 6,005 people have still been detained, whereas 1,984 people have been issued with warrants and 1,026 people were ruthlessly murdered by the military since 1 February 2021 when the military unleashed systematic and targeted attacks and violence against innocent civilians. Irrational Arrests and Unprovoked Shootings On 20 August 2021 in Sagaing, the security forces in plainclothes reportedly arrested the parents of Mr. Zaw Min Win, a police sergeant who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). According to the news received, Mr. Zaw Min Win left his wife and two daughters at the police housing complex, and he took the weapons with him. On the same day, he left the house; about two dozen of security forces went to the house of Mr. Zaw Min Win’s parents, destroyed the properties, and arrested his parents. On 21 August 2021, around 8 pm, Mr. Maung Aye and his wife, Ms. Nweat Nweat Aye, from Kan Thit Village in Khin-u Township in Sagaing Region, returned home by motorbike, were reportedly shot to death by the patrolling military forces. It is reported that Mr. Maung Aye was shot in the head, and Ms. Nweat Nweat was shot in the stomach. On 22 August 2021 in Hintha village in Yesagyo Township of Magwe, the police forces reportedly raided a house in an ambulance. According to the residents, the forces surrounded the house and opened fire. Due to the incident, a 21-year-old man was killed, and four others were arrested. The owner of the house is believed to have participated in anti-coup movements. In accordance with the information received, a 10 year-old-child, Ven Bway Htan, was shot dead in the neck on the evening of 25 August 2021 in Htantalang Township of Chin State due to an unprovoked shooting by the military forces. Children are not safe, and the Myanmar military has no regard for the safety of children. It has no intention to abide by international laws protecting children in an armed conflict. According to the credible report, on 26 August 2021, in Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township in Yangon, Mr. Thein Min Oo was shot dead by the military forces on 121st street. His body was found between two buildings on 121st after the military forces reportedly opened fire at a drunken man shouting on the street. Neighbors believe that a stray bullet hit Mr. Thein Min Oo while the military forces chased and shot the drunk man. It is also reported that there were some injured civilians during the shootings. Taking Hostages On 24 August 2021, in Taw Kyaung Lay Village, in Khin-u Township of Sagaing Region, it is reported that the military forces arrested Ms. Ei Thandar Phyo, the younger sister of an alleged PDF. The forces took Ms. Ei Thandar Phyo as a hostage since they could not find her brother. On 27 August 2021, in South Dagon Township in Yangon, the husband and daughter of Political Activist Ms. Su Mar and a guest who were with them at home were reportedly arrested as the security forces could not find Ms. Su Mar at home. Deaths from Torture Mr. Soe Paing, a.k.a. Mr. Kyaw Khaing Win, a physics teacher from Tharkayta Township in Yangon Region, was reportedly arrested on 22 August 2021. He later died on the night of 23 August due to torture in interrogation. Similarly, on 24 August 2021, at night in Khayan Township of Yangon, Mr. Min Aung was shot and arrested by the security forces while passing by Khayan Police Station by a motorbike. He was then reportedly beaten during detention and died from the torture. In Monywa Township in Sagaing Region, Mr. Thet Paing Soe was reportedly arrested on 24 August 2021 and later died on 25 August. The security forces informed his family that he died due to COVID-19. However, his body was found with serious injuries due to constant torture. On 26 August 2021, Mr. Yan Aung Soe from Gonetan Village, in Shwebo Township of Sagaing Region, was reportedly arrested and taken to Gonetan Village Cemetery. The security forces then shot dead, who questioned him for allegedly possessing weapons in his house. Raiding in Rural Areas Myanmar military forces have reportedly been raiding in rural areas in Chaung-U Township in Sagaing Region. They raided Nwe Khwe village on 23 August 2021, Taw Kyaung Lay village on 24 August 2021, and Taw Kyaung Gyi and Thone Pan Hla villages on 26 August 2021. According to the residents, the forces invaded the villages where there were no anti-coup activities. They took even small things, and they did not leave behind a tiny amount of money. They searched the houses of youths who have been volunteering the charity work during the Covid-19 period. According to credible news, during the raid in Taw Kyaung Lay village, they destroyed some houses and took 9 million kyats, six motorcycles, jewelry, and clothes. Five youths who were taking care of Covid patients were reportedly arrested. Seizing Kar Paung Kya Village Military forces have seized Kar Paung Kya Village in Taze Township of the Sagaing Region since 26 August 2021. According to the residents, nearly a hundred soldiers in six trucks stormed the village at around 2 am on 26 August 2021. Troops started shooting a man who came out of the house to see what was happening. It is reported that several houses were torched and destroyed. More than a thousand of the 800-household inhabitants fled to a nearby forest. And the military troops even fired light weapons and heavy artillery into areas where villagers were hiding. On 27 August 2021, about 50 troops went into the forests to look for the fleeing villagers. People reportedly lost contact with each other, families have been separated, and many others have gone missing. During the raid, Mr. Moe Swe Oo and his younger sister were reportedly shot when they were hiding in a small hut three miles away from the village. According to a resident, Mr. Moe Swe Oo and his sister were shot while running away from soldiers. Mr. Moe Swe Oo reportedly died from his injuries, and his sister was severely wounded. According to the villagers, Kar Paung Kya village has been targeted repeatedly by the military troops. They keep coming into the village, destroying and looting things. Using Civilians as Human Shields It is reported that 30 civilians were detained by divisions 66 and 55 of the Myanmar military between 13 and 18 August 2021from Demoso, Hpruso, and Bawlakhe in Kayah State and Pekon township in Shan State during tensions between military forces and resistance fighters. The military has reportedly released 15 detainees; 10 from Pekon, three from Demoso, and two from Hpruso. However, 15 others are still being detained. According to credible news, six people taken from Demoso and Hpruso are in Loikaw after being used as human shields in different places. They will be interrogated in Loikaw. Those six people were detained on 14 August when they returned to their villages for food. One of the six is a 15-year-old with a health problem. A woman and seven men are reportedly being held by Light Infantry Battalion 531 based in Hpruso, and they have been seriously tortured. Generals, officers, and infantry soldiers have no regard for human life. They show no intention to abide by international humanitarian laws that protects civilians during the war. Mobilizing Military Troops in Karen State In accordance with the credible report, the Myanmar military has mobilized its troops in villages of the south of Kawkareik Township in Karen State. On 24 August 2021, Myanmar military forces and forces of the Karen National Union (KNU) clashed twice in Kawkareik Township after Myanmar military forces trespassed into KNU-controlled territory. It is reported that the military forces fired around 30 rounds of artillery, and there were casualties and deaths on both sides. Following the clashes, about 200 residents from Kawthanaw village fled their homes. According to the news, a jet fighter was seen on 25 August 2021 and was likely engaged in aerial reconnaissance. It is expected that a major invasion from the Myanmar military is coming soon. Targeting the members of the NLD On 21 August 2021, Mr. Kyaw Soe Win, a.k.a Kay Kay, NLD executive member in Aung Lan Township of Magway Region, was reportedly arrested in Shwe Pan Taw Village in Aung Lan Township. On 22 August 2021, it is reported that Ms. Khin Myat Thu, a Pyithu Hluttaw MP and NLD member of Mingaladon Township of Yangon Region, was arrested with her husband. Moreover, on 22 August 2021, Mr. Htay Win, MP of Htilin Township of Magway Region and executive member of the NLD of Magway Region, was also reportedly arrested in Sar Kyin Village in Pakokku Township of Magway Region. On 22 August 2021, Mr. Kyaw San Htoo, Magway Region NLD executive member, was reportedly arrested in Panmata Village at the Aung Lan Township of Magway Region. On 27 August 2021, in Kyaikhto Township of Mon State, Mr. Zaw Moe Htet, a.k.a. Gwen Gyi, NLD secretary of Theinzayat Town, who was issued a warrant under Section 505(b) of the Penal Code, was reportedly arrested by the security forces who were wearing plain clothes. Soldiers and Police joining the CDM It is reported that around 2,000 soldiers and police have joined the Civil Disobedient Movement (CDM) since the coup on 1 February 2021. Most of the soldiers who have joined the CDM are privates and sergeants. There are also around 100 officers ranking from lieutenants to majors. Most of them have reportedly fled to areas controlled by Ethnics Arms Organizations (EAOs), or some are hiding among civilians. These striking soldiers expect more military officers to join the CDM as the military regime continues to use violence against civilians. Humanitarian Situation The humanitarian update for Myanmar, issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on 27 August 2021, highlighted the situations of people displacement and conditions of food insecurity in Myanmar. It is underlined that due to clashes and insecurity, thousands have been displaced in Sagaing Region and Chin State, particularly in and around Mindat Township. Also, in the south-eastern parts of the country, an estimated 141,200 people remain displaced, mainly in Kayah and Kayin States since the military coup. In the Shan States, more than 26,300 people have been displaced across the State since the beginning of 2021, of which about 6,400 of them remain displaced to date. It is also stated that food insecurity, particularly food shortage, is increasing in the displacement sites and communities in northern Shan and Rakhine states. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) also announced monthly food and cash assistance for vulnerable families in Rakhine State resumed during the fourth week of August. With monthly life-saving support, World Food Programme has provided food, and cash aids to nearly 360,000 food-insecure people in Chin, Kachin, Rakhine, and the Shan States, including women, children, and persons with disabilities and families displaced conflict. Activities of the National Unity Government On 24 August 2021, the National Unity Government released a Statement regarding the 4th anniversary of the atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingya people in 2017. In the statement, the NUG has stated how it was saddened by the horrendous violence, gross human rights violations, and massive displacement that the Rohingya people suffered four years ago. The statement further explained that the same military responsible for all those atrocities has also perpetrated crimes against humanity and war crimes against the people of Myanmar over the decades. The NUG also expressed its endeavor in seeking justice and accountability for all crimes committed by the military against the Rohingya and all other people of Myanmar across the country throughout history. The NUG also informed its concerns regarding the situation of the Rohingya people in refugee camps of neighbouring countries and within Myanmar. It stated that voluntary and safe repatriation of the Rohingya people in a dignified manner is their utmost priority. Finally, the NUG also expressed its commitment to the fundamental principles enshrined in the Federal Democratic Charter, including fundamental human rights, human dignity, individual rights, collective rights, and establishing a Federal Democratic Union. The Radio NUG started its programme on 26 August 2021 at 8 am and 8 pm at SW 16, MHz 17.71. On 27 August 2021, the Ministry of Planning, Finance, and Investment released an Announcement on the Illicit Printing of Banknotes. In the announcement, the Ministry informed that they had received credible information that the illegitimate military council has made approaches to foreign banknotes and security printing times to seek assistance in printing new Myanmar Kyat banknotes. The Ministry also stated in the announcement that according to Section 16 of the Unlawful Associations Act 1908, the National Unity Government has determined the illegitimate military council to be an unlawful association, and thus, any issuance of currency effected by the military council, its successor entities, and any of its subordinate or subsidiary associations, including the so-called “caretaker government,” shall be deemed to lack legitimacy. The NUG called upon the military council to desist from the act of economic sabotage. It implored the foreign banknote and security printing approached the military council to refrain from printing Myanmar kyat Banknotes and providing any raw materials, supplies, etc., that could be used in their production. The NUG further called upon all responsible firms to follow the example set by Giesecke Devrient GmbH in March 2021. On 28 August 2021, the Ministry of Defence of the National Unity Government released Directive No. 2/2021 to Tatmadaw and Police Forces members. In the Directive, the Ministry referred to the policy of the NUG released under statement No. 8/2021 on 23 August 2021. According to that policy, the NUG also extended a special welcome to members of Tatmadaw and police forces who defected the State Administration Council to stand with the people. The NUG further instructed them not to obey the SAC’s orders and directives, to not obstruct, hinder, or attack People’s Defence Forces (PDF) and allied forces, and to not arrest, torture, or kill civilians and not plunder public and private properties. International Action and Pressure On 22 August 2021, Japan has reportedly refused to issue visas for two Myanmar military-appointed diplomats to the Embassy of Myanmar in Tokyo. However, the military has requested Japan to grant visas to them for the replacement in the Embassy. These two diplomats will be transferred to replace the two Myanmar diplomats who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in early March 2021 and were dismissed by the military-controlled Ministry. During the 42nd ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) General Assembly held on 23 August 2021, Speaker of the parliament of Singapore Tan Chuan-Jin remarked that platforms, particularly AIPA, are crucial for supporting a more integrated, digital, and forward-looking ASEAN community. He highlighted that the world is closely watching the response of ASEAN in resolving the crisis in Myanmar. Speaker of the parliament of Singapore stressed that Singapore welcomed the appointment of Brunei’s Foreign Minister as Special Envoy of the ASEAN to Myanmar, hoping that the special envoy will be allowed to have discussions and to facilitate meaningful dialogue with all stakeholders in Myanmar to facilitate the meaningful dialogue among all stakeholders in Myanmar for a peaceful political solution. He also affirmed that “the Myanmar people must determine the solution to the situation in Myanmar.” In the speech by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on the Indo-Pacific Region on 24 August 2021, it is highlighted that the U.S. is committed to supporting the people of Myanmar and restoring the democracy in the country and called for Indo-Pacific nations to join in that effort. In response to the reports of a journalist charged for doing their job, the U.S. embassy in Yangon issued an announcement on 26 August 2021 that the people in Myanmar and abroad should be free to express their beliefs and seek, receive, and share information and ideas. Following the public petition being signed by 268,428 people, which called on Seoul to render formal support to the National Unity Government (NUG) and to reject the military, the Office of the President of South Korea announced on 26 August 2021 that they will continue to engage with the NUG and continue to support the restoration of democracy in Myanmar through close cooperation with the international community. ***** Date: 29 August 2021 Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations, New York..."
Source/publisher: Permanent Mission of Myanmar to the United Nations (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-12
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 837.93 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government of Myanmar Order No.5/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အမိန့်အမှတ် (၅ /၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အမိန့်အမှတ ( ၅ /၂၀၂၁) ၁၃၈၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဝါခေါင်လပြည့်ကျော် ၈ ရက် (၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဩဂုတ်လ ၃၀ ရက်) ၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်စေရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ၂။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန် ထမ်းဆောင် နေပြီး (CDM) ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် အမျိုးမျိုးသောဖိနှိပ်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်နေသော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်ဗဟိုဘဏ်မှ အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ ဝန်ထမ်းများအား အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း (Blacklist) သွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။ အမိန့်အရ (ပုံ) တင်ထွန်းနိုင် ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-11
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 219.82 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Education Announcement No.29/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေငြာချက် အမှတ် (၂၉/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၂၉/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၆) ရက် အသိအမှတ်ပြုကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း (ကျန်ရှိသော စာရင်းများကို နောက်နေ့ရက်များတွင် ဆက်လက်ထုတ်ပြန်ပေးမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။)..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-11
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 354.89 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Education Announcement No.30/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေငြာချက် အမှတ် (၃၀/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၀/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၉) ရက် အသိအမှတ်ပြုကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-11
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 190.24 KB
more
Title: SAC-M: G7 MUST FILL VACUUM LEFT BY UN AND ASEAN
Description: "10 June 2021: Ahead of this weekend’s G7 leaders’ summit, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) calls on the group to fill the vacuum left by the UN and ASEAN and take decisive action to defend democracy and human rights in Myanmar. This weekend, leaders of the G7 nations will hold a three-day summit. The G7 group consists of the UK, US, France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy. These seven states will be joined for this meeting by Australia, India and the Republic of Korea and by representatives of the European Union. Meanwhile, as these democratic states meet, the military junta in Myanmar continues to wage its campaign of terror against the people, cracking down on the democracy movement across the country with extreme violence and fuelling a man-made humanitarian catastrophe. Despite the gravity of the situation, the United Nations Secretary-General has not yet travelled to Myanmar or the Southeast Asia region. The UN Security Council is paralyzed, prevented from taking intervening measures, including targeted sanctions and arms embargos, by permanent members China and Russia. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been given the lead role in responding to the crisis by the international community, but to date it has failed entirely to deliver on moving the situation forward. The G7 must fill the vacuum left by the UN and ASEAN with decisive action on Myanmar. “G7 members have been leading the way with targeted sanctions against the junta’s business enterprises,” says Yanghee Lee of SAC-M. “However, there is a glaring omission: the massive revenues the junta receives from oil and gas companies, including France’s Total and the US’ Chevron. Without cutting off this billion-dollar income, all other sanctions will be in vain. SAC-M is calling for a global three cuts strategy against the junta: cut the weapons, cut the cash, cut the impunity.” “Leaders should use the G7 summit to apply pressure on ASEAN to step up to the plate,” says Marzuki Darusman of SAC-M. “This means engaging with all stakeholders, including the National Unity Government.” “With the support of the people through their elected representatives and representative organisations, the National Unity Government is the legitimate government of Myanmar,” says Chris Sidoti of SAC-M. “Not only this, but the broad coalition formed among the people that the National Unity Government represents has the potential to end the decades of civil war and military oppression in Myanmar. G7 leaders must stand against authoritarianism, refuse to give any legitimacy to the junta and recognise the National Unity Government.” SAC-M also calls on the G7 to increase desperately needed cross-border humanitarian assistance to the people of Myanmar. To reach those in need and avoid being exploited by the junta, assistance must be directed through the National Unity Government, existing local structures, civil society networks and ethnic administrations. Official Development Assistance should be immediately re-directed away from the junta or government agencies under the control of the junta and instead directed to the National Unity Government and civil society..."
Source/publisher: Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-11
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 143.64 KB
more
Title: Announcement Regarding the State of Affairs inside Obo Prison – Announcement (3/2021) - အိုးဘိုအကျဥ်း‌ထောင်တွင်း အခြေအနေနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက် – ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၀၃/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "On August 8, 2021, at about 9 PM., the Obo political detainees, who have been unjustly arrested, staged a protest against the lack of COVID-19 preventive measures and treatment inside the prison as a political movement marking the 33th anniversary of the 8888 Revolution. The terrorist junta and those who are in charge of the prison brutally suppressed the protest with gun-fires and the use of military force and subsequently silenced information regarding the situation. The family of the detamees, the people all over the country partaking in anti-authoritarian movements and the international community are all very concerned about the safety and well-being of these political detainees who have been unjustly arrested and confined. Regarding the protests inside Obo Prison, we make the following demands unwaveringly. 1. To unearth the truth regarding the current predicament inside Obo prison 2. To give access to COVID-19 preventive measures and treatment m all prisons in Myanmar, including Obo prison 3. To release unjustly arrested political detainees unconditionally and unexceptionally 4. To stop immediately the murdering of political detainees by using COVID-19 as a biological weapon.\ We urge the entire people of Myanmar, the international communities, the civil societies, the ambassadors residing in Myanmar and the international organizations to be vigilantly watchful of the status of access to medical care and other basic human rights inside prisons in Myanmar and to spread out helping hands by any means possible..."
Source/publisher: Student Union Representatives Committee - SURC
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 109.72 KB 1.53 MB
more
Title: BRIEFING PAPER: THE RESPONSE SO FAR OF UNITED NATIONS POLITICAL BODIES TO THE UNLAWFUL MILITARY COUP IN MYANMAR
Description: "Since the 1 February 2021 coup in Myanmar, three political bodies of the UN have discussed the situation and passed resolutions or adopted statements that include expressions of support for democratic processes, an end to violence and calls for the immediate release of political detainees. However, to date there have been no legally enforceable actions. The New York-based UN Security Council has held formal and informal meetings on Myanmar but has not exercised the significant powers available to it to address the impunity enjoyed by the military and to stop the flow of weapons and cash to it. Also in New York, in June the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that called for the military to respect the results of the November 2020 general elections, release political detainees and cease violence against protestors. It also called upon States to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar. Although not legally binding, the resolution is a politically significant international expression against the coup. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council has passed three resolutions on Myanmar since the coup. Two called for the coup to be reversed through restoration of the elected government. A third resolution on the human rights of Rohingya and other minorities was also adopted, although it contained few specific references to the coup. Human Rights Council resolutions are not legally binding. SAC-M has issued this briefing paper ahead of the start of the 48th session of UN Human Rights Council on Monday 13 September and the start of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday 14 September..."
Source/publisher: Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 296.45 KB
more
Title: International community must hold the line after Myanmar’s ‘D-Day’
Sub-title: Myanmar’s friends need to deny the junta legitimacy and work with the National Unity Government
Description: "On Tuesday, the president of Myanmar’s democratic National Unity Government (NUG) proclaimed D-Day, the launch of a “people’s defensive war” against the military government, to overthrow it and end the oppression. Predictably, that caused a stir in the international community. One Western embassy reacted by asking its nationals to leave the country as soon as possible, while another ambassador issued a statement calling on all parties to work on restoring democracy peacefully. D-Day was not, as some surmised, a call to arms to sweep away the Tatmadaw in a large, bloody offensive. Rather, it was a demonstration of will and the acknowledgement of a reality. Myanmar is in the midst of an uprising against what its people consider a murderous occupying force. The call was taken up by the NUG’s allied ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), the Kachin Independence Army, the Karen National Liberation Army, the Karenni Progressive Party, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta-ang National Liberation Army, as well as the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), an NUG-allied but disparate host of dozens of militias operating mostly in Myanmar’s Bamar-dominated center. Fighting increased on that day, but not significantly, compared with the days and weeks before. In its call, the NUG proclaimed a state of emergency, provided advice to civilians on how to protect themselves, and issued strict rules of engagement to its allied forces, to ensure the uprising complies with the Geneva Conventions. It called on Tatmadaw soldiers and police officers to defect and offered them protection. Some analysts lamented the call, fearing further doom for Myanmar. Others have pointed to the reality that the military is facing a credible strategic challenge. I am of a somewhat more optimistic predilection. EAOs are holding their territory, PDFs are proliferating and will continue to do so. Once the rainy season stops, one well-informed analyst told me, they may pop up in locations that have so far been peaceful. Tatmadaw defections are up. Guerrilla action has reached its gilded capital. All of this could in time overwhelm the Tatmadaw, sap the will of their rank and file to continue the fight, and may lead to them being unable to maintain their posture. No matter what they believe, everybody observing Myanmar agrees: The fighting will not stop right now, and there is currently no window for a negotiated solution. We need to remember: The uprising against the military is wildly popular, the military remains utterly despised, and the collapse of the economy was a calculated strategy in the early days of the coup to force out the military junta peacefully. Everybody agrees that the humanitarian fallout needs to be addressed, and the NUG is certainly willing to do so. The effort by ASEAN’s envoy to declare a humanitarian ceasefire, though, was doomed all along – it suited the Tatmadaw, who would love nothing more than having a ceasefire with EAOs to turn around and stamp out the PDFs. Had the envoy bothered to speak to the NUG, it would have told him that. Another thing is unchanged: Myanmar still has a legitimate, elected government that has built the most inclusive multi-ethic coalition in the history of the country, and remains the only actor that might have enough about them to keep the country together – if it wins. It has developed a democratic interim constitutional arrangement and principles for a federal democratic future. It has opened a pathway to Rohingya citizenship. D-Day has confirmed that there is political will and strategic purpose about this government and its allies. The overwhelmingly positive reactions around the country, from EAOs to student unions, have again demonstrated the support the NUG has. The NUG has made progress in establishing working relationships with a number of foreign governments. Still, few of these deal with the NUG as they would with an established government. In that respect the decision of the United Nations’ Credentials Committee next week on whether to accept the credentials of the NUG-loyal UN ambassador remains key. The international community needs to support this claim to strengthen the hand of the NUG, open it up to aid and support from the UN and beyond. Myanmar’s friends need to hold the line, deny the junta legitimacy and work with the NUG. The stronger the NUG and its alliance, the more quickly this uprising will be over. Building channels for mediation and low-level cooperation is no wasted effort even now. On the question of delivering humanitarian aid and of countering Covid-19, there may be potential for dialogue and limited cooperation at the grassroots level, between the junta and NUG-aligned EAO authorities, with the blessing perhaps of the NUG. That is all there can realistically be hoped for right now. At the end of it all, there will be a negotiated outcome, but only when the situation is ripe for a solution. For now, interests remain diametrically opposed: Nothing short of the complete overthrow of the regime and the fundamental remaking of the military is acceptable to the people of Myanmar. Without one side all but collapsing, that situation will not change. Representatives of the diplomatic community and international organizations have a responsibility to communicate the situation as it is clearly to their capitals, and not to muddy the waters by going through the motions: expressing concern, and calling for a peaceful return to democracy. That return is not in the cards right now. That fact needs to be understood by the decision-makers in the capitals, but also that it does not preclude constructive international engagement in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Joint statement of 246 Local and Foreign students’ unions - ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂ (၂၄၆)ဖွဲ့ ၏ ပူးတွဲကြေညာချက်
Description: "Now is the third time of the repeated coups by the fascist military with the purpose to oppress and exploit the people for the benefit of their own kith and kin. Throughout all those recurring coups of the fascist military, we, students, have fought, handing on the unyielding red flag of the fighting peacock, and our fight rages on to this day. Even amidst the crackdowns by the military, the chants of Students’ Unions and youths against military dictatorship are still covering the streets to this day. Overseas students are still serving the revolution in every possible way as well. The common goals of all the people are the absolute eradication of the fascist military and dictatorship and building Federal Democracy Union. We now observe that the fascist junta is relentlessly trying to earn international recognition, including that of the United Nations. We, students, and the people have demonstrated our objection against ASEAN's attempts of helping the fascist junta gain recognition. Furthermore, we, the Students’ Unions, earnestly request United Nations, International Governments and Organizations not to acknowledge the terroristic fascist junta. Concurrently, we declare unequivocally that we, the Students’ Unions, condemn nations and organizations that are helping the fascist junta to get recognition..."
Source/publisher: 246 Local and Foreign students' unions
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 295.06 KB 1.76 MB
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Finds Allies Among Well-Known Buddhist Monks
Description: "Seven months after the military coup in Myanmar, some young Buddhist monks have taken off their yellow robes to join the armed struggle against the junta, while other older and senior ones are throwing in their lot with the junta leaders. One of the monks in the latter group is Sitagu Sayadaw, who accompanied Vice Senior General Soe Win, the No. 2 man in the military regime, on his Russia trip earlier this month. Another big name that is closely connected with the coup is U Kovida, a monk from Shan State’s Kengtung who has been accused of providing coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing with astrological advice ahead of the takeover. Other influential monks include 92-year-old Bhaddanta Dhamma Siri from Tachileik in eastern Shan State; Bhaddanta Kavidaja from Hpa-an in Karen State, a leading monk in the now-defunct Association for Protection of Race and Religion, known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha; and Dhammaduta Ashin Chekinda. After the coup, some Buddhist monks joined civilians in street protests against the regime, some staged silent demonstrations inside their monasteries, some were beaten and arrested by security personnel for their anti-junta activities, and some took off their robes to take up arms against the regime. But it has been a different story for other high-profile monks including Sitagu Sayadaw. The 84-year-old is the second-most-influential leader of Shwe Kyin, one of Myanmar’s nine Buddhist clergy sects. Its members are known for strictly obeying the Vinaya, the code of conduct for Buddhist monks. The monk was widely recognized for his outreach and charity work, and was an outspoken critic of military dictatorships in the past. He apparently got close with Myanmar’s military under U Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government in 2015 when he, as the vice chairman of the nationalist organization Ma Ba Tha, pushed for enactment of a legislative package known as the race and religion protection laws, which are designed to prevent the spread of Islam in Myanmar. Later, Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing—now the coup leader—became a familiar face among his high-level followers. Since the coup, he has never failed to portray himself as a promoter of Buddhism, making the most of popular opinion among the country’s nationalists that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted National League for Democracy government favored human rights over the religion that the majority of citizens practice. He started his mission by hastily paying a visit to the well-known Zaygone Sayadaw and other monks in Naypyitaw one day after the coup. (Sadly, the monk died in a military plane crash in June.) The general has also ordered his subordinates to follow suit, visiting and making offerings to other monks. As Myanmar is a Buddhist-majority country, senior monks have a significant influence on their many followers. Min Aung Hlaing might think that if he has blessings from the monks, support from their disciples will follow. While many young Buddhist monks were taking to the streets nearly every day against the regime, Sitagu Sayadaw never failed to receive Min Aung Hlaing and his wife at his monastery at Sagaing Hill. When Min Aung Hlaing took blessings from Myanmar’s senior monks for his construction of the world’s largest Buddha statue in Naypyitaw in March, Sitagu Sayadaw was there. At the time, nearly five dozen protesters were gunned down by the regime’s troops across the country. The monk was present when since-ousted State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy government offered meals to Buddhist monks. He often receives offerings from Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and the general’s wife, Daw Kyu Kyu Hla. Some three months before the coup, the couple offered meals to the monk. The monk is currently at the Myanma Theravada Buddha Vihara Monastery in Moscow. The monastery has received donations from Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and his wife, among others. Ashin Arsara, a striking monk from Mandalay, said he felt sad to see Myanmar’s leading monks like Sitagu Sayadaw stand with the regime when the whole nation is fighting against it. “One of the figureheads of the Buddhist clergy is standing with the unjust. As a Buddhist monk, I feel embarrassed and sorry for the people,” he said. Another famous monk is U Kovida, commonly known as Vasipake Sayadaw and famous for his vows of silence. Min Aung Hlaing has been his follower since 2006, when the general was serving as the commander of the Myanmar military’s Triangle Region, which oversees eastern Shan State. He has been accused of advising the senior general to tell security forces to shoot protesters in the head. Most of the anti-regime protesters killed in the early days of the junta crackdown had bullet wounds to the head. The monk was singled out for criticism at anti-regime protests, with some protesters attaching photos of him to htamein—women’s sarongs—and hanging them in public places to express their wrath. Seeing the pictures of the monk he venerates attached to htamein is an infuriating sight for Min Aung Hlaing. He ordered his troops to take the women’s garments down and publicly announced in his state-run papers that anyone committing the act would be charged with insulting Buddhism. The 64-year-old monk has close ties with Sitagu Sayadaw. Another monk, Bhaddanta Dhamma Siri, known as “Two Dragon Sayadaw” after his monastery, was the first to receive the Abhidhaja Maha Rahta Guru, one of the highest religious titles in Myanmar, after the coup. The monk with red and white amulets on both wrists came under fire as the coup leader presented the title to him in person at his monastery, and he accepted the title after hundreds of young activists had been killed by the regime. It’s noteworthy that Min Aung Hlaing personally presented titles or paid visits only to monks who either have influence or knowledge of some “special power.” The coup leader was seen, even at the regime’s governing body meetings, wearing a red amulet believed to be given by one of the monks on his return from Kengtung and Tachileik. In May, during their tour to Karen State, Min Aung Hlaing and his wife visited the radical monk Bhaddanta Kavidaja, who, prior to the NLD government’s ousting, publicly showed his support for the military by organizing pro-military rallies. The monk, known as Zwegabin Sayadaw after the name of his monastery, publicly defied the NLD government’s designation of the Ma Ba Tha as an unlawful association and its order that the group’s signboards should be taken down across the country. He is widely believed to have taken the helm of the Buddha Dhamma Parahita Foundation, the successor to Ma Ba Tha. Dhammasuta Chekinda is known for his summer school programs, in which he teaches teenagers Buddhism and other subjects, attracting hundreds of youngsters annually. The monk has barely appeared in public since the coup and has been tight-lipped about the regime’s brutal crackdowns on peaceful protesters, some of which were the same age as his summer school students. He is therefore thought to share the views of Sitagu Sayadaw. Ashin Chekinda currently serves as a department head at the International Theravada Missionary University in Yangon. Rumors have it that the monk chooses not to offend the regime and senior monks who have close ties to it, like Sitagu Sayadaw, because in order to become the rector of the university he may need the approval of senior monks and authorities. Military dictators have never been reluctant to manipulate religion to maintain their grip on power. The regime earlier this week dropped the legal case against firebrand nationalist monk U Wirathu, who was charged with sedition by the since-ousted NLD government. U Wirathu, who has earned a notorious name among Myanmar people, is a faithful follower of Sitagu Sayadaw, who once blessed the younger monk by calling him “my comrade.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar Rock Singer Ito Arrested for Alleged Anti-Regime Activities
Description: "The Myanmar junta arrested rock singer Ito at his home in Yangon’s Mayangone Township on Wednesday night for alleged connections with anti-regime activities. At least five others were also arrested, according to sources close to the artist. Professionally known as Ito, Ko Win Htut Thawdar is in his 30s. He is also a composer and a son of famous Myanmar rocker Zaw Win Htut. Details of the alleged anti-regime activities of which he is accused are not yet known, nor is the location where he is being held. Myanmar has been in political turmoil since the military seized power from the country’s democratically elected government on Feb. 1. Following the coup, many celebrities joined the anti-regime movement, using their popularity to amplify its pro-democracy message. They took to the streets to protest against the coup and urged civil servants to strike by joining the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). They have been targeted for their participation in protests against military rule, with arrest warrants being issued for nearly 100 celebrities, artists, singers, actors, actresses and directors. About a dozen have been arrested, and nine famous Myanmar artists including comedian U Zaganar, director Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, actors Lu Min and Pyay Ti Oo, model Paing Takhon, actress Eaindra Kyaw Zin and singers Saw Phoe Kwer and Po Po are still in detention. In June, rock singer and songwriter Raymond, 32, passed away while evading arrest for participating in the anti-regime movement, after being charged under Article 505A of the penal code. Like other pro-democracy activists, many in the arts community are in hiding, having fled their homes to evade arrest. A few others have joined Myanmar’s “Spring Revolution.” Some artists have joined the armed resistance struggle and others are working for the parallel National Unity Government (NUG). As of Thursday, the Myanmar regime had killed a total of 1,058 civilians, arrested 7,992—of whom 6,343 are still in detention—and issued arrest warrants for 1,984, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: STATEMENT ON DECLARATION OF PEOPLE’S DEFENSIVE WAR
Description: "8 September 2021: The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) finds it unfortunate that the National Unity Government (NUG) was ultimately forced to react in calling for a people’s defensive war against the military junta, but also understands the NUG and the people’s frustration after seven months of brutality by the junta and inaction by the international community. “Violence is the cause of the suffering of the people of Myanmar, it is not the solution,” SAC-M’s Chris Sidoti said. “We empathise with the NUG, but we fear for what will happen as a result of this decision.” The Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s rapacious military, has killed more than 1,000 people since it launched its illegal coup in the dead of night on February 1. It has launched airstrikes against civilians and displaced 300,000. It then deepened the massive humanitarian crisis it set in motion by weaponizing the latest COVID-19 outbreak, hoarding medical supplies for itself and denying oxygen to the people most in need. “The junta responded to the peaceful resistance to the coup with sheer brutality, employing horrific tactics that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes,” said SAC-M’s Yanghee Lee. “The people have been under attack for seven months now from a military that has remained both intransigent and indifferent to their suffering.” Myanmar’s broad democracy movement, represented by the NUG, has stepped in to provide vital services to people in the vacuum created by the military. This democratic groundswell includes the NUG’s People’s Defence Force (PDF) and ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) across the length and breadth of the country. It is important to note that the NUG has prescribed a military code of conduct for the PDF that places protection of civilians first and foremost. In July the NUG made the decision to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, enabling the Court to hold all actors, including the PDF and EAOs, in Myanmar accountable under the Rome Statute. The international community has had ample opportunity to come to the aid of the people of Myanmar but has consistently failed. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations took six months to merely appoint a Special Envoy and has yet to deliver humanitarian assistance despite promising to do so in April. “The ASEAN Special Envoy, finally appointed after six months of unacceptable inaction, made an ill-judged call this week for a ceasefire in Myanmar, when what should have been emphasised was the immediate cessation of violence as was included in the five-point consensus,” said Marzuki Darusman of SAC-M. “A ceasefire is totally different. It does not reflect the situation on the ground and fully meets the interests of the Tatmadaw, which has always used ceasefires to gain a strategic advantage.” The NUG’s declaration reflects the increasing frustration of those inside Myanmar who have bravely resisted the junta’s brutal campaign of violence for seven months with minimal international support. The international community has another chance to take action and support the people of Myanmar when the United Nations General Assembly convenes next week..."
Source/publisher: Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-10
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 83.35 KB
more
Title: Australia must not follow ASEAN’s lead in Myanmar response, MPs say
Description: "JAKARTA – More than 60 former and current parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia have signed an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, urging his administration to take urgent action to support human rights and democracy in Myanmar, and express concern about its stated policy to wait on action by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). “Although many of us had hoped ASEAN would rise to the occasion and formulate an effective response to the Myanmar crisis, in recent months it has become abundantly clear that the bloc has failed at all levels. ASEAN’s response has been not only lethargic, but also dangerous, by emboldening the military,” said Charles Santiago, chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (MP), and a Malaysian Member of Parliament (MP). “As representatives of the people of ASEAN, we urge Australia to hold true to its democratic principles and foundations, and not hide behind the harmful response of its undemocratic neighbors,” Santiago said. “Australia should be a strong regional partner to the people of Myanmar and the people of Southeast Asia, not our region’s authoritarian leaders, who are working together to protect themselves from scrutiny and accountability.” The signed letter was partly in response to comments made by Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne in June, who said that placing targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military would not advance Australia’s interests, as well as “interests in supporting the ASEAN-led solution and the ASEAN efforts that are being made.” “Time and again, rather than standing up for the Myanmar people, who could not have made their rejection of the military any clearer, ASEAN has kowtowed to the murderous junta, by inviting its representatives to official meetings, granting it a veto over the choice of a special envoy, and even watering down a UN General Assembly statement aimed at preventing the sale of arms to the regime,” said Kasit Piromya, an APHR Board Member and former Thai Foreign Minister. The MPs urged the Australian government to follow the actions of democratic allies including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union, who have placed targeted sanctions against the military and its business interests, including its major conglomerates, Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). “It’s crucial that the military’s business interests are targeted as heavily as possible, since it’s revenues from these entities that fund their deadly campaigns against the people, including killing more than 1,000 people since the coup,” Piromya said. “In addition, in contrast to ASEAN’s actions so far, Australia’s government must not lend any form of legitimacy to the regime, and should instead formally engage with the democratically-elected representatives of Myanmar, including the National Unity Government (NUG),” Piromya said..."
Source/publisher: ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-09
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Open Letter to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
Description: "Re: Australia’s response to the crisis in Myanmar Dear Prime Minister, We, current and former parliamentarians from Southeast Asia, are writing to you to urge the Australian Government to take urgent action to support human rights and democracy in Myanmar, and to express our deepest concern at Australia’s stated policy to wait on action by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). As elected representatives of the people of the ASEAN region, we would like to respectfully urge you to anchor Australia’s response to the military coup in Myanmar to what its people have been demanding, and what other democratic nations have done, not ASEAN’s lack of action. More than six months since the military coup and the subsequent campaign of violence unleashed by the Myanmar Army, ASEAN has failed in its responsibility to the people of Myanmar, and the broader international community. Despite an initial meeting on 24 April 2021, during which ASEAN Member States reached a Five-Point Consensus, little further action has taken place. It took four months for ASEAN to reach an agreement to appoint on 2 August the second Foreign Minister of Brunei Darussalam, Erywan Yusof, as its Special Envoy. We would, however, welcome with caution this appointment. It is important to keep in mind that the Minister, as the representative of ASEAN’s Chair, has led the bloc’s ineffective response so far, including a delegation to Myanmar in June, during which he not only met solely with the junta, but also pushed their narrative that elections could take place, even suggesting that ASEAN sends monitors. We are also concerned that the Minister of an absolute monarchy that does not abide by international human rights standards has been tasked with convincing a murderous army to respect these principles. Furthermore, no humanitarian aid has been provided so far, and ASEAN is still yet to engage all relevant parties in Myanmar, in particular the National Unity Government. ASEAN’s actions even raise questions as to whose interests it is truly representing when it invites Myanmar Army representatives to its official meetings, granting them political and regional legitimacy, or works to water down a UN General Assembly Resolution calling for the prevention of arms sales to the Myanmar military. Meanwhile, the situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate. Both the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar and Human Rights Watch recently concluded that since the coup the Myanmar military has committed the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance, torture, rape and other sexual violence, severe deprivation of liberty, and other inhumane acts causing great suffering. In recent weeks as Myanmar has witnessed a rapid spike in coronavirus cases, the junta has confiscated oxygen, and attacked healthcare workers and facilities, actions that risk turning a crisis into a disaster. Yet, ASEAN’s very own principles of non-interference and consensus-based decision making prevent the bloc from taking any meaningful steps towards an end of violence in Myanmar. Even its provisions of humanitarian aid, if it takes place, risks further legitimizing the junta, and not reach those in need. In that regard we would like to echo the findings of our fellow parliamentarians from Australia who in their recent Inquiry into certain aspects of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Annual Report 2019-20 – Myanmar noted that: “there are complex relations within and between ASEAN nations, and that this led to concerns that ASEAN would not intervene decisively on the Myanmar crisis.” ASEAN’s limiting founding principles and division among its Member States have allowed Myanmar’s military to stall the little efforts it has made so far and to use ASEAN as a shield to strengthen the junta’s position regionally and internationally. Therefore, we are writing to you to ask you bluntly, is this really what Australia wants to align its foreign policy with? Instead, we would like to ask you to be a regional partner to the people of Myanmar and the people of ASEAN, not the authoritarian leaders of our region, who are working together to protect themselves from scrutiny and accountability. We believe that, given Australia’s position in the region, strong democratic institutions, and its close ties with both ASEAN and democracies elsewhere in the world, it is perfectly placed to play a leading role in helping to put an end to the violence and support the desire of the people of Myanmar to live in a democracy that fully respects human rights of all. That is why, while we call on your government to demand action by ASEAN, we urge you not to wait to follow the bloc’s lead. Instead, as a starting point, Australia must urgently use its position to impose targeted sanctions on the generals leading the junta, and the economic entities they control, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, implemented by Australia’s key partners such as the EU, US, UK, and Canada, and most importantly requested by the people of Myanmar. In contrast to ASEAN’s actions so far, we also call on your government to not legitimize the military junta’s authority in any way, and instead follow the recommendations set out by Australia’s Parliament by formally engaging with the democratically-elected representatives of Myanmar, including the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and the National Unity Government (NUG)..."
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-09
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Revisiting the wages of ‘Burman-ness’ after the Coup
Description: "Author’s note: The following is a summary and post-coup adaptation of a longer article in Journal of Contemporary Asia entitled “Revisiting the wages of Burman-ness: Contradictions of privilege in Myanmar,” which was accepted for publication in October 2020, and which elaborates these points in detail. The February 2021 military coup that has shaken Myanmar and ended the country’s fraught experiment with liberal transition has left millions of Burmese furious and disgusted. But despite hundreds of protesters slaughtered by the military and thousands more infected by a COVID-19 wave exacerbated by military negligence, those feelings have not metastasized into generalized despair. This seems, in part, because activists and the public writ large have sublimated their opprobrium and anger into political projects: specifically, rather than only condemning the coup and demanding a return to the earlier status quo, popular movements have interpreted the seizure of power by the sit-tat[1] as implicit commentary on the contradictory conditions of the earlier democratic moment. Some protestors thus sought to push beyond an earlier imaginative failure. This became clear symbolically when, early in the uprising, protesters began spontaneously eschewing the red of the National League for Democracy (NLD), donning black instead, therein indicating the necessity of a new politics. And while many have retained faith in an NLD-centered politics, other protesters – in particular activists such as Ei Thinzar Maung (now NUG Deputy Minister for Women and Youth) and Thinzar Shunlei Yi – have made it explicit that a new politics is necessary. This politics, they say, must address inter-ethnic injustice that had for years been brushed aside by the very same democratic leaders, particularly Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been deposed. She had, after all, patronizingly told ethnic minorities to sacrifice their interests for the nation, aligned with the military in its negotiations with ethnic armies, and provided the sit-tat cover by defending it against charges of genocide while denying its campaign of mass rape. By contrast, an outpouring of popular discourse, much rendered in street protest signs, implicitly repudiated those positions, addressing the collective failure for the polity’s majority – the Burmans – to care for inter-ethnic issues. Many identified how the military had revealed that it ultimately viewed all of its subjects as subject to brutal domination; as one popular sign put it: “First they came for the Karen, and we didn’t speak out. Then they came for the Rohingya, and we didn’t speak out. Now they are coming for ALL OF US.” Others addressed themselves to ethnic groups, Rohingya included, apologizing either for not believing reports about abuse and genocide, or not taking action. Many endorsed trans-ethnic solidarity (See Figure 1); others directed anti-coup energies not just at the State Administrative Council (SAC) that had seized power, but at a more general “Burman chauvinism” (See Figure 2). But even as conversations on Burmese Facebook focused on how Burmans must acknowledge and apologize for past abuses, there has been a perceptible gap between self-flagellation and material steps that would precipitate substantive change. Nowhere has this been registered more starkly than in comments by ethnic nationality subjects who have expressed skepticism that these declarations of solidarity would translate beyond the struggle against the SAC. To take one example, after Min Ko Naing, in an early outline of what would become CDM, which he sketched on 2 Feb and which his comrades passed to one of us, exhorted everyone to “beg the ethnics” (see Figure 3), an online commentator questioned the sincerity of his commitment to equality, adding: “When things are ok for you again, you will forget about us.”[2] This leaves a burning question: if this is indeed an inflection point in how ethnic justice is considered by many in Myanmar, and if Burmans are in fact interrogating the privileges they have enjoyed, how can these be translated into substantive political programs that will transform a future society? Specifically, how effective can we expect such performances of apology and acknowledgment to be in bringing along those Burmans who support right-wing Burman Buddhist movements? Will they feel they have much to apologize for? Moreover, if we consider those who do not endorse such ideologies but who have nonetheless been excluded from the largesse of Myanmar’s “development” over the past decade, are they likely to suddenly identify ethnic others as brothers and sisters rather than threats to their livelihoods and social reproduction who are “jumping the queue” (see Figure 4). As these hypotheticals suggest, apologies and the acknowledgment of unearned benefits – what we call “liberal privilege theory” – may founder against entrenched realities in Myanmar and remain feel-good performances of virtue signaling that, while able to absolve guilt, leave inequality firmly intact. In what follows, we draw on our recent article, “Revisiting the wages of Burman-ness: Contractions of privilege in Myanmar,” published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, to describe facets of this theory and how it plays out in Myanmar studies scholarship, before turning to a radical strain of privilege theory to advance an argument for why this more radical articulation of privilege has the potential to fundamentally redress entrenched Burman chauvinism. Reconsidering Liberal Privilege Theory The analytic of “Burman privilege” has been popularized in Myanmar studies circles through the influential article “The Wages of Burman-ness” by Matthew Walton. Walton begins by outlining a theory of white privilege, as it has been used in the United States, to conceptualize unearned material benefits – “wages” – that white people enjoy by dint of the US’s structurally-entrenched and long-unacknowledged white supremacy. He then identifies the parallels between American whites and Burmans, while adding that it is particularly challenging for Burmans to perceive these benefits because they too have been oppressed by Myanmar’s military governments and because many are not aware of the disproportionate suffering endured by ethnic members of the polity. One of Walton’s particular insights, for instance, is how he identifies the subtle false equivalence that Suu Kyi draws between Burman and ethnic nationality suffering under the sit-tat: Not only does [Suu Kyi] effectively ignore the historically real and continuing effects of ethnic conflict, she does not acknowledge the disparities in sacrifice and suffering experienced by non-Burman ethnic groups. She asks them to put aside their own experiences of injustice and oppression to follow her plan (Walton 2013:16). There is much to recommend in Walton’s article, particularly given that it was published nearly a decade ago. And his focus on Burmans is refreshing especially given the amount of blame put on ethnic groups for desiring autonomy and dignity. As Walton puts it, “Burman dominance and privilege can be overcome only through active struggle and repudiation by Burmans” (21) who are “the only group in a position to challenge structures of Burman privilege” (22). But ultimately, because Walton takes Burman privilege as an un-analyzed outcome, such privilege appears as the aggregate product of individual bias – bias that can be excised from the body politic by the righteous actions of individual Burmans. And while we can think of important actions that such individuals can take that might change the minds of some – standing up against hate speech, challenging propaganda, encouraging people to know more about the history and perspectives of ethnic people – a question is whether such actions are enough. There is a risk they amount to allowing people to apologize for their privilege while doing little to change it. Moreover, even if self-examination was widespread and led to changed attitudes, the reality remains that given the skewed distribution of resources from earlier historical eras, whether there would be any real mechanism for redressing economic inequalities. This is ultimately why such an approach to racial/ethnic inequality remains liberal. For “liberal antiracist analysis,” writes Harsha Walia (2021: 13), “obsessed with superficial representation and flag-waving, purposefully fails to interrogate the material structures upending racism.” Radical Privilege Theory Walton’s thesis thus ultimately offers a false promise that Burman privilege can be resolved without addressing those economic inequalities. Walton’s theory falls short not simply because economic justice is entwined in racial justice, but because capitalist class relations play a large role in generating those racial cleavages. This is the main thesis of the alternative and unfortunately somewhat displaced version of radical privilege theory articulated by W.E.B. DuBois more than a century ago, and since expanded upon by the Black radical feminist tradition, including the Combahee River Collective, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. And it is from this radical perspective that critics of racial privilege have identified whiteness as what scholars Noel Ignatin and Ted Allen call a “bourgeois poison” offered to all whites, but ultimately “utilized as a weapon by the ruling class to subjugate” not just non-whites, but poor whites as well.[3] More specifically, a material/ideological “wage” is offered to those interpellated into the dominant race/ethnicity – enticing even poor and otherwise exploited members to identify with and defend racialized class rule to the point of betraying their own interests – leaving them to defend a capitalist system that leaves them worse off. In other words, while a poor Burman might receive additional scraps from the proverbial table – in terms of having his culture exalted, in terms of her gaining a mild advantage in labor markets – these benefits pale in comparison to the benefits poor Burmans might gain by joining with non-Bama ethnics to reject the entire exploitative system. Having clarified the radical theorization of racial/ethnic privilege, we can turn to Myanmar to assess the theory’s analytical usefulness in this otherwise different context. Revisiting Ethnic History through Radical Privilege Theory In his article, Walton describes a long history of ethnic Burman chauvinism, one present during the anti-colonial struggle, which was waged, he has it, along specifically Burman ethnic lines. Walton argues that 1930s-era nationalist group Dobama Asiayone (“We Burmese Association”)—which he uses as a synecdoche for the entire nationalist movement—sought “to promote what [it] saw as ‘Burmese’ culture (in reality, Burman culture)” (Walton 2013: 8). But he bases this claim on a misreading of the 2000 article “The Concepts of Dobama (Our Burma) and Thudo-Bama (Their Burma) in Burmese Nationalism, 1930-1948” by Japanese scholar Kei Nemoto. In his misreading, Walton asserts that the Dobama fostered a racialized Burman against an internal enemy—the thudo-Bama (“Those Burmese”), which Dobama members “saw as collaborators with the British colonialists” (ibid). However, Nemoto stresses the mutability, rather than the fixity, of the concept of Burman, which was constructed in terms of vague nationalism and socialism. Moreover, Nemoto makes clear that the key distinction dividing dobama and thudobama was that between those who worked for the nation and those who did not. Here the thudobama were “the Burmese people who collaborated with the colonial regime” (Nemoto 2000: 1) – particularly Indians, Chinese, and kabya (those of mixed heritage who wanted to be white). And while traditional Burmese proverbs and literature presented upland tribes as “uncivilized,” such figures were incompatible with those performing the machinations resented by the thudobama. Moreover, as scholar Phyo Win Latt has identified in recent historical research, not only did the Dobama Asiayone include Rakhine, Shan, Indian, and so forth, but the figure of the “dobama Muslim” existed as a way to describe a patriotic Burmese Muslim. He argues that “Dobama” should be seen as an adjective describing a kind of conduct, a way of behaving, rather than a noun indexing an ethnic essence. We would like to advance a humble provocation here: that “Burman” is more open than scholars have asserted—less rigidly reified in the ascriptive sense— but that its openness derives from its formation as a class-inflected hegemonic category. In this sense, “Burman-ness” operates even more effectively than does whiteness as a racialised category of class privilege, as it makes itself more available for entry of “non-Burmans” initially outside of it. In particular, we argue that it was only in the post-Independence era that Burman-ness as a privileged social category became constructed against that of other ethnic nationalities—a process that was tied up in the particular dynamics of post-colonial capitalism. Indeed, not only were residents of Indian and Chinese ancestry dispossessed, and much of that property transferred to lowlanders (read: Burmans), but Nu’s independence government pursued a project of capitalist modernization in which Burmanization was inseparable from industrialization. Ne Win subsequently worked to establish state capitalism under military rule and further marginalize Indians and Muslims. With those groups marginalized, “development” in Burma was mostly enacted in the lowlands, and what little was brought to non-Burman spaces was still encoded as Burman: roads and bridges were icons of military state expansion rather than belonging to the nation. “Burman” came to be linked with ideas of national progress, modernity, and development within Myanmar, while the non-Burman minorities went from being the backwards-but-assimilable cousins, to those who were impeding the march “toward a more modern and developed nation.” Propaganda and conventional wisdom in the lowlands had it that upland ethnic minorities undermined development either directly (by trying to leave the country and take resources with them), or indirectly (by causing trouble, which justifies military-state authoritarianism, which perpetuates civil war, which prevents development). The result, for the social category “Bama,” was a clearer distinction from ethnic nationalities, even as the category remained incorporative. We argue that Burman-ness should best be understood as an identity that has a broad semiotic range, partaking of classic (if vaguely defined) “ethnic” indices, and privileged class-inflected expressions simultaneously. Put more clearly, in certain contexts (such as in rural villages) Burman-ness can be expressed through: modes of speaking (Burmese); worshipping (Buddhism); working (agrarian-based livelihoods); tracing genealogy (kinship); adorning the body (clothing, face cream, tattoos); and naming (having a “Burmese” name). Against this “strong” version of Burman-ness, however, significant deviation is permitted in relatively cosmopolitan contexts (urban areas). Numerous colleagues and informants, who are at least nominally non-Burman, have conveyed to us that they act as Burmans in their daily lives. As one puts it: For people like me who live in cities and don’t speak an ethnic minority language, don’t have ethnic minority names and who are Buddhists, I don’t think it would be a problem to identify ourselves as “Bamar” in the first place…. I am Bamar… but also Mon, Pa-O, and Chinese. Further, this particular informant stresses that asking what he really “is”—either Burman or non- Burman—misconstrues his lived mutability: that it is both/and rather than either/or. As the now-moribund “transition” of the 2010s increased inequality – not only making more wealth available but fueling dispossession and destroying livelihoods for many poor people – ethnicity became more potent as a means of securing one’s life. This is at least one explanation for the rise of MaBaTha as a trans-ethnic movement (provided those ethnicities were over-coded as being predominantly Buddhist) that provided populist succor to the alienated and marginalized “Burman.” What to do? In his 1963 novel, Yoma Taikbwe, ethnic Chin author Bhamo Tin Aung highlighted the challenges for inter-ethnic solidarity building against an historical backdrop of political economic inequality, particularly between the Burman lowlands and ethnic minority uplands.[4] But while not to be taken for granted, such solidarity, Bhamo Tin Aung suggests, is both possible and necessary for any collective emancipatory project. In a similar vein, we encourage here a more explicit discussion of political economic inequality as the material conditions of possibility for enduring ethnic division in Myanmar. From this perspective, durable inter-ethnic solidarity in the struggle against military rule requires explicit critique of the liberal politics that preceded the February 2021 coup—a politics that purposefully failed to interrogate the material structures upholding ethnic inequality. Ultimately, however, the failure of pre-coup liberal politics to deal with material inequality in Myanmar hurt not only ethnic minority upland villagers, but poor Burmans in the lowlands as well. For this reason, a serious project of political economic restructuring—involving land reform, nationalization of military holding companies, and significant redistribution of wealth, for example—has the potential to address the material structures upending inequality, both between the lowlands and uplands, and between elite and marginalized populations within the lowlands. While such policies will not ineluctably lead to improved inter-ethnic relations, a politics – building on Burma’s rich leftist tradition – that stresses how average Burmese subjects of every race and religion have more in common among themselves than with economic elites – even those of their own ethnicity – that have raided the country for decades, just may..."
Source/publisher: "Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-09
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Ukraine arms transfers to Myanmar are enabling the junta’s terror
Description: "September 8, 2021, Myanmar: Ukraine is continuing to transfer arms to the Myanmar military, despite its illegitimate coup and ongoing mass killings, arrests and attacks against civilians. Justice For Myanmar demands Ukraine impose an immediate arms embargo on Myanmar and cut ties with the Myanmar military. Justice For Myanmar calls on providers of military aid to Ukraine, notably the US, EU and UK, to use their leverage to ensure Ukraine abides by international law and norms. An investigation by Justice For Myanmar, using Ukrainian export records and newly leaked documents, found shipments of aircraft, ship and tank parts dating from 2015 onwards. Air surveillance radars were also sent to the Myanmar military and private Myanmar arms dealers. The most recent shipment was turbojet engine parts that Ukrainian firm Motor Sich sent to the Myanmar army’s directorate of procurement. This was on 31 May 2021, as the air force increased indiscriminate airstrikes in ethnic areas. Of particular concern is a joint project to produce BTR-4 armoured personnel carriers, MMT-40 light tanks and 2SIU self-propelled howitzers involving Ukrainian state-owned arms conglomerates Ukroboronprom and Ukrspecexport with the Myanmar army’s directorate of defence industry. The project provides an alarming boost to the Myanmar military’s arms manufacturing capabilities. This equipment fuels the Myanmar military’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, and can provide a future source of revenue to the military through arms exports. The arms production plant was named by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in 2019, which recommended arms transfer sanctions. Ukraine has so far failed to implement the Mission’s recommendations. Ukroboronprom and Ukrspecexport did not respond to questions from Justice For Myanmar regarding their business with the Myanmar military and the status of the joint plant. Asked by Deutsche Welle if they will stop cooperating with the Myanmar military following the attempted coup, a spokesperson for Ukroboronprom responded that they export in accordance with Ukrainian law and international obligations, noting that Ukraine has not imposed sanctions or an arms embargo on Myanmar. That is despite Ukraine voting in favour of a June 2021 UN General Assembly resolution to stop the flow of arms to Myanmar. Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “Ukraine is enabling and profiting from atrocity crimes in Myanmar through its deep ties to the Myanmar military, flouting international law. Ukraine’s providers of military aid, such as US, EU and UK, must use their leverage now to end Ukraine’s support for the Myanmar military and its blatant disregard for the lives of the people of Myanmar. Military aid must be conditional on Ukraine imposing an arms embargo on Myanmar, shutting down their joint plant and ending all military ties. Ukraine’s arms sales have fuelled a shadow industry of Myanmar companies profiteering from the arms trade and enabling the military’s access to the weaponry it uses in ongoing atrocity crimes. Individuals and companies procuring arms for the Myanmar military must be sanctioned immediately and denied access to the international financial system and global markets, including in Singapore, where some arms dealers operate.” Myanmar’s biggest arms dealer for Ukraine is Aung Hlaing Oo, who has been rewarded through his appointment as Ukraine’s honorary consul to Myanmar. Ukraine must remove him from this position..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-08
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 209.7 KB 134.72 KB
more
Title: Myanmar opposition announces ‘defensive war’ against junta
Sub-title: Acting president of self-declared government calls on civilian armed groups to target military that seized power in February coup
Description: "Myanmar’s self-declared parallel government, which was set up by pro-democracy politicians, has announced a “defensive war” against the junta, calling for civilian armed groups to target the military and its assets. Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), said Tuesday marked the beginning of a nationwide revolt. He warned people to avoid unnecessary travel and stock up on essentials. Over recent months, grassroots forces have emerged across Myanmar to oppose the military, which seized power in a coup in February and has inflicted deadly violence on anyone who protests against its rule. The groups, which have carried out guerrilla-style attacks on military targets, appear to operate independently at a local level, and vary in their resources and training. In some cases they are supported by ethnic armed organisations, which have fought the army for decades, demanding greater autonomy. Duwa Lashi La called upon such groups to target “the military junta and its assets in your respective areas”, “carefully protect the lives and properties of the people”, and observe codes of conduct. The groups were urged to immediately target the junta’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, and the military council in different ways, and to maintain control of their areas. Duwa Lashi La also said soldiers, police and civil servants should resign from their posts and join the revolt. “From today onward, all the civil servants under the military council, we warn and forbid you from going to the office,” he said. The public, he said, should assist the armed groups and their allies. The statement comes ahead of the opening of the United Nations general assembly next week in New York, where it is expected that a decision will be made on who should represent Myanmar – a member of the junta or a representative of the NUG, which was set up by ousted lawmakers and opponents of military rule. The junta previously said it had dismissed Kyaw Moe Tun from his post as Myanmar’s UN ambassador, after he voiced support for the pro-democracy opposition. However, Kyaw Moe Tun has continued to serve at the UN. Diplomatic efforts to end the crisis have been led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), but there has been little progress. The group’s envoy to Myanmar, Erywan Yusof, told the Kyodo news agency this week that the military had accepted his proposal for a ceasefire until the end of the year to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The military’s opponents, however, were skeptical. Following the NUG’s announcement on Tuesday, local media reported fighting in border areas between the army and its opponents. Clashes broke out in Sagaing, in the north-west, between junta forces and the Kachin Independence Army, which has fought for greater autonomy for the Kachin people for decades, and has backed anti-coup protesters. In the southern Tanintharyi region, fighting occurred between the junta forces and Karen National Union, one of the country’s oldest ethnic armed organisations. In the Magway region, an armed force said it had attacked five military targets. In Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, the streets reportedly remained calm, though there was an increased military presence. Many residents rushed to shops to stock up on supplies. Duwa Lashi La said he believed the international community would understand the reasons for his statement. “I believe that our neighbouring countries, Asean countries, the United Nations, and all other countries around the world understand that we do it [declare a revolt] out of necessity based on the country’s current situation,” he said. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, which has tracked arrests and deaths following the coup, 1046 civilians have been killed and 6,230 are currently detained. Medics, journalists, activists and elected politicians are among those who have been arrested since February..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-08
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar reporter arrested in Yangon after four months in hiding
Description: "Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Ma Thuzar, a journalist held arbitrarily since her arrest for no clear reason in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, a week ago after four months in hiding. Her family and colleagues spent five days without any news of her after she was snatched by police as she left her home on the morning of 1 September. The police finally confirmed on 5 September that she had been arrested, but they have yet to give the judicial grounds for her arrest or say where she is being held. Ma Thuzar, who worked for the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency and the Friday Times News Journal, told RSF before her arrest that she filmed many of the major street protests that were triggered by the military coup on 1 February. It was partly as a result of her videos, broadcast live on the Friday Times’s online networks, that this media outlet was closed on 16 April. Two weeks later, on 1 May, around 40 police officers raided her home with the aim of arresting her under a warrant issued by the Yangon region military command. In her absence, they arrested her husband, a retired journalist, who was released five days later. It was this raid – which the Yangon region military command refused to confirm when reached by RSF – that forced Ma Thuzar to go into hiding. 51 journalists now detained “We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Ma Thuzar, whose arrest and detention are completely arbitrary,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “The way she has been treated reflects the illegal, brutal and inhuman treatment to which the military junta has subjected all journalists in Myanmar for the past seven months. In so doing, Myanmar is violating the most elementary legal principles and, for this reason, we call on the international community to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for these repeated abuses.” According to a tally verified by RSF, Ma Thuzar’s detention brings the number of journalists currently detained in Myanmar to 51. Zaw Moe Oo, a journalist who freelances for the pro-military news agency Eleven Media, was also arrested at her home in the southern Myeik region on 1 September but was released two days later. Last month, RSF reported that Sithu Aung Myint, a political commentor for the magazine Frontier Myanmar and radio Voice Of America, was arrested by police on 15 August at an apartment in Yangon’s Bahan Township, where he had been hiding. Htet Htet Khine, the presenter of programme called “Khan Sar Kyi” (Burmese for “Feel it”) for BBC Media Action, was also arrested in the same raid..."
Source/publisher: Reporters Without Borders (Paris)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-08
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: UKRAINE IS ARMING THE MYANMAR MILITARY
Description: "Ukraine has developed deep links to the Myanmar military, with arms exports and technology transfers continuing, even after the Myanmar military has committed mass murder amounting to atrocity crimes following its illegitimate coup attempt. According to Ukrainian export data, accessed via Import Genius, Motor Sich exported engines and parts to Myanmar twice since the military’s attempted coup. A May 2021 shipment to the Myanmar army's directorate of procurement contained turbojet engine equipment, and a February shipment to the private air force supplier Sky Aviator contained mechanical parts. Motor Sich is a major Ukrainian manufacturer of engines for aircraft and missiles. The Ukrainian state is nationalising the firm from its majority-owned Chinese. A Ministry of Defence document leaked to Justice For Myanmar, details the purchase of Mil Mi-17 parts from Motor Sich in 2015-16 via Myanmar Avia Export (predecessor of Myanmar Avia Services), a crony company owned by Tay Za. Ukrainian export records also show a series of shipments to the Myanmar Air Force from 2019 onwards. In May 2021, state-owned arms manufacturer Ukroboronservice shipped over 164 kilos of aircraft parts to Yatanarpon Aviation. This followed shipments in December 2020 of navigational devices and control instruments to Yatanarpon Aviation. In June 2021 Ukraine voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution to stop the flow of arms to Myanmar. The country’s transfers are only the most recent examples of significant arms links that amount to aiding and abetting the atrocity crimes of the Myanmar military. See a list of businesses and individuals linked to Myanmar arms procurement from Ukraine for targeted sanctions: Download Excel File (21 kb) Building Myanmar’s arms industry Ukraine’s significant military ties with Myanmar can be seen in a joint project to produce BTR-4 armoured personnel carriers (APCs), MMT-40 light tanks and 2SIU self-propelled howitzers. The plant is a partnership between the Myanmar military’s Directorate of Defence Industry, Ukrainian state-owned arms conglomerate, Ukroboronprom, the state arms trade company, Ukrspecexport, and Myanmar Chemical & Machinery (MCM), a private Myanmar arms broker. The project may be the outcome of a 2019 agreement, according to Defence Blog. An October 2020 Facebook post by Ukrspecexport described a three-year contract, signed with the Ministry of Defence of an unspecified Asian country, likely Myanmar. The contract was for the production and repair of armoured personnel carriers, as well as for the repair and upgrading of light armoured equipment. It is unclear if the plant is already in production. This follows a 2018 agreement on military-technical cooperation negotiated between Ukraine and Myanmar defence ministries that came into force in June 2019. The agreement, signed under the National League for Democracy-led government, specified seven points for military cooperation, including research and development of arms, production of conventional weapons, the supply of arms and related equipment, and joint sales and marketing of arms in third countries. Ukrainian export records show MCM received initial shipments of equipment for the production of BTR-4U APCs and 2S1Us from Ukrspecexport in 2015. Through 2018 and 2019, Amethyst Trading, a subsidiary of MCM, received shipments of BTR-3U and MMT-40 parts from Ukrspecexport. This included chassis, engine parts, electrical components, night vision devices and laser rangefinders, as well as technical documentation for assembly, and machine sets for production. From 2015 to 2020, Ukrspecexport also shipped equipment to the Directorate of Defence Industry for the joint plant, such as horizontal boring, welding, cutting and lathe machinery. Other exports from Ukrspecexport include 80K6K1 and 36D6 3D mobile air surveillance radar and electrical equipment shipped to the Myanmar Air Force from 2018-2020. Ukroboronprom and Ukrspecexport did not respond to questions from Justice For Myanmar regarding their business with the Myanmar military and the status of the joint project. The Myanmar military’s brokers Ukraine’s business with the Myanmar military has enriched private Myanmar companies who facilitate the arms trade. They must be targeted for sanctions to stop the flow of arms and related materiel to Myanmar. Aung Hlaing Oo and MCM Group Aung Hlaing Oo, a major arms procurer conducting substantial business with Ukrainian state arms manufacturers, was appointed as Ukraine’s honorary consul to Myanmar in January 2017. Aung Hlaing Oo heads Myanmar Chemical & Machinery (MCM) group of companies. Amethyst Trading, a main consignee of parts for the Ukrspecexport project, is listed on the MCM Pacific website as one of MCM group’s companies. Ukraine’s foreign ministry website lists an MCM Pacific email address as the contact for Ukraine’s honorary consul in Myanmar. According to a private sector source with military connections, Aung Hlaing Oo receives commissions of 20-30% on arms sales from Ukraine, which amount to substantial profits for his businesses and the Ukrainian state. A leaked Ministry of Defence document, received by Justice For Myanmar, detail procurement activities in 2016-17 involving MCM Pacific Pte. Ltd., Aung Hlaing Oo’s Singapore business, for Mil Mi-2 and Mil Mi-17 helicopter parts, APC parts, a marine diesel engine, a ship propulsion system and stern arrangement. Myanmar Chemical & Machinery Co. Ltd in Yangon also procured T-72 battle tank parts. Items are billed in US dollars and Euros. Ukrainian export records show a large number of Ukrspecexport shipments to Amethyst Trading of T-72S tank parts in 2018 and BTS-4 armoured recovery vehicle parts in 2019. In addition to its business in Ukraine, MCM also procures arms from Serbia for the Myanmar military. A 2019 MCM proposal for the Myanmar Air Force, leaked to Justice For Myanmar, details aircraft-mounted rocket launchers, rockets, free-fall bombs, a multiple bomb launcher for use “on large surfaces” and fuses. MCM lists Sinotruk, a Chinese truck company that supplies trucks to the Myanmar army, as a partner in their business profile. Sinotruk vehicles are ubiquitous in the military’s brutal crackdown following their attempted coup and the company’s links to German truck manufacturer MAN have been investigated by Justice For Myanmar. The private sector source disclosed that MCM is involved in the production of Miltruk-branded Sinotruk military vehicles produced in an assembly plant in Meiktila. Myanmar Consultancy Company and Yatanarpon Aviation Support Company Ukrainian export data shows that Myanmar Consultancy Company received regular Ukrspecexport shipments from 2016-2020, largely of MiG-29 fighter jet parts, installation machinery, as well as 36D6 air surveillance radar components and an IGLA-1M surface-to-air missile simulator. In 2019, Myanmar Consultancy also received shipments of RD-33 turbofan engines from the state-owned Lutsk Repair Plant “Motor”, used in MiG-29 aircraft. Justice For Myanmar previously detailed shipments of land-based radar sold to Myanmar Consultancy by Indian state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd. Dr Naing Htut Aung, a major arms broker, is a former director and shareholder of Myanmar Consultancy. Dr Naing Htut Aung’s businesses, Gateways International Holding Company and International Gateways Group of Company, were registered at the same address as Myanmar Consultancy until late 2020. Gateways International continues to have the same phone number as Myanmar Consultancy. According to a private sector source with military connections, Dr Naing Htut Aung is a dominant procurer of weapons systems, spare parts and upgrades for the navy and air force and is an agent for major Chinese state-owned arms producers. International Gateways Group also donated funds to the Myanmar military in September 2017, supporting the crime of genocide. Myanmar Consultancy’s website has been down since 2012. An archived copy lists the company’s mission to provide a “gateway” for foreign direct investment to the public and private sectors. A core objective is “to develop the industry and high technologies in the State.” Justice For Myanmar has published a leaked Myanmar Consultancy air force technical proposal from 2019. Myanmar Consultancy was an online exhibitor at the MAKS 2021 air show in Russia, which coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing attended in person. Myanmar Consultancy is registered at the same address as Yatanarpon Aviation Support Company with the same phone number. The two businesses also share a common director, Than Lwin. Yatanarpon Aviation Support received aircraft parts from Ukroboronservice in December 2020 and May 2021. Yatanarpon Aviation Support is headed by Sit Taing Aung, the son of Aung Phone, the forestry minister under Myanmar’s previous junta, the State Peace and Development Council. Sit Taing Aung’s Suntac group of companies was previously subject to EU sanctions for its links to the military junta. Sit Taing Aung is Mexico’s honorary consul to Myanmar. ‍ Sky Aviator Sky Aviator is an arms supplier based in Yangon that has received a number of shipments of Ukrainian aircraft parts from Motor Sich, from May 2018 to as recently as February 2021, following the attempted military coup. A leaked Ministry of Defence document shows the company has additionally provided T-72S tank parts to the army. Since the February attempted coup, Sky Aviator has also received a number of Russian arms shipments including YAK-130 support equipment from Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET), refitted turbojet engines from United Engine Corporation and engine parts from Rosoboronexport. Sky Aviator has expertise in Russian helicopters. A leaked August 2019 Sky Aviator proposal to the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Air Force offers an upgrade to Mi-24P helicopters and states they are the exclusive representative of JSC Russian Helicopter in Myanmar. In May, the company’s chief engineer reviewed a Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation PhD thesis, disclosing that the research had practical application for Sky Aviator’s maintenance, repair and operations of Mi-17 helicopters. ‍ Trident Marine Trident Marine is a private company whose director includes Zaw Win Oo, an associate of the Myanmar military through his directorship of Solutions Hub, part of military linked mobile money service Easy Pay. According to Ukrainian export records, state-owned arms manufacturer Ukroboronservice sent ship technical documents and parts to Trident Marine Co. Ltd. in 2019. A leaked Ministry of Defence document shows that Trident Marine also procured ship parts for the Myanmar Navy in 2015-16, including navigation equipment, electrical fittings and steering equipment. These purchases were made through Singapore-based D&K Intertrade, a private company whose directors are all Myanmar nationals. D&K Intertrade’s website describes its business as trade in “semiconductors and other electrical parts and components”. Trident Marine’s 2019 purchases from Ukraine were shipped to an address at No.25, Myint Zu Street in Yangon, which is not the listed business address of the company. The Myint Zu Street address is the location of Amber Star Trading Co. Ltd. The Amber Star website lists its business scope as including naval architecture, reverse engineering, unmanned systems and technology transfer, and describes D&K Intertrade as its Singapore branch. It also has a branch in Naypyidaw. ‍ Interstellar, Limited A leaked 2019 Interstellar proposal to the Myanmar Air Force shows the company is an official sales agent for the import of aviation parts from Ukroboronprom, specialising in Mi-2 and Mi-17 helicopters and MiG-29 fighter jets. Interstellar is also a broker for ALLWE Foreign Trade Company. Interstellar was an online exhibitor at the MAKS 2021 air show in Russia, which coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing attended in person. ‍ Ukraine is aiding and abetting atrocity crimes In August and September 2017, the Myanmar military carried out a campaign of genocide against the Rohingya, committing mass murder, rape and gang rape, destroying property and driving more than 800,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh. Instead of fulfilling their international obligations and standing for justice, the Ukrainian government increased cooperation with the Myanmar military. Following the international crimes committed by the Myanmar military in 2017, the European Union and USA strengthened sanctions against the military, and the UN Human Rights Council formed an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar to investigate the atrocities. In August 2019, the Fact-Finding Mission released a report on the economic interests of the Myanmar military, which detailed Ukrspetsexport and Ukroboronprom arms manufacturing activities in Myanmar, which supports the Myanmar military’s arms production capabilities. The Fact-Finding Mission noted that Ukraine is a signatory of (but not party to) the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and warned against contravention of the object and purpose of the treaty. Ukraine must have known that arms provided to Myanmar would be used to breach the human rights of the people. The Fact-Finding Mission concluded that Ukraine “provided arms and other related equipment in breach of their Common Article 1 obligations as a matter either of treaty law or of customary international humanitarian law. The Mission also reached the conclusion under the general rules of State responsibility that prohibit aiding or assisting another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act, that these States knew, or were virtually certain, that the assistance would be used for unlawful purposes.” Ukraine has so far blatantly ignored the Fact-Finding Mission’s recommendations, proceeding with arms and technology transfers and the development of the manufacturing plant after the August 2019 report. Following the attempted coup, Ukraine’s shameful history of arms sales was on display in the streets as the military used older Ukrainian BTR-3Us as part of the bloody crackdown. Despite overwhelming evidence of Ukraine’s complicity in the Myanmar military’s international crimes, the country is sticking to its bilateral military technical cooperation agreement and has not imposed an arms embargo. Asked by Deutsche Welle if they will stop cooperation with the Myanmar military following the attempted coup, a spokesperson for Ukroboronprom, the association of state arms enterprises, responded that they export in accordance with Ukrainian law and international obligations, noting that Ukraine has not imposed sanctions or an arms embargo on Myanmar. The spokesperson also said that the military technical cooperation agreement is still valid under the military junta. “Following socio-political stabilisation of the situation in Myanmar, we hope to continue to continue to pursue our existing obligations”. ‍ Stop the flow of arms! Since the illegal attempted coup, the military junta has murdered 1049 people, including children as young as six, with over 6200 still detained as of September 6. An estimated 230,000 have been displaced as of June, many in ethnic areas, as the Myanmar military has dramatically increased airstrikes and shelling, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. These attacks likely involve Ukrainian technology. Ukraine must end its complicity in the Myanmar military’s atrocity crimes. Immediate steps that need to be taken include imposing an arms embargo, cutting ties with the Myanmar military, revoking the bilateral military technical cooperation agreement, preventing production at the joint arms plant and withdrawing Aung Hlaing Oo’s position as honorary consul. Given Ukraine’s persistent failure to abide by international law and norms, the international community must also act to ensure Ukraine fulfils its international obligations. Ukraine receives significant military aid from the US, UK and EU. The US alone has provided approximately US$2.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine since 2014, with US$60 million announced in August. Ukroboronprom holds regular talks with NATO and its member states, while NATO as recently as July 2021 expressed a commitment to support the reform of Ukraine’s arms industry to bring it closer to “NATO standards”. So why have Ukraine’s donors and allies tolerated the arms trade with Myanmar? We call on Ukraine’s partners to make future aid conditional on Ukraine imposing an arms embargo on Myanmar, shutting down the arms manufacturing plant and ending all military ties. Without a global arms embargo on Myanmar, the criminal military junta will find ways to purchase arms to use against the people. It is imperative that the UN Security Council passes a resolution to stop the flow of arms to Myanmar. Finally, the Myanmar military’s network of private arms companies, their directors and owners must be urgently targeted for sanctions and denied access to international banks. The UK’s decision to impose sanctions on Tay Za and Htoo Group, and the US restrictions on King Royal Technologies, are positive steps but more businesses procuring arms and dual use goods for the Myanmar military must be sanctioned at a faster pace to make an impact on the military junta. Singapore must end the use of its territory as a business hub for arms brokers. As the Myanmar military’s terror campaign continues, the international community needs to step up and take concrete action against the criminal Myanmar military and its partners. The Myanmar military cartel must be dismantled..." ‍
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-08
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Acting President of the National Unity Government of Myanmar, Duwa Lashi La's Emergency Speech to the Public on Current Military Crisis
Description: "All the people who live in the Republic Union of Myanmar On Febru ary 1, 2021, the m ilitary terrorist group led by Min Aung Hlaing staged a coup from the democratic government elected by the people and formed a dictatorial military council. Following the coup, the people have not passed a day with joy. It has been eight months since the military continuously and cruelly murdered, tortured, detained, and imprisoned using many laws. Now the entire world knows that the military is constantly committing inhumane war crimes by occupying public housings, religious buildings, hospitals, and schools; threatening, arresting, and killing people; ransacking and robbing private properties, and burning villages. Although the people have tried to tolerate it with religious faith, as it has not come to fruition, the people now have used various means of defense against military terrorists. Therefore, with the responsibility to protect the life and properties of the people, the National Unity Government declares as follows; (1) Today, from 7 September 2021, 2 TAWTHALIN 1383, we launched a people's defensive revolution against the military junta. As this is a public revolution, all the citizens within entire Myanmar, revolt against the rule of the military terrorists led by Min Aung Hlaing in every comer of the country. (2) People's Defense Forces, target to control the military junta and its assets in your respective areas. (3) All the military-appointed administrators at different levels of administration, immediately leave your positions. (4) All People's Defense Force, carefully protect the lives and properties of the people. Follow the instructions exactly (that comes from the authorities). Precisely observe all the military codes and conducts prescribed by the People's Defense Force. (5) People's Security Forces, arrange to protect the safety of the lives and properties of the people in your respective villages and towns.(6) All Citizens, avoid unnecessary traveling and mind your personal safety. Save necessary supplies and medications. Assist and protect the people's defense forces and their allies. Timely report the movement of the military council to the PDFs. (7) All Ethnic Armed Organizations, immediately attacked the Min Aung Hlaing and the military council with different forms. Fully control your lands. (8) Attack and abolish the dictatorship and military administration with people power. At the same time, closely consult with the people and manage to change into civilian administration. (9) All the Border Guard Forces (BGF) and all the militias being deceived by the junta! From now on, join with the people and attack the people's enemy. (10) This revolution is a just revolution; a necessary revolution for building a peaceful country and an establishment of a federal union. ( 11) I believe that our neighboring countries, ASEAN Countries, United Nations, and all other countries around the world understand that we do it out of necessity based on the country's current situation. ( 12) As the people's revolution begins, all the soldiers, the police forces, and civil servants who have been deceived and suppressed by Min Aung Hlaing, immediately join with the People's Defense Forces and immediately report to the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Home Affairs of the National Unity Government. (13) From today onward, all the civil servants under the military council, we warn and forbid you from going to the office. (14) We will recognize all those who sacrifice their lives and possessions in this revolution as the country's heroes and heroines. We have to initiate a nationwide uprising in every village, town, and city in the entire country at the same time. Based on people's unity, creativity, intelligence, passion, and persistence, the revolution period will last shorter. We will remove Min Aung Hlaing and uproot dictatorship from Myanmar for good and be able to establish a peaceful federal democratic union that fully safeguards equality and is longaspired by all the citizens. Only then, the Union of Myanmar will again become a proud nation in the world..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar and Acting President Duwa Lashi La
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 114.59 KB
more
Title: Head of Myanmar’s Shadow Govt Says World Will Back Its Declaration of War Against Junta
Description: "The acting president of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) expressed confidence that the international community would back the NUG’s declaration of war on the country’s military regime, as it was a necessary step. The NUG declared war on the regime on Tuesday, with acting President Duwa Lashila calling on citizens to “revolt against the rule of military terrorists led by [coup leader] Min Aung Hlaing in every corner of the country” while setting out dos and don’ts for everyone concerned. “I believe that our neighboring countries, ASEAN countries, the United Nations and all other countries in the world understand that we do it out of necessity based on the country’s current situation,” he said in a speech to the country. The announcement came one week before the opening of this year’s session of the UN General Assembly in New York, and several days after regional bloc ASEAN’s special envoy called for a four-month ceasefire to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid in the country. Formed in April largely by elected lawmakers from the ousted National League for Democracy government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and their ethnic allies, the parallel government has enjoyed popular support at home and abroad. Many Myanmar people see it as their legitimate government, while the regime has branded it a terrorist organization. The NUG’s Tuesday call for armed struggle nationwide will go down in history as Myanmar’s “Second Resistance Day”; the first marks the start of the country’s armed resistance to Japanese fascists in 1945. This time the people of Myanmar are being called to revolt against the generals who have been oppressing and killing their own citizens—the very people whom they are supposed to protect. Much of Myanmar has already been in revolt since the military coup in February. The regime’s deadly crackdowns on its protesters forced many young people to take up arms. The shadow government’s declaration of war on Tuesday could accelerate the ongoing armed struggle against the junta to another level, with fighting expected to intensify across the country. In his speech to the country on Tuesday, the acting president urged members of the civilian armed groups known as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) to “target to control the military junta and its assets in their respective areas.” The call to arms could make things significantly more difficult for the regime’s forces, who until now have mainly been faced with resistance from the country’s ethnic armed groups, mostly in far-flung areas. Now their battlefields will be in both urban and rural areas, as the PDFs, who have received weapons training from ethnic armed groups, are scattered across the country. The regime’s soldiers were already detested by the people for their brutality against civilians, and will now be extremely vulnerable to all kinds of deadly attacks by civilians as soon as they step outside the gates of their regiments. Acting President Duwa Lashila also instructed PDF members to carefully protect the lives and properties of the people while strictly following orders, as well as rules of engagement, in contrast to regime soldiers, who have rampaged through civilian areas and committed crimes like arbitrary killings and arrests during their raids. In addition to instructing the PDF members, the acting president issued general instructions covering the safety of the people. “All citizens should avoid unnecessary travel and mind your personal safety. Save necessary supplies and medications. Assist the PDFs and their allies,” he said. Mindful of the importance of collaborating with the country’s ethnic armed organizations—Kachin and Karen groups have been attacking regime troops in solidarity with the anti-regime movement—Duwa Lashila, who is himself an ethnic Kachin, called on all ethnic armed organizations to immediately launch attacks on the regime’s troops by any means, while maintaining full control in their areas. He also called on ethnic armed forces that are allied with the regime, like the Border Guard Forces and people’s militias, to join with the people and attack the people’s enemy. “This revolution is a just revolution, a necessary revolution for building a peaceful country and a federal Union,” he said. In his speech, the acting president also urged all civil servants working for the regime not to go to their offices, and called on all soldiers and police to join the PDFs immediately and report to the NUG. He did not forget to address one group that has been among the PDFs’ most common targets—the various levels of regime-appointed local administrators. In his speech he urged that “all the military-appointed administrators at different levels of administration immediately leave your positions.” Since the regime began cracking down on protesters, the administrators and their offices at the village and ward level—the primary elements of the government administrative system in Myanmar—have been killed, torched and bombed. So far, several dozen local officials at least have been killed and the attacks continue. The acting president also said the NUG would recognize all those who sacrifice their lives and possessions in this revolution as national heroes and heroines. “Based on the people’s unity, creativity, intelligence, passion and persistence, the revolution period will [be] shorter,” he said. Following the NUG’s call for war on Tuesday, some PDF groups, student organizations and ethnic armed groups supported the announcement, while clashes between regime troops and ethnic armed groups as well as resistance groups were reported here and there across the country..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Ministry of Defence: Directive No. 3/2021 - Directive to People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), Local Defence Forces (LDFs) and Special Task Forces (STFs)
Description: "Directive to People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), Local Defence Forces (LDFs) and Special Task Forces (STFs) Directive No. 3/2021 ****************************************************** All people’s revolutionary soldiers – PDFs, LDFs and STFs – on the battlefield shall strictly follow the regulations below: 1. Obey orders 2. Be loyal to your unit 3. Value your weapon as you do your life 4. Pay civilians a reasonable price if you must use civilian property 5. No torture and killing of prisoners of war and keep POWs in suitable locations 6. No sexual harassment against female soldiers and civilian women 7. Seized money, weapons and property from enemies must be recorded and submitted to your commanders Respective commanders must encourage and monitor their soldiers to ensure they adhere to these regulations. The people’s revolution shall triumph! Yee Mon Union Minister Ministry of Defence..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Defence - National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 17.59 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government of Myanmar: Order Instruction No.1/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အမိန့်ညွှန်ကြားချက် အမှတ်(၁/၂၀၂၁)
Sub-title: “ရက်အကန့်အသတ်မရှိ အလုပ်ပိတ်ရက်အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း အမိန့်ညွှန်ကြားချက်ထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်း”
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် https://nugmyanmar.org အမိန့်ညွှန်ကြားချက် အမှတ်(၁/၂၀၂၁) ၇ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ “ရက်အကန့်အသတ်မရှိ အလုပ်ပိတ်ရက်အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း အမိန့်ညွှန်ကြားချက်ထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်း” ၁။ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်တွင် ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်မှ စတင်၍ စစ်ကောင်စီသည် နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အချုပ်အခြာအာဏာကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် အဓမ္မ လုယုသိမ်းပိုက်ထားရုံမက ပြည်သူများ၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်ကို ထိပါး အကြမ်းဖက် အန္တရာယ်ပြုလျက်ရှိခြင်း၊ ပြည်သူများကလည်း နည်းလမ်းစုံဖြင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်အုပ်စိုးမှုအား ခုခံတွန်းလှန်လျက် ရှိခြင်း၊ ယခုအခါ တရားမဝင် စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး ယန္တရား တစ်ခုလုံးကို အပြီးတိုင် ဖျက်သိမ်းပစ်ရန် လိုအပ်လာခြင်း ဟူသော ဖြစ်ပေါ်ပြောင်းလဲလျက်ရှိသည့် အခြေအနေ အရပ်ရပ်ကြောင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ယနေ့ ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ ၇ ရက်မှ စတင်၍ နိုင်ငံတော်အား အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေ အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း အမိန့်ကြေညာချက် ထုတ်ပြန်ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။ ၂။ အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေတွင် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်အောက်ခံ ဖြစ်လျက်ရှိသော အရပ်ဘက် ရုံးဌာနအားလုံးကို ယနေ့မှ စတင်၍ ရက်အကန့်အသတ်မရှိ အလုပ်ပိတ်ရက်အဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်းနှင့် အလုပ်ဆင်းရန် မလိုအပ်ကြောင်း ညွှန်ကြားလိုက်သည်။ မန်းဝင်းခိုင်သန်း ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးချုပ် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 241.8 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government of Myanmar: Order Statement No.1/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ အမိန့်ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၁)
Sub-title: “အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေ ကြေညာခြင်း”
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် https://nugmyanmar.org အမိန့်ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၁) ၇ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ “အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေ ကြေညာခြင်း” ၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်တွင် ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်မှ စတင်၍ စစ်ကောင်စီသည် နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အချုပ်အခြာအာဏာကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် အဓမ္မလုယူသိမ်းပိုက်ထားရုံမက ပြည်သူများ၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်ကို ထိပါး အကြမ်းဖက် အန္တရာယ်ပြုလျက်ရှိခြင်း၊ ပြည်သူများကလည်း နည်းလမ်းစုံဖြင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်အုပ်စိုးမှုအား ခုခံတွန်းလှန်လျက်ရှိခြင်း၊ ယခုအခါ တရားမဝင် စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး ယန္တရား တစ်ခုလုံးကို အပြီးတိုင် ဖျက်သိမ်းပစ်ရန် လိုအပ်လာခြင်း ဟူသော ဖြစ်ပေါ်ပြောင်းလဲလျက်ရှိသည့် အခြေအနေ အရပ်ရပ်ကြောင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ယနေ့ ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ ၇ ရက်မှ စတင်၍ နိုင်ငံတော်အား အရေးပေါ် အခြေအနေအဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။ ၂။ အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေ သက်ရောက်သည့်နယ်မြေသည် ပြည်ထောင်စုနိုင်ငံတော်တစ်ဝန်းလုံး ဖြစ်ပြီး၊ အချိန်ကာလအားဖြင့် ပြည်သူ့အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးအာဏာ ပြန်လည် ထူထောင်နိုင်သည့် အချိန်အထိ သတ်မှတ်သည်။ ဒူဝါလရှီးလ ယာယီသမ္မတ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 233.42 KB
more
Title: Press Statement of MATA for arrestment to Kyaw Minn Htut and his family members - ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသည့်ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ် နှင့် သူ၏မိသားစုဝင်များနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှုနှင့် တာဝန်ယူမှုတာဝန်ခံမှုဆိုင်ရာမဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့၏ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက်
Description: "Press Statement of MATA for arrestment to Kyaw Minn Htut and his family members Date: 6th September 2021 Kyaw Minn Htut, the member of Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability (MATA) and his younger brother Kyaw Minn Aung including a man who lived together with them were arrested at home by SAC around 3:00 pm today (6th September 2021) in Nandawon Ward, Monwyar town, Sagaing region. One day ahead, Daw Khin Saw Hlaing and two years old child who are wife and son of Kyaw Minn Htut were also detained on 5th September 2021 by the military as well. Kyaw Minn Htut has been working for environmental protection and human rights issues consistently and he actively participated in the non-violent movement for democracy and human rights since after the coup. Besides, SAC neglected human rights and humanitarian principles by arresting his wife and two years old child. Kyaw Minn Htut is also the civil society representative from the Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) of Myanmar Extractive Industry Transparency Initiatives (MEITI). MATA is the civil society alliance which was formed with over 400 organizations across the country for implementation of transparency and accountability in Extractive Industry through participating in MEITI. Kyaw Minn Hut is representative of Sagaing for MSG on behalf of MATA. Therefore, we strongly ask for freedom of Kyaw Minn Htut and all detained people who participated in the non-violent democracy movement without any harm and stop the coup immediately.....ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသည့်ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ် နှင့် သူ၏မိသားစုဝင်များနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှုနှင့် တာဝန်ယူမှုတာဝန်ခံမှုဆိုင်ရာမဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့၏ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက် ရက်စွဲ။ ။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၆) ရက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှုနှင့် တာဝန်ယူတာဝန်ခံမှုဆိုင်ရာ မဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့ (MATA) အဖွဲ့ဝင်တဦး ဖြစ်သည့် ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ် နှင့် သူ၏ညီအရင်းဖြစ်သူ ကိုကျော်မင်းအောင် အပါဝင် (၃) ဦးအား ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၆) ရက်နေ့ ညနေပိုင်းတွင် စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်း၊ မုံရွာမြို့၊ နန္ဒဝန်ရပ်ကွက်ရှိ နေအိမ်တွင် ဝင်ရောက် စီးနင်းဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။ ထို့အပြင် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၅) ရက်နေ့တွင်လည်း ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ်၏ ဇနီးဖြစ်သူ ဒေါ်ခင်စောလှိုင်နှင့် (၂)နှစ် အရွယ်ခန့်သာရှိသေးသည့် သားငယ်တို့အားလည်း ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့‌ကြောင်းကြားသိရပါသည်။ ယခု စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ဖမ်းဆီးထားသည့် ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ်မှာ သဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ထိန်းသိမ်းရေးနှင့် လူ့အ ခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာ ကိစ္စရပ်များကို တစိုက်မတ်မတ်လုပ်ဆောင်နေသူဖြစ်ပြီး၊ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးချိန်မှစ၍ အကြမ်း မဖက်သည့်နည်းလမ်းဖြင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးအတွက်ဆောင်ရွက်နေသူဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် သူ၏ဇနီး နှင့် ကလေးငယ်အား ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းထားခြင်းမှာ လူသားချင်းစာနာထောက်ထားမှုဆိုင်ရာ စံနှုံန်းများနှင့်များစွာ သွေဖီပြီး အကျည်းတန်သည့် လုပ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်ဟုလည်း မိမိတို့ ရှုမြင်မိပါသည်။ ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ်သည် MATA အဖွဲ့ဝင်တဦးဖြစ်သည့်အပြင် (MEITI) ၏ သုံးပွင့်ဆိုင်အဖွဲ့ ဝင်တဦး လည်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ MATA သည် တွင်းထွက် သဘာဝသယံဇာတဆိုင်ရာ ပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာ မှု လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် (EITI-Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) အား အကောင်ထည်ဖော်သည့် အရပ်ဘက် မဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့ အစည်း တခုဖြစ်ပြီး အဖွဲ့စည်းပေါင်း (၄၀၀) ကျော်ဖြင့်ဖွဲ့စည်းထားသည့် မဟာမိတ်အဖွဲ့အစည်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ်သည် စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး မှ MATA အဖွဲ့ဝင်အဖြစ် ပါဝင်သူတဦး ဖြစ်ပြီး EITI (သဘာဝ သယံဇာတဆိုင်ရာ ပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှုဖော်ဆောင်ရေး) လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်တွင် သုံးပွင့်ဆိုင်ညွန့်ပေါင်းအဖွဲ့ MSG (Multi Stakeholder Group) အဖွဲ့ဝင်တဦးလည်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ ဒီမိုကရေစီပြန်လည်ရရှိရေးအတွက် အကြမ်းမဖက်သောနည်းဖြင့် ဆောင်ရွက်နေသည့် ကိုကျော်မင်းထွဋ် အပါအဝင် ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းထားသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ အားလုံးအား ရာဇဝတ်သား များကဲ့သို့ပြုမူဆက်ဆံခြင်းများမပြုလုပ်ဘဲ ချွင်းချက်မရှိပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးရန်နှင့် အာဏာသိမ်းသည့်လုပ်ရပ် အားအမြန်ဆုံးရပ်တန့်ရန် အလေးအနက်တိုက်တွန်း လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 19.71 KB 242.74 KB
more
Title: Vox Pop: Members and allies of Myanmar’s resistance respond to NUG’s declaration of war against junta
Sub-title: Myanmar Now speaks with stakeholders about what it means to go to war with the coup regime
Description: "Following Tuesday morning’s declaration of war against the junta by the National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar Now spoke to members and allies of the anti-dictatorship movement about what could await the resistance forces in confronting a military that both outnumbers and outguns them. The NUG’s announcement came seven days and seven months after Myanmar’s February 1 coup, during which time the military council killed more than 1,000 people and jailed several thousand opponents and dissidents. The declaration was also made one week before the opening of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 14. The UN Credentials Committee is expected to be asked to make a decision regarding who will occupy Myanmar’s seat at the General Assembly—NUG-allied Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who was appointed by the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, or a junta-appointed representative. Junta spokesperson Gen Zaw Min Tun told the pro-military People Media on Tuesday that he believed the NUG’s announcement was intended to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. He dismissed the NUG’s call to arms, referring to them as “extremists.” “They are inciting [others] to commit more violence and for the public to become terrified and for instability,” the general was quoted as saying, telling the public that they “do not need to worry.” The NUG was formed in April with the support of the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, which is made up of elected lawmakers who were unable to take their seats in parliament. Recognising the NUG as Myanmar’s legitimate government, many members of the Myanmar public showed support for the administration’s call to war against the junta, which they aim to topple. Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, retired US army officer “Between firepower and the people power, the latter has proven to be more important during a battle,” Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, a Burmese-American retired lieutenant colonel who served nearly three decades in the US army, told Myanmar Now. She speculated that the Myanmar military, despite possessing advanced weaponry, is struggling due to the momentum brought on by the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), including the securing of public trust, new recruits, and international support. “People are already questioning the integrity of the military leaders. This factor is very important in this war. It would be very hard for them to get anything done because no one is believing anything they say,” Dr. Byrd continued. While rumours of Tuesday’s NUG announcement had been circulating online for weeks, Dr. Miemie Win Byrd said that the resistance would need to be tight-lipped about its plans regarding the revolution in order for their actions to have maximum impact. “We should be very careful so as not to reveal our plans to the opponent, as it would do nothing but make them more prepared to retaliate against our attacks,” she said. “When the weak goes against the strong, their best chance is to ambush them when the opponent is not expecting it. If information leaks [online], it would help prepare the enemy to respond to the ambush.” Cpn Lin Htet Aung, Myanmar military defector Cpn Lin Htet Aung, a Myanmar army officer who took part in the CDM by defecting and joined the resistance, told Myanmar Now that he believes many soldiers still serving in the junta’s armed forces are opposed to the coup, and more will defect when the war begins. “It is now high time that the junta soldiers pick the side of the people and disobey the dictators. Failing to do so will bring nothing but misfortune to their lives,” he said. “It has now become clear what’s right and what’s wrong. Be on the right side of history. Come to the people’s side in whatever way that you can.” Col Naw Bu, KIA Col Naw Bu, the spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)—which has been engaging in clashes with the junta’s armed forces in the northern part of the country—welcomed the NUG’s call to arms, noting that Kachin forces had already been fighting against the military for 60 years. “The people need to take responsibility and contribute however they can if we want to end the dictatorship led by Min Aung Hlaing. We also need to be very careful regarding our own security. These are the two responsibilities of the people,” the colonel said. Col Naw Bu declined to comment on the extent of communication between the KIA and the NUG. Khu Daniel, KNPP Khu Daniel, Secretary (1) of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP)—whose armed wing, the Karenni Army, has been fighting against the junta forces in ethnic Karenni territory—said that Tuesday’s declaration signified the start of more intensified resistance to the military council by the NUG and their allied forces. “Now that the official announcement is here, everyone needs to actually participate in the process. Everyone, including the civil servants that are still going to work. This can end only if everyone takes part in it,” he said. Political analyst, Yangon A Yangon-based political analyst pointed out that because of the sacrifices they have made, the public have high expectations of the NUG and its forces and expect the complete overthrow of the military dictatorship. “If they don’t manage to give us a strong start, the people will start losing trust in the NUG and this could lead to a decrease in the people’s support in the future,” the analyst said..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: ညွှန်ကြားချက်အမှတ် ၃ / ၂၀၂၁ - ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်၊ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့များ၊ အထူးတပ်ဖွဲ့များနှင့် ပတ်သက်သော ညွှန်ကြားချက်
Description: "ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်၊ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့များ၊ အထူးတပ်ဖွဲ့များနှင့် ပတ်သက်သော ညွှန်ကြားချက် ညွှန်ကြားချက်အမှတ် ၃ / ၂၀၂၁ ****************************************************** ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေးစစ်သည်အားလုံးသည် စစ်မြေပြင်တွင် အောက်ပါစည်းမျဉ်း စည်းကမ်းများ ကို တိကျစွာလိုက်နာရမည်။ ( ၁ ) အထက်အမိန့်ကိုနာခံပါ။ ( ၂ ) မိမိတပ်ဖွဲ့အပေါ် သစ္စာရှိပါ။ ( ၃ ) မိမိလက်နက်ကို မိမိအသက်ကဲ့သို့ တန်ဖိုးထားပါ။ ( ၄ ) အရေးပေါ် လိုအပ်ချက်အရ အရပ်သားပြည်သူပိုင် ပစ္စည်းများကို အသုံးပြုရပါက တန်ရာ တန်ဖိုး ပေးပါ။ ( ၅ ) သုံ့ပန်းများကို ညှဉ်းပန်းခြင်း၊ သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း မပြုရ၊ သင့်လျော်သောနေရာတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းထားရမည်။ ( ၆ ) မိမိရဲမေများအပေါ်တွင် ဖြစ်စေ၊ အရပ်သူအမျိုးသမီးများအပေါ်တွင် ဖြစ်စေ လိင်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ထိပါးနှောက်ယှက်ခြင်း မပြုရ။ ( ၇ ) ရန်သူ့ထံမှ သိမ်းဆည်းရမိသည့် ငွေ၊ လက်နက်၊ ပစ္စည်းများကို ဆိုင်ရာတပ်မှူးထံ စာရင်းနှင့်တကွ အပ်နှံရမည်။ ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေးစစ်သည်အားလုံး ဤစည်းမျဉ်း စည်းကမ်းများကို အစဉ်လိုက်နာစေရေး အတွက် ဆိုင်ရာတပ်မှူးများက နှိုးဆော်ကြပ်မတ်ရမည်။ ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး အောင်ရမည်။ ( ပုံ ) ရည်မွန် ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး ကာကွယ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Defence - National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 295.87 KB
more
Title: ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် ယာယီသမ္မတကြီး ဒူဝါလရှီးလက ပြည်သူလူထုများသို့ ပြောကြားသည့် မိန့်ခွန်း
Sub-title: Acting President of the National Unity Government of Myanmar, Duwa Lashi La's Emergency Speech to the Public on Current Military Crisis
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် ယာယီသမ္မတကြီး ဒူဝါလရှီးလက ပြည်သူလူထုများသို့ အရေးပေါ်ပြောကြားသည့် မိန့်ခွန်း ရက်စွဲ - ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စက်တင်ဘာလ (၇) ရက် ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်း မှီတင်းနေထိုင်ကြသော ပြည်သူလူထုအပေါင်းတို့ ခင်ဗျား လွန်ခဲ့သည့် ၂၀၂၁ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့မှစ၍ မင်းအောင်လှိုင် ဦးဆောင်သည့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အုပ်စုသည် ပြည်သူလူထု တင်မြောက်ထားသည့် ဒီမိုကရေစီအစိုးရကို အာဏာသိမ်းပြီး အာဏာရှင် စစ်ကောင်စီကို ထူထောင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထိုသို့ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ အာဏာလုယူပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း ပြည်သူပြည်သားများအနေဖြင့် တစ်ရက်မှ ပျော်ရွင်မှုမရရှိခဲ့ပါ။ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန္ဒဖော်ထုတ်မှုများကို ရက်စက်ယုတ်မာစွာ ပစ်ခတ်သတ်ဖြတ် ရိုက်နှက်ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်း၊ ပုဒ်မ- အမျိုးမျိုးတပ်၍ ထောင်တွင်းအကျဉ်းချထားခြင်း အဆက်မပြတ်လုပ်ဆောင် နေသည်မှာ ၈ လ သို့ပင် ရောက်ရှိနေပြီ ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ယခုအခါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များသည် လူနေရပ်ကွက်များ၊ ဘာသာရေးအဆောက်အအုံများ၊ ဆေးရုံများ၊ စာသင်ကျောင်း များစသည်တို့တွင် တပ်စွဲလျက် ပြည်သူလူထုအား အနီးကပ်ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ဖမ်းဆီးသတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ပြည်သူပိုင်ဥစ္စာပစ္စည်း များအား ဓါးပြတိုက် လုယက်ခြင်း၊ ကျေးရွာများအား မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း စသည့် လူမဆန်သော စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများကို ဆက်တိုက် ကျူးလွန် လျက်ရှိသည်မှာ တစ်ကမ္ဘာလုံး အသိပင် ဖြစ်သည်။ ပြည်သူလူထုအနေဖြင့် ဓမ္မတရားနည်းလမ်းနှင့်အညီ သည်းခံခဲ့သော်လည်း အကျိုးထူးလာဖွယ်မရှိသည်အတွက် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီအား နည်းလမ်းစုံဖြင့် ခုခံဆန့်ကျင်လျက်ရှိသည်ကို တွေ့ရပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် တာဝန်ရှိသည့်အလျောက် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်ကို ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ရန် အကြောင်းပေါ်ပေါက်လာသည့် အတွက် အောက်ပါအတိုင်း ထုတ်ပြန် ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။ (၁) ဒီနေ့ စက်တင်ဘာလ (၇) ရက်၊ တော်သလင်း လဆန်း ( ၂ ) ရက်မှစ၍ စစ်အာဏာရှင် ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး ပြည်သူတို့၏ ခုခံတွန်းလှန်စစ်သည် စတင်နေပြီ ဖြစ်သည်။ ဤတော်လှန်ရေးသည် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ တော်လှန်ရေး ဖြစ်သည့်အတွက် ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်းရှိ ပြည်သူပြည်သားများအားလုံး မင်းအောင်လှိုင် ဦးဆောင်သည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်ချုပ် ရေးကို တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအတိုင်းအတာဖြင့် လှည်းနေလှေအောင်း မြင်းစောင်းမကျန် တွန်းလှန်တိုက်ဖျက်ကြပါ။ (၂) ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်များအနေဖြင့် မိမိတို့ဒေသအတွင်းရှိ စစ်အာဏာရှင် နှင့် ၄င်းတို့၏ ဒေါက်တိုင် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများကို ပစ်မှတ်ထား ထိန်းချုပ်ကြပါ။ (၃) စစ်ကောင်စီခန့် အဆင့်ဆင့်သော အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးမှုးများအားလုံး အလုပ်မှ ချက်ချင်း စွန့်ခွာကြပါ။ (၄) PDF များ အနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူတို့၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်ကို သတိထားကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ပါ၊ အထက်မှ ညွန်ကြားချက်များကို တိတိကျကျ လိုက်နာပါ၊ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်က ထုတ်ပြန်ထားသော စစ်ဖက်ဆိုင်ရာ စည်းမျဉ်းစည်းကမ်း များကို တသဝေမသိမ်းလိုက်နာကြပါ။ (၅) ပြည်သူ့လုံခြုံရေးတပ်များအနေဖြင့်လည်း မိမိတို့ဒေသရပ်ရွာမြို့ပြများရှိ ပြည်သူတို့၏ အသက် အိုးအိမ်ကို လုံခြုံစိတ်ချအောင် စီမံချက်ချ ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ကြပါ။ (၆) ပြည်သူများအနေဖြင့် ယနေ့မှစ၍ မလိုအပ်ဘဲ ခရီးသွားလာခြင်း မပြုကြဘဲ တစ်ဦးချင်း၏ လုံခြုံမှုကို အထူးဂရုစိုက်ကြပါ။ လိုအပ်မည့် ရိက္ခာ၊ ဆေးဝါး စသည်တို့ကို စုဆောင်းထားကြပါ။ ပြည်သူ့ ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်နဲ့ မဟာမိတ်များကိုလည်း တတ်နိုင်သမျှ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ကြပါ။ စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များ၏ လှုပ်ရှားမှုသတင်းများကို ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့များသို့ အချိန်မီပေးပို့ကြ ပါ။ (၇) တိုင်းရင်းသားလက်နက်ကိုင်တော်လှန်ရေးအဖွဲ့အားလုံးကလည်း မင်းအောင်လှိုင် နှင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အုပ်စုကို နည်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် ချက်ချင်းတိုက်ခိုက်သွားကြပါ။ မိမိတို့၏ နယ်မြေများကို အပြည့်အဝ ထိန်းချုပ်ထားကြပါ။ (၈) စစ်အာဏာရှင်အုပ်စိုးမှုနှင့် စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရားကို ပြည်သူ့အားဖြင့် တွန်းလှန်ဖျက်သိမ်း ကြပါ။ တဆက်တည်းမှာ ပြည်သူ့အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးသို့ ပြောင်းလဲနိုင်ရန်အတွက် ပြည်သူလူထုနှင့် အနီးကပ်ညှိနှိုင်း ဆောင်ရွက်စီမံကြပါ။ (၉) အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ လှည့်ဖျားမှုတွင် နားယောင်ခဲ့သည့် နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ်ဖွဲ့ (BGF) များ နှင့် ပြည်သူ့စစ်အားလုံး ယနေ့မှ စ၍ ပြည်သူများနှင့် ပူးပေါင်း၍ ပြည်သူ့ရန်သူများကို စတင်ရင်ဆိုင် တိုက်ခိုက်ကြပါ။ (၁၀) ယခုတော်လှန်ရေးသည် တရားနည်းလမ်းကျသော တရားမျှတသော တော်လှန်ရေးဖြစ်သည်။ ရေရှည်ငြိမ်းချမ်းသော နိုင်ငံတော်တည်ဆောက်ရေး၊ ဖက်ဒရယ်ပြည်ထောင်စုတည်ဆောက်ရေး အတွက် မရှိမဖြစ်လိုအပ်သည့် တော်လှန်ရေး ဖြစ်သည်။ (၁၁) မိမိတို့ နိုင်ငံတော်၏ ပကတိအခြေအနေလိုအပ်ချက်အလျောက် လုပ်ဆောင်သည်ဖြစ်၍ အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများ၊ ASEAN နိုင်ငံများ၊ ကုလသမဂ္ဂနှင့် ကမ္ဘာ့နိုင်ငံအသီးသီးကလည်း နားလည် ပေးကြလိမ့်မည်ဟု ယုံကြည်ပါသည်။ (၁၂) ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး စတင်ပြီဖြစ်၍ မင်းအောင်လှိုင်၏ လိမ်လည်လှည့်ဖျားဖိနှိပ်မှုအောက်တွင် တာ၀န်ထမ်းဆောင်နေကြ သော တပ်မတော်သားများ၊ ပြည်သူ့ရဲများ၊ ၀န်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ် PDF များနှင့် ချက်ချင်းဆက်သွယ် ပူးပေါင်းပါ၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ကာကွယ်ရေး၀န်ကြီးဌာန၊ ပြည်ထဲရေး၀န်ကြီးဌာနများသို့ အမြန်ဆုံး သတင်းပို့ကြ ပါ။ (၁၃) ယနေ့မှစ၍ စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်ခံ ဝန်ထမ်းအားလုံး ရုံးတက်ခြင်းမပြုကြရန် သတိပေး တားမြစ်လိုက်သည်။ (၁၄) ယခုအရေးတော်ပုံတွင် အသက်၊ အိုးအိမ်၊ စွန်လွတ်အနစ်နာခံသူများကို နိုင်ငံတော်၏ သူရဲကောင်းများအဖြစ် အစဉ်အမြဲ အသိအမှတ်ပြုနေမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ပြည်သူ့အုံကြွမှုကို ကျေးလက်၊ မြို့ပြနှင့် နိုင်ငံတဝှမ်းလုံးတွင် တပြိုင်တည်းလုပ်ဆောင်ကြရမည်။ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ စည်းလုံး ညီညွတ်မှု၊ တီထွင်ဆန်းသစ်မှု၊ ဉာဏ်ရည်ထက်မြက်မှု၊ စိတ်ဓာတ် ပြင်းထန် ကြံ့ခိုင်မှုပေါ် မူတည်၍ တော်လှန်ရေးကာလ တိုတောင်း မည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်နှင့် အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှ အပြီးတိုင် ဖြုတ်ချကာ တည်ငြိမ်အေးချမ်းပြီး တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူများအားလုံး စောင့်မျှော်ခဲ့သည့် တန်းတူအခွင့်အရေးကို အပြည့်အဝ အာမခံသည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို ထူထောင်ကာ ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနှိုင်ငံသည်လည်း ကမ္ဘာ့အလည်တွင် တဖန် ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာထွန်းတောက်လာမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အရေးတော်ပုံ မုချအောင်ရမည်!! ဒူဝါလရှီးလ ယာယီသမ္မတ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar and Acting President Duwa Lashi La
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-07
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1019.48 KB
more
Title: The Border Consortium Mid-Year Overview: January to June 2021
Description: "On 1st February 2021, the Myanmar military took power in a coup, announced a state of emergency, and formed the State Administrative Council (SAC) to rule the country instead of the elected parliament. The coup was justified under claims of electoral fraud, which were comprehensively rebuked by independent observers. The coup was widely condemned and millions of protestors took to the streets in protest participating in a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). The military response to these protests was increasingly violent, with over 5,500 people arrested and more than 900 people killed since 1st February. With the brutal backlash against the Civil Disobedience Movement in the urban areas, thousands of people sought shelter in the ethnic controlled areas. The National Unity Government (NUG) established by elected MPs and civil society leaders took steps to abolish the 2008 Constitution and to create a space for genuine Federal Democracy. SAC interventions in the Central Bank of Myanmar and restrictions on internet access caused massive disruptions in the financial sector. The lack of cash liquidity constrained the operations of aid agencies alongside all other sectors with premiums increasing to at least 10% in informal money markets. The World Bank and UNDP have projected that the proportion of people living in poverty could double to almost half of the nation’s population by the beginning of 2022. This would reverse the gains made since 2005. Indiscriminate artillery attacks against civilians in northern Karen and Kayah States have been the primary cause of displacement for 170,000 people. School buildings, health clinics and churches are amongst the community buildings that have been damaged by heavy artillery attacks. Patterns of systematic violence and abuse reflect the “four cuts” counter-insurgency strategies that have targeted civilians for decades to undermine the access of EAOs to food, recruits, intelligence and resources. These military offensives have disrupted access to fields just as upland farmers should be preparing hillside plots for the wet season rice crops, so food security for the coming year will be adversely affected. More than 8,000 people crossed into Thailand, to be detained at the border by the Royal Thai Army and then sent back to Myanmar after the Thai army considered it safe, only to cross again when the airstrikes resumed but once again were returned back to Myanmar within days. COVID -19 has surged in Myanmar with over 150,000 cases confirmed and 3,300 deaths exacerbated by the near collapse of the health system, targeting of health personnel, seizure of life saving equipment by the military and a slow roll out of vaccinations, hampered by mistrust of the military regime. By June only 3% of the country was fully vaccinated..."
Source/publisher: The Border Consortium (Thailand) via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 524.12 KB
more
Title: Letter to a political prisoner
Description: "(Author’s note: The dates and locations (except for Shwe Pyi Thar and Insein) have been modified for security reasons. This letter was written mid-June 2021.) May 2nd 2021, at 4 pm, is the last time I spoke to you. The following day, while I was having my first coffee of the day, I received a message from a friend in Yangon asking me if I knew – “If I knew what?” – The fact that you had been arrested by the military at 2 am in the apartment in which you had taken refuge in recent days. And that since then, no one knows where you have been taken to nor what happened to you. In another life, I wish I had known on May 2nd what would happen that night. I hesitated to offer to speak directly to you since you seemed to have a good internet connection for once. I really wanted to swap our instant messaging habits for an actual face to face moment with you. I’m not sure why I didn’t suggest it to you. It might be because you told me that you now have a good connection available, that you no longer need to connect from the internet cafes in the city center to send news, and that we therefore, have time. Yes, we had, in short, a life ahead of us to talk to each other. Until that life was stolen from us overnight. Since February 1, the day of the Coup, you have resumed your pace of political activism that you had decided to put aside to invest time in a green space outside of Yangon. You had even started growing organic vegetables. I liked to think that you had reconnected with nature, and I suspect that it did you good. Seeing pictures of you in a hammock by a small river appearing on my Facebook wall from time to time was soothing. I also noticed that you reconnected with your oldteam in your new environment, as if fate had started knocking on your door at the end of January. A few days later, the blow came, and it was together with them that you decided to continue the path of resistance, resuming the rhythm of underground activities. Our messages/photos of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers disappeared, the rhythm of our exchanges intensified, we were in touch every time you had access to the internet. We are an encounter out of time and space, one that can be qualified as unexpected – where two very different worlds create a symbiosis: electric, at times explosive, but above all, full of compassion. With the news of the coup, I saw myself promoted to new functions: I became your database, your hard drive, your search browser, and your buddy; I knew if you were okay and when you were not. I followed the events in Myanmar by our exchanges: I walked with you in the streets of Yangon alongside thousands of peaceful demonstrators in February, and I walked a few months later in these same streets in fire and blood. I ran with you under fire from the soldiers. I felt the loneliness of those apartments where you lived, alone, where you were hiding. I experienced the sadness that sometimes assailed you when you saw the fate of some of your comrades. I feared the worst that night in April in your hideout in North Okkalapa; there was gun fire and soldiers right in front of your hiding place. It was all through you, ako, as in reality, I wasn’t there. You were in this mythology alongside thousands of others, face to face with fate, in a standoff with the inhumanity and injustice of the junta. You made your courage, and that of thousands of others in Myanmar, the light intending to burst the darkness. But darkness has this indescribable way of sticking to the surface; far from impossible, it requires persistence to be removed. And that perseverance you have all proven to possess. Not to lie to you, but your fate began to worry me early on. You have always loved taking care of the young people you taught in recent years, and many have approached you asking for your support – which you gave. Make no mistake: Burmese youth need people like you, like the team right now. And fortunately, there is this solidarity and compassion that exists, among other things. However, connecting with many people and many different groups can slowly become a threat in an environment full of informers. And indeed, there was a mole. You had given me warnings; not about the mole which you did not know about, but the rest. You told me several times that you were ready to give your life for this revolution, for the Truth. Not that long ago, you told me again that you would continue until you would be arrested. I knew I was no match for you when trying to encourage you to leave the country, when arguing how much your safety depended on that move. Who was I to interfere with the plans you and the stars had agreed upon? You are a former political prisoner who had already been locked up for several years, and a new arrest would be brutal for you and your loved ones, of which today I am a part. Then, on May 2nd, we lost track of you. You lost your new hiding place with wifi, and you have – frankly speaking – lost all your freedom and slipped into this other world. This dematerialized world makes one shiver down the spine. It’s silly, but habits are hard to change, and I thought several times about sending you a message to ask where you were and if you were holding on, before reminding myself that my message would certainly be read by the fools, the tormentors in green uniforms and boots. We didn’t know where you were; we didn’t even know if you were still alive. To replay your arrest in the middle of the night made me nauseous. However, I have replayed it so many times that I started wondering about the details; in particular – are activists arrested in their pajamas? I think these nonsensical thoughts kept me from overthinking about the distress you must have felt when you heard them smash in the apartment door at 2am. So, we began those endless days searching for you – looking for a needle in a haystack. In contact with those in Yangon, and indirectly your family, we have tried to contact the groups of people who seem to be in the best position to obtain, in the long term – perhaps – information on your whereabouts. They managed to contract a lawyer who told us that you are most likely in Shwe Pyi Thar being interrogated. Pause – Fright. The words are chilling. So, ako, you too were taken there. And I know that you already had experiences of physical and psychic miseries during your first imprisonment. We weren’t 100% sure if you were there, that was a guess – like many others. No one can go there, and no lawyer has access to the place. You are very sadly at the mercy of the boots, tortured to get information from you – we knew you too would never kneel down no matter how difficult it was and how unbearable the situation had become. Two weeks later, your family received a phone call from an unidentified source, who told them you had been injured during interrogation. Finally, we had found you, in what state? – we did not know – but you were still breathing ako. Days later, you were finally transferred to Insein prison. And at that moment, we all felt a kind of relief. With this feeling, one can realize the human and destructive madness of what is happening in Burma. Insein has a dirty reputation and is described by former political prisoners as hell on earth. But now, it’s better than the worst of the worst. And you have a lawyer who can come and see you sometimes, he sure won’t be able to do much, but in a way, at least there is someone who is trying their very best. The fate of prisoners is now defined by an improvised courtyard in the corridors of Insein prison. Your sentence will be announced in a couple of weeks, or maybe months. And we suspect they won’t make it easy. They don’t have that reputation. I don’t know how you fit within these walls or what you do to pass the time. I imagine you: sometimes meditating, sometimes contemplating the rain. I wish for you to have the company of other political prisoners as peacefully passionate as you are, and exchanges that allow your flame to remain alight. There are many political prisoners in Burma, and today some of them have become prominent figures of the opposition to the junta. Their journeys and the people they have become are a source of strength and hope to color the uncertainty of the future. Many of you in there are claiming this destiny and embodying the struggle for freedom. And we respect you all so very much for that. Ako, whatever they say, and you know it already – holding the light of freedom truly makes a difference. Your sacrifices are not in vain, and the sparkling lights are breaking through thick darkness. … Take care of yourself. I ask it to the moon. On the other side of those grey walls, the revolution continues, and we are waiting for you. And even though we are disconnected for a while, we continue to share the same starry sky; and if we know how to listen, I was told the stars could also pass on messages. Until soon, ako. Nyima..."
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar junta agrees to ASEAN call for ceasefire to distribute aid -Kyodo
Description: "BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military rulers have agreed to an ASEAN call for a ceasefire until the end of the year to ensure distribution of humanitarian aid, Japan's Kyodo news agency said, citing the envoy of the southeast Asian bloc to the crisis-torn nation. Following a coup in February, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying to end violence in which hundreds have been killed in Myanmar, and open a dialogue between the military rulers and their opponents. The envoy, Erywan Yusof, proposed the ceasefire in a video conference with Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, and the military had accepted it, he told the agency. "This is not a political ceasefire. This is a ceasefire to ensure safety, (and) security of the humanitarian workers" in their effort to distribute aid safely, Erywan said, according to Sunday's report. "They didn't have any disagreement with what I said, with regards to the ceasefire," it quoted the envoy as saying. Erywan had also passed his proposal indirectly to parties opposed to rule by the military, it added. A military spokesman did not answer calls from Reuters to seek comment. The junta could not be trusted to honour the deal, however, BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military rulers have agreed to an ASEAN call for a ceasefire until the end of the year to ensure distribution of humanitarian aid, Japan's Kyodo news agency said, citing the envoy of the southeast Asian bloc to the crisis-torn nation. Following a coup in February, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying to end violence in which hundreds have been killed in Myanmar, and open a dialogue between the military rulers and their opponents. The envoy, Erywan Yusof, proposed the ceasefire in a video conference with Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, and the military had accepted it, he told the agency. "This is not a political ceasefire. This is a ceasefire to ensure safety, (and) security of the humanitarian workers" in their effort to distribute aid safely, Erywan said, according to Sunday's report. "They didn't have any disagreement with what I said, with regards to the ceasefire," it quoted the envoy as saying. Erywan had also passed his proposal indirectly to parties opposed to rule by the military, it added. A military spokesman did not answer calls from Reuters to seek comment. The junta could not be trusted to honour the deal, however, Myanmar pro-democracy activist Thinzar ShunLei Yi told Reuters, adding, "Ceasefires buy more time for the military to reload bullets." Maw Htun Aung, a deputy minister in the National Unity Government formed of opponents of military rule, said ASEAN needed to tell the junta to stop "killing and terrorising" its own people. In an interview with Reuters on Saturday, Erywan said he was still negotiating with the military over the terms of a visit he hoped to make before late October, and had sought access to ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "What we are calling for now is ... for all sides to undertake a cessation of violence, especially with regards to distribution of humanitarian assistance," he said. ASEAN nations and dialogue partners had pledged $8 million in aid for Myanmar, he added. The military seized power after alleging irregularities in an election swept by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party. International monitors and the electoral commission at the time said the army accusations were wrong..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Steps Up Arrests of Striking Civil Servants
Description: "Myanmar’s regime has intensified arrests of striking civil servants, including teachers, medics and administrators, who joined the civil disobedience movement (CDM) as it undermines the junta’s ability to govern. At least two teachers in Myaung Township, Sagaing Region, were detained on Sunday. According to residents, junta forces raided Daw Zarchi Lin’s home on Sunday and, after failing to find the teacher, her father and brother were beaten and taken instead. She later turned herself in in exchange for the release of her father and brother. Another teacher, Daw Tu Tu Khin, was detained on Sunday, according to the Civilian Defense and Security Organization in Myaung. At least seven teachers were also detained in Kalay, Depayin and Shwebo townships in Sagaing Region last month. In Pauk Township, Magwe Region, junta forces detained a striking civil servant from the Land Statistics Department and at least four other civilians on Sunday. Since the February I coup, government employees, including directors, police, soldiers and staff at the military-controlled home affairs and defense ministries, have refused to work for the regime, preventing the junta from running the country properly. Many striking civil servants have been sacked or threatened with arrest. Many are in hiding. During last month alone, at least 21 civil servants, including eight teachers, five medics, five administrators, two public servants and a police officer, were arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The National Unity Government (NUG), which was formed by elected lawmakers from the ousted National League for Democracy and its ethnic allies, is trying to pay salaries for striking civil servants, especially junior staff. Over 400,000 civil servants have been on strike since February, according to the NUG..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: National Unity Government: Announcement No.9/2021
Description: "National Unity Government Republic of the Union of Myanmar https://nugmyanmar.org Announcement (9/2021) Announcement on Military Offensive of State Administrative Council in Ethnic Areas Date: 05 , September , 2021 1. Min Aung Hlaing Led Military (State Administration Council) has seized the sovereign power on 1st February 2021 by use of terrorist means, killed, detained and tortured innocent civilians across the country. Violent acts of the military (SAC) can be seen clearly not only in major cities around the country but also in rural and ethnic areas. 2. Military leadership of junta and SAC may verbally make guarantees that they are working for peace but in reality, they are waging military offensive operations with excessive forces in EAOs’ controlled areas. 3. Myanmar military is carrying out not only ground military offensive attacks with excessive force but also air strikes so that civilian populations in respective ethnic areas have to leave their homes to escape. 4. The National Unity Government strongly condemns the hostile actions of the military and its offensive attacks with the use of excessive forces in ethnic areas, including their deployment in civilian infrastructure such as religious buildings, hospitals, schools, etc. 5. According to the UN reports, there have been over 300,000 IDPs due to the ground and air strikes of the military. 6. These military offensive attacks in ethnic areas can result in major humanitarian crisis and millions of civilian populations will face the situation where they will be forced to leave their homes. 7. During the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, such flux of people running away from their homes can seriously impact the security of neighboring countries along with regional stability and security. 8. Therefore, the National Unity Government strongly opposes the governments and organizations cooperating in the procurement of weapons to support these acts of violence perpetrated by the military council targeting and killing civilians. 9. The National Unity Government requests the international community to work effectively to stop the military offensive operations of Myanmar military as soon as possible, to end suppression and torture of innocent civilians and to bring an end to the coup d’état and hold it accountable for the crimes they have committed. ***********..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 38.48 KB
more
Title: National Unity Government: Announcement No.9/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၉/၂၀၂၁)
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် https://nugmyanmar.org ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၉/၂၀၂၁) ၅ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ “အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်နက်ကိုင်တပ်များ၏ ထိုးစစ်များနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်” ၁။ မင်းအောင်လှိုင် ဦးဆောင်သည့် စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာကို အကြမ်းဖက်နည်းလမ်းဖြင့် မတရားသိမ်းယူခဲ့ပြီး နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်းရှိ အပြစ်မဲ့ အရပ်သား ပြည်သူများကို သတ်ဖြတ်၊ ဖမ်းဆီး နှိပ်စက်ခဲ့သည်မှာ (၇) လ (၄)ရက် တိုင်ခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်သည်။ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်းရှိ မြို့ကြီးများတွင်သာမက၊ ကျေးလက်များနှင့်တိုင်းရင်းသား ဒေသများ တွင် လည်း ထင်ရှားစွာ တွေ့မြင်နေရသည်။ ၂။ အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များ နှင့် အာဏာသိမ်း အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီတို့သည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး အတွက် ဆောင်ရွက်နေပါသည်ဟု နှုတ်ဖြင့် မည်မျှ အာမခံ နေလင့်ကစား၊ လက်တွေ့တွင်မူ တိုင်းရင်းသား လက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၏ ထိန်းချုပ်နယ်မြေများတွင် သာလွန်အင်အား များဖြင့် ထိုးစစ်များ ဆင်နွှဲလျက် ရှိသည်။ ၃။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ တပ်များသည် သာလွန်အင်အားဖြင့် မြေပြင်ထိုးစစ်များသာမက လေကြောင်း တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကိုပါ လုပ်ဆောင်နေသည့်အတွက် တိုင်းရင်းသားဒေသအသီးသီးမှ အရပ်သား ပြည်သူများသည် အိုးအိမ်စွန့်ခွာလျက် ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေကြရသည်။ ၄။ ထို့အပြင် ဘာသာရေးဆိုင်ရာ အဆောက်အအုံများ ၊ ဆေးရုံ ၊ကျောင်း အစရှိသည့် အရပ်ဘက်ဆိုင်ရာ အခြေခံအဆောက်အအုံများတွင် တပ်စွဲခြင်း ၊ ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း အပါအဝင်တိုင်းရင်းသားဒေသများတွင် သာလွန်အင်အားများဖြင့် ထိုးစစ်ဆင်နွှဲလျက်ရှိသည့် စစ်ကောင်စီ ၏ ရန်လိုသည့်လုပ်ရပ်များကို အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက အပြင်းအထန် ကန့်ကွက်သည်။ ၅။ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ကြည်းတပ်၊ လေတပ် ထိုးစစ်များကြောင့် အိုးအိမ်စွန့် ခွာ ထွက်ပြေး ရသူပေါင်း ၃ သိန်းကျော်ရှိလာပြီဖြစ်ကြောင်း ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အစီရင်ခံစာများအရ သိရသည်။ ၆။ စစ်ကောင် စီတပ်များ၏ တိုင်းရင်းသားဒေသများအတွင်း ထိုးစစ်များသည် ကြီးမားသော လူသားချင်း စာနာမှုဆိုင်ရာ အကြပ်အတည်း (humanitarian crisis) များကို ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာစေနိုင်ပြီး၊ သန်းနှင့် ချီသော ပြည်သူများသည် အိုးအိမ်စွန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးရမည့် အခြေအနေကို ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည်။ ၇။ ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ရောဂါ ပြန့်ပွားလျက်ရှိသည့် အချိန်ကာလတွင် ယင်းသို့ အိုးအိမ်စွန့်ခွာထွက်ပြေးရမှုများ ကြောင့် အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများ၏ လုံခြုံရေး၊ ဒေသတွင်း တည်ငြိမ်မှု နှင့် လုံခြုံရေးကိုပါ ဆိုးရွားစွာ ထိခိုက်နိုင်မည့် အခြေအနေများဖြစ်ပေါ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ၈။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ အရပ်သားပြည်သူလူထုအား ပစ်မှတ်ထားသတ်ဖြတ် ညှင်းပန်းလျက်ရှိသည့်စစ်ကောင်စီ ၏ အဆိုပါ အကြမ်းဖက် လုပ်ရပ်များကို အထောက်အကူ ပြုစေသည့် စစ်လက်နက်ပစ္စည်း ဝယ်ယူရေးအတွက် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိသော အစိုးရများ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအားလည်း အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရမှ ပြင်းထန်စွာကန့်ကွက်သည်။ ၉။ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက်အဝန်း အနေဖြင့်လည်း အကြမ်းဖက်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ထိုးစစ်များ အမြန်ဆုံး ရပ်တန့် ရေး၊ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများအား ဖိနှိပ်ညှင်ပန်း နေမှုများ အဆုံးသတ်ရေးနှင့် အာဏာ သိမ်းမှု အဆုံးသတ်ကာ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအတွက် တာဝန်ခံ မှုရှိလာစေရေးအတွက် ထိရောက်စွာ ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးပါရန် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက အလေးအနက်တောင်းဆိုလိုက်သည်။ *************************..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 601.41 KB
more
Title: NUG Questions ASEAN’s Ceasefire Agreement With Myanmar Junta
Description: "Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG) has said that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) special envoy to the country should have got an agreement from the military regime to cease civilian arrests, as well as an assurance to allow him to meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, before calling for a ceasefire to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid. On Saturday, ASEAN’s special envoy for Myanmar, Erywan Yusof, told Kyodo News that he had proposed a four-month ceasefire until the end of this year to the junta-appointed Foreign Minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, last Tuesday, and that the regime had accepted it. The Brunei diplomat said that it was not a political ceasefire but to ensure safety, as well as the security of humanitarian workers distributing aid. Erywan Yusof, Brunei’s second minister for foreign affairs, was appointed by ASEAN last month as a special envoy to Myanmar, as the regional bloc steps up its efforts to end the violence in Myanmar by encouraging dialogue between the regime and its opponents. But the NUG’s Human Rights Minister, U Aung Myo Min, said that the current turmoil in Myanmar was political, and that humanitarian issues should be dealt with later. “The human rights violations by the military persist and these abuses should not be forgotten, even though we understand the ASEAN special envoy wants to provide humanitarian assistance quickly and effectively,” said U Aung Myo Min, referring to the regime’s ongoing raids, arrests and killings of anti-coup protesters. As of Sunday, the junta has killed 1,046 civilians, arrested 7,879 people and issued arrest warrants for another 1,984 people during brutal crackdowns against peaceful pro-democracy protesters. Some 6,230 people are still being detained, including ousted State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, who were both arrested in the early hours of the junta’s February 1 coup. Myanmar has been in crisis since the military takeover and the ousting of the National League for Democracy government led by Daw Aung Suu Kyi. Armed resistance to the regime by civilian fighters and ethnic armed organizations (EAO’s) has spread to every part of the country, apart from Rakhine State. On Sunday, the NUG called on the international community to help stop the junta’s crimes against innocent civilians. The NUG requested that the international community work effectively to stop the military’s operations “as soon as possible, to end the suppression and torture of innocent civilians, and to bring an end to the coup d’état and hold it [the regime] accountable for the crimes it has committed”. Myanmar junta forces are “waging military offensives with excessive force in EAO-controlled areas”, despite the pledges of the coup leaders and the State Administration Council, the junta’s governing body, that they are working for peace, added the NUG. The request coincided with the ceasefire call by ASEAN’s special envoy. Special envoy Erywan Yusof said that the first batch of aid consists of medical equipment that is urgently needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, including oxygen compressors and personal protective equipment, and that it will go to “all the people of Myanmar”. Humanitarian aid bound for border areas controlled by EAO’s may be routed by land via neighbouring Thailand, added the envoy. Erywan Yusof said that he hopes to visit Myanmar this month and that he had requested a meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the military regime has not yet said if he will be allowed to do so..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Real Stories Not Tales, A Collection of Youth Stories (Part 1): Heartbroken Kachin youth decides it is time to go back home
Description: "In Part 1 of a 3-part special series by Real Stories Not Tales (RSNT), Hpare Salum (pseudonym) decides it is time to go back home. Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a 3-part special feature of stories from a report by Real Stories Not Tales. Access to the full report will be available in Part 3 of this series. This story tells the journey of a Kachin youth based in Yangon who chooses to go back to Lai Zar and join the KIA post-Coup. Hpare Salum recently finished an internship after having graduated in Yangon. He was interviewed on April 17 in Kachin State. "I had already experienced something similar in the past, so I knew this was happening for real. I felt hopeless. I felt destroyed. I felt as if my future had been stolen from me." - Hpare Salum When the coup happened, I was staying with my school‘s] seniors in Hlaing Township, Yangon. One of them was going to attend his first day at work and while he was getting ready, the leader of his organization called him and informed him about the coup. That’s how we found out that the military had seized power and cut all networks. I had already experienced something similar in the past, so I knew this was happening for real. I felt hopeless. I felt destroyed. I felt as if my future had been stolen from me. Just before the coup, I had gotten a job in Yangon, and was planning to gain more work experience in preparation for my studies abroad. But I knew this wouldn’t be possible under a military regime, so I decided to go back to Kachin State. Most of my school comrades chose to stay and participate in the protest movement in Yangon, but honestly, I had no intention of doing that. I was certain that the military would do anything to stop the protests. I know this military junta and I know that they are capable of committing the worst atrocities. In 2011, they shot a friend of mine and a relative, and I didn’t want to live through anything like that again. We, the Kachin people, have been bullied since we were born, never receiving any support from the central government and even less so from the military. When the ceasefire between the KIA and the Myanmar military collapsed, I was in Grade 9. On June 22nd, 2011, the military came to our village. It was a devastating experience: we had to flee and stay in the jungle on the Chinese border for days. In the end, this place became a camp for IDPs, including me and my family. The camp leaders managed to build a school with the very few resources available, which is how I was able to carry on with my education. Most young people and adults were asked to join the KIA, and so my father became a soldier. I lived with my mother, my younger brother, and two sisters in the camp. My three other siblings stayed in Myitkyina. In 2016, we had to flee again, because the military engaged in mortar shelling of an area nearby. Having fled civil war twice in my life, I don’t like the military junta at all—to put it mildly. I think non-violence works in some parts of the world, but it doesn’t work in Myanmar. Now I’m staying in a new city-state on the Chinese border called Laiza, where the headquarters of the KIO are. The city is in a valley, and you only need to cross a river to get into the Chinese territory. Everything you need can be found in Laiza: hotels, restaurants, shops, schools (providing free education), and hospitals (providing free health care). You can use both Myanmar kyats and Chinese yuan here. It’s a safe place. There is no CDM in this area, but many CDM people from the rest of the country are coming to find refuge here or to join basic military training. I heard most of the training is given in Burmese. There are also many young Kachin people coming to Laiza, some to serve the KPICT. My personal hope for the future is still to study abroad, but it has been a real struggle, and I am tired of trying. Right now, I need to help my people. If I need to engage in combat, I will; I can’t avoid it. Many Kachins have become actively involved in the KIO or its army. Having an independent state is the dream of Kachin people and I wish to be a part of the generation that will see this dream come true. We need to stand for what we believe in; we have that responsibility. I know there will be many challenges on this journey to freedom, but we will fight until we achieve independence. I believe that the KIO will be one of the leaders of real political change in Myanmar. Speaking to the international community, I would like to ask them to recognize Myanmar’s EAOs and the systems of governance they have established in their respective states and regions, including the education systems. I wish the world would cooperate with the EAOs, since Myanmar’s ethnic people see them as their legitimate governments. In reality, these EAOs represent the voice of ethnic people. Read Part 2 and Part 3 here. (Links will be live on August 19 and 23 respectively). Real Stories Not Tales (RSNT) is a dedicated team in and out of Myanmar that aims to bring awareness to the reality of young people’s lives since the Myanmar military staged a coup on February 1st, 2021. Stories are collected through interviews with each protagonist by the team, either in Burmese or in English. Each character is drawn by a professional illustrator bringing a visual context to the story. The RSNT report also proposes some tips on how it is possible to support Myanmar these days. They are pleased to share selections from their first report and are now in the process of collecting more stories all around the country..."
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-06
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: 100 Senior NLD Leaders Arrested and Charged Since Myanmar Junta’s Coup
Description: "Myanmar’s military regime has charged at least 100 elected leaders, ministers and prominent members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) with high treason, corruption and incitement over the past seven months, as the junta steps up its efforts to destroy the party. Senior NLD figures who have been arrested and charged since the military’s February 1 coup include at least four government ministers, 10 chief ministers, 30 ministers of state and regional cabinets, 44 elected lawmakers and members of party offices nationwide, and seven other senior party members. There are 93 political parties in Myanmar, but the NLD is the only one that has been targeted by the military regime. Most notably, the junta has brought various charges against ousted State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint in an effort to keep them behind bars for years. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi faces a total of 10 cases and a potential prison sentence of 75 years in total. The junta has accused her of accepting cash and gold, as well as of abusing her authority and funds donated to a charity foundation she leads. She also faces charges for the illegal possession of walkie-talkies, breaching COVID-19 restrictions, incitement and one case under the Official Secrets Act. Myanmar’s military detained Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint and other senior officials of the NLD-led government before dawn on the day of the coup. Chief ministers of the states and regions, parliamentary speakers at union and state and regions level were also detained during the takeover, along with other senior leaders and members of the NLD’s Central Executive Committee (CEC). Coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has claimed that the coup was staged because the NLD committed “election fraud” during the 2020 general election that the NLD won by a landslide. The results of the election have since been annulled and the party faces the possibility of being disbanded. NLD members continue to face arrest, including those who won seats in the 2020 election. Several detained party members have been killed while in detention. Numerous members face arrest warrants and have gone into hiding, while NLD offices have been raided, vandalized and forced to close. Over 300 NLD leaders, ministers, elected lawmakers and other members at party offices are currently being detained. The four detained ministers of the NLD-led government have been accused of violating the Official Secrets Act and the Anti-Corruption Law. U Win Myat Aye, the ousted Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, and ousted Upper House Speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than have been charged with corruption and high treason respectively. Both were re-elected in the 2020 election. Since the coup, U Win Myat Aye has been made the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), while Mahn Win Khaing Than has been appointed as NUG prime minister. Corruption charges have also been brought against NLD ministers and officials who were renowned for their good reputations while in office and who enjoyed the support of the general public. Of the 13 chief ministers who are still being detained, nine have been accused of bribery, abuse of their authority and embezzlement of public funds under the Anti-Corruption Law, all charges that carry long prison terms. One chief minister has also been charged with incitement. The other chief ministers are likely to be charged soon. Members of the NLD’s CEC face harsher charges. Detained NLD vice-chairman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who is also the Mandalay Region Chief Minister, has been charged with alleged corruption, incitement and breaching of COVID-19 restrictions. Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who has blood cancer, caught coronavirus while being detained in Mandalay’s Obo Prison and was put on oxygen support. On June 7, the Magwe Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo, who is also a member of the CEC, was sentenced to two years in prison on an incitement charge. He was accused of publishing statements saying that the junta’s State Administration Council is not an official government. The ousted chief minister also faces corruption charges along with three ministers of his cabinet. Around 50 ousted ministers, advocate generals and auditor generals of state and regional cabinets are also still being detained. At least 30 of them face charges such as corruption, incitement, violating COVID-19 restrictions and disobeying military regime orders. NLD CEC members U Nyan Win, U Han Thar Myint, U Thein Oo, U Mya Thein, the party’s patron U Win Htein, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s personal physician Dr. Tin Myo Win and the party spokespersons, Dr. Myo Nyunt and Monywa Aung Shin, were also arrested by the junta. They have been charged with sedition and incitement. 79-year-old U Nyan Win, who was also Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s long-time personal lawyer, died of COVID-19 on July 20 while being detained in Yangon’s Insein Prison, where he caught coronavirus. At least 13 NLD members, including the Bago Region parliamentary speaker and elected lawmakers, have been sentenced to two to three years in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. NLD CEC member U Aung Kyi Nyunt, who chairs the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), said the arrests and charges against NLD members are a plot to ensure that the regime illegally wins the next general election. U Aung Kyi Nyunt is the subject of arrest warrants for sedition and other charges, along with other NLD leaders, members and other anti-regime forces and ethnic minorities who managed to evade arrest and form the CPRH and the NUG to oppose the junta. The number of detained NLD members is rising as the regime continues to crackdown on the party across the country. In the last month alone, at least 38 NLD members, including elected lawmakers and chiefs and members of state and region offices at the township and ward level have been arrested. Youth members of the NLD have also been detained. Regime-controlled media has stated that those arrested will be prosecuted for supporting the Civil Disobedience Movement and the NUG, as well as supplying civilian resistance fighters with food and financial aid. “As the junta knows, there is no way the military can compete against the most popular party so they are trying to eliminate the NLD before holding an election,” U Aung Kyi Nyunt told The Irrawaddy in June. “But that won’t be possible as it is has been clear from the beginning that this is not fair and that the people won’t accept it,” he added..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar army troops shoot and kill pregnant woman in Mon State
Sub-title: Soldiers open fire on a couple in Paung Township, injuring a man and killing a 27-year-old woman who was five months pregnant
Description: "Junta troops opened fire on a couple returning to their home in Thea Ein village in Mon State’s Paung Township on Wednesday night, killing a woman who was five months pregnant and injuring her husband. Ei Thwe Moe, 27, died on the spot due to a gunshot wound to the thigh, a family member said. Twenty-nine-year-old Puu Day, who also goes by the name Min Nay Lwin, had to be hospitalised after suffering injuries to his eye and leg. The couple was reportedly returning from a farm outside the village, and had been gathering food in the area when they were shot at around 10pm. The family member who spoke to Myanmar Now said that the soldiers opened fire when the couple aimed their flashlights at them. A local claimed that the incident happened while members of the military were on patrol that night, and that he had heard around 10 gunshots before the soldiers fled the scene. “They just left them like that right after shooting them, it’s like they had total disregard for their lives,” the local said. The couple also have a four-year-old daughter. Locals were unable to provide further details concerning the incident and Myanmar Now was unable to verify their accounts independently. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 1,041 people have been killed by the military council from the February 1 coup until September 1, and 7,742 people have been arrested..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar LGBTQ Makeup Artist Swaps Beauty Salon for Border Hideout and Revolution
Description: "Until the military takeover on Feb. 1, cosmetics, fashion and beauty design were the most important parts of May Oo’s daily life. For more than a decade, he loved to visually transform people’s appearance through his skills. His passion turned him into one of Yangon’s most highly sought-after makeup artists. His customers included celebrities and family members of high-ranking military officials. By THE IRRAWADDY 3 September 2021 Until the military takeover on Feb. 1, cosmetics, fashion and beauty design were the most important parts of May Oo’s daily life. For more than a decade, he loved to visually transform people’s appearance through his skills. His passion turned him into one of Yangon’s most highly sought-after makeup artists. His customers included celebrities and family members of high-ranking military officials. “It’s the profession I really love and I see it as a creative art,” said May Oo, who is gay. But the military takeover that toppled the elected government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has turned his life upside down. As a supporter of the NLD government, the 33-year-old opposed the coup. “We can’t accept it. The military stole power from the elected civilian government, which we voted for,” May Oo said. Like millions of others, he joined the anti-coup campaigns that have sprung up across the country and which range from banging pots and pans at night to marching in daily street protests to calling on civil servants to strike. At the same time, he disseminated information on the anti-regime protest movement known as Myanmar’s Spring Revolution via his own social media page, which has 770,000 followers, awing his customers with pictures of him shouting anti-regime slogans via a bullhorn at the front of a protest column. In March, May Oo refused to do the makeup for well-to-do families planning to attend a junta-organized religious ceremony in Naypyitaw, at which the junta conferred titles on wealthy persons. However, he had to pay a price for his activism. An arrest warrant was issued by the regime for incitement. Soldiers raided his apartment and took everything including his computer and makeup boxes. “They also destroyed everything in the whole room,” he recalled. Luckily, he managed to evade arrest. After the junta’s crackdowns against protesters intensified in late March, he was forced to go into hiding in April, partly because of his involvement in protests and for providing support to crackdown victims and their families. As of Sept. 2, the junta had killed 1,043 civilians and arrested a total of 7,768, of whom 6,132 are still detained. In addition, during their raids, junta troops have looted and destroyed property. While in lockdown during the first and second waves of COVID-19 in 2020, May Oo was able to continue his work, including providing training to amateur artists. He had trained amateurs and young talents in his profession since 2017, when he opened the May Oo Magic Beauty school, as well as leading a makeup team. His salon employed 12 full-time staff and some 60 part-time artists before the coup. Now the makeup artist lives a very different life in a place where he feels safe on the border. (He declined to provide details for security reasons.) He once received some weapons training like other young people determined to topple the regime through armed resistance. But he found that his hands, familiar only with makeup brushes, were not good with guns. Since then May Oo has devoted his time and energy to other activities, like raising funds for the movement. “I know my strength is not [in military activities], so I choose to support this revolution in whatever way I can. I just see myself as a pillar to help the revolution be victorious,” he explained. May Oo admitted that he can’t help but take off his hat to the young women he has seen seriously engaging in military training, adding that seeing them left him with mixed feelings. “I’m sure they never thought they would go through such a hard life. But they see that nothing is more important than ousting the regime. So, they feel immune to all the misery and difficulties they are facing. I feel sad for them but at the same time I feel happy [for the country],” he said. As a gay man who is open about his sexuality, his hopes when voting for the NLD in the November 2020 election were simple: He wanted a government that would respect human rights, including those of the LGBTQ community, which has long faced discrimination in Myanmar. “The NLD is the only party which respects the rights of minorities and marginalized groups. As an LGBTQ person, we have seen improvements and dignified treatment under the NLD government,” he said. He told The Irrawaddy that from his point of view, physical and verbal abuse of LGBTQ people decreased under the civilian government. “For a long time, we were insulted for our sexual orientation; but after 2015, we felt less discriminated against, and there were opportunities for makeup artists to choose the path they want.” LGBTQ people are subject to official persecution and discrimination under Section 377 of the Penal Code as well as the Police Act. People who engage in same-sex acts can be punished with up to 10 years in prison. The push for legislative change got under way under the NLD government and the LGBTQ community had high hopes for it. “I have suffered discrimination as a gay person since my younger days. I don’t want to experience it again,” he said. It has now been nearly five months since May Oo went into hiding. He said sometimes he feels regret, especially when he sees people having fun on Facebook. “That feeling doesn’t last long, though, because I comfort myself with knowing I have done nothing wrong and am taking a stand on the right side,” he said. Asked if he missed his former life as a makeup artist, he said yes and no. He misses it when he thinks of what his life was like in the past. “But when I think about tomorrow under this current situation, I no longer miss it at all, because you can’t guess what will happen next. It’s exciting [to see] what the future will hold for me.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: National Unity Government: Ministry of Education Announcement No.27/2021 - အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၂၇/၂၀၂၁) ထုတ်ပြန်
Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၂၇/၂၀၂၁) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဩဂုတ်လ (၂၄) ရက် အသိအမှတ်ပြုကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း (ကျန်ရှိသော စာရင်းများကို နောက်နေ့ရက်များတွင် ဆက်လက်ထုတ်ပြန်ပေးမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။)..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 310.89 KB
more
Title: Press Release from the Minister of Justice of the National Unity Government of Myanmar, U Thein Oo, calling for release of all political prisoners and measures to save all prisoners from the effects of Covid-19 in detention facilities (July 16)
Sub-title: တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး ဦးသိန်းဦး၏ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားအားလုံးလွတ်မြောက်ရေးနှင့် အကျဥ်း‌ထောင်များအတွင်းရှိ အကျဥ်းသားများအား ကိုဗစ် ၁၉ ရောဂါကူးစက်ဖြစ်ပွားမှုမှ ကာကွယ်နိုင်ရန် ဆောင်ရွက်သင့်သည်များ ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးရန် တောင်းဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်း (ဇူလိုင် ၁၆)
Description: "(Yangon- 16 JULY) As the Covid-19 crisis in Myanmar has reached a critical stage, the junta has announced the presence of Covid in Insein Jail. The 'Special Tribunals' established for the trial of persons detained for peaceful protests have been suspended. Reporting across the country is minimal, and the pandemic is likely to have reached all detention facilities, since our people are reporting cases, and deaths in all areas of Myanmar. “Holding people in detention without trial, in overcrowded facilities where Covid-19 is spreading out of control, will be a death sentence for many whose only crime was to peacefully express their fervent desire for democracy," said NUG Minister for Justice, U Thein Oo. " The legal system in Myanmar is operating under de facto Martial Law. with Special Tribunals headed by military judges in detention centres. The military must be held responsible for the extrajudicial killings they have engaged in since this coup, and this includes any deaths that occur in prisons due to Covid and an absence of health care." Many of those detained have been held without trial for more than five months, in overcrowded conditions and some have experienced interrogations techniques that amount to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. They must be released immediately, and their families informed of their health status before release so that appropriate treatment and isolation measures can be taken to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Since March 2020, Covid-19 prevention measures have led to the closure, or only partial operating of all courts in all areas of Myanmar, except Rakhine State. This has resulted in a massive backlog of cases, and overcrowding in all jails and prisons. All of those who on remand must be released on bail immediately. In addition, prisoners with less than a year of their sentence to run should also be released. These measures will help to relieve overcrowding in the jails, so that correct procedures for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in jails can be put in place. The Minister added: “The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, met with Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar on June 3, 2021 and requested that IRCRC visits to places of detention be resumed. This visit was the first by an international organisation to meet the State Administrative Council, and was reported by the junta as recognition of its rule. If this visit was sincere, the IC RC must renew and maintain pressure on the junta to allow this access and activities to support prisoner rights."..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Justice
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 33.84 KB 173.5 KB
more
Title: Thousands of Myanmar Soldiers and Police Have Joined Anti-Junta Forces Since Coup
Sub-title: The shadow government and other opposition groups are encouraging defections.
Description: "Nearly 2,500 soldiers and police in Myanmar have broken with the military junta to join the resistance movement since the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected government, defector groups said on Thursday. Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow government made of former lawmakers ousted in the coup, as well as several armed ethnic groups, last month issued calls on members of the military and police to switch sides. The security forces that have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) that sprang up to resist the coup with protests and widespread work stoppages are represented by two groups. The CDM Myanmar Police Channel says 1,000 police have joined the movement, while People’s Embrace says about 1,500 members of the military have switched sides, and both groups say their numbers are growing. To date, the highest-ranked defector has been an army colonel, the groups said on Facebook. The NUG’s defense minister, Ye Mon, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the appeal to the military is part of the shadow government’s plan to overthrow the military dictatorship. "We understand that there are intelligent people among the military and the police. Especially those who know what is right or wrong, what is justice and what is injustice,” said Ye Mon. “We believe there are many people who know which side they should choose. We expect this directive to have a major impact on most members of the police force and military personnel, except for the handful of the junta’s leaders and minions who have committed a series of war crimes," he said. Myanmar’s military overthrew the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, claiming the party had stolen the country’s November 2020 ballot through voter fraud. The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently repressed anti-coup protests, killing at least 1,043 people and arresting 6,132 others, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Ye Mon said the skills and expertise of security forces who defect would be extremely useful in helping the people regain control of the country. In addition, he said the NUG would provide for the safety and well-being of their families. Captain Lin Htet Aung, who recently joined the CDM, told RFA that the NUG’s outreach had been effective and many soldiers and police officers still serving the junta have contacted his group to learn more about how they can defect. “One of the reasons that people are not leaving the army is because they are thinking about their current rank and position, as well as their own security,” said Lin Htet Aung. “The NUG is giving guarantees for that. Many in the armed forces are aware of this statement and have contacted us,” he said. Current members of the military can be divided into three groups: those who support the junta, those who do not trust the junta, and a neutral group, Lin Htet Aung said. The defection of the latter two groups would spell doom for the junta, he added. The NUG’s defense ministry last week urged police and soldiers to stop obeying junta orders and to stop arresting, torturing and killing civilians and destroying public property. The ministry also called on them to stop attacking the people’s defense forces (PDF), the hundreds of militia groups formed by citizens opposed to the coup, some of which are receiving training and support from armed ethnic groups that have been fighting with the military for decades. The NUG also told security forces how to contact the NUG if they wish to join the resistance. A former police officer from Myingyan, in the country’s central region, told RFA that the messages from the NUG are encouraging to other police officers because there are many who want to leave but do not know how. “There were people who wanted to leave their posts from the very beginning. It is encouraging for them to see such a statement that welcomes them,” Thet Naing Oo said. “It was not only that they didn’t approve of the coup. They were unhappy that most of the higher positions in the police force were given to former army officers instead of those among them who had loyally served as officers for years. It was a slap in the face,” he said. The Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF) and the Chin Regional Defense Force (CDF), two of the armed ethnic groups that control territory in the country and have been fighting the military for years, told RFA they are trying to encourage members of the security forces to switch sides. "The military coup was an unjust and coercive process. Only an insane person would say the actions of the junta are fair,” a KNDF spokesman told RFA. He said it was common in Myanmar’s history for power hungry generals to exploit lower ranking soldiers for their own benefit, so these soldiers should stop serving the junta as soon as possible. “There is still time for those in the army and police force as well as those who are working in support of the junta to engage with the people,” he said. The KNDF said on Aug. 20 that it would work with the people to uproot the military dictatorship and would welcome those who join the movement with special security guarantees as well as monetary support from public donations. The CDF, which launched the first civilian armed uprising after the coup, announced on Aug. 10 that it would pay each member of the military who joins the opposition force 5 million kyat (U.S. $3,037) and guarantee their safety. CDF officials would not disclose to RFA where the money was coming from, but a spokesman for the group said that they expected the announcement to entice soldiers to defect. "Wouldn’t it be better if there is one less gun pointing at ordinary people?” he said. “We released the statement as an incentive for police and soldiers who are confused, those who do not want to die for nothing in the jungle and those who dislike the military council," said the spokesman. The stepped up defection enticement effort came as branches of the PDF militias from a dozen regions in Myanmar announced an alliance to collectively take on the country’s junta. The groups are mostly based in embattled Sagaing region and Chin state, but are also located in of Mandalay and Magway regions, as well as Kachin and other ethnic states. The junta said last week that the NUG and other groups are trying to disrupt government business and are carrying out terror attacks daily to intimidate the public. The military also offered rewards to whistleblowers and informants who help make arrests of people associated with anti-junta groups. The military has not yet commented on soldier or police defection to the CDM or other resistance groups. Local media outlets have quoted military sources as saying that the number of soldiers and officers leaving their posts to join the CDM is rising daily, prompting the junta to consider releasing the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and holding national elections. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, there are about 400,000 soldiers in Myanmar’s military, making it one of the largest in Southeast Asia..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: UK hits Myanmar tycoon Tay Za with sanctions for supporting coup regime
Sub-title: The 57-year-old has supplied the military with weapons and financial aid, Britain's foreign office said
Description: "The UK government on Thursday announced new sanctions against Myanmar tycoon Tay Za and his businesses for providing arms and financial support to the military. Tay Za owns the Htoo Group of Companies and his business empire includes banks, airlines and hotels. The 57-year-old is one of the richest people in the country. He helped supply arms to the former junta led by Than Shwe and is infamous for his illegal logging activities. Britain’s government said it will freeze all assets held by Tay Za and his companies and ban him from entering the country. The sanctions will also prevent others from providing funds or economic resources to the tycoon. A UN fact finding mission in 2019 said that Tay Za helped to fund the 2017 military campaign against the Rohingya, which has been labelled genocide. “U Tay Za is associated with the military through his extensive links with the former and current junta regimes and has provided support for serious human rights violations in his role in assisting the military to procure arms,” the UK’s foeign office said in its statement. British foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the new sanctions came as “the military junta has shown no signs of halting its brutal attack on the people of Myanmar.” “The UK will continue to restrict the junta’s access to finance and the supply of arms used to kill innocents, including children, and target those who support the junta’s actions,” he added. The UK has imposed several rounds of sanctions since the coup, targeting top military officials, the military’s business interests, and members of the coup regime..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announces new Myanmar sanctions
Sub-title: Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announces new sanctions against U Tay Za and Htoo Group of Companies.
Description: "these sanctions target a key business associate of the military junta, and his network of companies for providing financial support and arms to the military this move follows sanctions on senior Myanmar military officers and their associated businesses following February’s military coup Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has announced new sanctions today against Myanmar businessman U Tay Za and his business empire Htoo Group. Htoo Group of Companies, of which U Tay Za is the founder and chairman, is a large business network that operates across the region, which contributed funds to the 2017 Rohingya clearance operations in Rakhine. U Tay Za is associated with the military through his extensive links with the former and current junta regimes and has provided support for serious human rights violations in his role in assisting the military to procure arms. These sanctions make clear that the UK will take concrete measures to limit the junta’s access to finance and economic resources, including by targeting business networks associated with the military regime. Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said: The military junta has shown no signs of halting its brutal attack on the people of Myanmar. Along with our partners, the UK will continue to restrict the junta’s access to finance and the supply of arms used to kill innocents, including children, and target those who support the junta’s actions. Enforced with immediate effect, sanctions will freeze all UK assets held by Htoo Group and U Tay Za, as well as banning the business tycoon from entering the UK. Sanctions will also block others from providing funds or economic resources to both those designated. These sanctions follow recent efforts to ensure that the supply of arms to Myanmar is halted, and follow on from the Communiqué the UK secured at the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ Meeting, that committed members to prevent the supply of arms and technical assistance to the military. In addition, on 18 June, the UK worked with partners to deliver a UN General Assembly Resolution which urged member states to prevent the flow of arms to Myanmar. Under the UK’s presidency the G7 continues to call for a return to democracy, an end to the violence and the immediate adoption of the ASEAN 5-point consensus, including the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners..."
Source/publisher: Govt. UK (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Justice in the balance as UN considers recognition question
Sub-title: The United Nations is set to consider whether to recognise the military regime or National Unity Government, and its decision could have major implications for a genocide case before the International Court of Justice.
Description: "With the United Nations expected to soon decide whether Myanmar is represented in the General Assembly by the military regime or the National Unity Government, another important question may hang in the balance: who will represent Myanmar at the International Court of Justice? The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar at the ICJ in 2019, accusing it of committing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. The allegations stem from the Tatmadaw’s brutal campaign of violence in 2017, which monitoring groups say killed thousands of Rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee across the border to refugee camps in Bangladesh. Nobel Peace Prize laureate State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi controversially defended the military’s actions before the ICJ in December 2019. Her administration was overthrown by the generals in February this year, and she is now being imprisoned by the very people she went to the Hague to defend The NUG was formed in April by lawmakers elected in November’s polls, which the military later annulled, and consists of members from the National League for Democracy as well as representatives from ethnic minority groups and civil society. With the military back in nominal control of the country but still largely unrecognised on the international stage, the case has become embroiled in the struggle between the regime and the NUG. Unlike the International Criminal Court, which hears cases against individuals, the ICJ is a United Nations body that settles disputes between states, and both the junta and the NUG are apparently eager to take the ICJ case to bolster their legitimacy. Dr Sasa, the NUG’s Minister for International Cooperation, confirmed that the civilian government is seeking control of the case. “If the ICJ will allow us to represent Myanmar by appointing an agent at the case, then that is what we also will do,” he said in a recent interview with Frontier. Sasa made clear that the legitimacy issue is weighing heavily on the NUG’s decision to try and take the ICJ case. “It’s also very much to do with who will represent Myanmar as a state right now,” he said. The UN Credentials Committee recommends to the UN General Assembly which government to recognise in the event of a dispute. The nine-member body currently includes Russia and China, who have shielded the junta from consequences at the UN Security Council, as well as the United States, which has already declared the events in Rakhine State ethnic cleansing and imposed sanctions against military-linked entities and individuals. The issue could come to a head when the General Assembly meets on September 14. Myanmar’s seat at the UN is occupied by U Kyaw Moe Tun, who has remained loyal to the overthrown government; the junta has not only sought to replace him, it has charged him with high treason and demanded his extradition. Last month, America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation announced details of an alleged assassination plot targeting Kyaw Moe Tun involving Myanmar nationals based in the US. The military regime has denied any involvement in the scheme. Despite being the target of most of The Gambia’s allegations, the military regime also appears keen to continue engaging with the ICJ; it recently announced a reshuffle of the team overseeing the case, appointing eight junta officials. Mr William Schabas and Ms Phoebe Okowa, foreign lawyers who previously served on Myanmar’s legal team under Aung San Suu Kyi, both confirmed that they are no longer working on the case but declined to comment further. “I resigned from the legal team soon after the military coup and have absolutely no insights into the case except what is publicly available,” Okowa said to Frontier in an email. The military’s new legal team is led by the junta’s foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, and also includes Lieutenant-General Yar Pyae, a close ally of commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing who was recently named as minister of the Union Government Office. But the NUG remains hopeful that the ICJ will not engage with the military’s legal team. “I don’t think that the ICJ will accept those people that claim to be representing the state of Myanmar or the people of Myanmar,” Sasa said. A tough spot Taking charge of the case would put the NUG in a tricky position, however. Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to defend Myanmar before the ICJ was wildly popular inside the country, where many people consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants, but she was condemned by human rights groups and other Nobel Peace Prize winners. Canada and the Netherlands joined the case against Myanmar, and other Western countries like the United Kingdom expressed support for it. How then would the NUG, which has Aung San Suu Kyi still nominally as its state counsellor, fight the case, if it were accepted as Myanmar’s representative? Continuing to deny allegations of genocide would harm its efforts to secure international support for its cause, but conceding that genocide occurred is unlikely to go over well domestically, where anti-Rohingya sentiment is widespread even among pro-democracy supporters. This could be ameliorated to some extent by heaping the blame onto the Tatmadaw, and saying that it misled the NLD government about events on the ground in Rakhine State back in 2017, but accepting that genocide occurred could still cost the NUG some support. Political analyst Mr David Mathieson said the NUG would be “deplored internationally if they argued against genocide and pilloried domestically if they agreed it was a genocide”. There are some signs that attitudes towards the Rohingya are changing. The NUG has pledged to grant the Rohingya equal rights and replace the 1982 Citizenship Law, and some activists and protesters have apologised for their treatment or advocated for their rights – public displays of sympathy and support were rarely seen before the coup. Even the use of the word “Rohingya” in such a public manner would have been unthinkable before the coup. But Mathieson said he didn’t think attitudes had changed that much. “I can’t imagine any deep-seated anti-Rohingya sentiments would have completely evaporated since the coup. They may well have altered, but I seriously doubt there has been a nation-wide epiphany of compassion. More likely there has been a nationwide awakening as to the brutality, oppression and greed of the Tatmadaw.” But Rohingya activist U Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, said he believes perceptions have genuinely shifted. “There’s no question that we have seen a real change in public opinion since the coup. I and many other Rohingya have been flooded with messages on social media from people apologising for spreading hatred against us in the past,” he told Frontier. Although some members of the NUG had denied atrocities were perpetrated against the Rohingya when the NLD was in power, Tun Khin said he believes the parallel government’s recent statements were a “step in the right direction”. “We welcome the fact that the NUG is seeking to engage with the ICJ, and there is no question that it is a better choice to [represent Myanmar] than the Tatmadaw,” Tun Khin said. The NUG’s position is made more difficult by the fact that the case has been brought under the Genocide Convention. This means the ICJ can only rule on whether genocide occurred, and cannot, for instance, dismiss the genocide accusation but confirm a charge of crimes against humanity – a middle ground that might have been acceptable to most of the NUG’s international and domestic supporters. When Aung San Suu Kyi defended the case, she did not even acknowledge crimes against humanity, however, saying instead that any alleged war crimes were committed by individual soldiers who would be held accountable domestically. The Tatmadaw has tried some soldiers accused of atrocities at military tribunals, but these trials were widely seen as attempts to deflect responsibility from more senior officers. They were also not open to the public and some of those convicted were soon amnestied and freed from prison. One of Myanmar’s former lawyers, Schabas, was more explicit, acknowledging during the ICJ hearing that the UN Fact-Finding Mission “concluded without equivocation that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed” but was “more circumspect” on the allegations of genocide. He noted at the time that the ICJ lacks jurisdiction to address those crimes. Frontier asked Sasa several times whether the NUG would accept the allegations of genocide or argue against them in court, but he evaded the question each time. “It is for the court to decide based on the evidence and proof if genocide happened or not. It’s not for the government or an organisation to decide. If it is found that there is evidence of genocide, who are we to say no?” he said. When the NUG released a statement on the fourth anniversary of the crackdown on the Rohingya, it condemned “atrocity crimes” but did not explicitly call it a genocide. But even within the NUG there are divisions. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs released a statement calling the crackdown a genocide and highlighted acts of sexual violence, which the NUG did not mention and which Aung San Suu Kyi’s Facebook page previously referred to as “fake rape”. Mathieson said the NUG could look foolish if it argued that genocide did occur, and then the court determined the crackdown did not qualify as genocide, an outcome he said “is not unlikely”. Tun Khin argues it is crucial that the NUG publicly recognises the treatment of the Rohingya as a genocide. “Only by accepting the realities of the past will we be able to build a common future, and to take effective and genuine steps to end the ongoing genocide,” he said. Sasa said the NUG is also working with its law firm, Volterra Fietta, to build a case against military leaders at the ICC. “We have received thousands of videos of atrocities” committed by the military since the coup, he said, pledging that the NUG will also “bring justice to our Rohingya brothers and sisters” either through the ICC or domestic legal mechanisms. Although Myanmar is not yet a state party to the ICC because it has not ratified the Rome Statute, soon after his interview with Frontier Sasa the NUG announced that it lodged a formal declaration in July to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction as a non-state party for crimes committed since 2002. Legitimacy not necessarily at stake While the question of who represents Myanmar at the ICJ is symbolically important, the court adjudicates disputes between states, not governments. Legal experts say that if the junta were allowed to represent Myanmar, it would not imply legal recognition. Mr Arsalan Suleman, a lawyer on The Gambia’s legal team, said they would continue to pursue the case even if the military regime is representing Myanmar. “The Gambia sued the State of Myanmar in the ICJ. Since then, The Gambia has followed the procedures established by the Court, and it will continue to do so until a final judgment has been issued by the Court. This does not imply The Gambia’s diplomatic recognition of Myanmar’s current de facto government,” he said in an email. Ms Emma Palmer, a senior lecturer at Australia’s Griffith Law School and an expert on international law, said the ICJ’s decision over who represents Myanmar could be “persuasive” in terms of popular perception of legitimacy, but is not legally binding. “It would be the ‘state’ that the ICJ has jurisdiction over, rather than a particular government, so I agree that a change in government does not affect the ICJ case’s ability to proceed,” she said. Allowing the military to take the case “would not amount to any kind of formal change to the status of the military”. Palmer said she would expect the ICJ to “avoid the issue” by delaying proceedings or waiting for the UN to make a decision. This may already be happening. The last update on the ICJ website is from January 28, days before the coup, setting a deadline of May 20 for The Gambia to respond to Myanmar’s preliminary objections, which challenged the court’s jurisdiction over the case. These objections mean the case will not move forward until the court makes a decision on whether it has the authority to proceed. Suleman confirmed that The Gambia countered Myanmar’s objections, and said he expects the court to set a date soon for oral arguments on the preliminary objections. But more than three months after the deadline for The Gambia’s response, the court is still yet to make any public statement on the case, let alone schedule oral hearings. In contrast, the January update came just eight days after Myanmar filed its preliminary objections on January 20. The ICJ did not respond to Frontier’s request for comment. No decision A further complication for the court would be if the UN General Assembly does not make a definitive decision later this month on who should represent Myanmar. Ms Sarah Williams, a professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the UN could theoretically leave Myanmar’s seat at the UN empty as it did with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1997 and Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996. She said it could also maintain the status quo, allowing the incumbent ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, to retain his seat – at least for now – without deciding between the military regime and the NUG. Williams said that if this happens, she would expect the ICJ to “say that it is unable to determine which person/entity is entitled to represent Myanmar and will not accept instructions from anyone” – a scenario that is likely to further stall the case. Even though the ICC is not a UN body and therefore “in theory has more flexibility”, it would still most likely take its cues from the UN and be reluctant to make its own determination. Palmer said there is another scenario where the military takes the ICJ case, but then refuses to cooperate with the proceedings, given its history of rejecting the authority of international legal mechanisms. “If the military does notappear in Court, which seems potentially likely, then the Court will most likely just proceed with the case without ‘Myanmar’,” she said, adding that this has happened before, in a case between Nicaragua and the United States. On August 24, the military regime filed a legal amendment criminalising genocide in Myanmar’s domestic law, and defining it by the recognised international standard. It has said little about the reasons behind the amendment, but observers say it could be an attempt by the military to undermine international legal mechanisms, as it can now try to argue that the crime of genocide can be investigated and prosecuted domestically and international action is therefore not needed. But Tun Khin said only international mechanisms will suffice. “The military has committed genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes with impunity in Myanmar for decades,” he said. “They must be held to account, and only the international community is in a position to provide justice.”..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Myanmar Junta Troops Burn Donated Food for IDPs
Description: "Myanmar junta troops burned donations of rice, other food and tarpaulins intended for more than 2,000 internally displaced people from Kin Ma village in Magwe Region, which was burned down by regime forces, and have planted landmines in the area. In mid-June, almost the entire 240-house village in southern Pauk Township was burned down by junta troops after they suffered heavy casualties during a firefight with civilian resistance fighters near the village. On Tuesday morning, more than 130 junta soldiers used artillery and raided Kin Ma. More than 2,000 villagers fled to forests. Before leaving the village monastery on Wednesday morning, junta troops burned the monastery’s possessions and 34 rice bags, other food and tarpaulins donated for the homeless villagers, according to residents. The troops also destroyed two bags of rice with battery acid. Kin Ma villagers said an unidentified, charred body was found under a burned motorbike near the monastery. Villagers said the body is believed to be one of two residents who was seized by troops while heading to Kin Ma. Two landmines, allegedly laid by regime soldiers, were found in the village. Villagers fear returning because they suspect more explosives will be hidden, a young Kin Ma villager told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. “The junta’s atrocities are unacceptable. We will be pleased when the whole dictatorship disappears,” a villager said. On Thursday morning, around 60 junta troops deployed at Wun Chone village’s monastery near Kin Ma on Tuesday burned fleeing villagers’ possessions, according to residents. Last week, hundreds of junta troops in two detachments raided around 30 villages and scoured forests for civilian resistance fighters in southern Pauk Township while heading to Wun Chone and Kin Ma. More than 30,000 villagers fled into forests to avoid the raids. Around 11 junta troops were killed by resistance landmines on August 27 and 29, according to the People’s Defense Forces in Pauk..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
more
Title: Statement of KNU Concerned Group regarding the current political situation and SAC military operations - လက်ရှိနိုင်ငံရေး၊ စစ်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုအပေါ် KNU Concerned Group ၏ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ချက်။
Source/publisher: KNU Concerned Group
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 89.82 KB
more
Title: Statement of KNU Concerned Group regarding the military coup in Burma/Myanmar
Description: "လက်ရှိမြန်မာပြည်အတွင်း တပ်မတော်မှအဓမ္မစစ်အာဏာသိမ်းခြင်းအပေါ် KNU Concerned Group မှ သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်"
Source/publisher: KNU Concerned Group
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 109.19 KB
more
Title: Statement of the KNU Concerned Group on the current military coup in Myanmar by Tatmadaw
Description: "1. On February 1, 2021, the Tatmadaw (Burman military) issued Order Number (1/2021), the promulgation of seizure by it. We, the KNU Concerned Group, strongly protest and denounce Tatmadaw's seizure of power, because according to the promulgation letter, it was the seizure of the political power from the NLD, the winning party of the general election held on November 8, 2020. 2. Though the NLD Party did not accept the 2008 Constitution, the NLD had contested in elections with a positive outlook starting from 2012. It won a landslide victory in 2015 general election and though it made the effort to amend the Constitution within the parliament, there was no success. On the other hand, the Ethnic Armed Revolutionary Organizations (EARO) tried to amend the Constitution on the basis of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), without success. Accordingly, it is entirely evident that the 2008 Constitution cannot be amended either in the parliament or on the basis of the NCA. 3. Similarly, the KNU Concerned Group do not absolutely accept the administrative services set up by Tatmadaw, after the seizure of power. In the Karen revolutionary areas, we will perform, maintain and defend our administration, in accordance with the administrative system laid down by the KNU and on the basis of self-determination. 4. For that reason, we earnestly urge: ^ The Karen armed organizations, the DKBA, KNU/KNLA PC, BGF etc., to join up with the KNLA as the Kawthoolei Army, to defend together the Karen people, together with the entire people made up of all the ethnic nationalities; ^ The entire people to unanimously oppose the seizure of power by the Tatmadaw; ^ The international community not to recognize the military government set up by the Tatmadaw. KNU Concerned Group..."
Source/publisher: KNU Concerned Group
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 29.2 KB
more

Pages