Anti-coup protesters
Individual Documents
Description:
"လက်ရှိမြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအနှံ့ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်ခံနေရတာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ အဲဒီထဲကမှ ကမ္ဘာကရော၊ နိုင်ငံကရော၊ လူ့လောကတစ်ခုလုံးကပါ လူမသိသူမသိ ချိုးဖောက်ခံနေရဆုံးနေရာက အကျဉ်းထောင်တွေဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးမှာ နည်းမျိုးစုံနဲ့ပါဝင်ပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ရင်း အကျဉ်းထောင်ထဲ ရောက်နေကြတဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားတွေကို အာဏာရှင်ရဲ့ လက်ပါးစေ ထောင်အာဏာပိုင်များမှ နည်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်နေကြပါတယ်။ အဆိုပါဖြစ်ရပ်တွေကို အခြေခံပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်တွေထဲက လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်အခံရဆုံး အဖြစ်အပျက်တွေကို အများပြည်သူ သိရှိနိုင်အောင် ဖော်ထုတ်ဖို့အတွက် ရည်ရွယ်ပြီး “The International Day For The Right To The Truth” အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် အောက်ပါ Animation Video ကို GSCC ၊ AAPP ၊ AJAR တို့ပူးပေါင်း စီစဉ်တင်ဆက်လိုက်ပါတယ်။
(အရေးတော်ပုံအောင်ရမည်!!)..."
Source/publisher:
General Strike Collaboration Committee, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners and Asia Justice and Rights
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Description:
"Today marks the 34th anniversary of Chin Revolution Day, a day on which we honour the bravery of those Chin who fought for their self-determination and national rights, for the dream of freedom and federal democracy. Today also marks the formation of the Chin National Front/Army (CNF/A) in 1988.
The Chin people have been fighting for their rights since the British colonial period. Following independence, Chin people participated in democratic government which was tragically taken from them and all of Myanmar when the dictator Ne Win staged his coup in 1962 and seized power from the democratically elected federal government. Ever since then, the Chin, a major ethnic group in Myanmar, and overwhelmingly Christian, have been subject to widespread ethnic and religious persecution. The continuous oppression, abuse and attacks on the Chin people are predominantly committed by Myanmar military and police, who frequently violate the rule of law. Chin people are often subjected to forced labor, arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings – crimes whose perpetrators are never brought to justice. This has resulted in a mass of refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, especially India. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has conducted several interviews with refugees from Chin to document the abuse which has taken place in Chin state by the military. It is due to this ongoing abuse and torture, that the CNF and its armed branch, the Chin National Army (CNA), were first formed and gained momentum during the 8888 uprising. And the fight against the fascist military continues till today, in which Chin people have shown their determination and willingness through CNF/A, Civil Disobedient Movement (CDM), several local Chinland Defense Forces (CDF)to carry the fight through to the end, never giving up on the dreams of self- determination, freedom and federal democracy.
Our Chin brethren, together with all other Myanmar people, share our mutual goal of achieving true self-determination and federal democracy by eradication of the genocidal military and repressive dictatorships. We must stay united and fight until we can rip out the genocidal military and their fascism root and stem. To my fellow Chin brothers and sisters, I want to thank you all for your bravery and I want to send my sincere wish that the sufferings of Chin people will end with the fall of the genocidal military, and that we will achieve the future Myanmar where true self-determination, freedom and federal democracy awaits us.
May God bless Chinland, May God bless Myanmar and May God bless Ukraine..."
Source/publisher:
Dr. Sasa via Ministry of International Cooperation Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), Chin history, Political History, Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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29.37 KB
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Sub-title:
The junta has also revoked the licences of 14 medics and threatened to shut down private clinics that employ CDM doctors
Description:
"Military officials in Mandalay have revoked the licences of medical professionals and threatened to shut down clinics that employ doctors taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against the junta.
Major General Ko Ko Oo, who heads the military’s central regional command, called a meeting with the owners of private hospitals in the city on March 12 and said they would also have to submit lists of patients to the junta every day.
The junta also recently revoked the licences of 14 medical practitioners in the city, including teaching professors and specialists, who are taking part in CDM, according to Dr Soe Thura Zaw, who is one of the 14.
The demand for daily patient lists is believed to be an attempt to prevent hospitals from treating injured People’s Defence Force (PDF) fighters, and a way of tipping the military off to their whereabouts if they seek medical care.
“They don’t want doctors and hospitals secretly treating PDF members,” said another Mandalay-based doctor, who asked not to be named.
Medics said that submitting patient lists would be illegal and would violate doctor-patient confidentiality and the patients’ right to privacy. It is unclear to what extent hospitals and clinics will comply with the order, or whether it will be enforced in other parts of Myanmar.
Dr Soe Thura Zaw said that under the Labor Law, doctors taking part in CDM can be fired from their jobs and have their medical licences revoked if they have been absent from their official places of work for more than three months.
“Everyone is facing all sorts of troubles under the military’s reign,” he said. “The only way to solve all those problems once and for all is to end the dictatorship for good.”
Medical professionals have been at the forefront of the movement to eliminate the military dictatorship since the immediate aftermath of last year’s coup, and were the first to refuse to work under the new junta.
About 80% of Mandalay’s medical personnel have joined the CDM, according to data compiled by members of the movement, with many opting to treat people privately rather than work under the junta-controlled health ministry.
Medics have suffered brutal reprisals for challenging the military. In August last year Dr Maung Maung Nyein Tun died in custody of Covid-19 after being beaten and denied medical treatment.
Dr Thiha Tin Tun was among over 100 people shot dead by security forces on March 27 last year.
In June, the former head of Myanmar’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, Dr Htar Htar Lin, was arrested and charged with high treason after she sought to prevent the junta from accessing funds meant to fight the virus..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Health Workers Strike, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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Description:
"On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar armed forces seized control of the country, following a general election that the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. Since then, hundreds of people have been killed and many injured during nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) protests and violent crackdowns on those opposing the coup. Doctors and nurses have been served with warrants and arrests for providing medical care to protesters, health workers have been injured while providing care to protesters, ambulances have been destroyed, and health facilities have been raided. Below are eight incidents identified between 09-22 February 2022.
23 February-08 March 2022: Eight documented incidents
23 February 2022: In Kayah state, State Administration Council (SAC) aircraft dropped bombs on a village, injuring civilians, including a medic. Source: Facebook
24 February 2022: In Dawkamee village, Kayah state, two doctors of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) were killed by SAC airstrikes that also destroyed six houses. Source: Radio Free Asia
27 February 2022: In Lo Bar Kho village, Demoso township, Kayah state, SAC aircraft dropped bombs near a clinic for displaced civilians. Source: The Irrawaddy
27 February 2022: In Ye-U township, Sagaing region, People’s Defence Force (PDF) fighters shelled a traditional medicine hospital occupied by SAC forces. Two SAC soldiers were reportedly killed in the attack. Source: Mizzima
27 February 2022: In Pakokku township and Region, a nurse and teacher affiliated with the CDM were arrested by SAC forces. Sources: AAPP and Twitter
03 March 2022: In Mindat township, Chin state, SAC forces continue to confiscate medication at checkpoints intended for displaced civilians. The blockade of medication into Mindat township has been documented since July 2021. Source: Ayeyarwaddy Times
04 March 2022: In Pyay township, Bago region, SAC forces arrested a nurse. Source: Twitter
05 March 2022: In Chaungma village, Kani township, Yinmabin district, Sagaing region, approximately 70 SAC forces set fire to the village, destroying a rural clinic as well as over twenty homes and farm equipment. Source: Khit Thit Media..."
Source/publisher:
Insecurity Insight via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Health Workers Strike
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pdf
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440.4 KB
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Sub-title:
Military Crackdown in Hlaing Tharyar Continues
Description:
"On March 14, 2021, “Zarni” joined protests in Hlaing Tharyar, near Yangon, against the Myanmar military’s February 1 coup. The large protests were planned by factory workers, a large portion of the industrial area’s residents.
Protesters prepared barricades to ward off security forces, who had been cracking down on peaceful protests around the country.
But there were no arrests that day, Zarni said. “They just shot to kill.”
Human Rights Watch documented that police and soldiers with assault rifles deliberately surrounded – or “kettled” – the Hlaing Tharyar protesters, killing at least 65 people. The security forces, witnesses said, emerged from different directions to trap them.
The shootings in Hlaing Tharyar stand out as one of the deadliest days since the coup, not least because of the apparent premeditated use of lethal force.
A year later, Zarni says Hlaing Tharyar is still not safe. “We have been under martial law since then. So long as the military exists, we continue suffering.”
The challenges of documenting human rights abuses in an increasingly closed country make exact tallies of people killed difficult. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has reported that 1,600 protesters and bystanders have died since the coup. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project suggests a far higher number of total deaths. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates 837,000 people are displaced within Myanmar, over 500,000 since the coup.
In October, the authorities forcibly evicted and destroyed informal settlements in Hlaing Tharyar, leaving at least 8,000 families homeless. Night raids and arbitrary arrests have continued, while closed military courts handed down death sentences. Unemployment and food insecurity have also increased in Myanmar, and the UN Development Program predicts urban poverty rates will triple in 2022.
The UN Human Rights Council will discuss the situation in Myanmar on March 18. The council should call on the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution referring the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court and recommend to the UN secretary-general to further assist international mechanisms investigating abuses. It should also call for all revenues from oil, gas, timber, and gems that flow to the military and fuel abuses to be put into an escrow account in the name of the Myanmar people until a democratically elected civilian government is restored.
Failure to take strong steps in Myanmar emboldens the military to commit further abuses and unnecessarily prolongs the suffering of people throughout the country..."
Source/publisher:
Human Rights Watch (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Anti-coup protesters
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Description:
"၀န်ထမ်းခေါ်ယူခန့်ထားခြင်းဆိုင်ရာ ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခြင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Commerce , National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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pdf
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267.84 KB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 11, 2022, (1652) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (10) fallen heroes today. These (10) fallen heroes from Shwebo Township, Kale Township and Khin-U Township in Sagaing Region, Hakha Township in Chin State, Loikaw Township in Kayah State were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 11, 2022, a total of (9588) people are currently under detention. (837) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 8 at 12:30 pm, three children aged around 7 years old, 10 years old and 12 years older, living in Lwe Htae Village in Kayah State’s Loikaw Township, were killed on the spot by Junta’s heavy artillery shell which exploded nearby while they were playing. In addition, Hla Tun, father of the deceased, and his other daughter, aged 15 years old, got injured.
On March 5, Rung Hu, who suffered from mental illness, was shot to death on the head and chest by junta soldiers, in Chun Kyune Village in Chin State’s Hakha Township. He stayed at home and did not run away when junta soldiers entered the village.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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2.65 MB 8.14 MB 1.11 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 10, 2022, (1642) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Mobye Town in Pekon Township, Shan State were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 10, 2022, a total of (9571) people are currently under detention. (834) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 6, 2022, Lar Sa Ru, aged 10 years old, and Augustine, aged 17 years old, were arrested at home to be used as human shields, when the Junta raided Pwe Kone (1) Ward in Mobye Town in Pekon Township, Shan State. They were murdered near Warisu Palai Village.
On March 4, 2022, activist Hein Min Ko Ko (aka Hein Lwin Htoo) was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment with hard labor by the special court in Dawei Prison. He was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, and 26 years imprisonment under The Explosive Substances Act. He was arrested while participating in a protest at Bon Maw Ward, in Dawei Township, on May 11, 2021, and got shot in the arm and leg with rubber bullets. He was seriously injured.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
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Size:
2.59 MB 8.01 MB 1.06 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 9, 2022, (1640) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (17) fallen heroes today. These (17) fallen heroes from Pauk Township in Magway Region, Mayangone Township in Yangon Region and Yinmarbin Township in Sagaing Region were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 9, 2022, a total of (9559) people are currently under detention. (833) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 8, 2022, eight civilians, IDPs sheltering at the Lat Pan Taw Village monastery, were shot to death on the spot, when the military raided the Lat Pan Taw Village in Sagaing Region’s Yinmarbin Township and fired heavy artillery shells. Six civilians were from Lat Pan Taw villagers: Tin Nyunt, aged 93 years old, Than Maung, aged more than 70 years old, Moh Moh Win, aged 30 years old, her two sons named Myat Bhone Naing and Swan Htet Naing, aged 7 and 9 years old respectively, and her mother Thein Hla, aged more than 70 years old. The other two victims were from Kan Thar village, named Thein Maung and Ohn Hlaing who were more than 7o years old.
On February 25, 2022 at around 5 pm, Junta military personnel opened fire and raided the homes in Ward (3) in Mayangone Township, Yangon Region, where members of the ABFSU (All Burma Federation of Student Unions) from different township unions in Yangon Region temporarily stayed. During the raid, eight students from ABFSU were arrested. The former chairman of the Basic Education Students’ Union (ABFSU), named Nyi Min Thu, was shot in the chest and died on the spot.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.63 MB 8.02 MB 1.09 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 8, 2022, (1623) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Madaya Township in Mandalay Region and Pauk Township in Magway Region were killed on March 5, 2o22 and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 8, 2022, a total of (9533) people are currently under detention. (833) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 1, 2022, the house of the village administrator exploded in Gwegyi Village, in Kyaung Kone Village Tract, Mandalay Region’s Madaya Township. When the junta soldiers arrived at the village, a civilian named Wai Phyo Aung, his three family members, and three other friends were arrested. On the night of March 5, soldiers brought Wai Phyo Aung to the village, searched the area, and shot him to death in a road nearby.
On the night of March 5, 2022, the armed wing of the Junta raided and fired artillery shells at Inn Nge Daunk Village, in Magway Region’s Pauk Township. The military soldiers arrested Aye Aye Win, aged 42 years old, and her daughter Yati Moe, aged 3 years old, while they were preparing to run away. Aye Aye Win was raped then killed at a public resthouse in front of her home, a 3-year-old Yati Moe was also stabbed in the chest.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.55 MB 7.97 MB 1.08 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 4, (1603) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (6) fallen heroes today. These (6) fallen heroes from Gangaw Township in Magway Region and Ye-U Township in Sagaing Region were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 4, a total of (9507) people are currently under detention. (827) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On February 28, three local PDF personnel, named Aung Win, Kalar Lay and Htaw Gyi, and a civilian named Naing Oo, were arrested and then burned alive by the armed wing of the Junta after the military entered Oakpho Village in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Region.
On the evening of February 28, a designer named Soe Su Myat Lwin, living in Inntaw Town in Southern Shan State, was arrested by junta police for posting political content on Facebook.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
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Size:
2.56 MB 7.94 MB 1.08 MB
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Description:
"As of March 3, (1597) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (7) fallen heroes today. These (7) fallen heroes from Gangaw Township in Magway Region were killed on February 28 and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 3, a total of (9478) people are currently under detention. (810) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On February 28, the armed wing of the Junta and Pyu Saw Htee personnel assaulted villages in Gangaw Township, Magway Region. Seven locals from Shwebo Village were killed. Their names are Thar Nyi, Wai Yan Oo, Zin Min Htut a.k.a Pyar Tar Maung, Nyein Chan Maung, Latt Soe, Win Soe and Tun Zaw. Five of the villagers were arrested, hands tied and burned alive, and two others were shot dead.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.49 MB 7.93 MB 1.05 MB
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Description:
"During 1–25 Feb, there were at least 741 armed clashes and attacks on civilians (or 29.64 per day), compared to 23.69/day over the prior twelve months. UNHCR said that 810,000 IDPs in Burma, likely a significant underestimate. As of 28 Feb, the junta had arrested at least 12,417 civilians, including politicians, activists, and journalists, and killed at least 1,869 civilians. COVID-19 cases spiked dramatically. The EU placed sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). As new ASEAN Chair, Cambodia prevented the junta from attending the first ASEAN meeting of 2022, but conceded that it could do little to improve the situation..."
Source/publisher:
Asia Democracy Network, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Burma Human Rights Network, Initiatives for International Dialogue, International Federation for Human Rights, Progressive Voice, and US Campaign for Burma
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Burma: Internal displacement/forced migration of several ethnic groups., Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, National Unity Government (NUG)
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"As of March 1, (1589) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (4) fallen heroes today. These (4) fallen heroes from Yinmarbin Township in Sagaing Region and Dawei Township in Tanintharyi Region were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP. The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when.
As of March 1, a total of (9437) people are currently under detention. (778) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On the midnight of February 25, Thein Htike Oo, living in Maung Mae Shaung Village in Tanintharyi Region’s Dawei Township, was shot dead by Junta soldiers at the checkpoint in Eain Shae Pyin Village, while he was crossing by motorbike. Thein Htike Oo suffers from mental illness. His body was not returned to his family and was cremated by the military.
From February 26 for three days, the armed wing of the Junta has been stationed at, and raiding Chin Pone Village, in Sagaing Region’s Yinmarbin Township. They killed nine villagers, including Aung Maung, from Chin Pone Village, and Tun Tun and Myo Nyunt, from Pan Pa Htone Village.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected] ..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-01
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
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"This Situation Update describes events occurring in Ta Kreh Township, Hpa-an District from April to June 2021. This report highlights issues related to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), the COVID-19 pandemic, and the education situation. After the military coup, many government staff joined the CDM and have been seeking temporary shelter in areas controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU). COVID-19 cases have increased, resulting in travel restrictions and an increase in the price of goods. Some villagers cannot afford to buy goods because they do not have jobs. In June 2021, one of the Karen primary schools reopened for one month but was closed again when COVID-19 cases increased. The school will reopen when the situation improves.[1]
Introduction
This situation report covers events that occurred in Ta Kreh [Paingkyon] Township, Hpa-an District, in the period from April to June 2021, following the military coup. This situation update will discuss the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM)[2], COVID-19, and the education situation in Ta Kreh Township.
The Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and travel restrictions
In May 2021, CDM participants from different towns and districts came to H--- village, Ta Kreh Township, Hpa-an District. These CDM participants are of different ethnic and religious backgrounds and had different [professional] positions.
In April 2021, there were no travel restrictions [in Hpa-an District]. An organisation [villagers were not able to identify the name of the organisation] came and provided training on issues such as healthcare, water purification, food preparation, healthcare for pregnant women and infants, sexual violence, and COVID-19 prevention. Since May 2021, however, it has become more difficult to travel because the State Administration Council (SAC)[3] has been searching for and arresting CDM participants. Therefore, it is not easy for this organisation to enter the area.
COVID-19 and its impacts
In June 2021, COVID-19 cases increased, resulting in travel restrictions and an increase in the price of goods. Some villagers struggled to get food because they did not have jobs and were unable to earn their livelihoods. Furthermore, some villagers were infected with COVID-19 at the shop where the villagers used to buy goods. The SAC military government ordered the shop to close temporarily.
Since the COVID-19 situation has grown worse, organisations, including the one noted above [that came to provide training], have been unable to come to Ta Kreh Township to organise activities.
Other Healthcare
There was a pregnant woman in the area [Ta Kreh Towship] who needed to give birth via caesarean section (C-section), so she couldn’t give birth [in the village] and needed to go to the hospital [to give birth]. She went to the public hospital, but they rejected her [because they did not have capacity to treat her]. She then had to go to the private hospital to deliver her baby. After she recovered from childbirth, she came back and stayed at her mother’s house [in Ta Kreh Township].
Education
In June 2021, the Karen [Karen Education and Culture Department (KECD)[4]] primary school in T’Koo Traw village, Noh Hkwee village tract,[5] Ta Kreh Township, Hpa-an District, reopened because students from the other villages came to attend that school. There were four teachers and over 70 students attending the Karen [KECD] primary school. [At this time] Myanmar government schools were still closed. In July 2021, however, the majority of villagers were infected with COVID-19 and the school was closed for two weeks. If the situation improves, the school will reopen. The Karen National Union (KNU)[6] also announced a temporary closure of Karen schools.
Conclusion
Though there might be many other events that occurred during this period in 2021, due to the COVID-19 situation, KHRG’s researcher was unable to travel [to collect other information] and so was not able to provide KHRG with information on other events. In 2021, there have been many challenges for the [local] community because of the military coup and the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the livelihood, education and travel situations are very different than they were before [the military coup and COVID-19].
Footnotes:
[1] The present document is based on information received in July. It was provided by a community member in Hpa-an who has been trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions on the ground. The names of the victims, their photos and the exact locations are censored for security reasons. The parts in square brackets are explanations added by KHRG.
[2] On February 2nd 2021, healthcare workers at state-run hospitals and medical facilities across Myanmar spearheaded what is being referred to as a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) consisting of labour strikes in protest against the February 1st 2021 military coup. The movement quickly spread to include civil servants from all sectors of the government who are walking off their jobs as a way of non-recognition and non-participation in the military regime. Because of the popularity of the movement, and its seminal role in wider protests across the country, some people have begun using it as a catch-all phrase to include other protest forms like boycotts and pot-banging.
[3] The State Administration Council (SAC) is the executive governing body created in the aftermath of the February 1st 2021 military coup. It was established by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on February 2nd 2021, and is composed of eight military officers and eight civilians. The chairperson serves as the de facto head of government of Myanmar and leads the Military Cabinet of Myanmar, the executive branch of the government. Min Aung Hlaing assumed the role of SAC chairperson following the coup.
[4] The Karen Education and Culture Department is the education department of the Karen National Union. Its main goals are to provide mother tongue education services to rural Karen populations in Southeast Myanmar, as well as to preserve the Karen language, culture and history. Despite being an important education provider in the region, it is not officially recognised by the Myanmar government.
[5] A village tract is an administrative unit of between five and 20 villages in a local area, often centred on a large village.
[6] The Karen National Union (KNU) is the main Karen political organisation. It was established in 1947 and has been in conflict with the Burma/Myanmar government since 1949. The KNU wields power across large areas of Southeast Myanmar and has been calling for the creation of a democratic federal system since 1976. Although it signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015, relations with the government remain tense..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-22
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"Anti-regime forces have called on the Myanmar people to join a mass protest planned for Tuesday that is being referred to as the “Regathering for the Six Twos Revolution”, a reference to the date, 22.2.2022. The protest is also being referred to as “Revolt by the Rural, Defiance by the Urban.”
Last year on Feb. 22 (22.2.2021), three weeks after the military seized power, protesters across Myanmar took to the streets in a general strike known as the “Five Twos Revolution,” in one of the largest nationwide shows of opposition to the military.
People have been urged to take to the streets in the “Six Twos Revolution” wearing bamboo or other hats as well as Thanakha, a traditional face powder, and holding flowers and bouquets. People, if possible, are also urged to scatter papers bearing anti-coup slogans along with flowers, raise a three-finger salute and bang pots and pans at 8 p.m.
Strike committees have urged the people to join the protest by any other means if they are not able to participate in said activities.
“Millions of people took to the streets in last year’s ‘Five Twos’ revolution. And we want to organize a campaign on Feb. 22 this year in which millions of people can participate. We want to show that people still oppose military rule and that the anti-coup movements remain strong,” said Ko Khant Wai Phyo, a member of the Monywa General Strike Committee.
“We always have trust in the people. People have time and again shown that they are totally against the coup and military dictatorship. I believe we will be able to show it again tomorrow. So, we have suggested those methods which we think can allow people to subtly show their opposition with minimum risk to themselves,” he said.
Over 30 general strike committees from different parts of Myanmar led by the General Strike Coordination Body (GSCB) have called for the strike. Myanmar expats in foreign countries, celebrities and activists have also called on the people to join the mass demonstrations on Tuesday.
Activists and Buddhist monks in Mandalay took to the streets on Monday, urging the people to join the “Six Twos Revolution.”
The leader of a women’s alliance in Mandalay, Ma Aye Myint Aung Aung, said: “At this time last year, many people across the country took to the streets. But, mass demonstrations can’t be held this year. So, we have suggested the ways people can participate in the protest. And I would like to urge the people to join the protest.”
Meanwhile, pro-junta Telegram accounts issued threats against activists who show support for the “Six Twos Revolution”, urging the regime to arrest those who back the general strike on social media.
GCSB spokesman Ko Nan Lin told The Irrawaddy: “The military regime and its pillars are really frightened by public campaigns. So, they have used threats to deter the people from participating in those campaigns. They are trying to instill fear in people because they are frightened by public campaigns. In no country are people arrested for holding flowers and wearing Thanakha. I want to urge the people not to worry about threats from the other side.”
He added: “Every public activity is a serious blow to the military regime. Fighting is not the only answer in the Spring Revolution. There will be progress in this revolution only when we make collaborative efforts through military, political and diplomatic means and public campaigns...”
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-21
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Sub-title:
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
Description:
"၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်မထမ်းဆောင်ပဲ ဓမ္မဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ ပြည်သူနှင့်တသားတည်းဖြစ် စေရန်နှင့် အမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ကြစေရန် အကြိမ် ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ် ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ် ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံးအနေဖြင့်လည်း အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အမိန့်အာဏာ ဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမဖွဲ့ရသေးသောဌာနအသီးသီးမှ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ ၂၀၂၀ပြည့်နှစ် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ပါဝင်ဆောင်ရွက်ခဲ့ကြ ပြီး အဓိကတာဝန်ရှိသူများ ဖြစ်သော်လည်း ပြည်ထောင်စုရွေးကောက်ပွဲကော်မရှင်ဥပဒေ၊ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲ ဥပဒေများနှင့် ကိုက်ညီမှု မရှိခဲ့သော တရားမဝင်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လုပ်ဆောင်ချက်များအား ကန့်ကွက်ခြင်း ၊ ငြင်းပယ်ခြင်း မရှိဘဲ ဆက်လက်တာဝန် ထမ်းဆောင်နေသော ပြည်ထောင်စုရွေးကောက်ပွဲကော်မရှင်မှ အောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါဝန်ထမ်းများအား အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း သွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Office of the Prime Minister of the Union - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-19
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"When the Myanmar military seized power on February 1, 2021, factory workers in the industrial zones around Yangon were immediately apprehensive.
“It’ll be like it was before,” said Ma Phyu*, a worker interviewed by the authors two days after the coup, referring to the decades under military rule before 2011 when labour unions were de facto illegal. “Employers will oppress workers and reduce their wages,” she said.
Concern about the possibility of deteriorating working conditions and restrictions on employees organising at their workplaces were major reasons why thousands of mostly young, mostly female factory workers protested against the coup in downtown Yangon on February 6, catalysing a series of general strikes that have taken place since the coup.
Alongside the protests, civil servants, led by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, had launched a Civil Disobedience Movement that would subsequently attract hundreds of thousands of other public and private sector workers.
At Yangon’s ports, striking truck drivers brought international trade to a standstill and the banking system was paralysed by walk-outs. Workers making military equipment at Ministry of Defence factories and miners employed at Chinese-run copper mines with revenue-sharing agreements with the military also joined the general strike.
By organising themselves and taking direct action, workers throughout Myanmar made history in the weeks and months after the coup. As a student activist involved in the protests acknowledged in June 2021, “Working-class people have been crucial to our movement.”
The experiences of workers in industrial zones around Yangon since the coup make clear the causal link between military rule and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Myanmar and show how the collective struggles of workers to improve their livelihoods is a critical element of the broader popular uprising.
At the same time, the employment-related demands made by workers in industrial zones around Yangon since February 1 last year – for better wages and working conditions and increased opportunities to organise – reveal a continuity between working-class struggles since the coup and those during the so-called democratic transition.
The enduring collective struggles of workers in industrial zones around Yangon – and those of ordinary people throughout the country – reflect the need for something beyond mere restoration of the pre-coup political arrangement.
What is apparent in these workplace movements is a process of democratisation from below, as workers endeavour to assert collective power in their workplace.
Repressing workers, enabling exploitation
The junta’s response to defiant factory workers has been brutal. On February 26, 2021, the junta declared 16 of the country’s most prominent trade unions and labour organisations illegal and threatened to arrest labour activists who continued to organise anti-coup activities, signalling an acute awareness of the power of labour organising.
On March 14, soldiers and police killed at least 65 protesters in Yangon’s heavily industrialised Hlaing Tharyar Township, where tens of thousands of factory workers live. Later that day, martial law was declared in Hlaing Tharyar and nearby Shwepyithar Township. On March 15, martial law was also declared in the Yangon townships of North Dagon, South Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa, all of which suggests the junta was targeting working class neighbourhoods.
On April 15, about 40 soldiers raided the Shwepyithar office of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar and arrested its director, Daw Myo Myo Aye, for organising anti-coup activities. Other union leaders and labour activists have since gone underground or fled abroad.
In the weeks after the coup, workers’ strikes, supply chain disruptions and a climate of insecurity compelled factories in Yangon’s industrial zones to suspend operations. Following the mass killings of protesters at Hlaing Tharyar on March 14 and the subsequent imposition of martial law, many workers fled the industrial zones for their hometowns in rural Myanmar. By July, an estimated 250,000 jobs had been lost in garment factories alone, said the International Labour Organization.
Since then, most factories around Yangon have reopened and workers who fled post-coup violence and economic disruption have returned, despite military and police harassment. Although many workers wanted to support the CDM, they have been forced to return to work because of limited livelihood options and lack of social support due to junta restrictions.
As workers returned to factory jobs, many employers took advantage of martial law and economic disruption to cut their wages, degrade working conditions and undermine workplace labour groups.
Ko Aung*, a factory worker interviewed in January, said casualisation was increasingly common. “They use politics as an excuse to undermine the workers’ organisation. During this time of political instability, there aren’t many workers on monthly salaries. They hire daily labourers. If you’re dissatisfied, they fire you,” he said. “There are no written contracts for daily labourers. For the daily wage, they pay K3,600 (about US$2).”
Employers have also leveraged the junta security apparatus against workers who try to collectively organise for wage increases and improved working conditions.
On March 16 last year, police and soldiers called by the owner of the Xing Jia factory in Hlaing Tharyar reportedly shot and killed six workers who had argued over their wages with their employer, whom they accused of theft.
“After the coup, the workers’ situation deteriorated,” said Ko Aung. “Employers took advantage of the political situation to severely oppress the workers.”
Harassment and extortion
In the industrial zones of townships under martial law, workers are also facing constant harassment from patrolling soldiers and police, who act with impunity and often extort money from employees travelling outside their workplaces.
“When I’m travelling along the road, I don’t feel secure,” said Ma Khaing*, another worker interviewed in January.
“They [police] check our phones” for anti-coup content, she said. “When I’m travelling along the road, I can never be sure whether I’ll be stopped and questioned. I worry about that.”
“We’ve been told that we can be imprisoned for three years if we have [anti-coup] news on our phone. When I’m planning to go out, I always delete everything from my phone in advance. Only then do I go out,” Ma Khaing added, “If they find [incriminating content] on our phone, they accuse us of supporting the PDF [People’s Defence Forces] and demand money. They demand as much as they want. A person must give the money as demanded. If they don’t pay, [the police] say they’ll send the worker to be interrogated.”
Wary of having their brands tarnished by association with violent military rule, some international apparel companies have stopped sourcing garments from Myanmar. Others, such as H&M and Zara, initially suspended orders after the coup, but have since resumed placing orders with suppliers. As of October 2021, most of Myanmar’s 600 or so garment factories that produce for export are operating, though with reduced workforces, according to the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers’ Association’s October newsletter.
The reduced demand for labour has left workers even more vulnerable to exploitation. They often have to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions or face the threat of dismissal, while union organisers are particularly at risk of being sacked. Many people desperate for work are paying brokers to arrange jobs for them in neighbouring Thailand, where thousands have been arrested for entering the country illegally.
Workers’ struggles under military rule
For factory workers and their families, the coup has exacerbated what were already extremely precarious conditions in the industrial zones around Yangon.
In February 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions to the supply of raw materials from China led to garment factory closures and the loss of between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs. By September 2020, 233 factories had requested permission from the authorities to close, suspend operations or lay off workers. Employers then used the pretext of COVID-19 disruption to sack unionised workers, while police intervened to break up strikes and arrest organisers.
With no effective social safety net even before the coup, factory workers sacked during the pandemic often had little choice but to take on further debt and reduce food consumption, and in some cases turned to sex work to support their families.
But working class communities in the industrial zones around Yangon were already struggling before the pandemic. Labour law violations and wages below the legal minimum were prevalent at factories in Yangon. Many other workers toiled in informal arrangements outside the remit of labour protection laws.
Nevertheless, even while the decade before the coup was difficult for workers, there was genuine progress being made and hope that positive changes would continue.
Trade unions had been banned for nearly 50 years, but were permitted again under the Labour Organisation Law enacted in 2011 under the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party government. The law resulted in hundreds of thousands of factory workers in Yangon and elsewhere organising themselves into unions; by 2021, almost 3,000 workplace unions had been registered throughout the country.
Over the ensuing decade, many of these unions went on strike for better wages and working conditions. Some of the most assertive factory-based unions were affiliated with the Federation of Garment Workers of Myanmar and the All Burma Federation of Trade Unions. These unions, and the broader working class networks of which they are a part, have formed a dedicated constituency of resistance to military rule since the coup.
As well as street protests, workers have also been organising since the coup to collectively push for better wages and working conditions. Such moves can involve extremely high risk, as shown by the killing of workers at the Xing Jia factory in March 2021.
However, there have been two notable cases since the coup of workers in Yangon’s industrial zones making tangible gains by going on strike.
On October 14 last year, about 350 workers at the Gasan Apparel factory in Hlaing Tharyar went on strike over pay cuts and reductions in benefits. The strike continued into early November, when soldiers and police raided the factory and the strikers were forced to flee.
Workers say senior management called in junta forces to put down the strike. Management also told the workers that the factory would close in December because of a lack of orders. However, a worker interviewed in January for this article said the threat to shutter the factory – which remains open – was a ploy by the owner to sack unionised workers and avoid paying them severance.
“The workers had the right to receive severance pay and demanded to receive it but management refused,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified. “Soldiers came, but the workers had solidarity and continued to demand severance pay and the employer eventually agreed to pay. You can say that we were victorious.”
Then on December 8, about 800 workers at a factory in Shwepyithar Township, which they asked not be identified, began a strike that lasted 11 days and also ended in a victory for workplace solidarity.
The workers’ demands were for the employer to stop cutting the bonuses of employees who were unable to work every day, serve better quality rice in the factory canteen, and sack a human resources manager accused of constant harassment. The workers achieved their demands, including the removal of the human resources manager. They also held a workplace election to choose a new executive committee for their factory-level union.
These stoppages have demonstrated that factory workers in industrial zones around Yangon have the motivation and capacity to organise and strike for collective demands, despite the restrictions and risk of violence they face under martial law. The strikes are therefore an important precedent for further workplace action under post-coup conditions..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-18
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Description:
"၂၀၂၁ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးမှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအဝှမ်း အလွှာပေါင်းစုံက အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်နဲ့ ရဲရင့်ပြောင်မြောက်စွာ ဦးဆောင်မှုတွေဟာ အာဏာလု စစ်အုပ်စုကို သွေးပျက်မတတ် ထိတ်လန့် တုန်လှုပ်စေခဲ့တာပါ။
မြန်မာ့သမိုင်းမှာ ပထမဦးဆုံးအဖြစ် ထမီအလံလွှင့်ထူပြီး ငါတို့ထမီ၊ ငါတို့အလံ၊ ငါတို့အောင်ပွဲ ဆိုတဲ့ ဣတ္ထိယ နွေဦးတေးဟာ နိုင်ငံနယ်နမိတ် အပြင်ဘက်ထိ တုန်ဟီးစေခဲ့တယ်။ ပြည်တွင်းသာမက ကမ္ဘာ့တဝှမ်းက ပြည်သူအပေါင်း မြန်မာ့အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ကို လေးစားတန်ဖိုးထား အသိအမှတ်ပြုခဲ့ကြရပါတယ်။
အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အုပ်စုဟာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့ရဲ့ ထုံးစံအတိုင်း ဆန့်ကျင်သူတိုင်းကို လက်နက်အားကိုးပြီး ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်စွာ ဖြိုခွဲခဲ့တယ်။ အကြောက်တရားနဲ့ အုပ်ချုပ်နိုင်အောင်ကြိုးစားခဲ့တယ်။ သို့သော်လည်း ပြည်သူလူထုတရပ်လုံးက နောက်မဆုတ်စတမ်း တိုက်ပွဲဝင်လာတာဟာ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ဆိုရင် တစ်နှစ်တင်းတင်းပြည့်ခဲ့ပေမယ့် တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ဟာ ပြင်းသထက် ပြင်းထန်ပြီး ခိုင်မာသထက် ခိုင်မာလာတာကို တွေ့မြင်နေတာပါ။
ဒီအထဲမှာ အမျိုးသမီးတွေဟာလည်း ရှေ့တန်းက အားကောင်းစွာ ပါဝင်တော်လှန်နေဆဲပါပဲ။ တနှစ်ပြည့်တဲ့အချိန်မှာ အကြမ်း ဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုဟာ ထောင်ချီတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးများကို ထောင်သွင်း အကျဉ်းချထားခဲ့တယ်။ ရာချီတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးများဟာ အကြမ်း ဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုရဲ့ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက် ပစ်ခတ်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း ခံခဲ့ရတယ်။ ယန္တရားမျိုးစုံကို အသုံးပြုပြီး ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုတွေ ပြုလုပ်နေဆဲဖြစ်တယ်။
သို့သော်လည်း အမျိုးသမီးထုဟာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် အကြွင်းမဲ့ ကျဆုံးရေး၊ ပြည်သူ့လွတ်မြောက်ရေးနဲ့ ဒီမိုကရေစီအခွင့်အရေးအပြည့်အဝ ရရှိရေးအတွက် ဘဝတွေ၊ အသက်တွေကို ပေးဆပ်ရင်း ရှေ့တန်းက ရဲ့ရင့်စွာ တိုက်ပွဲဝင်နေတုန်းပါ။
ဒီအစီရင်ခံစာဟာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအဝှမ်း တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံ ပါဝင်တဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးထုရဲ့ စွန့်လွှတ်အနစ်နာခံမှု၊ ပေးဆပ်မှုနဲ့ တော်လှန်စိတ်ဓာတ်ကို ဂုဏ်ပြု မှတ်တမ်းတင်ရင်း နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုလက်ချက်နဲ့ ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရတဲ့ အမျိုးသမီးသူရဲကောင်းများအား အလေးပြု မော်ကွန်းတင်လိုက်တဲ့ အစီရင်စာတစ်စောင်ပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Women and Politics in Burma/Myanmar, Women and Politics in Burma/Myanmar, Women's rights, Discrimination/violence against women: reports of violations in Burma, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf
Size:
10.65 MB (Original version), 4.73 MB (Reduce version) - 74 pages
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Source/publisher:
Karenni State Consultative Council
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Karenni (Kayah) - cultural, political, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
119.2 KB
Local URL:
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Description:
"It has been over a year since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup from the democratically-elected government, rejecting the result of the 2020 general election in which the National League for Democracy Party won an overwhelming majority.
The coup prompted widespread protests across the country, and civil servants from various sectors including health and education came out on strike to join the wider Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), almost bringing the administrative mechanism of the military regime to a halt.
In response, the junta has detained and dismissed striking government employees, as well as issuing arrest warrants for some of them, forcing many to go into hiding.
Some have returned to work due to pressure from the regime, but many civil servants are still on strike in defiance of military rule. Just over one year since the February 1 coup, some of the CDM strikers talked to The Irrawaddy about why they continue to defy the military regime.
Professor Dr. Khin Maung Lwin
Rector, Mandalay University of Medicine
It has been one year since the military regime unlawfully took control of Myanmar. We joined the CDM because we don’t want to be enslaved by the military dictatorship, and because we don’t like that it has unlawfully taken control of the country with weapons. We are intellectuals and we don’t want to be lowly academics who have to kneel down before military dictators. So we joined the CDM.
I promise that I will bravely continue to take part in the CDM until the military dictatorship is rooted out and a genuine federal democratic country is established.
Daw Yati Ohn
Lecturer, Government Technical Institute (Kale Township)
I am proud of myself for joining the CDM. No matter what difficulties lie ahead of me, I will never regret my choice. I am currently working for a mobile medical team which provides healthcare for resistance fighters and members of ethnic armed organizations at the frontline. The team also provides healthcare for civilians displaced by the fighting.
As I am a teacher, I have conducted two short term vocational training courses as part of the interim education program with the support of the Vocational Education Committee. And I am planning to conduct more courses in the future.
Ko Bo Bo
Striking police second lieutenant who now serves in the parallel Karenni (Kayah) State Police
I don’t regret joining the CDM. There are many policemen that have joined the CDM in Karenni (Kayah State). I was a little depressed in the early days after I joined the CDM. But I haven’t felt down since I joined the revolution. I am doing my fair share with the hope that the revolution will succeed.
I am not very satisfied with the progress of the revolution in the country as a whole. But I am very satisfied with the resistance in Karenni. People have joined the resistance and I am grateful to them. I respect the resistance groups that are fighting the regime. They are making more sacrifices than us. I would like to urge the people to help the resistance movement where they can until it succeeds.
Lin Htet Aung
Striking captain from the Myanmar military
People have been repulsed by the military since it seized power. I stand by the people and I am doing what I can to fight back the regime. We have fought back with the strength of the people, and we have achieved certain progress in a short time.
It was the hardest time for me to desert the military. There were many difficulties when I deserted the military for the people. But I don’t regret it. I even take pride in myself that I have deserted the military regime. No matter how tough it will be, we won’t give up.
As more and more people have joined the resistance day by day, the military regime is in chaos. We will fight until the dictatorship is eliminated. I totally believe that the revolution will be successful with the strength of the people. Only when the dictatorship is wiped out will we be able to live our future freely. So we will fight until the end.
Striking employee
Locomotive workshop, Myanma Railways
We have joined the CDM with the determination to root out the military dictatorship. Many striking civil servants are struggling now. Some private companies do hire people, but they don’t want to recruit striking civil servants because of threats from the military regime. So we can’t find jobs no matter what we apply for.
But we decided to continue fighting. We don’t want to return to work and to be labelled as non-CDM. I would like to urge my fellow striking government employees to keep going. The revolution must succeed. But I don’t want to blame those who have returned to work because of financial hardship. I am grateful to them that they have also done what they can. But I want to ask them not to betray us.
Striking doctor from Yangon
Speaking of the impact of the CDM, the military regime can’t find substitutes for striking technicians at schools and hospitals. Some hospitals have re-opened, but they are not operational. Because those who have returned to work [after initially joining the CDM] are lazy and lackadaisical workers. They don’t have any enthusiasm.
The CDM has had a noticeable impact on the military regime over the past year. It would have had more but for the junta’s financial resources. The fact that not only striking government employees but also the people are defying their orders has also had a significant impact on the regime. The fact that the regime is in chaos and losing face on the international stage shows that the CDM has had an impact.
We don’t know how long the revolution will take. But the remaining CDM strikers have decided not to return to work. If we return to work after enduring for more than one year, we will be scorned not only by our peers who returned to work earlier than us, but also by the strikers who are sticking with the CDM. So it is very unlikely that we will return to work..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, General Strike, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"In the year since the Burma military attempted to launch a coup, it has critically harmed millions of lives, the national economy, rule of law, natural resources, and governance.
Armed clashes and attacks on civilians rose by 762%. Just in January 2022, there were more of these incidents than during the entire year preceding the attempted coup.
ALTSEAN-Burma has tracked the most important updates during this time in its online thematic Coup Trackers, and summarized these updates by publishing a Coup Watch briefer each month. This special edition of the Coup Watch draws on these tools to provide a one-year overview..."
Source/publisher:
ALTSEAN-BURMA, Burma Human Rights Network, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, Initiatives for International Dialogue, International Federation for Human Rights, Progressive Voice, US Campaign for Burma and Women Peace Network
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG), Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), Anti-coup protesters, Political History
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf
Size:
1.26 MB (Original version), 606.6 KB (Reduce version) - 10 pages
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Description:
"၁။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ကျန်းမာရေးပညာရှင်များကောင်စီ (Federal Health Professional Council – FHPC) ကို တော်လှန်ရေးကာလဖြစ်သည့် ကြားကာလနှင့် အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းရေးကာလတွင် ကျန်းမာရေးပညာရှင် လုပ်သားအင်အားစုများအားလုံး၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားကို တာဝန်ယူမှု၊ တာဝန်ခံမှုအပြည့်ဖြင့် ဖော်ဆောင်ပေးရန် တိုင်းရင်းသားကျန်းမာရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ ဆေး ပညာရှင်များ၊ ပညာရပ်ဆိုင်ရာ အဖွဲ့အစည်းအသီးသီးမှ ကိုယ်စားပြုသူများဖြင့် (၁-၁၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ပါသည်။
၂။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ကျန်းမာရေးပညာရှင်များကောင်စီအနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတကာနှင့် ပြည်သူလူထုတစ်ရပ် လုံးက အသိအမှတ်ပြုခြင်း မရှိသော အာဏာသိမ်း နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ (State Administration Council – SAC) က တရားမဝင် ဖွင့်လှစ်သင်ကြားလျက်ရှိသည့် ဆေးနှင့် ဆေးနှီးနွှယ်တက္ကသိုလ်များ၊ သူနာပြုနှင့်သားဖွားသင်တန်းကျောင်းများကို အသိအမှတ်ပြုမည် မဟုတ်ဘဲ ၄င်းတို့ကပြုလုပ်သော အရည်အချင်းဆန်းစစ်မှုစာမေးပွဲများ၊ အတန်းတင်စာမေးပွဲများနှင့် ဘွဲ့လက်မှတ်များကိုလည်း လက်ခံအသိအမှတ်ပြုမည် မဟုတ်ပါ။
၃။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ကျန်းမာရေးပညာရှင်များကောင်စီသည် အာဏာသိမ်း နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေး ကောင်စီ (SAC) အလိုကျ ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိသော ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနလက်အောက်ရှိ Non CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ဆရာ၊ ဆရာမများကို ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပရှိ တက္ကသိုလ်များတွင် ဝင်ခွင့်လျှောက်ထားခြင်း၊ အလုပ်အကိုင်များ လျှောက်ထားခြင်းများ မပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရန် နိုင်ငံတကာ သံရုံးများနှင့် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပတက္ကသိုလ်များသို့ အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းများ ဆက်လက်ပေးပို့လုပ်ဆောင်သွားမည်ဖြစ်သည်။
၄။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ကျန်းမာရေးပညာရှင်များကောင်စီသည် ကြားကာလနှင့် အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းရေး ကာလများတွင် ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သားအင်အားစုများ၏ နစ်နာမှုများကို ကြားနာစစ်ဆေးပြီး ခုခံကာကွယ်ပေးရန်၊ ကျင့်ဝတ်သိက္ခာများ လိုက်နာထိန်းသိမ်းရန် ပျက်ကွက်မှုများနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ ပြုပြင်တည့်မတ်ပေးရန်နှင့် သင့်တင့်လျောက်ပတ်သည့် အရေးယူမှုများ ဆောင်ရွက်ရန် တာဝန်ရှိသည့်အလျောက် ပြည်သူ့ဘက်တွင် မရပ်တည်ဘဲ၊ တိုင်းရင်းသား ပြည်သူများအပေါ်တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များ ဆက်တိုက်ကျူးလွန်နေသည့် အာဏာသိမ်း နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ (SAC) ၏ အလိုကျဆောင်ရွက်နေသော ကျန်းမာရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာနလက်အောက်ရှိ Non CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ဆရာ၊ ဆရာမများကို ပြင်းထန်စွာ အရေးယူမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Federal Health Professional Council
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
321.58 KB
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Sub-title:
With the military increasing its use of informants, rappers and artists must keep their identities secret, even from one another
Description:
"Early one morning last February, a group of young people gathered on a street corner in Myanmar armed with brushes and buckets of paint. In the faint light of dawn, they quickly completed their task and dispersed.
“I felt excited and nervous. I was scared too, because I didn’t want to get caught,” says Tu Tu, a pseudonym for the group’s organiser.
Hours later, the streets were teeming with people demanding that the military, which had seized power on 1 February, stand down. Media reports from that day show people marching and drone photographs of huge resistance slogans painted on the road. Tu Tu’s group had succeeded in its mission.
"I believe that everyone should be involved in this revolution, but holding guns is not enough. We can only win this by participating in every way Black Art
It was one of many ways that the arts have invigorated the pro-democracy movement. During the first weeks after the coup, as protest chants and revolutionary songs reverberated across the country, artists energised the crowds with dance and music, and covered walls and streets with murals and graffiti.
Within weeks, however, the sound of gunfire and the screams of protesters filled the air while blood stained the streets. One year on, the military has killed about 1,500 people and arrested more than 11,000 – 8,700 of whom remain behind bars.
These violent crackdowns have made it too dangerous to make art in public. But some artists continue to work underground.
“Art is as powerful as a weapon,” says Tu Tu. “When we fire a gun, one bullet can only hit one enemy, but if we can illustrate something clearly through art … we can spread our message much faster.”
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What is the Reporting Myanmar series?
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In February 2021, Myanmar's progress towards democracy was brutally stalled when the military seized power and took control of the country.
In the year since, the country has been plunged into violence, poverty and mass displacement as the military attempts to crush widespread resistance to its rule.
Internet blackouts, arbitrary arrests, a ruthless curtailing of freedom of speech and escalating military attacks on civilian areas have silenced the voices of people from Myanmar.
For this special series, the Guardian’s Rights and freedom project has partnered with a diverse group of journalists from Myanmar, many working in secret, to bring their reporting on life under military rule to a global audience.
Journalists in Myanmar are working in dangerous and difficult circumstances, as the military government attacks the free press and shuts down local media outlets. Many reporters still inside the country fear arrest, with others forced to leave their homes and go into hiding in areas increasingly under attack from military forces.
All the reporting in this series will be carried out by journalists from Myanmar, with support from the editors on the Rights and freedom project.
These are the stories that journalists from Myanmar want to tell about what is happening to their country at this critical moment.
After protesting became a life-threatening endeavour, few of Tu Tu’s friends were willing to keep painting words on the ground. They went out a few more times, but finally had to stop. “My friends were worried, so they didn’t participate any more. I understood, but I wanted to do so many things,” says Tu Tu, who requested the Guardian use pseudonyms for them and anonymise their gender and location.
Determined to keep resisting, Tu Tu began making illustrations instead, and took on the artist’s name Black Art. “I don’t need much to make illustrations; I can even do it with just a pen or pencil. I can express anything based on my ideas,” they say.
They have since made dozens of illustrations highlighting the crisis in Myanmar. Broken Heart shows a girl holding a pink balloon and facing a row of police; in a second image, a police officer guns her down and her balloon floats into the air. Coup Makes Orphan shows a child crying in front of a soldier shooting a protester in the head.
Black Art also makes illustrations based on photographs taken across the country. The Last Kiss shows a boy at his father’s funeral, while Screaming from Myanmar has a crying girl clutching her dead father’s photograph. Spring Revolution and The Last Bow depict parents grieving over their children.
Two illustrations, Heroes Never Die and They are Free Now, are tributes to five youths who jumped from the roof of a building in August to avoid being arrested by military forces; two of them died.
“I even cried when I drew some illustrations,” says Black Art. “My illustrations are based on real stories and they are sad stories.”
Since May, armed resistance has grown across the country and the military has responded with indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Black Art’s more recent illustrations highlight the military’s use of airstrikes and arson attacks on towns and villages.
The artist told the Guardian that they see art as a way to document what is happening in Myanmar. “I want art to be left as a form of history which can be seen by the next generation, to prevent something like this from happening again,” they say.
Although many of their friends have decided to take up arms against the military, Black Art remains committed to fighting through art. “I believe that everyone should be involved in this revolution, but holding guns is not enough,” they say. “We can only win this by participating in every way, and I am participating in mine with the belief that we will win.”
Aye Win, a hip-hop artist in Yangon, uses music to rebel. During the protests in February, he and a group of friends held two freestyle rap events under the name Rap Against Junta before they had to go underground. “When [the military] started the crackdowns, we couldn’t meet any more,” says Aye Win. “We all moved to the internet and used different applications to connect.”
In the following months, some of Aye Win’s friends joined the armed resistance against the coup, and others left the country, but Aye Win took on the role of Rap Against Junta’s director and persevered as an artist.
On 30 June, the group released Dictator Must Die, a track featuring artists from Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and Myanmar. After that, they released a full album on 21 October. Called Dick Council – a play on Sitt Council, the Burmese name for the junta – it included 12 tracks by local artists. It was followed by Blood on 7 January, which features singers from eight different ethnic backgrounds rapping in their own languages.
Throughout this entire process, Rap Against Junta has not held a single in-person meeting. With the military increasing its use of informants to break down the resistance movement, many of the contributing artists have kept their identities secret even from one another.
“Most of the other rappers don’t know who I am and I also don’t know who they are,” says Aye Win, who connected with contributing artists through an open submission process on social media.
The need to maintain anonymity, however, has made it difficult to identify people to support the project. “When we approach people for help using a fake identity, they don’t really trust us and they always put aside the proposals to collaborate,” he says.
Rap Against Junta also had to adapt creatively when promoting their music. In their music videos, their faces are masked or shown in silhouette, while Aye Win has only allowed himself to be photographed behind a full mask or interviewed using voice-distorting technology.
As the country’s economic crisis worsens, Aye Win also says it is becoming harder to find people who can give time to Rap Against Junta because they need to earn an income. “People are trying to make money and put food on the table, so they cannot commit like before,” he says.
Aye Win is also facing pressure from his family. “My parents are discussing my future plans. I have just been stuck [at home] and doing nothing for one year. I am doing something, but it is not an established way of making a living for them,” he says. “[They said] I should go somewhere else and survive while I am still young; the future is nowhere to be found here for me.”
But Aye Win sees making protest art as a serious mission. “It is a kind of revolutionary work, and we need to finish by deadlines – we have to pay attention to every detail,” he says..."
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"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-09
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"အနာဂတ်ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပြည်ထောင်စုတည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် နိုင်ငံရေးအင်အားစုအားလုံးနဲ့ အတူတကွကြိုးပမ်း ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမှာဖြစ်တယ်လို့ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်က မနေ့ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့တဲ့ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်အပြီး ညပိုင်းမှာ ထုတ်ပြန် ခဲ့တဲ့ ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်ထဲ ဖော်ပြထားတာပါ။
အနာဂတ် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုတည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရေး တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူတွေ၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားတော်လှန်ရေး အဖွဲ့အစည်းတွေ၊ နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီတွေ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းတွေ၊ အင်အားစုတွေ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက်အဝန်းတွေ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာနဲ့ ဒေသတွင်း လွှတ်တော်တွေ၊ လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ်တွေက လက်တွဲ ပူးပေါင်းပေးကြပါဖို့ ထပ်မံဖိတ်ခေါ်ထားပြီးတော့ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်အနေနဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအင်အားစုအားလုံးနဲ့အတူတကွ ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားမှာဖြစ်တယ်လို့ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက်မှာ ဖော်ပြထားတာ တွေ့ရ ပါတယ်။
တစ်နှစ်တာကာလအတွင်းမှာ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီက နိုင်ငံတကာရဲ့စီးပွားရေး၊ နိုင်ငံရေး၊ သံတမန်ရေး အရေးယူဒဏ်ခတ်ပိတ် ဆို့မှုတွေနဲ့ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက် အဝန်းကလည်း ဖယ်ကြဉ်ထားတာကို ခံနေရကာ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်ထဲမှာလည်း အချင်းချင်း ပြိုကွဲလျက်ရှိနေပြီး အချိန်တစ်ခုသာ ကြံ့ကြံ့ခံ လျှောက်လှမ်းပါက ပြည်သူတွေရဲ့ အောင်ပွဲက ဧကန်မလွဲ ရောက်ရှိတော့ မှာဖြစ်တယ်လို့လည်း ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်မှာ ဖော်ပြထားပါတယ်။
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တွေ အပြီးတိုင်ကျဆုံးပြီး တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူတွေ မျှော်လင့်တောင့်တနေတဲ့ ဖယ်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေ စီ နိုင်ငံတော်တည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရေး ခက်ခဲကြမ်းတမ်းတဲ့ တော်လှန်ရေးခရီးမှာ သည်းခံစိတ်ရှည်စွာ ပါဝင်ပေးခဲ့ကြတဲ့ ပြည်သူတွေ၊ အဖက်ဖက်မှ ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီပေးကြတဲ့ ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပက အလှူရှင်တွေ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းတွေ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက်အဝန်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ လွှတ်တော်တွေနဲ့ ကမ္ဘာ့နိုင်ငံတွေကို ပြည်သူလူထုကိုယ်စား ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိတဲ့အကြောင်းလည်း ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်က မှတ် တမ်းတင်ဖော်ထားတာတွေ့ရပါတယ်။
ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်တွေအနေနဲ့ အနာဂတ်ဖယ်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပြည်ထောင်စုကြီး တည်ဆောက်နိုင်ရေး ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်ရာမှာ ကျရာကဏ္ဍအသီးသီးမှာ ပါဝင်ထမ်းဆောင်နေပြီးတော့ ပြည်သူလူထုရဲ့ ယုံကြည်ကိုးစားမှုနဲ့ ပေးအပ်ထားတဲ့ တာဝန်ကို ကျေပွန်အောင် ထမ်းပိုးသွားမယ်လို့ ဆိုပါတယ်။
ဒါအပြင် အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်မှု(CDM)မှာ ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြတဲ့ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းသူရဲကောင်းတွေကို ဂုဏ်ပြုချီးမြင့်နိုင်ရေး၊ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး တိုက်ပွဲအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူတွေအတွက် အာဇာနည်သူရဲကောင်းများအဖြစ် ဂုဏ်ပြုနိုင်ရေး ဥပဒေတွေ ပြဋ္ဌာန်းနိုင်ရေး ဆက်လက်လုပ်ဆောင်သွားမှာဖြစ်တယ်လို့လည်း ထုတ်ပြန်ချက်မှာဖော်ပြထားတာတွေ့ရပါတယ်။.."
Source/publisher:
The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-07
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Anti-coup protesters
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"Spurred on by military atrocities, young people are turning to armed struggle against the regime – leaving supportive but fearful families behind
When Peh Reh’s* mother, Mi Nya*, lost contact with him in September, she had little doubt as to where he had gone. Four months earlier, the 19-year-old had told her he wanted to join the armed resistance against the military, which had seized power from the democratically-elected government in Myanmar in February 2021. Yet she refused to let him leave their home in Myanmar’s south-eastern Karenni state (also known as Kayah).
“In my eyes, he is still so young,” she says. “If I could, I would like to keep my son next to me all the time.”
Intense fighting between armed revolutionary groups and the military had been escalating in Karenni state since May, three months after the coup.
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Like thousands of other families, Peh Reh and his family left their homes and sought shelter in the forest. There, he and his father waited for lulls in the fighting to return to tend to their farm, while his mother went deeper into the forest with the three younger children.
The family tried to return home but were forced to flee a second time as the fighting escalated around their village. A few days later, Peh Reh disappeared.
"I told him to pray and be careful at all times. I pray for him every day" - Mi Nya
The next time his mother heard from him he was in a training camp for an armed revolutionary group. This time, Mi Nya decided not to stand in his way. “I told [my son] to pray and be careful at all times. I also pray for him every day” she says.
Peh Reh is one of a rising number of young men and women across Myanmar leaving their families to take up arms as the country is plunged into violence, poverty and mass displacement, with more than 1,400 civilians killed in military crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement since February 2021.
As the people of Myanmar endure internet blackouts, arbitrary arrests, a ruthless curtailing of freedom of speech, and escalating military attacks on civilian areas, many of the country’s youth have decided armed resistance is their only option.
On the other side of the country in Kalay, a small city in Sagaing region near Myanmar’s north-western border with India, 21-year-old Zaw Htet* took part in the street demonstrations that erupted after the coup, while his mother went on strike from her public-sector job as part of a broader civil disobedience movement.
Soon after, the military began using deadly force on protesters around the country, including in Kalay. By 28 March, protesters in the city had begun defending themselves with guns, barricading themselves behind sandbags and firing homemade weapons back at soldiers and police who attacked them with snipers, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. By the time the military destroyed the protest camp, at least 18 civilians were dead.
As Zaw Htet endured this terrifying experience, his mother, Aye Mya*, was punished for joining the civil disobedience movement. The military evicted her and her family from government housing in June, and she has since been selling street food to survive.
These experiences intensified both Zaw Htet’s and his mother’s hatred of the military, and when he told her he wanted to join the armed struggle, she supported him. She has only seen him once since he left in July.
His absence has left her anxious about how her son is enduring the harsh conditions of life in the forest. “Now that he is a revolutionary fighter, he might be sleeping on the ground,” she says. “I worry about whether he has warm clothes or not. Whenever it rains, I worry he may be soaked.”
She also follows the news with dread as clashes escalate in Kalay township, and young people are arrested and killed daily.
Yet, despite this, she says she is optimistic that the young generation can succeed where, three decades ago, her generation could not.
In 1988, she was active in the student-led pro-democracy protests, when the country also erupted in turmoil as the former regime arrested thousands and opened fire on crowds. Although Aye Mya initially joined those protests, she stopped when the firing started. Now, she says she is no longer afraid.
“This time, the revolution is very different than in 1988. Young people today have greater knowledge of politics. They are determined and braver than us,” she says.
Some mothers have joined the revolution themselves, including Shwe Yun Eain*, a 23-year-old farmer from Sagaing region’s Myaung township. In October she left her three-year-old daughter with her mother and went off to fight.
“My mother told me, ‘My daughter, do not worry for your daughter. I will take good care of her. Just focus on the revolution,’” she says. “I cannot sit still while the whole nation is fighting against military dictatorship.”
A cartoon of a girl holding a gun
‘My first time holding a gun’: from Myanmar student to revolutionary soldier – a cartoon
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She has spent the past three months training with the country’s first all-female armed resistance group, the Myaung Women Warriors.
Not wanting to endanger her mother or daughter by making contact, she has only seen them once since she left home. The Myaung Women Warriors’motto is “the hand that swings a baby’s hammock can also be part of the armed revolution,” and Shwe Yun Eain says that despite the hardships she faces, she remains committed to her decision.
“As a mother, I have had many ups and downs since I joined the armed revolution,” she says. “I continue fighting to root out this evil system for my daughter’s future and the next generation.”
* Names have been changed to protect identities.
Nu Nu Lusan is a freelance journalist from Kachin state based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She focuses on human rights and social justice issues in Myanmar and especially covers issues around ethnic minorities, rural areas and women.
Emily Fishbein is a freelance journalist writing on human rights and social justice in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-05
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Articles, reports and sites relating to women of Burma, Women and Politics in Burma/Myanmar
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"CDM ဆရာ၊ ဆရာမ၊ ဝန်ထမ်းများကို ဖိနှိပ်ခြိမ်းခြောက်လျက်ရှိသော
Non-CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား အပြစ်ပေးအရေးယူနိုင်ရေးနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ကြေညာချက်
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူ့ အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု(CDM) ပြုလုပ်နေကြသော ဆရာ၊ ဆရာမ၊ ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံရေး နှင့် တရားမျှတမှုရရှိရေးတို့အတွက် အမြဲမပြတ် အလေးပေးဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ Non-CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား အရေးယူနိုင်ရေးနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ကြေညာချက်များဖြစ်သည့် ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၈/၂၀၂၁)၊ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ (CRPH) ၏ ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၁၀/၂၀၂၁)၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၂/၂၀၂၁)၊ ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၂၇/၂၀၂၁) တို့ဖြင့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။
၂။ ယခုအခါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်ကိုင်တုတ်များဖြစ်သော Non-CDM ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးချုပ်များ၊ ဒုတိယညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးချုပ်များ၊ ပါမောက္ခချုပ်များ၊ ဒုတိယပါမောက္ခချုပ်များ၊ ပညာရေးမှူးများ၊ ကျောင်းအုပ်များ၊ ဌာနမှူးများ ဦးဆောင်သော အကြမ်းဖက်အုပ်စုလက်ပါးစေများက CDM ၀န်ထမ်းများအား ချေးငွေပြန်ဆပ်ရန်၊ ၀န်ထမ်းအိမ်ရာများမှ ဖယ်ပေးရန် ဖိအားပေးခြိမ်းခြောက်ခဲ့သည့်အပြင် ပစ္စည်းများအား ဖယ်ရှား၍ အိမ်ရာများအား သိမ်းဆည်းခြင်းများ ကျူးလွန်နေကြောင်း သိရှိရသည်။ ဤသို့ ပြုလုပ်ခြင်းသည် ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) ပျက်ပြားစေရန် ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ အတင်းအကျပ်လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းပင်ဖြစ်သည်။
၃။ ထို့ပြင် ပြည်သူ့၀န်ထမ်းများ၏ ရှင်သန်ရပ်တည်ခွင့်နှင့်အတူ လူလုံခြုံရေး၊ ပစ္စည်းလုံခြုံရေးများအပေါ် ထိခိုက် နစ်နာစေရန် လုပ်ဆောင်ချက်များသည် ကမ္ဘာ့လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကြေညာစာတမ်း၏ အခြေခံလူ့အခွင့်အရေးများ ဖြစ်သော လွတ်လပ်စွာရှင်သန်ခွင့်အပိုဒ် (၃)၊ ညှင်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းမှကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်အပိုဒ် (၅)၊ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ရေး ဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်ပိုင်ခွင့် အပိုဒ် (၁၂)၊ ပစ္စည်းဥစ္စာပိုင်ဆိုင်ပိုင်ခွင့်အပိုဒ် (၁၇) တို့အား ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း၊ ချိုးဖောက် ကျူးလွန်ရာတွင် အားပေးနေခြင်းတို့ ဖြစ်သည်။
၄။ ၂၀၁၇ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ (၆) ရက်နေ့တွင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံက အတည်ပြုလက်မှတ်ရေးထိုးခဲ့သည့် စီးပွားရေး၊ လူမှုရေး၊ ယဥ်ကျေးမှုဆိုင်ရာ နိုင်ငံတကာသဘောတူစာချုပ်၏ အပိုဒ် (၁၆) ပါ ဝန်ထမ်းအခွင့်အရေးများနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာလူ့အခွင့်အရေးများအား ချိုးဖောက်နေသော အကြမ်းဖက်ဝါဒီ အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီနှင့် လက်ကိုင်တုတ် Non-CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ ကျူးလွန်မှုများအား စာသက်သေ၊ အသံဖိုင်သက်သေ စသည့် သက်သေခံချက်များ စုဆောင်းပြီး ထိုက်သင့်သည့်ပြစ်ဒဏ်များကျခံစေရန် တရားစွဲဆို အရေးယူနိုင်ရေး ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်းအသိပေးကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-04
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"Dear respected members of the UK Parliament, friends, colleagues, and fellow health care professionals,
I sincerely thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak on behalf of the health workers, and indeed the entire nation of Myanmar.
Today is a day which should need no explanation. Today, over fifty five million Myanmar people grieve the anniversary of the 2021 military coup d'état. For those who have lost their homes, the property, their livelihoods, their freedom or their loved ones; for those who languish in prisons on false charges, who watched helplessly as COVID-19 tore through the cities with neither doctors nor oxygen, who have seen the smoke and heard the screams of their fellow villagers being burned alive, who have fled to the jungles and mountains with no food and no shelter, who have fled to foreign lands where they exist with no legal protections, for these people, today is a reminder of the darkest and most infamous day in Myanmar’s history
Our brave people have faced unimaginable difficulties due to Covid-19, compounded by the military coup, and compounded yet further by the nation-wide humanitarian crisis stemming from the senseless violence of the military junta. Our brave civilian health workers have been and continue to be targeted by the ruthless military as objects of special vengeance for the mere ‘crime’ of honouring their Hippocratic oaths to aid their fellow injured and sick citizens. Many of our skilled doctors, nurses, midwives, ambulance personnel, medics and general health care workers have been threatened, arrested and murdered in cold blood. Hospitals, clinics, ambulance stations and charity organizations across the nation have been attacked, occupied or destroyed by military thugs. Many of those who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) have been forced to flee for their lives to avoid arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing. Yet despite these most terrible conditions, the people of Myanmar have shown time and time again that they are resilient, united, unshakable and will not be beaten back into submission under the military’s boots.
The people UK, the Government and Parliament have been a great advocate for the people of Myanmar since the coup, regularly condemning the actions of the military, and issuing sanctions and providing aid in various forms. Similarly, UK organizations and agencies have continually supported the people of Myanmar in every way they can. I am truly thankful for everything that these organizations have done and continue to do to help relieve the pain of our brave healthcare professionals out on the front lines of this revolution. The action taken both on the international stage and on the ground by these organizations has had a very positive and heartening effect on our people, and this type of assistance - words backed by action - are what we need now, more than ever. Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain displaced, and thousands of healthcare workers with them, who, despite the odds, continue their selfless service to help as many sick and injured as possible with the limited supplies they have.
Finally, I want to call attention yet again to the ever worsening situation in Myanmar which effects all citizens equally, medical and non-medical alike. It is this then that must ever be on the forefront of our minds, that these brave people continue to do the impossible, saving lives with the most meager of resources. This is however unsustainable, and a strong backing is critically needed to keep these medical workers supplied with the life saving medicines and equipment they depend on. The work of the UK Government, its partners and that of non-governmental organizations must expand exponentially to keep up with the growing crisis, and I must humbly request and implore all those who are able to contribute to this effort; to support those who support our front-line workers, and help bring an end to this humanitarian, health, and political crisis. The people of Myanmar have the will to survive and emerge the victors of this situation, they just need the means.
The means needed, as I mentioned, are four-fold. First, increased UK financial support for technical assistance and training of health workers, including through Health Partnerships. Second, continued work by the UK Government to hold the military to account for the persecution of health workers, and the untold numbers of suffering civilians. Third, a commitment to renew visas for Myanmar health workers residing in the UK in recognition of support they are giving the NHS at this time, and providing visas for those who have been forced to flee their homes, wherever they may currently be. Fourth, a re-invigoration of UK advocacy at the global level to marginalise the Tatmadaw and its cronies. The people of Myanmar desperately need the continued support of the UK on the world stage to help bring a swift end to this hellish nightmare we are enduring.
Thank you for your attention, and may you be blessed for the blessings you have given us..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of International Cooperation Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-04
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Type:
Individual Documents
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National Unity Government (NUG), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights Defenders, Anti-coup protesters
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"An anonymous Myanmar-based contributor details the junta’s recent efforts to undermine the organizing of protests.
As the one-year anniversary of the military coup swiftly approached, people around the country were waiting to hear how anti-military activists would call upon us to commemorate that tragic date. We did not have to wait long. On January 22, the call so many had been hoping for came in the form of a post on social media. A silent strike was set in motion for February 1, with a request for the closure of all businesses and for people to stay at home.
News of the strike spread quickly across the country by way of social media, phone calls, news outlets and word of mouth. Min Aung Hlaing, the self-proclaimed Prime Minister and head of the military junta’s organization, the State Administrative Council, and his cronies, did not take long to react. A week in advance of the planned strike they embarked on yet another campaign of terror against the people. According to a January 26 Myanmar Now article, the junta threatened that those who merely participated in the strike would suffer severe repercussions:
“The military council responded to the call three days later by announcing that anyone found to be taking part in or promoting the silent strike would see their property confiscated and face multiple criminal charges. Those charges include Section 52a of the Counterterrorism Law, Section 124a and 505a of the Penal Code, and Section 33a of the Telecommunications Law. The terrorism charge carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, and Section 124a—for sedition—carries a life sentence of 20 years. The other charges are accompanied by three to five years in prison.”
With the benefit of hindsight, it appears that the regime had, weeks ago, begun to take steps toward preventing any such resistance by the people. In December they announced that all internet providers, of both mobile data and WiFi, had to double the cost of their services. No explanation for the price hike was given. Increasing the cost of internet services would, of course, provide additional revenue for the military, but more insidiously, it would also reduce its affordability and thereby diminish internet communication, especially among the poor.
Calculating that more action was needed, on January 8 the regime raised prices again to further discourage internet usage. This time they levied an additional tax on SIM cards. These phone cards, which previously cost 1,500 kyat, became subject to an additional commercial tax of 20,000 kyat—more than half an average week’s wages—amounting to an increase of 1,333 per cent. Further, internet service providers were hit with a tax increase of 15 per cent on their sales, which of course would be passed on to consumers.
The regime, through its mouthpiece, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, claimed the move was an effort to promote well-being among the youth because the new charges would reduce the “effects triggered by extreme use of internet services on the employment of the people and mental sufferings of [the] new generation [of] students.” No one was buying this except as some much-needed comic relief.
The real reasons for those increases were to directly impede communications among the organizers of protest actions such as the strike, and among the people in general, as well as to further enrich Min Aung Hlaing and his partners in crime and corruption.
But, still not satisfied, the junta continued pulling other levers. Ten days before February 1, the junta announced that electricity would be cut from 6 am to 6 pm for the three days immediately preceding the strike—January 29, 30 and 31—which means that during this three-day period there was no WiFi and no way for most people to charge their computers or phones—phones being the principal means by which the vast majority of the people access the internet. While over the years, and especially since the start of this latest coup, the citizens of Myanmar have grown accustomed to being without electrical service for hours at a time, this recent announcement heightened people’s concerns. No one doubted that this was merely another effort to prevent them from communicating and organizing in the days leading up to the strike.
In another attempt by the regime to frustrate and crush the upcoming strike, on January 24, eight days beforehand, Myawaddy TV and MRTV—the junta’s television propaganda outlets—announced a new restriction: anyone caught in possession of a virtual private network (VPN) app would be subject to arrest, fines and a possible prison sentence of up to three years. A life sentence is possible if the owner has shared anything deemed to have incited people to participate in the upcoming strike, or referred to the military in a derogatory manner.
News of this new law had recently been circulating in the media, but it was considered to be merely some proposed legislation made public for purposes of review. This, however, was at odds with what the junta’s TV stations were saying. On January 24, The Irrawaddy reported that it had access to a leaked copy of a draft of the legislation, and a cover letter, showing thatthe decision to enact the law had already been made. Whether or not this draft legislation had been ratified is of little consequence, because, ultimately, when anyone is stopped by police or soldiers and ordered to turn over their phone, the law will be interpreted at the end of their gun barrels.
It bears mentioning that, since the coup’s onset, websites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook—which are used by the vast majority of Myanmar’s population—and a host of other sites as well, have been blocked, and therefore anyone accessing these sites could only do so by using a VPN. So, in Mandalay and Yangon, and probably everywhere between, soldiers and police have been searching the phones of random pedestrians and motorists looking for their VPN apps. We have heard that those caught with the app on their phones are being given the option of arrest and certain prison time, or of bribing the arresting soldiers with a payment of 100,000 kyat (US$56) to make the problem go away.
Clearly, as they have done so many times in the last year, the soldiers and police have created for themselves a tidy commercial enterprise on the backs and suffering of their fellow citizens. A few days before the strike we heard of a man who was stopped by soldiers. After seizing his phone, they discovered that he had been on Facebook. When asked how he had accessed the site without a VPN, the man, unable to provide a satisfactory answer, was promptly beaten. In another case, two people were stopped by soldiers and VPN apps were found on their phones. The soldiers simply confiscated the phones, undoubtedly either to sell or for their own personal use.
Business owners who were unaware of the new law were posting on Facebook that they would support the strike by closing for the day. Consequently, many of them were tracked down, arrested for their posts, and had their establishments permanently shuttered and apparently expropriated. In addition, there have been reports from numerous areas that vehicles with loudspeakers mounted to their roofs were circulating through neighbourhoods warning people that should they participate in the strike they will be in violation of the law, and anyone sharing information about the strike on social media will be subject to arrest and imprisonment under the counterterrorism laws. On January 26, The Irrawaddy reported that these warnings were “an attempt to prevent the protest after the previous silent strikes saw the whole nation of over 54 million people stay out of sight for the day.”
Police, soldiers and okkahtas, the military-appointed ward administrators, went from business to business, forcing owners to sign an agreement committing them to keeping their shops open on February 1, the day of the strike, and acknowledging that if they failed to do so they would suffer severe consequences. But everyone understood their dilemma. Even if they were forced to open, with everyone staying at home they wouldn’t expect any customers. So what then did the junta hope to gain by forcing shops and businesses to remain open? With no customers on the streets, what’s the point? Other than bolstering the junta’s delusion of normality, it simply makes no sense.
These various efforts by the military regime, each of which required the marshalling of enormous human and material resources, demonstrates that the call for another general strike struck an extremely raw nerve. In his vain efforts to project legitimacy, particularly to the international community, General Min Aung Hlaing has announced time and again that he would “very shortly” have the “terrorists” under control and could ensure stability throughout the nation. However, stability seems to be getting further and further beyond his grasp.
On February 1, empty streets, similar to those seen during the December strike, put the lie to the junta’s statements and became a major embarrassment. Desperate to avoid international disgrace, the regime has gone into overdrive in its efforts to crush the resistance, but its efforts will, in all likelihood, prove to be both insufficient and deficient. The amount of resources it amassed in hopes of forestalling the strike is a telling indication of how alarming this demonstration of resistance was to the regime, a fact that the Burmese people have carefully noted. The military’s heavy-handed and disproportionate tactics are a clear sign of its weakness and desperation.
By moving forward with the strike, the Burmese people have shown the world that investments in Myanmar will never bring returns until there is genuine democratic stability, and that such stability is squarely in the hands of the people. Deserted streets across the country on the day of the strike, despite every effort by the military to quash it, should serve as a warning to those who continue to engage in business with the generals while the people of Myanmar suffer under these tyrants.
Nonetheless, the people must not become complacent, because this regime will almost surely carry on in ways that defy morality and legitimacy. People need to prepare themselves for any and all possibilities. The regime led by Min Aung Hlaing and his cronies—which sanctions the bombing of innocent civilians, which tortures and burns to death young and old alike, which gang-rapes women, which loots and torches homes and entire villages, which murders indiscriminately—that regime accepts no constraints and recognizes no limits on its atrocities.
How the military will respond now that the strike has successfully taken place is an unknown that should concern everyone. But attempts at terrorizing people have already proven ineffective in deterring them from their cause. This is especially true for those of Generation Z who have vowed to fight to the end. Recent attempts to cow the Burmese people into submission, as described above, will only act as an accelerant thrown upon their anger and resentment. It would do Min Aung Hlaing and his gang well, and the international community too, to heed the words of the many who have announced that they will “never back down,” that “this is the last time.” It remains to be seen who is poking whom..."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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"အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်မထမ်းဆောင်ပဲ ဓမ္မဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ ပြည်သူနှင့်တသားတည်းဖြစ် စေရန်နှင့် အမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ကြစေရန် အကြိမ် ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ် ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ် ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံးအနေဖြင့်လည်း အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အမိန့်အာဏာ ဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမဖွဲ့ရသေးသောဌာနအသီးသီးမှ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေ ပြီး CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ် ပစ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ဥပေဒနှင့်အညီပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်းများ စသည့် အမျိုးမျိုးသောဖိနှိပ်မှုများကိုကျူးလွန်နေသော ပို့ဆောင်ရေးနှင့် ဆက်သွယ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန (မြန်မာ့မီးရထား)မှ အောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါဝန်ထမ်းများအားအမည်ပျက်စာရင်းသွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Office of the Prime Minister of the Union - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-03
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"This article is the latest in a Just Security series on the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, which brought together expert local and international voices on the coup and its broader context. The series is a collaboration between Just Security and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School).
Today, Feb. 1, 2022, marks the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar military’s attempt to wrest political control of the country away from its elected officials. Not every military attempt to impose its will on a country is a generational moment, but this one was. The actions of the military (known as the Tatmadaw) last year sparked an unprecedented series of events that are still rippling across the nation. The resistance to the military’s attempt[1] to take control started with the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a mass movement led by youth and joined by workers who stayed home and consumers who boycotted military-owned businesses to protest the takeover. A movement on this scale has not been seen in a generation. Other developments over the past year are entirely unprecedented in Myanmar. This past year thus marks the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. The shape of that new era is still being determined by the people of Burma, who are writing their next chapter with each passing day.
To understand the importance of Feb. 1, 2021 (“1221” or “2121,” depending on which date convention is used), we first must look back. For Burma followers, the start of the era proceeding 2021 can be traced to the 8888 Uprising (named for another significant date, Aug. 8, 1988, when that mobilization began), which saw a military crackdown against mass street protests across the country. The 8888 Uprising was the beginning of the end of the Ne Win era, a period of military rule which began decades earlier. Yet in the wake of 1988, the military dictatorship continued — first as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), a name which aptly captured the mass human rights abuses perpetrated by this military junta, and then, with a 1997 rebrand, as the State Peace and Development Council. Despite these cosmetic tweaks, little else changed. The consolidation of power by Than Shwe as the main military strongman in the early 2000s only demonstrated the continued military dominance. Even after the 2008 constitution and three subsequent national elections, including 2010 which featured a boycott by the National League for Democracy (NLD), the military was ever present, and the hopes of a full transition to democracy and peace failed to materialize. (For a fuller discussion of the history of democracy movements in Myanmar, see here).
Yet this post-1988 era was never really defined by the military leader as it had been during Ne Win’s time. Instead, the 1988 to 2021 period was defined by its opposition leader. When history is written in the years to come, it will be known as the era of Aung San Suu Kyi. From her “non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” while under house arrest and her leadership of the NLD as it earned landslide national victories in 1991, 2015, and 2020, to her silence on the ongoing persecution and coordinated campaigns of violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority, Aung San Suu Kyi shaped this era of Burma in a way no other figure did.
The lead up to the military’s attempted takeover on Feb. 1, 2021 did not presage how seminal a moment it would become for Myanmar. After the NLD won an overwhelming majority of the parliamentary seats in the November 2020 general election (396 out of 476 seats, a margin of victory even greater than in 2015 and reminiscent of a 1990 landslide victory for the party), the Tatmadaw laid the foundation to dispute the results. Just like after the 1990 election, which it never recognized, the military was intent on preventing the duly elected officials from taking their seats as representatives of the people. Throughout late 2020 and early 2021, the Tatmadaw alleged irregularities and poll fraud. Several nations, including the United States, warned that the Tatmadaw might attempt to seize power in the days leading up to Feb. 1. Despite these warnings, the military was able to successfully detain Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other NLD leadership on the morning of Feb. 1 (many of whom have since been criminally charged and sentenced in thinly veiled political persecutions). The Tatmadaw ordered an unconstitutional one-year state of emergency, and state television broadcasts announced that political authority had been transferred to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and the State Administration Council.
Looking back on the past year, it has been filled with familiar hallmarks of the Tatmadaw’s oppression: horrendous loss of life (conservatively at least 1,400 killed), countless arrests (estimates now run at nearly 8,800), and mass displacement. And as in eras past, the Tatmadaw has adopted these practices to retain power by whatever means necessary — including suppressing freedoms, curtailing rights, and terrorizing the population — and to fend off a burgeoning non-violent movement comprised of a new generation of leaders who have glimpsed the potential of democracy in Myanmar over the past decade.
But the past year has also been different – and remarkably so – for it has signaled not only the end of an era but the emergence of a new one.
A New Era
The CDM
The story of 2021 must start with the CDM — and the sea change that this movement represents among a generation that had not been born in 1988. Led by youth and women, the movement has used civil disruptions, work stoppages, and boycotts to hamper the Tatmadaw’s attempts to consolidate their power. In the process, the movement has signified not only a generational shift but a change in the representation and make up of political activity in Myanmar.
For many Burmans (the major ethnic group), participating in the movement has also prompted a sort of revelation, causing them, for instance, to question the misinformation espoused for years by the military that historically marginalized ethnic nationality groups were a threat to Burma. For so long, the country has been defined by its divisions — but the CDM has represented something new and distinctive as it has embraced and celebrated Burma’s diversity as a strength instead of a weakness.
The National Unity Government
The National Unity Government (NUG), which was announced in April 2021 as a “shadow” or interim government, represents the country’s first unity Comprised of members of the NLD, ethnic nationality groups, and other minority parties, the creation of the NUG parallels, in governmental structures, the bridge created between Burman communities and ethnic nationalities by the grassroots organizing of the CDM. What stands out about the NUG is that it is not a government comprised wholly of the Burman-led NLD but one that at least symbolically bridges ethnic divides in new ways.
Yes, there are legitimate questions on the depth of the unity, but this development nevertheless marks a first in Burma, and if it holds, it will define the new era in profoundly different terms from the previous one. During the 1990s through the first two decades of this century, there were calls for tripartite dialogue between the military, the NLD, and the ethnic nationalities, but never did the NLD unite with the ethnic groups in a government or other formal alliance.
The NLD’s treatment of the Rohingya crisis — ignoring or exacerbating severe human rights violations — has left deep distrust. Even here, however, there have been signs of change over the past year. One of the NUG’s interim cabinet ministers issued a public apology to the Rohingya for the government’s role in oppressing the group, and the NUG announced a new policy in June promising to end human rights abuses against the Rohingya and grant them citizenship. Given past experience, caution is still warranted as to whether there will be follow through on these pronouncements, but this much is clear: the NUG represents a potentially new political era.
The End of an Era
The emergence of the CDM and the NUG as well as the simultaneous generational shift has also signaled the beginning of the end of the era of Aung San Suu Kyi and others from her generation. From a towering symbol for human rights and democracy as a Nobel Peace Prize winner to a defender, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), of the military’s genocidal actions and now returning to house detention once again, feelings towards Aung San Suu Kyi have grown more complicated over the past few years to say the least. And while she and the NLD remain beloved by many in Burma, this last year has brought into stark relief the aging leadership of the party. While criminal sentences against the Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior NLD leaders still make the news, the base of power has begun to move beyond these elders. Transitions take time, but this one is underway.
The End of the 2008 Constitution
The 2008 Constitution enshrined military impunity and placed the Tatmadaw permanently beyond the reach of either civilian political control or judicial oversight. The February 2021 actions of the military ironically have caused a break with the Constitution that it wrote. Though the military allegedly attempted to force NLD President Win Myint to step down so they could take power under the veneer of legitimacy, his refusal and their subsequent attempt to seize power through force undermined the 2008 Constitution.In April, the predecessor to the NUG announced that the 2008 Constitution was no longer valid and promised a system with equal protections for all. A proposed replacement constitution, called the Federal Democracy Charter, was published with the announcement. Recently, a revised draft of the Charter was approved in a People’s Assembly held by a broad coalition (the National Unity Consultative Council or NUCC), confirming that the diverse membership of the NUCC considers the Charter to be the country’s interim constitutional document. While some have expressed skepticism, fearing that the lofty promises of equal protection are rhetoric without substantive, feasible strategies for improving the lives of ethnic and religious minorities, it is almost impossible to imagine a return to the 2008 Constitution.
The End of a Failed Peace Process
For the past decade, the Tatmadaw (and the NLD) consistently suggested to the world that efforts were ongoing to achieve lasting peace to conflicts in various border areas where ethnic nationalities tend to comprise the majority of the population and which have been in conflict with the Tatmadaw for decades. For example, in 2016 the Tatmadaw announced a “national” “ceasefire” agreement, a misnomer both because it did not involve all the major armed groups and because fighting has persisted and even intensified over the past decade. This past year has refuted the existence of any credible peace process, paving the way going forward for either ongoing conflict or, more hopefully, some entirely new peace initiative.
ASEAN Slights Min Aung Hlaing
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been rightly criticized for failing to adequately respond to the military’s actions in Myanmar; none of the points in its five-point consensus plan from April 2021 to address the situation have seen significant progress. Yet during its October summit, ASEAN boldly excluded the Tatmadaw, and several countries at the summit directly criticized the military leadership. The issue of attendance remains unresolved, and expecting much more from ASEAN may be unrealistic with Cambodia — itself an autocracy — as the chair during the next year. Yet the fact that the group directly confronted the Tatmadaw in the way it did in October 2021 is unprecedented. It signals that ASEAN is keeping its options open as to where to place its allegiance in the new era and no longer blindly supporting the military.
International Recognition
In September of last year, the United States and China reached an informal agreement barring the Tatmadaw from being seated at the United Nations, undermining its attempts to gain international legitimacy. The General Assembly recently agreed to defer action on who would represent Myanmar at the United Nations, meaning that the current ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, who is loyal to the NUG and has in fact been “fired” by the Tatmadaw, will remain in place until the issue is resolved. While not a definitive win for either the NUG or the military, as with ASEAN keeping its options open, the recognition stalemate means that the military can no longer assume that its power grabs will lead to a place at the table internationally.
Businesses Exit
The old era included an opening up of the country to foreign direct investment, including to vast natural gas deposits in the early 1990s. The Tatmadaw benefited immensely from international investments, enjoying both material profits from partnering with international corporations to extract natural resources and gains in legitimacy that came with these partnerships. But in response to the deteriorating political and human rights situation over the past few months, Chevron (which bought Unocal, the original investor in Burma) and TotalEnergies (Total) announced earlier this year that they were withdrawing from Myanmar after 30 years. Woodside Petroleum followed Chevron and Total shortly thereafter, and other companies have pulled out as well. While this is not the only time businesses have exited the country, it is a dramatic reversal from the last ten years. Moreover, the inclusion of giants Chevron and Total in the exodus is a telling indication that even the most stalwart of holdouts from the previous era have broken with the military.
The International Criminal Court and International Accountability
While there has been significant progress around international accountability in Myanmar in recent years — from the Gambia’s case at the ICJ, to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation, to the creation of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), to the acceptance by an Argentinian court of jurisdiction over crimes committed against the Rohingya — the NUG’s deposit of a letter with the ICC accepting jurisdiction by the Court for international crimes dating back to 2002 anywhere in the country is a major development. This letter signals the NUG’s commitment to join the international community, adhere to the rule of law, and address grave crimes throughout the country. The ICC should recognize the letter and authorize additional investigations beyond the Rohingya into international crimes, both historical and ongoing.
Prospects for Conflict or Peace
Despite these major developments and potential promise of this new era, many see a grim immediate prognosis defined by an escalation in violence as the conflict expands geographically and intensifies militarily. Predictably, civilians are likely to pay the largest price. The dominant view is also that for the foreseeable future, neither the military nor the NUG and Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) can achieve outright military victory, raising the specter of a protracted and messy conflict.
Nonetheless, as Myanmar enters this new era, a crucial question remains: what is the recipe that will change the balance of power to permanently end the Tatmadaw’s continuous destabilizing effects? After all, the destabilizing force in Burmese politics over the last 75 years has been the Burmese military. Despite three elections over the past decade, never have civilians been given genuine power to guide the country forward and never has there been a concerted effort to achieve a lasting peace across ethnic lines. With this in mind, possible paths toward such peace and stability will require the following elements.
First, the CDM has the capacity to transform into a durable generational political movement that can continue to learn from its membership, evolve, and persist. The momentum behind this grassroots movement is reminiscent of the long-term political impacts of the civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. In order to move Myanmar further forward (and away from military hegemony), the CDM’s core values of civilian power and celebration of the diversity of Burma must also persist, heralded by the youth leaders who see the opportunity for fundamental change.
Second, as the NUG continues to gain legitimacy and implement initiatives like the National Unity Consultative Council, a body designed to expand the alliance against the junta and establish a roadmap for a federal democratic system, there is an open question about whether this new governing body will live up to its name. In one possible version of the future, the NUG’s eventual composition would reflect the leadership of the CDM, developing a new generation of political leaders who are committed to the “Unity” element of the NUG. The NUG has already taken certain steps in this direction, making an unprecedented public statement acknowledging the injustices suffered by Rohingya Muslims and promising that it will seek “justice and accountability” for the military’s crimes against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups. This move toward cross-ethnic solidarity in the highest levels of government will be key to establishing a new kind of durable peace in Myanmar. However, many NUG members come straight from the NLD, and traditional fissures of distrust between the NLD and ethnic nationality leadership could easily reemerge if the NUG does not commit seriously to the equality and unity of all peoples in Myanmar.
The third critical factor in this equation is whether and how long the Tatmadaw can sustain its campaign of terror without cracking under the pressure. Desertions are reported by some as being at an all-time high, including both rank-and-file soldiers and officers. The Tatmadaw’s strategy to maintain nationwide control in the decades preceding the coup included a cycle of temporary ceasefires with certain ethnic groups, allowing the military to rotate its resources from suppression of one group to another. But because the military alienated nearly every group over the past year, ending many already tentative ceasefires, the Tatmadaw is now stretched thin trying to gain control in areas where it faces combined opposition from EAOs and representatives of the NUG’s Peoples Defense Force. With soldiers leaving the Tatmadaw to join the opposition and with additional collaboration between opposition forces, an increasingly desperate but still well-armed military has the potential to do enormous damage. The fighting is likely to get worse before it gets better, especially for civilians. However, this trend toward desertion combined with a unified civilian population sheds light on the cracks in the military’s grip.
Finally, China, ASEAN, the West, and the international community writ large must align against the destabilizing force that is the Tatmadaw. China may speak more in terms of avoiding civil war (given its interest in stability). ASEAN may speak more in terms of political solutions and dialogue amongst all the parties (given its practice of non-interference). The West may speak more in terms of rights and sanctions. But the common interest of these players should be a permanent and durable solution with civilian rule in Burma. Such a solution would meet the interests of the key regional and international players to end the conflict, find a politically satisfying outcome, and uphold human rights and the rule of law.
Like 8888, February 1, 2021, will be a date for the history books. Whether this next chapter of Myanmar’s history will bring an end to continued military rule and violent conflict and lead to a transition to democracy and peace is yet to be determined. As we mark the first anniversary of “1221” (or “2121”), however, one thing is clear: the events of the past year have reshaped Burma in fundamental ways, ushering in a new era with flickers of hope for true national unity at last..."
Source/publisher:
Just Security (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-03
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, International Criminal Court (Myanmar), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Political History, Military History
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Sub-title:
Yi Yi Khine was hit by a bullet in her stomach while driving in downtown Kalay on Tuesday
Description:
"A teacher who was part of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) was shot and killed as she rode her motorcycle with her child on her back in the Saging Region town of Kalay on Tuesday morning, a relative said.
The bullet hit Yi Yi Khine, a 42-year-old middle school teacher, in the stomach at around 9am as she rode through downtown Kalay, and she died shortly after arriving at the nearby hospital. The child was not injured.
It is unclear exactly who shot Yi Yi Khine, the relative said, but there was a military base near the site of the killing.
“She couldn’t get help easily because it was the day of the silent strike,” the relative said. “She could still talk a bit when she arrived at the hospital.”
Yi Yi Khine passed away at about 11am and her funeral was held the following day. She also leaves behind a second young child.
Locals in Kalay joined millions of people across the country on Tuesday who took part in a silent strike to show their opposition to military rule on the one-year anniversary of the coup.
“The roads were empty by 10am and it stayed that way until 4pm,” a Kalay resident said. “The shops had to remain open because the military threatened them. There were no buyers whatsoever.”
Soldiers spent the day patrolling the town in about 20 vehicles, he added.
Over 100 civilians have been killed and over 400 arrested by the military in the township of Kalay since the coup, according to the Kalay Township Strike Committee.
Kalay was apparently the first place where civilians took up arms to fight back against the coup regime last year, with protesters using traditional hunting rifles to defend themselves in late March when they were attacked by the junta’s forces..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
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Description:
"On 1 February 2022, people in Myanmar will mark the first anniversary of renewed military dictatorship with protest and resistance. The coup prevented an elected government from taking office. The military extralegally detained its members, and embarked on a program of state violence reminiscent of the atrocities in 2017 that led hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
The military has met nationwide resistance. A civil disobedience movement that began in the days after the coup has persisted in its efforts to oppose military rule by strikes, boycotts and other kinds of non-cooperation. A people’s defensive war has brought fighting to parts of the country that had for decades been without armed conflict.
The costs have been great. Many have lost their jobs and housing. Thousands have been detained and at least 1,499 civilians have lost their lives, according to the AAPP. An estimated 406,000 people have been internally displaced since the coup and at least 32,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, according to UNHCR.
The military coup has exacerbated efforts to combat the Covid-19 crisis, unnecessarily contributing to a high death toll. Military rule greatly complicates future efforts to control the virus, putting the health and safety of millions in peril.
The consequences of the coup on higher education are disastrous. After decades of debilitating dictatorship, universities and institutes in Myanmar were just beginning to find their feet when the military again seized control. The universities remain closed to students. With their shutdown go the hopes of another generation for quality education in Myanmar. Opposition groups, activists and engaged scholars are setting up alternative study programs, but these can fill only a small part of the demand.
As academics, students and professional staff working on Myanmar, we mark this anniversary by condemning the coup and the violent suppression of political opposition to military rule. We deplore the targeted killing and maiming of unarmed civilians, including via massacres during recent military offensives launched in many parts of the country.
To our friends and associates in Myanmar, and to alumni of Australian universities who are struggling against dictatorship, we extend our solidarity. We join with you and others around the world in demanding that the military retreat from politics, stop the killings and torture; release all political prisoners, including our colleague Professor Sean Turnell, and return government to those whom Myanmar’s electorate chose to lead it. Joint statement issued on 31 January 2022 by:..."
Source/publisher:
Asian Studies Association of Australia, Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars, Australia-Myanmar Constitutional Democracy Project, Australia Myanmar Institute, Griffith Asia Institute and Myanmar Research Centre
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
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Description:
"One year has now passed since the
Burma Army’s attempted coup on
1 February 2021. The Human Rights
Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) began
documenting atrocities being perpetrated
against civilians by the military junta in
Mon State, Karen State and Tanintharyi
region on 7 February 2021. The crimes
that have been committed speak to the
unrelenting horrors which continue to
be forced upon innocent clusters of the
population. The majority of the people in
Burma strongly reject the military coup
and have been collectively strengthened
by a commitment to toppling the
terrorist regime.
More than anything, the Burma
Army craves legitimacy and has used
violence as a tool to try and submit
the people to their will. However,
despite the grave horrors projected
onto civilians, the Spring Revolution
remains unbroken. It is a struggle that
civilians feel they cannot step away
from until their freedom and rights are
restored. One year ago, the Burmese
military made clear its disregard for
democracy and peace. They reaffirmed
the reality that they would not follow
the rules of international, democratic
governance but would rather try to
rewrite their own playbook which went
even beyond the 2008 military drafted
Constitution. By dismissing key pillars of
a functioning, free and fair government
in their refusal to accept the victory
of the National League for Democracy
(NLD), the people very quickly resisted
– and have continued to show their
strength through protests, underground
organizing and even taking up arms to
join local civilian defense forces.
Despite the mass momentum which
has fueled the revolution, the Burma
Army has only wielded more violence
including air and ground strikes to force
civilians to submit and for armed groups,
including ethnic armed organizations
(EAOs) to surrender. However, the
people remain vigilant and committed
to ensuring that they are victorious in
their long deserved quests for peace and
security..."
Source/publisher:
Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, HURFOM and other human rights material about the Mon, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
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Description:
"When hundreds of thousands of workers across the country walked out of their jobs in protest at the military’s seizure of power in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, Grace* was among the first to join.
Although she was seven months pregnant, the middle-school teacher from Chin state was determined to resist the military by refusing to work under its administration. Joining her was her husband, also a government employee.
What they didn’t then know was that nearly a year later, their hands, once accustomed to holding chalk and pens, would instead be holding hoes and shovels, calloused and blistered from farming under the scorching sun. Nor did they ever imagine that they would be living in hiding, on the run from soldiers and police.
“My husband and I decided to strike soon after the coup was staged. For fear of being arrested by the police, we haven’t been able to return home for nine months,” says Grace, talking to the Guardian from an undisclosed location.
Two of my family members were arrested because of me. Our houses were raided. We have no regular source of income and have to struggle every day to make a living. But never have I ever regretted joining the civil disobedience movement, not even once. We are part of the revolution against the military dictatorship.”
In the year since the coup, Myanmar has been plunged into chaos and a spiralling economic crisis as the military responds to the widespread civilian defiance to its rule with deadly violence and mass arrests.
Some of its main targets are the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, including teachers, nurses and doctors participating in a campaign of civil disobedience and refusing the serve the regime.
Public hospitals are barely functioning, and when state schools opened in June, more than half the teachers were absent. Private and public bank workers have also been striking en masse, and even withdrawing cash is now near-impossible.
In an effort to crush the movement and make people return to their jobs, military forces have started hunting down striking public sector workers across the country and raiding their homes.
Since the strikes began in February, at least 140 people have been arrested for their participation, of whom 107 remain in detention, the Guardian was told by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Myanmar-focused rights monitoring group.
The AAPP says at least eight of those taking part in the civil disobedience movement have died in military interrogation centres, and seven of the bodies showed signs of torture.
Families have also been targeted. Since the coup, 46 people have been taken as hostages in an attempt to force their family members participating in civil disobedience to turn themselves in; 39 of these hostages are still in custody, according to the AAPP.
Grace went into labour shortly after she left her home. With family members being targeted by police raids, she was so scared of being arrested she registered at the hospital under a fake name. Her husband did not dare accompany her.
The military has also attempted to force those who are taking part in the strikes to return to work by making it harder for them to survive. It has evicted thousands from worker housing, and stopped paying salaries. Last May, more than 125,000 striking teachers had their contracts suspended in an attempt to try and force them back into the classroom.
The Guardian spoke with seven teachers in Chin state who are still on strike. They all said their only financial support was community donations, which were irregular and amounted to less than half of their former income.
For Grace and her family this is not enough to survive. In June, the couple began farming corn. On weekends, they sell fried snacks to make ends meet. They still face the constant risk of arrest.
As violence and military attacks escalate across the country, many teachers and other public sector workers who have gone on strike are now also living under the shadow of war. Since May, fighting has dramatically increased. The military has sought to quell armed resistance by attacking entire civilian populations, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that more than 400,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
Intensifying military attacks caused Ling Kee*, a high school headteacher who joined the civil disobedience movement and went on strike last year, to leave the town of Thantlang in August with his three adult daughters, also strikers, and his wife.
They took shelter with relatives in Hakha township, but a month later had to flee again upon hearing that soldiers were going door to door hunting down strikers. With nothing but the nightclothes they were wearing, they drove motorbikes through the night along mountain roads until they crossed the border into India. .
Unable to work there, they are relying on their savings to survive.
Students have also joined taken action against military-run services. After weeks of protests over a military “slave education system” in May, only 10% of the country’s nearly 10 million people of school age registered this year, according to the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation.
When state schools opened across the country in June, many of them guarded by armed soldiers, classrooms were empty.
To ensure that youth do not miss out on their education, churches, civil society organisations and striking teachers have established multiple grassroots education channels, supported by community donations. But funds are limited, and teachers also worry that their classes could get caught in the crossfire of the ongoing fighting, a teacher from Kanpetlet township told the Guardian.
Biak* had just one year of high school left when the coup happened.
Now living in a refugee camp in Mizoram, India, after her home was destroyed in a military attack, she is unable to study because there are no education facilities. “Currently, my family doesn’t have a house to live in, and I have no chance to study. All of my dreams were reduced to ashes, just like the homes in Thantlang, including mine,” she says.
* Pseudonyms have been used for security reasons
Flora Lian is an independent researcher from Chin State, Myanmar and writes about current issues in Chin State. She holds a master’s degree from Chiang Mai University. She is writing under a pseudonym for security reasons..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-02
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, General Strike, Human Rights Defenders
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"၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့သည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ ပြည်သူများ၏ အသစ်တဖန် ပေါ်ပေါက်လာသော စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်အား ဆန္ဒပြခြင်းနှင့် တော်လှန်တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း တစ်နှစ်ပြည့်မြောက်သည့် နေ့ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အာဏာသိမ်းမှုသည် ရွေးကောက်ခံအစိုးရတစ်ရပ်၏ အစိုးရဖွဲ့အုပ်ချုပ်နိုင်ရေးကို တားဆီးခဲ့သည်။ စစ်တပ်သည် အစိုးရအဖွဲ့ဝင်များကို တရားမဝင် ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းပြီး ရိုဟင်ဂျာမွတ်ဆလင်သိန်းနှင့်ချီ၍ ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်နိုင်ငံသို့ ထွက်ပြေးစေခဲ့သည့် ၂၀၁၇ ခုနှစ်က ဖြစ်ရပ်ကို အောက်မေ့သတိရစေသော အစိုးရကျောထောက်နောက်ခံပြု အကြမ်းဖက်အစီအစဉ်ကို စတင်ခဲ့သည်။
စစ်တပ်သည် နိုင်ငံတဝန်း ခုခံတော်လှန်မှုကို ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီး ရက်ပိုင်းအတွင်း စတင်ခဲ့သော စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကို ဆန့်ကျင်ရန်သည့် အကြမ်းမဖက်လူထုအာဏာဖီဆန်သည့်လှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) သည် ဆန္ဒပြခြင်း၊ သပိတ်မှောက်ခြင်းနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းငြင်းဆန်သော နည်းလမ်းများစွာဖြင့် ကြံကြံခံ ဆက်လက်တည်ရှိနေသည်။ ပြည်သူများ၏ ခုခံစစ်ကြောင့် လက်နက်ကိုင်ပဋိပက္ခများ ဆယ်စုနှစ်များစွာ မရှိခဲ့သော နိုင်ငံ၏အစိတ်အပိုင်းများတွင် တိုက်ပွဲများ ပေါ်ပေါက်လာသည်။
ပေးဆပ်ရမှုသည် အလွန်ပင်ကြီးမားပါသည်။ လူအများအပြား အလုပ်အကိုင်နှင့် အိုးအိမ်များ ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသည်။ ထောင်နှင့်ချီ၍ ဖမ်းဆီးခံထားရပြီး အရပ်သား ၁၄၉၉ ဦးထက်မနည်း အသက်ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ကြောင်း AAPP ၏ အချက်အလက်များအရ သိရသည်။ UNHCR အချက်အလက်များအရ အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးကတည်းက ခန့်မှန်းခြေ လူ ၄၀၆,၀၀၀ ခန့် နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာထွက်ပြေးခဲ့ရပြီး အနည်းဆုံး ၃၂,၀၀၀ ခန့် အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများသို့ ထွက်ပြေးခဲ့ကြရသည်။
စစ်တပ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုသည် COVID-19 ကပ်ရောဂါအကျပ်အတည်းကို တိုက်ဖျက်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုများကို ပိုမိုဆိုးရွားစေခဲ့ပြီး သေဆုံးသူအရေအတွက် မြင့်မားလာစေခဲ့သည်။ စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးသည် ဗိုင်းရပ်စ်ကို ထိန်းချုပ်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုများကိုများစွာ ရှုပ်ထွေးခက်ခဲစေပြီး သန်းနှင့်ချီသောပြည်သူများ၏ ကျန်းမာရေးနှင့် ဘေးကင်းရေးကို အန္တရာယ်ဖြစ်စေသည်။
အဆင့်မြင့်ပညာရေးအပေါ် အာဏာသိမ်းမှု၏ အကျိုးဆက်များက အလွန်ဆိုးရွားလှသည်။ ဆယ်စုနှစ်များစွာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို အားနည်းစေပီးနောက် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ တက္ကသိုလ်များနှင့် အင်စတီကျူးများသည် မိမိခြေပေါ် မိမိရပ်တည်နိုင်ရန် စတင်ကြိုးပမ်းနေစဥ် စစ်တပ်က ထပ်မံသိမ်းပိုက်လိုက်ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ တက္ကသိုလ်များသည် ပိတ်ထားဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ ရပ်ဆိုင်းလိုက်ခြင်းဖြင့် အရည်အသွေးပြည့်ဝသော ပညာရေးကို မျှော်လင့်နေကြသော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ မျိုးဆက်နောက်တခု၏ မျှော်လင့်ချက်များကို ကွယ်ပျောက်စေခဲ့သည်။ အတိုက်အခံအဖွဲ့များ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများနှင့် ပညာရှင်များသည် အစားထိုးပညာရေးအစီအစဥ်များကို ကြိုးစားအကောင်အထည်ဖော်နေကြသော်လည်းဘဲ တောင်းဆိုချက်များ၏ အနည်းငယ်မျှကိုသာ ဖြည့်ဆည်းပေးနိုင်သည်။
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံနှင့်ဆက်ဆိုင်သော အကြောင်းအရာများကို လုပ်ဆောင်နေကြသော ပညာရှင်များ၊ ကျောင်းသားများနှင့် ကျွမ်းကျင်ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်းမှု တနှစ်ပြည့်မြောက်သောနေ့တွင် အာဏာသိမ်းမှုနှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအတိုက်အခံများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက် ဖြိုခွင်းခြင်းများကို ရှုတ်ချလိုက်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံအများအပြားတွင် မကြာသေးမီက ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည့် ထိုးစစ်များအတွင်း အစုလိုက်အပြုံလိုက် သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများအပါအဝင် လက်နက်မဲ့ အရပ်သားများကို ပစ်မှတ်ထားသတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းနှင့် ထိခိုက်ဒဏ်ရာရစေခြင်းများကို ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ရှုတ်ချသည်။
အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို တွန်းလှန်နေကြသော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ မိတ်ဆွေများ၊ အပေါင်းအသင်းများနှင့် သြစတြေးလျ တက္ကသိုလ်အသီးသီးမှ မြန်မာကျောင်းသားဟောင်းများနှင့်အတူ မိမိတို့ တစိတ်တဝမ်းတည်း ရှိနေပါသည်။ စစ်တပ်က နိုင်ငံရေးကနေ ဆုတ်ခွာရန်၊ သတ်ဖြတ်မှုနှင့် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများကို ရပ်တန့်ရန်၊ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ လုပ်ဖော်ကိုက်ဖက် ပါမောက္ခ Sean Turnell အပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဉ်းသားများအားလုံး လွတ်မြောက်စေရန်နှင့် ပြည်သူများရွေးကောက်ထားသော အစိုးရထံ အာဏာပြန်လည်အပ်နှံရန် တောင်းဆိုနေသူများအားလုံးနှင့်အတူ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အတူ ရပ်တည်နေပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Asian Studies Association of Australia, Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars, Australia-Myanmar Constitutional Democracy Project, Australia Myanmar Institute, Griffith Asia Institute and Myanmar Research Centre
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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"In the first hours after the military grabbed power in a shock coup in Myanmar one year ago, there was little public reaction.
No-one seemed to know how they should react, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who had led opposition to military rule for the previous three decades was under arrest.
"That morning the internet and phone lines were cut", recalls Moe Sandar Myint, a prominent union leader in Hlaing Tharyar, an industrial district of Yangon.
"We did not believe the news at first, but after we went out to buy radios we knew the coup was true. We were devastated. It was a day of darkness for us. Myanmar was only just starting to grow. Figuring out how to fight back against the dictators was of the utmost importance to us."
But by the end of that day a message from Suu Kyi, written it seems in anticipation of the coup, had been published, urging the people of Myanmar not to accept it.
At the same time one of her most trusted advisors, Win Htein, citing the example of Mahatma Gandhi, appealed for a campaign of civil disobedience, in keeping with Suu Kyi's long-standing strategy of nonviolent resistance.
Thus was born the CDM, the Campaign for Civil Disobedience, initially led by health workers and teachers who refused to go to work, and quickly supported by trades unions, civil servants and a vibrant cross-section of music and movie stars, LGBT+ groups and ethnic minorities.
The doctors and nurses defying Myanmar's military
Not only did they endorse Aung San Suu Kyi's non-violent beliefs - her face was everywhere on protest posters - they also called for the restoration of the elected government she headed.
Moe Sandar Myint organised the first of many worker protests four days after the coup. They were part of a nationwide movement against military rule which in that first month filled the streets with carnival-like rallies.
"I was worried about my workers getting shot", she says. "But seeing the overwhelming participation of the people when we marched my fears fell away."
Today she lives in exile in Thailand with her husband and three children after a gruelling flight from Yangon that took her first to the war-torn borderlands controlled by ethnic insurgents, and then on a frightening night-time journey across the border.
The turning point was last March, when the coup leaders ordered troops to crush the protest movement without restraint.
For Moe Sandar Myint the violence came on 14 March. By then she was already staying away from her home to avoid arrest.
Hlaing Tharyar, with its dense population of migrant workers, had a reputation as a tough neighbourhood in Yangon, and residents had barricaded the roads in an attempt to stop the military from entering.
"I was with the other union leaders planning our next action. Suddenly we heard the military was coming, so we scattered. They had blocked all the roads out of Hlaing Tharyar, and were shooting at us," she said. "Many people died, including some of my workers."
"First they began to shoot from the middle", remembers her husband Ko Aung who was on the streets with the protesters. "Then the shooting came from the sides and from behind us. We tried to take cover but there was no protection from the bullets."
Myanmar Witness, an organisation using satellite and other imagery to verify human rights abuses, believes as many as 80 were killed Hlaing Tharyar in what it describes as a massacre with indiscriminate shooting by the security forces.
Video from that day shows police positioned on a bridge looking into Hlaing Tharyar, casually taking shots at the people below. After they raided Moe Sandar Myint's house, she knew she and the family would have to leave Yangon.
Many other participants in that euphoric first month of protest have also fled, some to join a desperate, unequal armed struggle against the military junta.
No going back
Aung San Suu Kyi has since vanished from public view, cut off from the struggle behind a curtain of secret show-trials.
MPs and officials from her party formed a shadow National Unity Government (NUG) last April, aiming to challenge the junta's attempts to win international recognition, and to broaden the opposition leadership by including more ethnic minorities.
But with its members scattered and on the run from the military, the NUG's influence over the armed resistance groups proliferating across Myanmar is limited.
These local militias, calling themselves People's Defence Forces or PDFs, use captured or home-made guns and improvised explosives to attack military convoys and assassinate officials working for the junta.
They no longer talk much about peaceful protests. Indeed some of them are critical of Su Kyi's autocratic leadership, and her past efforts to co-exist with an over-powerful armed forces. They say there can be no going back to the status quo ante.
How Myanmar military uses torture to suppress women
George and Frank are two young men who took part in the anti-coup protests near their homes in Yangon. We cannot use their real names.
George was a business executive; Frank, a keen video-gamer, worked in a café. Both are now volunteer fighters with PDF operating in insurgent-controlled areas.
After watching people being gunned down at their barricades in March, and realising that no international help was coming, they decided the non-violent strategy was not working.
"It was difficult to know where to begin our armed struggle', says George. "We were normal people, with no experience of military training."
For activists in Yangon, the easiest option was to join up with one of the established insurgent groups to the east of the city, which have been fighting the central government for decades.
Some of these groups have stayed aloof from the anti-coup movement, but three in particular, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the north, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) along the Thai border, have offered sanctuary and training.
The first problem for George and Frank who joined the KNLA, was winning their trust. The group is wary of possible military infiltrators, and harbours a long-standing suspicion of a majority population which until recently had shown little sympathy for Myanmar's minorities.
Their second problem was weapons. They had to buy their own, on the black market.
George paid the equivalent of $2,000 (£1,500) for a pistol. Frank sold his car and a piece of land to fund his $3,500 purchase of a US-made M4 rifle. Ammunition is a constant problem.
Their Karen hosts expect PDF volunteers to be largely self-funding, but still operate under the command of KNLA officers. It has been a tough adjustment.
"Before all this I was only interested in studying and playing games", says Frank.
"Living in the jungle, sleeping on the ground, sometimes I just wanted to give up. We had to eat whatever was offered - we ate banana stems more often than meat. I found getting used to the toilet situation the most difficult."
In December both men were injured in fighting as the army attacked areas where they believed PDF leaders and members of the NUG were sheltering.
They describe terrifying, chaotic encounters where they were heavily outgunned. They also complained about not getting any material support from the NUG, to which the PDFs are nominally loyal.
The NUG is torn over how much to continue following Suu Kyi's non-violent principles, and how much to embrace the turn to armed resistance.
In September, it announced a "People's Defensive Revolution", supporting the right of people to use armed force against the junta, and publishing a code of conduct for the various militia groups.
It has raised significant sums of money from the overseas Burmese diaspora, and has established a defence ministry, with which George- who now commands his own small PDF battalion - says he communicates regularly; but he says the wishes of his Karen protectors must take precedence.
One year on, the resistance to military rule in Myanmar is unrecognisable from its boisterous, colourful beginnings.
The security forces have killed at least 1,500 people, some in dreadful massacres, and destroyed hundreds of homes. The junta claims hundreds on its own side have been killed by bombs, assassinations and drive-by shootings.
The economy is in ruins. And growing numbers of people are being driven into exile..."
Source/publisher:
"BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-30
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Groups Urge Canberra to Act Ahead of Military Takeover Anniversary
Description:
"The Australian government, one year after Myanmar’s February 1, 2021 military coup, should impose targeted sanctions on Myanmar’s abusive military leaders and their business interests, six nongovernmental organizations said in a letter to Foreign Minister Marise Payne released today.
In December the Australian government passed amendments to enable targeted sanctions against serious human rights abusers, but the sanctions have not been used. In the past year governments such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union have imposed various targeted sanctions against Myanmar individuals and entities.
The letter was signed by the Australian Centre for International Justice, Australian Council for International Development, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Human Rights Watch, Publish What You Pay, and the Refugee Council of Australia.
Since the Myanmar military overthrew the elected civilian government last year, the Australian government has not imposed any additional sanctions on military leaders or their business interests. Since then, the military junta has carried out a nationwide crackdown on anti-junta protesters and the political opposition that amounts to crimes against humanity.
State security forces have killed more than 1,500 people, most recently the horrific summary execution of at least 39 people, including 4 children and 2 humanitarian workers, in Karenni State, yet no one has been held accountable for these crimes. Australia should demonstrate its strong public opposition to these atrocities by announcing targeted sanctions on February 1, 2022, the organizations said.
On January 27, the Australian company Woodside, a natural gas producer, announced it was exiting from Myanmar, underscoring the need for coordinated and targeted sanctions from Australia, the US, EU, and other concerned governments on Myanmar’s natural gas revenues.
The letter to Australia’s foreign minister lists the individuals and entities who should face sanctions. Acting on that list should serve as a starting point for the Australian government to harmonize its position on Myanmar with like-minded governments.
Quotes from signatories to the letter:
“Australia should mark the one-year anniversary of Myanmar’s coup by joining join its allies in imposing targeted sanctions against Myanmar’s abusive generals and military-owned businesses. The Australian government should heed the calls of people in both Australia and Myanmar to help deprive the military of its revenue sources and to maximize pressure on the junta to end its campaign of terror.”
Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch
“The Australian government needs to act by introducing targeted sanctions, and not just wring its hands. The Myanmar generals stand accused of committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people and snuffing out democratic government, and attacking their own people for voicing democratic aspirations. When will the Australian government stand up for freedom and democracy?”
Marc Purcell, chief executive officer of the Australian Council for International Development
“A year on from the military coup in Myanmar, the Morrison government has failed to introduce further sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders and business interests – putting Australia behind likeminded countries like the US, UK and EU. Workers in Myanmar are risking their lives to protest the military takeover while the Morrison government sits idly by, when they should be taking action to support democracy.”
Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
“The mining, oil and gas sectors are like an ATM for Myanmar’s murderous military. The Australian government should introduce sanctions that will outlaw Australian mining, oil and gas companies lining the pockets of the generals with tax and royalty payments.”
Clancy Moore, Australian director of Publish What You Pay..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Business and the Military, Sanctions, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights and international relations
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Governments Should Deny Abusive Junta Funds, Arms
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"(Bangkok) – Since the military coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s junta has carried out a brutal nationwide crackdown aimed at suppressing widespread public opposition to its rule, Human Rights Watch said today. Concerned governments, including the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and Japan, should together block the junta’s access to foreign revenues from oil, gas, and other extractives that are funding its abusive rule.
"How many more people does Myanmar’s military have to detain, torture, and shoot before influential governments act to cut off the junta from its flow of money and arms." - Brad Adams (Asia Director)
Under the leadership of Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, junta security forces have carried out mass killings, torture, sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses against protesters, journalists, lawyers, health workers, and political opposition members amounting to crimes against humanity. Military attacks in the country’s northwest and southeast have resulted in numerous war crimes. The nature of the security force crackdown – methodical, widespread, and systematic – reflects the junta’s countrywide policy of suppressing the opposition.
“How many more people does Myanmar’s military have to detain, torture, and shoot before influential governments act to cut off the junta from its flow of money and arms,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Myanmar’s people, who have not given up their fight for democracy in the face of daily atrocities, need to know they have the global community’s support.”
On February 1, 2021, the military arrested the country’s elected civilian leaders, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, in early morning raids in the capital, Naypyidaw. In the ensuing weeks, millions of people across the country joined the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), peacefully protesting the junta through mass demonstrations and general strikes.
Security forces responded with increasingly excessive and lethal force, including live ammunition, grenades, and so-called less-lethal weapons. Police and soldiers massacred protesters in cities and towns across the country. The security forces have killed nearly 1,500 people since the coup, including at least 100 children. “When they came at us, we had nothing,” said a protester attacked on March 3 in Yangon. “We didn’t have a stick. We didn’t have a knife. All we had was our chants and our three-finger salute.”
On March 26, the junta’s MRTV channel warned protesters to “learn from the tragedy of earlier ugly deaths that you can be in danger of getting shot to the head and back,” and urged parents to deter their children from demonstrating: “Let’s not waste lives for nothing.” Security forces killed 160 people the next day.
To contest the junta, in April, civilian members of parliament, ethnic minority representatives, and civil society activists formed a National Unity Government (NUG). In August, Min Aung Hlaing extended the one-year state of emergency, which the junta had declared on February 1, until 2023.
The junta has arbitrarily detained over 11,000 activists, politicians, journalists, and others, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, and forcibly disappeared hundreds. Military tribunals have sentenced 84 people to death in summary proceedings that do not meet international fair trial standards. Detainees are frequently kept incommunicado, unable to contact relatives or legal counsel.
Security forces have subjected many detainees to torture and other ill-treatment, including routine beatings, burning with lit cigarettes, prolonged stress positions, and gender-based violence. At least 150 people have died in custody, in many cases at military-run detention centers. “There was so much blood,” said a former detainee who was beaten during his eight-month detention. “I couldn’t even remember what I was there for. I couldn’t sit or stand. I kept wanting to faint. Maybe I did keep fainting.”
The junta has arrested over 120 journalists, about 50 of whom remain in detention awaiting charges or sentencing. At least 15 journalists have been convicted, the majority under section 505A of the penal code, a new provision that criminalizes publishing or circulating comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news.” The junta stripped the media licenses of seven local outlets and banned satellite television. “I’ve had to get my whole family out,” one journalist said. “Myanmar is not a safe place for anyone with a moral compass.”
Security force crackdowns spread beyond cities into rural and ethnic minority areas as resistance to the junta grew countrywide. The military continues to launch targeted and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including airstrikes and heavy artillery barrages, the United Nations has reported. Accounts from displaced people and aid workers suggest that the junta has continued to use the military’s longstanding “four cuts” strategy, in which the armed forces maintain control of an area by isolating and terrorizing the civilian population.
In some areas, recently formed People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and other anti-junta armed groups fought alongside long-established ethnic armies against the junta’s military forces. In November, clashes were reported in every state and region in the country.
On December 24, security forces summarily executed at least 39 people in Hpruso township, Karenni (Kayah) State, including four children and two staff members from the international aid organization Save the Children. Many of the victims were bound, gagged, and showed signs of torture, and some may have been burned alive. “It is one of the most shocking and depressing things I have ever experienced,” said a doctor responsible for performing autopsies on the victims.
Since the coup, over 400,000 people have been internally displaced by fighting and unrest, primarily in the northwest and southeast, with an estimated 32,000 refugees fleeing to India and Thailand. The junta has deliberately blocked humanitarian aid from reaching millions at risk, in violation of international humanitarian law. Troops have attacked aid workers, destroyed supplies, and blocked access roads and aid convoys, seemingly as a form of collective punishment against civilians in areas where junta rule is contested.
According to the UN, the number of people needing assistance in the country has grown from 1 million before the coup to 14.4 million, including more than 5 million children. About 25 million people, or half the population, are estimated to be living below the national poverty line.
The Myanmar healthcare system has effectively collapsed since the coup. With the junta cracking down on medical professionals for their role in the Civil Disobedience Movement, Myanmar has become one of the deadliest countries in the world to work in health care, according to data from the World Health Organization and Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition. “We have to fight and overcome this, otherwise our futures are lost,” said one young doctor.
From February 1 to November 30, security forces allegedly killed at least 31 health workers and arrested 284. Security forces have beaten and shot medical staff providing care to injured protesters and forced clinics operated by nongovernmental groups to close, driving medics and volunteers to work underground in poorly resourced makeshift mobile clinics.
While the US, Canada, UK, and EU member states have imposed targeted sanctions on junta leaders and military-controlled companies over the past year, the junta’s foreign currency revenue remains largely untouched, in particular from natural gas sales, its greatest source of funds. Governments should immediately impose sanctions to block the junta from accessing the US$1 billion in foreign revenue that gas projects generate annually, and tighten sanctions enforcement on other sources of foreign revenue from mining, timber, and transportation facilities.
The UN Security Council should end its inaction borne of political gridlock, and urgently pass a resolution that institutes a global arms embargo on Myanmar, refers the military’s grave crimes before and since the coup to the International Criminal Court, and imposes targeted sanctions on the junta leadership and military-owned conglomerates. If China and Russia continue to oppose council action on Myanmar, they should face concerted global pressure for upholding the junta’s indefensible rights abuses.
“The one-year anniversary of Myanmar’s military coup serves as a signpost of a deepening descent into crimes against humanity and humanitarian catastrophe that the US, EU, and others need to address,” Adams said. “These countries should at long last impose costs on the junta that are too great for the generals to bear.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-28
[field_licence]
Type:
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, General Strike, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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"415 Attacks on Health Care in Myanmar During One Year of Crackdowns Following Military Coup: Report
Ahead of February 1 coup anniversary, new report spotlights Myanmar armed forces’ brutal violence against health workers and facilities
January 26, 2022
At least 415 attacks and threats against health workers and health infrastructure in Myanmar were perpetrated during the one year since the country’s coup and the ongoing crackdown, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Insecurity Insight, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights (CPHHR). February 1 marks the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar coup d’état and the military’s ensuing crackdown on civilians, which has been characterized by targeted violence against health workers and obstruction of health care services, in gross violation of international law.
“Our Health Workers Are Working in Fear”: After Myanmar’s Military Coup, One Year of Targeted Violence against Health Care,” based on open-source information, documents and analyzes trends in violence against health workers and facilities during the military crackdown since the coup, highlighting:
A total of 415 attacks on health care
286 health workers arrested or detained
128 health facilities attacked
30 health workers killed
“In the year since Myanmar’s coup, nurses and doctors have been in the military’s crosshairs. Armed forces have harmed and intimidated health care workers, raided COVID-19 clinics and blocked vital humanitarian aid, resulting in the decimation of the Myanmar health system amid a pandemic,” said Lindsey Green, program officer for PHR and a report co-author. “Without immediate action from the international community to pressure the Myanmar military to end the bloodshed, Myanmar’s besieged health workers and civilians will enter a second year of a health and human rights catastrophe.”
The data featured in the new report covers February 1, 2021 through January 10, 2022. Researchers from the CPHHR, Insecurity Insight, and PHR used an open-source methodology informed by the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. The incidents reported are neither a complete nor a representative list of all incidents. Data collection is ongoing and data may change as more information is made available. However, the research provides a snapshot of how Myanmar’s military is persecuting health workers and targeting facilities amid its broader crackdown on civilians in the past year. The underlying data set can be explored at Humanitarian Data Exchange on a global map on threats and violence against health care.
Attacks on health care have become a prominent feature of the country’s coup d’état. Today, Myanmar is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a health worker, with more reported attacks against health care in Myanmar in the past year than in any other country on Earth.
While the highest number of monthly incidents were documented amid nationwide protests in March 2021, there has been a gradual increase in reported attacks from September 2021 through early January 2022, amid escalating armed resistance across the country and crackdowns by the Myanmar military.
The new report also analyzes how forms of violence against health care have evolved alongside wider events happening in the country over the 12 months since the coup, including the nationwide protests, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), the disastrous third wave of COVID-19, and the declaration of a people’s defensive war.
The report shows how, today, the people of Myanmar are facing gravely diminished access to routine and emergency health care services, with ongoing and egregious deliberate targeting of health care by the Myanmar military and other armed actors.
Mandalay Medical Cover, a volunteer medical organization, provided a statement alongside PHR to the UN Human Rights Council about the impacts of violence against health care:
“Our healthcare workers are working in fear. We are being oppressed, we are forcefully arrested – as are our family members if we cannot be found – and are being prevented from providing proper medical care, resulting in permanent damage to patients and the loss of many lives…. By effectively and forcibly preventing doctors from providing essential medical care to these people, many lives which could otherwise have been saved are unnecessarily lost.”
Attacks on health workers violate human rights and are grave breaches of international law. The researchers offer a series of detailed recommendations to the State Administration Council, Myanmar military (Tatmadaw), National Unity Government, ethnic armed organizations, People’s Defence Force, and the international community.
PHR is calling on the Myanmar military-led State Administration Council and Tatmadaw to immediately cease the targeting of health care workers with warrants and arrests for participating in the CDM and peaceful protests or for their provision of health care, as well as to immediately release people arbitrarily detained. All parties to the conflict must adhere to the provisions of international humanitarian and human rights law regarding respect for and the protection of health services and the wounded and sick, and regarding the ability of health workers to adhere to their ethical responsibilities of providing impartial care to all in need.
PHR is calling on international actors to provide COVID-19 vaccines, medical aid, and broader humanitarian support to the people of Myanmar through flexible mechanisms that recognize the evolving nature of conflict dynamics and difficulty in reaching all people in need. This should include support for cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid (along borders with China, India, and Thailand) to reach those in need who cannot be reached otherwise.
PHR is also calling on the United States Congress to pass the BURMA Act, which calls for the authorization of humanitarian assistance and targeted sanctions with respect to human rights abuses perpetrated by the Myanmar military. In addition to the February 2021 coup and ongoing crackdown against civilians, Myanmar security forces also perpetrated atrocities against the Rohingya people, which resulted the exodus of more than one million people from Myanmar to Bangladesh.
As the one-year anniversary of the coup is marked on February 1, the human rights and health crisis continues to grow in Myanmar, with escalating conflict, increasing numbers of internally displaced people and refugees, and the effective collapse of the public health care system.
“The impacts on the people of Myanmar of the military coup d’état and attacks on health care over this past year are incalculable and will continue to have implications for many years to come – especially as these attacks continue unabated,” the report states..."
Source/publisher:
Insecurity Insight, Johns Hopkins University and Physicians for Human Rights via Reliefweb (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-26
[field_licence]
Type:
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Health Workers Strike, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Htet Htet Eaindra Aung fled Yangon and now files reports on the run from remote and embattled Kayin state.
Description:
"Htet Htet Eaindra Aung was a news anchor at 7-Day TV in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon when the military junta ousted the democratically elected government and shut down news organizations like hers. Now she’s among a group of young journalists trying to help to restore democracy by working remotely, often on the run, for online outlets dedicated to challenging the regime’s propaganda.
An outspoken critic of the military, Htet Htet Eaindra Aung said she felt that she had to flee Yangon after its crackdown on media. She spoke with RFA’s Myanmar Service from the jungle in Kayin state along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, with only a backpack full of her personal belongings.
“I can’t stand the weather here. It's very cold,” she said. “There are days when you wake up in the morning without having a good night's sleep. Sometimes I spend the whole night in front of the fire and go back to bed in the afternoon.”
Htet Htet Eaindra Aung spent several weeks on the run with refugees fleeing an offensive by the military in the Lay Kay Kaw region — an area in adjacent Kayin state under the control of the armed wing of the ethnic Karen National Union. Some 20,000 civilians are estimated to have fled fighting in the area to makeshift camps along the banks of the Thaung Yin (Moei) River and into neighboring Thailand.
Each day, Htet Htet Eaindra Aung records a news segment in front of a greenscreen for the online-only news outlets of PVTV and Delta News Agency. At night, she sleeps in a crowded tent in the jungle. She said that she misses being able to work at her own pace and her former carefree lifestyle when “there was nothing to worry about.”
“I would work quietly all day in an air-conditioned room. After work, I’d take a walk outside. That was my previous life,” she said.
Journalists targeted
Htet Htet Eaindra Aung is one of many journalists who left the city for Myanmar’s jungles amid the deteriorating security situation. Some have left the country to seek political refugee status. Several others have been detained while working inside the country.
About 120 journalists have been detained since the coup, according to U.N. ad RFA tallies. While some have since been released, at least 53 others are still being held in various prisons. One photojournalist died while being interrogated and another was fatally shot in an artillery attack carried out by Myanmar’s armed forces while covering the plight of refugees in Kayin state.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report it released in December that Myanmar ranks second only to China as the world’s worst jailor of journalists.
After the coup, Htet Htet Eaindra Aung said that she constantly felt anxious and insecure because she had spoken out against the military, making it impossible for her to work or even risk staying in her own home.
Eventually, she decided to leave Yangon to work as a correspondent in the jungle.
“I only have a brother and my father. They never stop me from doing what I want to do,” she said. “I told my father that I wanted to leave like this and that I might not be able to return home. He said it was fine and that I could decide for myself and not to worry about him.”
Inconveniences and danger
Htet Htet Eaindra Aung, who has a passion for singing and aspires to become an artist, said she was initially excited to experience life in the mountains and believed that working as a reporter in the country’s remote border regions would not be so difficult. However, she told RFA that she misses the convenience of city life in Yangon.
“I try to be happy here, with nothing in my mind. I carry out my work as required. But in my subconscious mind, I miss Yangon,” she said.
“I often have dreams and in them, I’d be walking alone in Yangon without anyone by my side. It should be a fun time in which I’m walking around the city happily. But I often feel very bad when I wake up from such dreams.”
Life in rural Myanmar isn’t only more difficult because of small inconveniences. When fighting between the military and the KNU intensified in Lay Kay Kaw, Htet Htet Eaindra Aung fled the town along with its residents, including infants and the elderly.
“I was very sad to see a newborn baby while on the run. The baby was only eight days old. Both the baby and the mother were running away from the fighting,” she said. “I saw elderly people as old as my grandmother trying to flee to safety. Even young people like me cannot stand the cold weather here. How can these elderly people manage?”
Htet Htet Eaindra Aung said she regularly prays for the release of the country’s detained journalists and the resumption of her career as a reporter following an end to military rule. She also expressed her appreciation for her family, who she said “have full confidence in me.”
“I’m so very grateful to my father and brother, but I have never said it out loud. If I had a chance, I’d like to thank them for this opportunity,” she said..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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Facing a huge loss of revenue amid economic turmoil, the military has sent soldiers to act as debt collectors.
Description:
"The schoolteacher had just gotten out of bed when four Myanmar army soldiers pounded on her door. Her electricity payment was overdue, they said, and ordered her to pay it immediately at the government power company office.
The teacher, Daw Thida Pyone, asked what would happen if she refused. “One soldier pointed his gun at me and said, ‘If you choose your money over your life, then don’t go pay the bill,’” she recounted.
She was so frightened she got goose bumps. She grabbed her money and went straight to the payment office, not even taking time to change out of her yellow and pink pajamas.
After the Myanmar military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, millions of people walked off their jobs in protest. Millions also began refusing to pay for electricity, an act of civil disobedience aimed at depriving the junta of a crucial source of revenue.
Experts doubt that these efforts alone can bring down the regime. But eleven months after the coup, the military appears so desperate for cash that its soldiers have begun acting as debt collectors.
For weeks, residents say, troops have been going door to door alongside power company workers to extract payments in major urban areas, including the nation’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay.
The soldier’s threat to Ms. Thida Pyone was part of a wider, violent crackdown as the regime has tried to crush street protests and the civil disobedience movement. Soldiers and the police have killed at least 1,466 civilians, including nearly 200 who died during torture at interrogation centers, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. At least 85 young protesters were shot in the head at demonstrations, the rights group said.
The coup and subsequent crackdown also threw the nation’s economy into crisis as millions left their jobs in protest, including doctors, engineers, bank staff, power company employees and railway workers. Most have not returned.
The economy had previously been projected to grow in 2021, but with the coup and the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Bank estimates that it contracted by more than 18 percent instead.
The United Nations Development Program predicts that urban poverty rates will triple by early 2022, according to a December report based on a survey of 1,200 households.
“A slide into poverty of this scale could mean the disappearance of the middle class — a bad omen for any rapid recovery from this crisis,” Kanni Wignaraja, director of the agency’s bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement accompanying the report.
Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, has plummeted since the coup to less than half its previous value, driving up prices for imports such as fuel and cooking oil.
Cash remains in short supply as people, lacking confidence in the banks, hoard kyat. Banks are no longer stocking even a handful of A.T.M.s. Customers who want their money must obtain a token online or make an appointment by phone; both are almost impossible to do. Most people get cash from their accounts by transferring it to a broker and paying a commission of as much as 7 percent.
After a previous military regime began opening the country in 2010, Myanmar saw economic growth with increased international investment and a higher standard of living. The coup has undone this progress.
“In the past 10 months, the country has lost all its gains from the past 10 years,” said U Hein Maung, an economist based in Myanmar. “The cost of doing business has increased substantially. There is a booming informal economy of drug trafficking, illegal logging, money laundering and other illegal businesses.”
A decline in electricity payments, as well as tax revenues and international development assistance, has cost the regime about a third of the revenue that the previous government used to receive, he said.
Many public services, like health care and schools, are barely functioning, and the regime has halted many longer-term programs reliant on state funding, such as infrastructure projects.
“They are in zombie mode,” Mr. Hein Maung said. “They are functioning in the minimum viable way.”
Nevertheless, the military is in a better position than the public to withstand the downturn.
“The military has its own businesses and banks,” he said. “They can survive despite the fact that everything else has collapsed. And they have the guns, of course.”
Myanmar’s shadow opposition government, the National Unity Government, has urged the public to stop paying for electricity. In September, it said that 97 percent of people in Mandalay and 98 percent in Yangon had done so, costing the regime $1 billion by that point.
Ko Si Thu Aung, 24, who sells vintage clothes online, had not paid his bill since February in support of the civil disobedience movement. But on Christmas Day, soldiers came to his home and cut the power line. After two days without electricity, he decided he had no choice.
“If there is no electricity, I can’t work,” he said as he stood in line with more than 300 others waiting to pay their bills at the office of the Mandalay Electricity Supply Cooperative. “I feel bad because our money will become bullets to kill people.”
He said he would atone by donating more than the amount of his electricity payment to the People’s Defense Force, an anti-regime militia formed since the coup.
Opponents of the regime have also targeted lesser revenue sources, such as motor vehicle payments, by not renewing driver’s licenses or car registration. Soldiers have begun trying to collect more money by stopping drivers at random and inspecting their documents.
And revenue from the state-run lottery dropped to nearly zero after most of the public stopped buying tickets.
Opponents also have mounted a boycott against companies owned by the military, which operates two vast conglomerates with more than 120 subsidiaries. Among those affected are military-owned beer producers, banks, a cigarette manufacturer, tourist hotels, an insurance company and the cellphone company Mytel, a joint venture with Vietnam’s defense ministry.
In Mandalay, where the power goes out every day for hours at a time, the regime’s strong-arm campaign to collect electricity payments began in October.
Power outages were common before the coup but recently have become longer and more frequent. The energy ministry blames the outages in part on a fourfold increase in the price of imported natural gas.
Sometimes, in their effort to collect payment, troops sever the cables supplying power to individual homes.
Dr. Wai Phyo Aung, 36, a Mandalay dentist, said soldiers came to his neighborhood at the end December and cut the power lines of residents with the largest outstanding bills. One man who took a photo of a soldier cutting a cable was arrested, he said.
But he said he would refuse to give the regime any money. He has not paid his bill since the coup.
“If they come to my house and cut the electricity, I don’t care,” he said. “I will never pay the bill. I don’t care even if they kill me. I won’t let my money kill citizens and feed the war dogs.”
Ms. Thida Pyone, 39, who stood in the payment line in her pajamas, said she felt that she had no choice.
“They are threatening people in all possible ways,” she said. “I feel guilty for paying the bill, but I am afraid they will kill me.”..."
Source/publisher:
"The New York Times" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political History
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A significant proportion of healthcare in Myanmar is now being delivered outside state hospitals, by doctors and nurses who oppose the military and are loyal to the National Unity Government challenging the junta's legitimacy, medical workers in the country told the BBC.
Description:
"Organised resistance to the 1 February coup in Myanmar started with healthcare workers announcing a boycott of state-run hospitals. They led the first street protests, calling it the "white coat revolution".
That put medics on a collision course with the junta, and has resulted in much of Myanmar's healthcare system going underground.
In many areas more than 70% of health workers are believed to have abandoned their jobs, their hospitals and their patients. It was a difficult ethical decision, one defended by senior doctors in a letter they sent to the medical journal The Lancet.
"Our duty as doctors is to prioritise care for our patients - but how can we do this under an unlawful, undemocratic, and oppressive military system?
"Fifty years of previous military rule failed to develop our health system and instead enshrined poverty, inequality, and inadequate medical care. We cannot return to this situation."
Grace, a teacher at the Yangon Nursing University, says they all "chose to join the CDM [civil disobedience movement]".
"Every evening at 8pm, we would bang on pots and sing the revolutionaries' songs in front of the school. We were enraged - how could they just arrest our leader after they had lost an election?"
Grace was one of thousands of medical personnel who not only left her job - losing her accommodation as a result - but also joined the protests to help the injured.
"We arranged ambulances in case someone was shot. Our biggest concern was how to move them to safe areas.
"For minor injuries we would take them to the ambulance and treat them there. For gunshot wounds, we had to find safe routes to the clinics we set up in temples and monastery compounds."
From these desperate, improvised beginnings they built a shadow health system, notionally under the authority of the National Unity Government (NUG) which was declared in April by ousted parliamentarians to challenge the junta's authority.
In reality though, the system is run by thousands of volunteers across the country, working in charity clinics or those private hospitals willing to risk having them, and using encrypted communication apps to avoid detection.
They are providing healthcare that is either no longer available in the thinly-staffed state hospitals, or not wanted by patients who oppose the coup.
Dr Zaw Wai Soe, an orthopaedic surgeon and a leading figure in the ousted government's fight against Covid-19, is the NUG's health minister.
After the coup he turned down an offer from the military to be their deputy health minister, and went into hiding. He has been charged by the military authorities with treason.
The NUG raises money from Burmese living overseas to support the volunteers, and has set up a Facebook page for patients to get online medical advice from doctors who are in hiding - so-called telemedicine.
"We don't have enough money," Zaw Wai Soe told me, speaking from an undisclosed location. "But we do have support from local people, and internationally from the diaspora. It isn't enough but we are trying as hard as we can to provide proper healthcare."
A dangerous job
But working underground, in defiance of the military, is dangerous.
The World Health Organisation noted that, by July, half of the 500 attacks on health workers it recorded around the world had occurred in Myanmar.
A similar project at Manchester University reported that in the same period 25 medical workers had been killed in Myanmar, 190 arrested, and 55 hospitals occupied by the military.
Luke was an ICU nurse in a private hospital in Mandalay. He says he left his job immediately after the coup, because the hospital's owner had close ties to the armed forces, and became a protest leader.
"They arrested me on 5 April and took me to Mandalay Palace (where the city's military command is based). They had promised not to harm us, but once we were in the palace they started beating and questioning us.
"Then they sent us to Obo prison. We were kept in one room, 50 of us. We all had to share a single toilet, and could wash only once a day. It was summer, the hottest time of year, and there was not enough drinking water."
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Luke was kept in prison for 87 days, before being released in an amnesty. These days he is working in a mobile operating theatre in Mandalay hidden inside a shipping container.
"The lighting is not very good. But we do what we can. In prison I saw some gunshot wounds that had not been treated properly in government hospitals. Some died from those wounds.
"Those hospitals do have better equipment, but not enough skilled specialists and nurses. They often don't accept patients in need of critical care. I think our medical care is better, because we have more specialists than them. Our main problem is that we cannot work openly."
Some nurses described to me working in hidden charity clinics in Yangon and Mandalay, which are disguised as Covid testing centres to avoid military raids. Most have moved home several times already fearing arrest.
When they leave to go to work, they wear ordinary clothes, not uniforms, and leave their mobile phones behind, in case they are detained. They must always take care to avoid traps set by the military - several medics have been arrested this way.
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"We have to be alert when we get called to a patient's house", says Nway Oo, a nurse who has gone back from Yangon to her home town in Shan State. "We check with our people in that area to confirm whether the patient is really sick. So, we always wait for a day to be sure the patient is genuine."
Another nurse I spoke to said she has not left her home in Yangon for five months, and lives in fear of the security forces doing house inspections in her street.
Coping with Covid
Relying heavily on telemedicine, the underground health system has also struggled to treat patients during a surge in Covid infections in July and August.
Myanmar had begun a promising vaccine programme before the coup, but that came to a halt after the military seized power. One of those they arrested was the doctor in charge of the vaccine rollout.
The junta has promised to speed up vaccination rates, but been held back by a lack of trained staff, a lack of vaccines, and a lack of public trust in the military-run health system. The NUG launched its own vaccine programme in July, but this has been largely limited to border areas under the control of sympathetic ethnic insurgent armies.
"It is heartbreaking," says Mi April, a nursing instructor who is helping her former students to treat patients in their hometowns through telemedicine.
"I used to work until 1 or 2am responding to all the messages I got from people with sick family members, saying my father will die, my mother will die, please respond.
"I was helpless because I could not give them oxygen or medicines. People were queuing at places supplying oxygen, but the military was blocking them from accessing it."
The Delta variant of Covid appears to have run unheeded through Myanmar in July and August. Real casualty numbers are hard to know. All the nurses and doctors we spoke to say seriously ill patients were turned away from government hospitals, and had to go home, either to recover, or die.
By September Covid numbers had fallen sharply, but Myanmar remains vulnerable to future outbreaks, with vaccination rates still far below neighbouring countries.
"During the worst Covid outbreak this year, we tried to obtain medicines, oxygen concentrators, cylinders, and other equipment. It is a very difficult situation, but we do have manpower, because I believe 70 to 80% of healthcare workers are working with us," Zaw Wai Soe told me.
'We lost our future'
I asked him why health workers in Myanmar were playing such a large role in opposition to the coup. He believes it is a moral response by a profession which was terribly neglected during the previous period of military rule, when Myanmar had one of the world's lowest levels of healthcare spending.
That only started to change under the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, with a huge recruitment drive to bring in new staff.
"If you compare with other countries, we don't get big salaries. Most of us could easily go and earn more working in other countries, like Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. But, especially after Covid arrived last year, we gave all of our efforts to the country. We all expected we would have a better future one day, with our elected government.
"Then suddenly this coup happened. That is why we could not accept this. We were working for the people, even with our poor salaries and living standards.
"We had hopes for the future, and suddenly we lost that future."..."
Source/publisher:
BBC News (London)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-07
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"Burma’s illegitimate military regime kept trying to grind down a nation that overwhelmingly rejects it. During 1 Feb–10 Dec 2021, there were at least 7,053 attacks on civilians or armed clashes that failed to protect them, a 664% increase from the same period in 2020. Increased attacks caused 5,000 Karen villagers to flee into Thailand, and pushed Thai villagers on the border to relocate for safety. As of 1 Dec, 432 NLD members remained in detention, while junta military tribunals had sentenced 92 people to death. UNDP warned that 46.3% of the population will be living in poverty in 2022. It is estimated that 14.4 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2022..."
Source/publisher:
ALTSEAN-BURMA, Burma Human Rights Network, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, Initiatives for International Dialogue, International Federation for Human Rights, Progressive Voice, US Campaign for Burma and Women Peace Network
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights and international relations, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Anti-coup protesters
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New evidence surfaces implicating the Myanmar military in the killing of nearly 50 people and the destruction of evidence in Hpruso Township
Description:
"Families of the victims of a massacre in Karenni (Kayah) State’s Hpruso Township and a doctor who carried out post-mortem examinations of their remains have disclosed new details concerning the dozens of people slain and burned by the military on December 24.
The National Unity Government (NUG) and the Karenni State Consultative Council (KSCC) shared photos, medical records and evidence gathered from the site of the crime in an online press conference on Monday.
Bo Bo, the deputy township police chief of the Karenni State Police Force—an anti-junta law enforcement network made up of police officers taking part in the CIvil Disobedience Movement (CDM)—speculated that up to 49 people could have been killed on the Moso-Kwaing Ngan road near Moso village, some two kilometres northwest of Hpruso town.
Myanmar Now initially reported that at least 35 charred bodies and multiple burned vehicles were found by members of the resistance group the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) at the roadside site early on Christmas morning. They accused Myanmar army troops present in the area of committing the massacre.
Bo Bo said on Monday that the group of doctors who carried out the post-mortem examinations had managed to carry out autopsies on 31 of the bodies, but that the others were completely destroyed in the fire, crumbling to ashes when touched, and collected in three body bags.
Twenty-six of the victims who could be examined were identified as male, including two boys estimated to be under 17 years old. Six were determined to be female, including a young girl under the age of 12, Bo Bo said.
A doctor who performed autopsies on the bodies and who spoke at the press conference on the condition of anonymity confirmed the Karenni police officer’s summary and added that the girl would have been between the ages of 10 and 15.
“I think everyone can imagine whether it would have been possible that a young child under the age of 18 tried to shoot them,” said the doctor, who is also taking part in the CDM, commenting on the unlikelihood that the victims could have instigated the attack by opening fire on the soldiers believed to have murdered them.
“They killed innocent civilians and burned the bodies to destroy the evidence of their crime,” he added.
The doctor also confirmed that several of the bodies he examined had their hands tied behind their backs, were gagged, or had perforations to their chests and lungs.
He added that they only managed to retrieve the bodies three days after the incident because the military continued to fire artillery shells at anyone who attempted to enter the area.
Laboratory analysis had not yet determined if the victims were burned alive.
Describing the experience of carrying out the post-mortem examinations, he said, “That was the day I saw dead bodies en masse who were murdered in the cruelest and most inhumane manner I have ever seen in my entire life.”
Along with the bodies, six trucks, two civilian cars, two tractors and six motorcycles were also burned, Karenni State police officer Bo Bo said, adding that the bodies they were unable to examine were found wedged between the three trucks, which were carrying barrels of oil.
He added that two of the bodies which were able to be identified were confirmed to be staff members of the international aid group Save the Children, which had reported their staff missing following the incident. Four other bodies were determined to be members of a Border Guard Force (BGF), a militia operating under the junta.
The BGF members had been seen in Moso village at 11am on December 24, and had reportedly attempted to negotiate the release of civilians being held by the military. It was later reported that they had been executed.
Family members of the victims also attended Monday’s online press conference.
The wife of Moso resident Bu Reh confirmed that a tractor found destroyed in the fire was the one that her husband had been driving when he left their home.
Crying, she explained that Bu Reh had left on the tractor at around 7am and never returned.
“There had been shooting that day and I had to run away like an animal,” she said, “Our family is going through a lot of pain. We haven’t been able to eat and we spend our days crying. It’s so upsetting because the children are still so young.”
She added that Bu Reh was only carrying a knife as he had been planning to gather bamboo, so it was not possible that he tried to shoot at the soldiers, which has been implied by the military.
The military council released a statement on the same day as the massacre that they fired shots at the seven “suspicious” vehicles because they refused to stop when they told them to do so. The junta alleged that people in the vehicles shot at the soldiers from the trucks and they were “captured dead” after a shootout. The statement did not address the reports of murder or the burning of evidence.
Junta information officer Gen Zaw Min Tun told BBC Burmese that 25 members of the anti-junta resistance group the People’s Defence Force died in the incident, and that among them was one woman.
The families of the victims, the NUG leadership, and the Karenni State police officer collectively rejected the military’s claims that the victims of the massacre were PDF fighters who refused to stop their vehicles for the junta troops. They maintain that they were civilians.
Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s human rights minister, pointed to the fact that all of the bodies and vehicles were burned in a single location, indicating that the military was likely attempting to destroy evidence of crimes that occurred there.
In response to a family member demanding justice for their slain loved ones, Aung Myo Min promised that the NUG would file a case against the junta in the International Criminal Court, as well as send details of the massacre to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar established by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
“I can sympathise with the victims and we are doing our best to take legal action against the military council and the leaders of the coup regime who are most responsible for these atrocious crimes,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-04
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Type:
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Armed conflict in Karenni State, Anti-coup protesters
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Source/publisher:
Office of the Prime Minister of the Union - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-02
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံး
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၇/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ (၂၂) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်မထမ်းဆောင်ပဲ ဓမ္မဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ ပြည်သူနှင့်တသားတည်းဖြစ်စေရန်နှင့် အမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ကြစေရန် အကြိမ် ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ် ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ် ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံးအနေဖြင့်လည်း အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အမိန့်အာဏာ ဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမဖွဲ့ရသေးသောဌာနအသီးသီးမှ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေ ပြီး CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ် ပစ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ဥပေဒနှင့်အညီပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်းများ စသည့် အမျိုးမျိုးသောဖိနှိပ်မှုများကိုကျူးလွန်နေသော သာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန(အနုပညာဦးစီးဌာန)မှအောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါ ဝန်ထမ်းများအားအမည်ပျက်စာရင်း သွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Office of the Prime Minister of the Union - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-22
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"အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် ၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် အကြမ်းဖက် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီက နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာကို သိမ်းယူခဲ့သည့်အချိန်မှစ၍ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ခြင်း မပြုကြရန် နှင့် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) ပါဝင်ဆောင်ရွက်ကြရန် အကြိမ်ကြိမ် ဖိတ်ခေါ်ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။ ပညာရှိတရားသူကြီးများအနေဖြင့် ပြည်သူ့ဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) အား အချိန်မီ လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်ပါရန် တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ယခုအချိန်ထိတိုင် ဆက်လက်ဖိတ်ခေါ်ကမ်းလှမ်းလျှက် ရှိပါသည်။
၂။ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းယူခဲ့သည့် ဖြစ်ရပ်သည် ဥပဒေနှင့်ညီညွတ်ခြင်း (လုံးဝ) မရှိ ဆိုသည့်အချက်ကို ဥပဒေပညာရှင်များဖြစ်သည့် တရားသူကြီးများအနေဖြင့် အသိရှိနိုင်ဆုံးဖြစ်ပါလျှက် ယခုကဲ့သို့ တိုင်းပြည်နှင့်လူမျိုးအပေါ် သစ္စာမဲ့စွာဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်အောက် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေခြင်းသည် တရားသူကြီးများထားရှိရမည့် ကျင့်ဝတ်သိက္ခာများအား ဖောက်ဖျက်ကျူးလွန်သည့် အကျင့်ပျက်တရားသူကြီးများအဖြစ် သမိုင်းမှတ်တမ်းတင် ကျန်ရစ်နေမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၃။ ပြည်ထောင်စုတရားလွှတ်တော်ချုပ် နှင့် တရားရုံးအဆင့်ဆင့်တွင် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေကြသည့် တရားသူကြီးများ၊ တရားရေးအရာရှိများ အပါအဝင် အရာထမ်း၊ အမှုထမ်းများသည် အကြမ်းဖက် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေခြင်းသည် စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုအား အားပေးကူညီသည့်ပြစ်မှု ကျူးလွန်နေခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။
၄။ ထို့ပြင် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) ဆောင်ရွက်နေကြသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများအပေါ် ဖိနှိပ် အရေးယူခြင်းများ နှင့် အပြစ်မဲ့ ပြည်သူများအပေါ် ဥပဒေနှင့်ညီညွတ်ခြင်းမရှိသည့် အမိန့်များချမှတ်နေသည့် တရားသူကြီးများအား တရားစွဲဆိုဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း တစ်ပါတည်း သတိပေးလိုက်သည်။
၅။ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခံထားရသည့် ပြည်သူများ၏အမှုများအပေါ် တရားစီရင်ရေးဆိုင်ရာ စီမံခန့်ခွဲမှုများတွင် အဓိကတာဝန်အရှိဆုံးဖြစ်သည့် အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အကျင့်ပျက်တရားရေးဝန်ထမ်းများအား နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၁ အရ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်ပြီး ပြည်သူ့သစ္စာဖောက်ဝန်ထမ်းများအဖြစ် အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Justice
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-20
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"ကလေးတက္ကသိုလ်ရှိ CDM ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများထံ
တတိယအကြိမ်ထောက်ပံ့ချီးမြှင့်ကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ကလေးတက္ကသိုလ်ရှိ CDM ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများကို၊၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ဇွန်လတွင် ပထမအကြိမ်ထောက်ပံ့နိုင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ဒုတိယအကြိမ်ကို ဩဂုတ်လတွင်ထောက်ပံ့ရန် လျာထားခဲ့သော်လည်း၊အကြောင်းအမျိုးမျိုးကြောင့်ဖျက်သိမ်းခဲ့ရပါသည်။ သိုသော် Kalay University CDM Support Team (KUCST)အနေဖြင့် CDM သူရဲကောင်းများကိုဆက်လက်ထောက်ပံ့နိုင်ရန် အရှိန်အဟုန်ကြိုးစားခဲ့ရပါသည်။ဘာသာရပ်အလိုက် CDM အထောက်အကူပြုအဖွဲ့များ၊ပြည်ပရောက်ကျောင်းသားဟောင်းများနှင့် ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပမှ အလှူရှင်မိဘပြည်သူများမှ ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်ပေးမှုကြောင့် တတိယအကြိမ်ထောက်ပံ့နိုင်ခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၂။ တတိယအကြိမ် CDM ထောက်ပံ့မှုစာရင်းမှာ အောက်ပါအတိုင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၃။ CDM ထောက်ပံ့မှုတွင် ပါဝင်လှူဒါန်းပေးကြသောကျောင်းသားပြည်သူများ၊သက်ဆိုင်ရာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့်အလှူရှင်တစ်ဦးချင်းစီအား Kalay University CDM Support Team (KUCST)အနေနှင့်ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါသည်။ စတုတ္ထအကြိမ် CDM ထောက်ပံ့မှုတွင်လည်း ဆက်လက်ပါဝင်ပေးကြပါရန် အလေးအနက်တိုက်တွန်းအပ််ပါသည်။
“ ပြည်သူသာလျှင်….ပဓာန”
“အရေးတော်ပုံ….မုချအောင်ရမည်”
ယာယီတက္ကသိုလ်အုပ်ချူပ်ရေးကောင်စီ
ကလေးတက္ကသိုလ်
ဖြန့်ဝေခြင်း-
(၁)CDM ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများ၊ကလေးတက္ကသိုလ်
(၂)ကလေးတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသားများသမဂ္ဂ(ကလ.တ.က.သ)
(၃)ဘာသာရပ်အလိုက် CDM အထောက်အကူပြုအဖွဲ့များ
မိတ်တူကို-
(၁)ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
(၂)ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ(CRPH)
(၃)စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီးလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ
(၄)ရုံးလက်ခံ/မျှော ။..."
Source/publisher:
Kalay University - Interim Administrative council
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-19
[field_licence]
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Individual Documents
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231.52 KB
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံး
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၆/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ (၁၈) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်မထမ်းဆောင်ပဲ ဓမ္မဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ ပြည်သူနှင့်တသားတည်းဖြစ် စေရန်နှင့် အမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ကြစေရန် အကြိမ် ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ် ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ် ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံးအနေဖြင့်လည်း အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အမိန့်အာဏာ ဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမဖွဲ့ရသေးသောဌာနအသီးသီးမှ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေ ပြီး CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ် ပစ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ဥပေဒနှင့်အညီပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်းများ စသည့် အမျိုးမျိုးသောဖိနှိပ်မှုများကိုကျူးလွန်နေသောသာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန(ရှေးဟောင်းသုတေသနနှင့်အမျိုးသား ပြတိုက်ဦးစီးဌာန)မှအောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါ ဝန်ထမ်းများအားအမည်ပျက်စာရင်းသွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Office of the Prime Minister of the Union - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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1.34 MB
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"HURFOM: Ten months of terror have passed since the Burma Army orchestrated a failed coup on 1 February. “Trajectory of Terror,” is a new briefing paper by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) which outlines human rights violations committed in Mon State, Karen State and the Tanintharyi region perpetrated by the military junta between the end of February until the end of November 2021. Military impunity is emboldening the junta to commit more atrocities.
On Human Rights Day, HURFOM expresses grave concern over the lack of safety civilians are being forced to contend with amid the junta’s dark crusade for power and control. HURFOM calls for an immediate forfeiting of powers by the Burmese military and an end to the violence which has killed hundreds and injured many more, including the elderly, women and children. [Download in English]
The human rights situation in Burma has spiraled out of control. The increased violence and negligence wielded by the military Generals has left millions without food and shelter. Civilians do not feel safe in the country. Homes are being looted, and villages are being burned to the ground in deliberate acts of arson by the junta. Members of political opposition parties and human rights defenders have been forced into hiding. Children are being denied the right to be educated safely as military soldiers roam schools and use classrooms as bases. Livelihoods have been crippled as landmines litter farms and encircle villages, making leaving for food and work a life or death prospect. This sabotage of survival has been brought on willfully by the Burma Army.
HURFOM fieldworkers have spoken to witnesses on the ground who detailed arbitrary arrests, abductions and assaults on fundamental freedoms of residents in our target areas. The violence has created an unstable environment where hundreds are fleeing persecution and fearful for what their futures hold.
A response by the international community which meets the gravity of the peril’s civilians are being confronted with on a daily basis is long overdue. As the year ends, it is with the most profound urgency that HURFOM reiterates calls of our network and allies to respond to the many crises which are worsening daily.
Media Contact
Nai Aue Mon, HURFOM Program Director, Email: [email protected], Signal: +66 86 167 9741
HURFOM was founded by exiled pro-democracy students from the 1988 uprisings, recent activists and Mon community leaders and youth. Its primary objective is the restoration of democracy, human rights and genuine peace in Burma. HURFOM is a non-profit organization, and all its members are volunteers with a shared vision for peace in the country..."
Source/publisher:
Human Rights Foundation of Monland
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
HURFOM and other human rights material about the Mon, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Burma: Internal displacement/forced migration of several ethnic groups.
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294.15 KB (26 pages)
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"Today, December 10th, people from around the world observe Human Rights Day to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) in 1948. Because of the February 2021 military coup, this year’s Human Rights Day is an especially solemn and painful occasion for the people of Myanmar. The human rights violations being committed against the people of Myanmar since the coup are a direct result of the failure to end the Myanmar military’s longstanding oppression of ethnic and religious minorities. Thus, it is fitting that this year’s theme for Human Rights Day is Equality, as it serves as a reminder of what may come to pass when the principle of equality is disregarded. The human rights principle of “Equality” is found in Article 1 of the UDHR, which states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Since February 2021, people across Myanmar have been protesting against the junta –– a regime that has consistently sought to undermine the principle of equality, impose discriminatory practices and sentiments, and embed them in the legal, political, economic and social framework of the country.
From the outset of the coup, people of all ages, ethnicities and religions in Myanmar have come together to peacefully demonstrate against a military dictatorship that pays no regard to human rights and uses its power to discriminate and oppress. Participants of the Civil Disobedience Movement (“CDM”), composed mostly of professionals in the public sector, have sacrificed their careers, freedoms, and lives by refusing to work for the junta. Similarly, young people have been on the frontlines fighting for their rights, often supported in the background by older civilians who also are standing against the military dictatorship in the hope of building a Myanmar in which the rights enshrined in the UDHR will become a reality for all. In their struggle against dictatorship, people across Myanmar have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention; torture, including sexual and gender-based violence; and enforced disappearance; with many being murdered by the junta in their defense of human rights.
Ethnic minorities in rural areas, who have long been the target of military abuse are once again facing challenges and threats to their lives, livelihoods, and physical security and integrity. Since the military coup, armed conflicts occurring between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed organizations have intensified. As early as March 2021, the Myanmar military began an airstrike campaign in Southeast Myanmar that often-targeted civilian areas. These airstrikes destroyed villages, killed many civilians, and caused mass displacement of villagers from their homes and ancestral lands. Southeast Myanmar continues to be heavily militarized by the junta. Civilians are unable to go about their daily lives due to the high risk of being killed, injured, or detained by the Myanmar military. Furthermore, there has been a recurrence of the military’s use of civilians for forced labor and as human shields, which were common forms of human rights abuses under past military regimes. Despite facing these abuses, rural villagers have been active in supporting the anti-coup movement and in protecting those who have placed themselves on the line in the defense of human rights. Local villagers have provided shelter and protection to CDM participants, ousted members of parliament, protesters and human rights defenders, and Myanmar military defectors. They have also participated in peaceful protests, even in the face of heavy military presence.
In recognition of the painful events of the past ten months, as well as the long history of ethnic oppression by the Myanmar military, the Karen Human Rights Group honors the people of Myanmar who continue to fight for a new Myanmar that recognizes that all are equal in dignity and rights. We also strongly urge the international community to remain steadfast in their support for the people of Myanmar, and to refrain from aiding or assisting the junta’s commission of human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations. This means actively refusing to give any legitimacy to the junta, and refusing both direct or indirect recognition of the junta as the government of Myanmar. It also means cutting ties with all businesses that support the junta or are implicated in the provision of weapons to the junta and its affiliates. Finally, we commemorate all those who have lost their freedoms and even their lives as a result of their resistance to the junta, in service to the fight for a federal democracy that respects, protects, and fulfills the human rights of all people of Myanmar equally..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) reports, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights and international relations
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City streets emptied during nationwide demonstration after massacre of villagers by soldiers
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"The streets in towns and cities across Myanmar were deserted on Friday as the public held a “silent strike” to protest against the military government, days after a massacre of villagers provoked international condemnation.
Reports of the killing of 11 villagers, including children, in Sagaing region on Tuesday, were described by the US as “credible and sickening”. A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned of an “alarming escalation of grave human rights abuses in Myanmar”.
The military rounded up villagers, shooting them and setting them on fire, according to reports by independent local media. A video and photograph that appears to show the burned corpses in Don Taw village have been shared on social media.
The OHCHR called for a “firm, unified” international response. It also referred to a recent military attack on a small group of peaceful, unarmed protesters who had gathered in Yangon on 5 December. A military vehicle rammed into the group and opened fire, killing as many as five people, according to local media reports.
“These attacks are heinous, completely unacceptable, and disregard common values of humanity. They are also far from isolated,” said Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the OHCHR.
In state-controlled media, the military responded to international criticism by accusing UN officials and others of interfering in Myanmar’s domestic affairs and relying on “distorted news”. It denied reports of the massacre in Don Taw and instead accused “nation-destroying media” of publishing false reports.
On Friday, the “silent strike” was observed in many areas of Myanmar, with businesses shut between 10am and 4pm to signal defiance against the junta. In Yangon, normally congested roads were deserted, and lines of shops and businesses shuttered. A prominent protest leader, Min Han Htet, posted images of empty streets on social media with the message: “We are one organism”.
The prominent activist Thet Swe Win said on social media that, in some towns, soldiers had confiscated the property of businesses that had closed, and that business owners had been forced to show up and be arrested.
Friday’s protest was reportedly observed across Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, and in towns across Sagaing region, Bago region, Ayeyarwaddy region, Shan state and Magwe region.
Mass protests that spread across Myanmar in the aftermath of the coup were crushed with deadly violence by the military. However, opposition remains widespread and people continue to find new, peaceful ways to defy the junta. An armed resistance consisting of people’s defence forces has also emerged.
The military has killed at least 1,323 people since it seized power on 1 February, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group that monitors deaths and arrests. A further 7,881 are currently detained..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-10
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့
ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁၄/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ (၉) ရက်
အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်၍ ပြည်သူ့သားကောင်း CDM ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲခြင်း စသည်တို့အား နေ့စဥ်လုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိသော အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အလိုတော်ရိဝန်ထမ်းများကို ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းကျင့်ဝတ်နှင့် လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများအရ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပယ်ကြောင်း ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Health, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-09
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" Myanmar authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalists Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun, who were arrested after sustaining injuries covering anti-military protests, and ensure that those responsible for injuring the journalists are brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Authorities arrested photojournalist Kaung Sett Lin and videographer Hmu Yadanar, both with the independent Myanmar Pressphoto Agency, on December 5 while they were covering a flash mob protest on Pan Pin Gyi Road in the commercial capital Yangon, according to local news reports and MPA chief editor JPaing, who goes by one name. Both were in a military hospital due to injuries sustained at the event, he said.
“Myanmar must immediately release journalists Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun and bring the perpetrators of the violence that injured them to account,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must cease and desist from treating journalists like enemies of the state.”
Hmu Yadanar suffered injuries to her head after being hit by a truck allegedly driven by military forces into the back of the protest, The Irrawaddy reported. Security forces then opened fire on the protesters, killing at least five people in the melee, the same report said.
JPaing told CPJ by email that Hmu Yadanar has since undergone surgery for her head injuries at Military Hospital No. 2 in Yangon. Kaung Sett Lin was being held at the same hospital and recuperating from injuries, he said. CPJ was not able to immediately determine the nature of those injuries or how they were sustained. It was not immediately clear under what charges they were being held, JPaing said.
CPJ emailed Myanmar’s Ministry of Information for comment on Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar’s arrests and The Irrawaddy’s account of violence by security forces, but did not receive an immediate response.
A CPJ special report in July documented the situation of journalists jailed in the wake of the military’s democracy-suspending February 1 coup, and found that at least 32 journalists were imprisoned due to their work as of July 1. Several journalists have been released and arrested since the mid-year census was conducted, according to CPJ reporting.
Many have been held on charges under Article 505(a) of the penal code, a broad and vaguely worded provision that penalizes incitement and the spreading of “false news” with maximum three-year prison penalties, CPJ research shows.
In April, CPJ called on coup maker Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to release all of the journalists jailed by his military regime..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-08
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Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
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"Myanmar’s junta rammed into anti-regime protesters and shot at them during a crackdown in Kyimyindaing Township, Yangon, on Sunday morning.
An estimated five people were killed and several others injured, according to witnesses. The junta said on Sunday night that 11 “illegal rioters” were detained and a few sustained injuries but did not mention any deaths.
The Irrawaddy talked to one of the protesters who managed to escape.
How did the soldiers attack?
We were just started to demonstrate near Pan Pin Gyi and Strand roads in Kyimyindaing. We had taken only about 20 steps when a military vehicle carrying about eight soldiers rammed into us from behind. I was knocked about five meters and could not move. Some hit their heads on the road. Some died.
When and how did it happen?
It was around five minutes after the protest started at 8:45am on Sunday. The vehicle came from Strand Road. We did not know as it was behind a YBS bus and suddenly overtook the bus. It only took a few seconds and was too fast to react. There was a lot of blood.
Were you injured?
My hands, knee and waist were injured. When it hit me, I fell on the vehicle’s hood. A soldier hit my head with his rifle butt. I pushed and kicked him in the chest. We were both upside down. Fearing he would fire, I kicked his rifle. But he held on and he fired at me. Luckily, I slipped and the bullet missed.
I ran. The soldiers followed and shot at me but they missed. I found a taxi and left. I saw one reporter who was badly injured and taken by soldiers into their vehicle.
What happened to the reporter?
I think the reporter was hit by the vehicle. It did not look good. I did not see how he was attacked. Most of the protesters scattered when we were rammed. It was a terrorist attack.
There were only about eight soldiers but they fired on us and hit us with rifle butts. The violence was intense..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-06
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Sub-title:
Security Forces ‘Kettled’ Demonstrators, Fired on Rescuers in Hlaing Tharyar
Description:
" Myanmar security forces deliberately “kettled” protesters and used lethal force during the March 14, 2021, anti-junta protests in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township, Human Rights Watch said today. Soldiers and police armed with military assault rifles fired on trapped protesters and on those trying to assist the wounded, killing at least 65 protesters and bystanders.
Following the February 1 military coup against Myanmar’s democratically elected government, numerous demonstrations broke out in Yangon and other cities. The police and military forces repeatedly used lethal force against largely peaceful protesters in violation of international human rights law. The deadly shootings in Hlaing Tharyar stand out because of the large number of people killed and the security forces’ apparent premeditated use of lethal force.
“The Myanmar security forces’ massacre of several dozen people outside Yangon in mid-March was not a case of riot control gone astray,” said Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Hlaing Tharyar killings have the hallmarks of a planned attack on protesters for which those responsible, regardless of rank, should be held to account.”
Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed six witnesses to the Hlaing Tharyar violence. Human Rights Watch also verified 13 videos of the protests recorded on March 14, and 31 photographs uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
Anti-coup demonstrations began around early March in Hlaing Tharyar, a largely industrial zone across the Hlaing River, west of Yangon. Because many trade union members live and work in the area, the protests were particularly large and well-organized. Before dawn on March 14, protesters set up cement-block barricades and sandbags as barriers at major bus stops along the Hlaing River Road, the area’s main thoroughfare, ahead of sit-in strikes starting at 5 a.m.
Around 10 a.m., about 200 soldiers and police began moving into Hlaing Tharyar, bypassing the barriers and causing protesters to retreat or disperse. Witnesses said that, by 11 a.m., the security forces had trapped many protesters from the east and west, a tactic known in some countries as “kettling.” Only one witness at Mie Kwat Zay said that security forces gave verbal warning before the military and police began firing at protesters, but at all other locations, witnesses heard no warnings.
The witness accounts and videos indicate that security forces deliberately fired upon protesters to kill or maim without there being any threat to the security forces’ lives. One video shows police and military gathered at 1 p.m. on the Aung Zeya Bridge, which separates Hlaing Tharyar from Yangon. The forces look at the protesters on the streets below and can be heard discussing when and whom to shoot. An unidentified person off camera says, “Just shoot them in the head,” while two police officers point assault rifles toward the protesters. Gunshots are heard and the same unidentified person yells, “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”
All six witnesses said that the security forces also fired on people who were trying to reach the wounded. “[W]e weren’t able to help those who were injured because they would shoot at us if we tried,” one witness said. “We couldn’t get to them, and they died. Some people who tried to help went forward anyway and they were shot in the head and died.”
Witnesses said that some protesters used weapons, such as rocks, slings, and Molotov cocktails, in response to the security forces firing on them, but no security force casualties were reported.
On March 15, the day after the killings, the junta accused “rioters” of burning down garment factories and blocking firefighters, and imposed martial law in Hlaing Tharyar and nearby Shwe Pyi Thar township. “Rioters created havoc on roads, and over 2,000 rioters also blocked the roads to prevent fire engines from leaving their stations and fighting the fire,” a junta statement said.
The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials state that security forces should “apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms,” and use the minimum necessary force at all times. Firearms may only be used when other less harmful means are not practicable but must still be used to the minimum extent necessary. Intentionally lethal use of firearms is only permitted when strictly unavoidable to protect life. The Basic Principles further provide that in “cases of death and serious injury or other grave consequences, a detailed report shall be sent promptly to the competent authorities.”
Since the coup, throughout the country, Myanmar security forces have killed more than 1,200 protesters and bystanders, committing killings, torture, and other crimes that amount to crimes against humanity. The crime against humanity of murder has been defined by international tribunals as death that “results from an act or omission by the accused, committed with the intent either to kill or to cause serious bodily harm with the reasonable knowledge that it would likely lead to death.”
The State Administration Council, Myanmar’s junta, is not known to have taken any action against security force officers or personnel, for their involvement in criminal offenses at Hlaing Tharyar or as a matter of command responsibility. The military commander with responsibility for the Yangon Region, including Hlaing Tharyar, was Brig. Gen. Nyunt Win Swe. The Yangon Region police chief was Brig. Gen. Myo Min Htike. Former Myanmar military officers told Human Rights Watch that regional military commanders control police forces during joint operations.
The UN, regional bodies, and governments, including the European Union, United States and United Kingdom, should respond to ongoing human rights violations and crimes against humanity in Myanmar by supplementing, strengthening, and coordinating international sanctions against the junta leadership and military under Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Actions should include targeted sanctions on specified military and police commanders, including Brig. Gen. Nyunt Win Swe and Brig. Gen. Myo Min Htike; a global arms embargo; and financial restrictions that would reduce the junta’s revenues from extractive industries.
“Hlaing Tharyar was a bloodbath for which all those responsible should be brought to justice,” Maung said. “Such atrocities will continue unless the UN Security Council and concerned governments take concerted action to hold Myanmar’s junta leaders to account.”
For details and accounts of the attacks, please see below.
Killings, Other Abuses in Hlaing Tharyar
In early March protesters set up barricades at several bus stops along the main Hlaing River Road, which runs perpendicular to the Hlaing River. Before dawn on March 14, they gathered at the barriers to participate in sit-ins starting at 5 a.m. By 10 a.m., security forces arrived at the first barricade at Bus Stop 1. Witnesses said that about 200 soldiers and police easily bypassed the barriers, forcing protesters to back up westward along the road, or to disperse north and south into side streets.
Myanmar security forces move into Hlaing Tharyar around 11 a.m. on March 14, 2021, “kettling” protesters from the east, west, and south. Shortly after 11.30 a.m., security forces open fire at protesters. In this video, protesters are seen retreating from Bus Stop 3 to the east around 12:30 p.m., but are trapped by security forces at escape routes, namely a group of military vehicles coming into Hlaing Tharyar from Aung Zeya Bridge around the same time. Credits: © 2021 Maxar Technologies. Source: Google Earth. Road data: Open Street Maps and contributors. Video: Unknown uploader. Verified by Human Rights Watch.
By 11 a.m., the security forces came from both east and west and trapped protesters between Bus Stop 3 and Bus Stop 5. Between noon and 12:40 p.m., the security forces encircled or “kettled” the protesters between Bus Stop 1 and Bus Stop 3, based on Human Rights Watch analysis matching key landmarks visible in two videos with satellite imagery, and the length and angle of shadows in the videos.
Witnesses are identified by pseudonyms for their protection.
“Ko Phyo,” who joined the sit-in at dawn at Mie Kwat Zay bus stop near the local market, said that, at about 11:30 a.m., police and soldiers began firing live rounds. They shot continuously, trapping protesters for the next two hours:
At Mie Kwat Zay, a group of soldiers and police joined the ranks from the direction of the BOC [junction] bus stop, and another group from Bus Stop 1 came to trap us in between. The police were at the front and the soldiers were behind them. The soldiers started the shooting.
“Zaw Zaw” said that, at about 11 a.m., security forces started firing at protesters near Bus Stop 5:
They started with teargas and then rubber bullets. After 30 minutes, they started using live rounds. From our side, we used slingshots and rocks, and some even threw Molotov cocktails back … Many people died in front of my eyes … I will never forget that day.
“Zaw Htet,” who had joined a sit-in with other labor rights activists at the Tar Tar Phyu bus stop on Hlaing River Road, said that by 1:40 p.m. at least 50 military trucks had made their way to the Aung Zeya Bridge near the protesters’ barricade. The security forces had overrun other barricades ahead of him. He said that they began to shoot when they reached Tar Tar Phyu. At least two armed security force personnel were positioned on two higher buildings:
Four people got shot at Tar Tar Phyu in front of me. Out of four, three people died on the spot, and another one was carried by taxi to a clinic … A boy next to me was so scared. I told him to stay on the ground and not to get up, but he was so scared, he stood up to run. He got shot in the neck and died.
“Thiri” said that by the time she arrived at Bus Stop 3 around 2:30 p.m., three people were already dead. She could see that others were trapped because of the shooting, but a few were trying to back up from the main road into a smaller road adjacent to the main highway. She could make out two security force personnel on a high building pointing their weapons toward the bus stop, and another two under a tree on the opposite side of the road:
We could see the police and soldiers making their way towards us, bit by bit. So those of us who could started backing off and dispersing towards Bus Stop 5 by trying to go down the alleyways and back streets. That was when they sent [an aerial] drone out to see which way we were running. There weren’t that many soldiers at this point, but they knew which directions all the protesters were taking … Just in front of my eyes, I saw a person get shot in the abdomen and his abdomen burst open.
Myanmar security forces have used low-flying drones during protests elsewhere in the country, in Monywa in Sagaing Region and in Mandalay Region.
“Thiri” said that, shortly after seeing the drone, five more military trucks came over the Aung Zeya Bridge. Running along with four others, security force personnel shot at them, and one bullet hit a nearby lamp post. She fled back and hid behind a barricade at Bus Station 5, but the security forces were also shooting there:
I saw police and soldiers come into the small roads and snatch everyone they saw. I was at Bus Station 5 by then, and I saw they shot at the people who were running and trying to hide behind the barricades. When additional forces came, the combined police and military team moved forward and fired nonstop. I saw another man get shot dead.
“Zaw Zaw” said:
Around 4 p.m., we regrouped at the BOC bus stop. Police and soldiers had attacked other stops ahead, such as at Tar Tar Phyu and Mie Kwat Zay. When we got to the BOC stop, one person was shot with a rubber bullet, and it penetrated their backbone. They even chased us into smaller back streets.
Another protester, “Honey,” said that around 5 p.m., when the sounds of gunfire had died down, she took her motorbike to check on her friends:
That’s when I ran into a sniper shooting from a high building, possibly from Ko Nyi Ma Swe’s phone shop on Hlaing River Road. I had to get off my motorbike and run away. Earlier, there was a guy shot dead. I saw his blood on the road. His body was taken away by residents nearby.
Witnesses said the shooting continued well into the evening. A journalist reported that, at 6 p.m., security forces were still chasing and shooting at protesters near Bogyoke Aung San Road and the Hlaing River Road, near Bus Stop 3.
Deliberate Shooting of Protesters
Witnesses described situations in which they believed the security forces were aiming at and shooting demonstrators. Video that Human Rights Watch analyzed corroborated these accounts.
Just before 1 p.m., police and soldiers congregate on Aung Zeya Bridge and are seen pointing their assault rifles down at protesters from the bridge while gunshots are fired. Credits: © 2021 Maxar Technologies. Source: Google Earth. Road data: Open Street Maps and contributors. Video: Unknown uploader. Verified by Human Rights Watch.
In one video, recorded around 1 p.m., police and military on the Aung Zeya bridge can be heard discussing who and when to shoot, and where to aim. The suspension bridge is high above the protesters on the ground below, and two police officers on the north side of the bridge can be seen pointing their rifles down toward Bo Ba Htoo Road. Commands are shouted in the background to hold fire as the security forces coordinate when to shoot. Repeated gunshots are then heard off frame.
A police officer posted a video on Tik Tok, which Human Rights Watch analyzed, that shows 11 police officers wearing the distinctive insignia of the Lone Htein riot police, preparing to advance on protesters from a location in Yangon at around noon. As they discuss the weapons they were going to use, one officer says to the others, “You guys will handle Hlaing Tharyar.” Another replies: “I will show no mercy for these people.” Human Rights Watch and others have long documented the highly abusive role that the Lone Htein riot police have played in previous government crackdowns, beating and wrongfully detaining protesters, often working closely beside the army.
Two witnesses said that they heard automatic weapons being used during the crackdown. Both military personnel and police carried military assault rifles that can be fired in a fully automatic mode. A photo posted by a local media outlet shows military officers and vehicles stationed on Hlaing Road between Mie Kwat Zay and the BOC bus stops between 4 and 6 p.m. and a soldier carrying an apparent MA-1 assault rifle. Other photos of police officers on the Yangon side of the Aung Zeya bridge show them using BA series assault rifles.
Videos and images Human Rights Watch reviewed capture the security forces using lethal force against protesters. They also show security forces making a coordinated maneuver to surround protesters and block their exit routes.
In one video, taken just before 12:30 p.m., a group of protesters stand under a row of tarps about 35 meters from Bus Stop 3, as intermittent gunshots can be heard nearby. Soon tear gas is deployed from the west and more gunshots are heard, causing the protesters to disperse to the east.
A second video, filmed one block north of Bus Stop 3 at around 12:30 p.m., appears to show protesters fleeing from gunshots, with tear gas visible about 10 to 40 meters east of the bus stop. A minute later, at least 10 security force trucks are seen in an apparent pincer move, driving west from the Aung Zeya bridge into Hlaing Tharyar toward the retreating protesters. One man is seen lying on the pavement from an apparent gunshot wound to his head. Someone attempts to help him, but gunshots force them to leave the man and run for cover.
Videos corroborate witness accounts that the security forces cut off protesters’ exit routes from the west and the south. A very brief video and two images posted on social media appear to show security forces crossing the Bayint Naung bridge over the Hlaing River, south of Aung Zeya bridge, into Hlaing Tharyar around 3 p.m. Two other photos show at least one bulldozer and two military trucks on an elevated highway roughly a kilometer east of Bayint Naung bridge driving toward Hlaing Tharyar. The one-second video shows three trucks parked at the western end of Bayint Naung bridge. The angle and length of shadows in the video and photos indicate they were taken between 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Targeting People Trying to Assist the Wounded
Protesters carried injured people to mobile clinics that had been set up around the wards and to a clinic nearby Mie Kwat Zay. However, all six witnesses said they saw security forces prevent injured people from receiving help, and fire on those trying to reach wounded protesters or retrieve dead bodies.
“Yadanar,” a medical student, anticipated violence on March 14 so volunteered at a mobile clinic near Mie Kwat Zay. She said patients started arriving shortly after 1 p.m.:
At least 10 people who came into the clinic were people who’d been shot. They were shot in the arms, legs, head and neck. One person died at our clinic. There might have been other patients who died on their way to a hospital ... When a headshot patient came in, I saw he was having a seizure. We sent him off with an ambulance to a hospital. But one ambulance that took an injured person from our clinic to a hospital was attacked and the ambulance driver badly injured, so they were even shooting at ambulances.
Witnesses said the security forces piled bodies on the back of military vehicles. Other bodies remained on the street because the security forces shot at protesters who tried to retrieve them. The police and soldiers also shot at protesters and health care workers who tried to assist other wounded protesters. Security forces shot a healthcare worker who was trying to retrieve a body just 30 meters away, hitting the healthcare worker in the thigh, a witness said.
Human Rights Watch analyzed a video recorded around noon about 100 meters east of Bus Stop 5 on Hlaing River Road that shows protesters under gunfire as they attempt to carry wounded demonstrators away from advancing security forces. At least four protesters are visibly injured as they try to help others who are shot; one protester is limp and motionless as he is carried away and another is bleeding from his back on the pavement. Teargas is visible in the center of the road. Gunshots ring out throughout the video, and police and military officers are seen advancing west together toward the bus stop..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-03
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights Defenders
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The troops took Htoo Myat Lwin and three others during an early morning raid on a house in Dawei
Description:
"Soldiers arrested a prominent protest leader in the southeastern coastal town of Dawei on Tuesday along with three members of the family living in the house where he was hiding, according to a fellow anti-coup activist.
About 30 troops burst into the house at 6:30am and detained 22-year-old Htoo Myat Lwin, an organiser with the Coalition Strike Committee - Dawei. The soldiers also took Hla Pe, 50, along with his 28-year-old son Sai Ko Ko Tun and 18-year-old daughter La Pyae Pyae Tun.
“The house was raided while they were sleeping,” said a member of the strike committee, requesting anonymity. “We heard that they surrounded the house before arresting the victims. The neighbours said that they could hear people being beaten and cursing.”
“It was Htoo Myat Lwin that the military wanted but the hosts were also taken along with him,” he said, adding that a fifth person in the house, who suffers from a cognitive disability, was left behind by the soldiers.
Htoo Myat Lwin is a student at Dawei University. Soldiers found out about his whereabouts after arresting and interrogating nine members of the strike committee in recent days; Htoo Myat Lwin is the tenth member to be arrested since November 25.
“The majority of Htoo Myat Lwin’s friends are in detention now,” the activist said. “He was also called from the phone numbers of his friends who were detained and asked where he was.”
The soldiers took mobile phones, two computers, a motorcycle and books from the house. The strike committee member said the four detainees were taken to an interrogation center, but Myanmar Now was unable to verify this.
Dawei is a stronghold of the anti-coup movement in Tanintharyi Region, where the junta has raided the houses of several National League for Democracy officials. The military has deployed armed troops at security checkpoints across the township, according to locals.
The junta banned the use of motorbikes by two or men at the same time in Dawei and elsewhere in a bid to curb guerrilla forces’ hit-and-run attacks against soldiers. Locals said the ban is causing hardship to people who rely on the vehicles for their livelihoods..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-30
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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Description:
"ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများ၊ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုပေးသူများနှင့် ပရဟိတသမားများ ဘေးကင်းလုံခြုံမှုရှိစေရေးအတွက် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်
၁။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် တိုင်းပြည်အာဏာကို လက်နက်အားကိုးဖြင့် မတရားသိမ်းပိုက်ခဲ့သည့်အချိန်မှစ၍ ကျန်းမာရေးအဆောက်အဦးများ ကို ဝင်ရောက်၍ တပ်စွဲသိမ်းပိုက်ဖျက်ဆီးလုယက်ခြင်း၊ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်း များနှင့် ပရဟိတလုပ်ငန်းများကို နှောင့်ယှက်ခြိမ်းခြောက်ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ ကျန်းမာရေး စောင့်ရှောက်မှုပေးသူများနှင့် ပရဟိတသမားများကို မတရားသဖြင့် ခြိမ်းခြောက်ဖမ်းဆီးနှိပ်စက် သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းနှင့် စိတ်ထင်ရာ ဥပဒေပုဒ်မများတပ်၍ မတရား ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်ခြင်းကြောင့် တိမ်းရှောင်စေရခြင်း အစရှိသည့် အဓမ္မမှုများ၊ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို ယနေ့ထက်တိုင် မိစ္ဆာ စရိုက်ဆန်စွာ အစဉ်တစိုက် ပြုမူနေခဲ့ပါသည်။
၂။ (၂၆-၁၀-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် Insecurity Insight အဖွဲ့၊ Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) အဖွဲ့နှင့် the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health and Human Rights (CPHHR) အဖွဲ့တို့၏ ပူးတွဲထုတ်ပြန်ချက် (https://tinyurl.com/attackstohealthcare) အရ (၁-၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့မှ (၃၀-၉-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့အထိ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းခဲ့သည့် (၈) လတာ ကာလ အတွင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ ပြည်သူ့ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများအပေါ် တိုက်ခိုက်ခြိမ်း ခြောက်မှုပေါင်း (၂၉၇) ခုအထိ ရှိခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။ အဆိုပါတိုက်ခိုက်ခြိမ်းခြောက်မှု (၂၉၇) ခုအနက် (၂၆၇) ခုကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်နက်ကိုင်အကြမ်းဖက်သမား များက ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ခိုင်မာသော သက်သေအထောက်အထားများနှင့်တကွ တွေ့ရှိခဲ့ရ ပါသည်။
၃။ (၁-၂-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့မှ (၃၀-၉-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့အထိ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့မှု များမှာ ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သားစုစုပေါင်း (၂၁၀) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ (၄၀) ဦးကို ဒဏ်ရာရစေခြင်း နှင့် (၂၉) ဦးကို သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ဆေးရုံများကို အနည်းဆုံး (၈၇) ကြိမ် ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်းခြင်းနှင့် အနည်းဆုံး (၅၆) ကြိမ် ကျူးကျော်သိမ်းပိုက်ခြင်း၊ COVID-19 ကာကွယ်ထိန်းချုပ်ကုသရေး လုပ်ငန်းများကို (၂၅) ကြိမ် နှောင့်ယှက်တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်းတို့ ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ထို့အပြင် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီက စိတ်ထင်ရာ ဥပဒေပုဒ်မများတပ်၍ မတရားဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်ခြင်းကြောင့် ကျန်းမာရေးလုပ်သား (၇၀၀) ဦးထက်မနည်းလည်း ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေရပါသည်။
၄။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလနောက်ပိုင်းတွင်လည်း ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများ အပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ တိုက်ခိုက်ခြိမ်းခြောက်မှုများမှာ ရပ်တန့်ခဲ့ခြင်းမရှိဘဲ ဆက်လက်ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။ (၂၄-၁၀-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် ရန်ကုန်မြို့၌ ပင်လုံ ပုဂ္ဂလိကဆေးရုံကို ပစ်ခတ်တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း၊ (၁၆-၁၁-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် ကလေးမြို့နယ်၌ အရေးပေါ်ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုပေးသူ ဆေးဝန်ထမ်းအမျိုးသမီးများကို ဖမ်းဆီးသတ်ဖြတ် ခြင်းနှင့် ဖားအံမြို့နယ်၊ ဖလံတောင်တိုက်နယ်ဆေးရုံကို ကျူးကျော်ဝင်ရောက်၍ ဖျက်ဆီး လုယက်ခြင်း၊ (၂၂-၁၁-၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် လွိုင်ကော်မြို့၊ ခရစ္စတူးဘုရင် ဘုရားကျောင်းရှိ ကရုဏာဆေးခန်းကို ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်းပြီး ဆရာဝန်များ၊ သူနာပြုများ၊ ပရဟိတကျန်းမာရေး လုပ်သားများကို ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းနှင့် လူနာများကို အတင်းအကြပ် နေရာရွှေ့ပြောင်းခြင်း၊ CDM ပြုလုပ်ထားသော အထူးကုဆရာဝန်များအပါအဝင် ကျန်းမာရေးဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ပရဟိတ သမားများကို ထပ်မံခြိမ်းခြောက်ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း စသည်တို့ကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအနေဖြင့် ဆက်လက်ကျူးလွန်ဆောင်ရွက်နေကြောင်း တွေ့ရှိရပါသည်။
၅။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ ကျန်းမာရေးအဆောက်အဦးများ၊ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများနှင့် ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုပေးသူများ၊ ပရဟိတလုပ်ငန်းများနှင့် ပရဟိတသမားများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ အငြိုးတကြီး ပစ်မှတ်ထား၍ ဆင်ခြင်တုံတရားမဲ့၊ အသိကင်းလွတ် အကြမ်းဖက်နေခြင်းသည် ဂျီနီဗာကွန်ဗန်းရှင်း (Geneva Conventions) နှင့် ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂ လုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် (၂၂၈၆) အပါအဝင် ပြည်တွင်းဥပဒေများ၊ လူသားချင်းစာနာ ထောက်ထားရေးနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာ နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေများကို ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်း ချိုးဖောက်နေခြင်းပင် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၆။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ အမျိုးသားကျန်းမာရေးကော်မတီအနေဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်းရှိ ကျန်းမာရေး စောင့်ရှောက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းများ၊ ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုပေးသူများနှင့် ပရဟိတသမားများ ဘေးကင်းလုံခြုံမှုရှိစေရေးအတွက် အဆိုပါအကြမ်းဖက်မှုလုပ်ရပ်များကို ရပ်တန်းကရပ်ရန် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအား ပြင်းထန်စွာ သတိပေးတောင်းဆိုလိုက်ပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်း အဝိုင်းအနေဖြင့်လည်း အချိန်မီထိရောက်စွာ တားဆီးအရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်ကြပါရန် ထုတ်ပြန် ကြေညာအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
National Health Committee - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Public Health, COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Anti-coup protesters
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
681.62 KB
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Description:
"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၃/၂၀၂၁ ကို အောက်ပါအတိုင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။
ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် ၃/၂၀၂၁
၁၃၈၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဝါခေါင်လပြည့်ကျော် ၄ ရက်
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ သြဂုတ်လ ၂၆ ရက်
၁။ ပြည်သူများက ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ထားသည့် တရားဝင်အစိုးရထံမှ လက်နက်အားကိုး၍ မတရား အာဏာသိမ်းယူကာ စစ်မှန်သော ဒီမိုကရေစီဖော်ဆောင်ရေးလမ်းကြောင်းမှ သွေဖယ်ပြီး၊ အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို ပြန်လည် အသက်သွင်းမည့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရားကို ရပ်တန့်နိုင်စေရန်အတွက် ဌာနအသီးသီးရှိ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများက နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေး၏ အကြမ်းမဖက် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု(Civil Disobedience Movement)တွင် ရဲဝင့်စွာ ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြပါသည်။ ထိုသို့ ပါဝင်ခဲ့ မှုကြောင့် နိုင်ငံဝန်ထမ်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက မတရားအလုပ်ထုတ်ပစ်ခြင်းအပါအဝင် ဥပဒေမဲ့ ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင် ခြင်း၊ ရိုက်နှက်စစ်ဆေးခြင်း၊ အကြောင်းပြချက်ခိုင်လုံမှုမရှိဘဲ အမှုဆင်၍ ထောင်ချခြင်းတို့ကို ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိရာ ဝန်ကြီးဌာန များတွင် ရာထူးနေရာ လစ်လပ်မှုများစွာ ဖြစ်ပေါ်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၂။ စစ်အာဏာရှင်ယန္တရား ဆက်လက်လည်ပတ်နိုင်ရန် တဘက်တလမ်းမှ ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင် အားဖြည့်ကူညီလျက်ရှိကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနများအနက်မှ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်အောက်ခံ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် ဦးစီးဌာနနှင့်အဖွဲ့ရုံးများမှ CDM သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လစ်လပ်ရာထူးနေရာများအတွက် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် သြဂုတ်လ ၄ ရက် နေ့တွင် အလုပ်လျှောက်လွှာများ ခေါ်ယူခဲ့ ပါသည်။
၃။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏အုပ်ချုပ်မှုကို ပြည်သူတစ်ရပ်လုံးက ညီညွတ်စွာ တွန်းလှန်နေသောကာလတွင် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီက ခေါ်ယူသော ရာထူးနေရာများအတွက် အလုပ်လျှောက်ထားခြင်း၊ အလုပ်ခန့်ထားခံရခြင်း၊ ရာထူးတိုးဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုခြင်း၊ ရာထူးတိုးများရယူခြင်းတို့သည် တော်လှန်ရေးတွင် ကျဆုံးသွားသော သူရဲကောင်းများ၊ CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ပြည်သူ တစ်ရပ်လုံးအပေါ် သစ္စာဖောက်ခြင်းဖြစ်၍ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် အဆိုပါ လစ်လပ် ရာထူးနေရာများတွင် ဝန်ထမ်းသစ်ခန့်အပ်ခြင်း နှင့် ရာထူးတိုးမြှင့်ခန့်ထားခြင်းတို့အား လုံးဝ အသိအမှတ်ပြုမည်မဟုတ်ကြောင်း နှင့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရား ပုံမှန်လည်ပတ်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနများတွင် ဝင်ရောက် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင် သူများ တစ်နည်းအားဖြင့် အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို အသက်သွင်းရန် ကြိုးပမ်းမှုတွင် ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်သူများအား အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း (Blacklist) သွင်း၍ ထိရောက်စွာ အရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ပြင်းထန်စွာ သတိပေးကြေညာလိုက်သည်။
၄။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရား ပုံမှန်လည်ပတ်နိုင်ရေး အထောက်အကူမဖြစ်စေရန် မိမိ၏ အသိ စိတ်ဓါတ်ဖြင့် စစ်ကောင်စီက ခေါ်ယူသည့်အလုပ်များကို ဝင်ရောက်လျှောက်ထားခြင်း၊ ရာထူးတိုးစာမေးပွဲများဝင်ရောက်ဖြေဆိုခြင်း မပြုသူများအား အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက ဆောင်ရွက်မည့် အလုပ်အကိုင်နေရာချထားရေးအစီအစဉ်များနှင့် ရာထူးတိုးမြှင့်ရေး အစီအစဉ်များတွင် ဦးစားပေးစဉ်းစားသွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းအသိပေးအပ်ပါသည်။
ပုံ
နိုင်သုဝဏ္ဏ
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး
အလုပ်သမားဝန်ကြီးဌာန
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Labour - National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-26
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံး
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၄/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၂၆) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်မထမ်းဆောင်ပဲ ဓမ္မဘက်မှရပ်တည်၍ ပြည်သူနှင့်တသားတည်းဖြစ် စေရန်နှင့် အမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ကြစေရန် အကြိမ် ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ် ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ် ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ ဝန်ကြီးချုပ်ရုံးအနေဖြင့်လည်း အောက်တိုဘာလမှစတင်၍ အမိန့်အာဏာ ဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမဖွဲ့ရသေးသောဌာနအသီးသီးမှ နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း သူရဲကောင်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ လုံခြုံဘေးကင်းရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေး တို့အတွက် အလေးထား ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ၏လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်နေ ပြီး CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ် ပစ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ဥပေဒနှင့်အညီပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်းများ စသည့် အမျိုးမျိုးသောဖိနှိပ်မှုများကိုကျူးလွန်နေသော သာသနာရေးနှင့်ယဉ်ကျေးမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာန(ယဉ်ကျေးမှု) မှအောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါ ဝန်ထမ်းများအားအမည်ပျက်စာရင်းသွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
President Office, National Unity Government
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-26
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"Since the February 1st 2021 military coup, the human rights situation in Myanmar has seriously deteriorated. The State Administration Council (SAC) headed by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has engaged in systematic violence against civilians and stripped away the few key civil and political protections that the already problematic 2008 Constitution was supposed to guarantee, further opening the door for widespread human rights violations. The SAC’s treatment of citizens as enemies of the state and its unrelenting efforts to crush all opposition have resulted in widespread violence and the loss of lives during this first six months of the coup. The SAC has shot and killed peaceful protesters, bombed rural villages forcing thousands to flee, deprived people of access to health services and information, and turned the law against the people of Myanmar to arrest, detain, and torture at will.
As future returnees could potentially face similar In highlighting the human rights violations that have occurred since the February 1st coup, this report presents the degrading security situation and humanitarian crisis that civilians in Southeast Myanmar are currently facing. It also presents the hopes and struggles of rural villagers and civilians, to show how, despite the increased insecurity that they face, they continue to seek out ways to counter a military regime they know to be both illegal and unjust. Most importantly, this report seeks to ensure that the experiences and concerns of rural ethnic villagers are not just heard but addressed.
Overview
Interviews conducted by KHRG reveal the level of violence that the SAC undertook against protesters, and the ways in which protesters have continued to voice their opposition to the coup in the face of increasing brutality and repression by the state military. Protesters recounted stories of fear and insecurity as they encountered the ruthless response of the SAC to civilian opposition, yet equally expressed a strong sense of hope and an unwavering commitment to upholding the fight for democracy and freedom from oppression through to the very end. These interviews also highlight the efforts of civilians to support and sustain each other as protesters and those engaged in civil disobedience sought refuge and protection.
This report also presents the escalation of insecurity in rural ethnic areas, where the Myanmar military has long used violence against civilian villagers as a key strategy in waging war against ethnic armed actors. Although conflict and attacks had been ongoing in certain parts of Southeast Myanmar even prior to the coup, the shifts currently taking place reflect a complete disregard for human rights and signal a return to a “four cuts” approach that, as independent researcher Kim Joliffe has highlighted, “treats civilians not just as ‘collateral damage’ but as a central resource in the battlefield”. Although some areas in Southeast Myanmar have experienced little to no fighting, others have endured an ongoing onslaught of attacks and fighting since the coup. It is estimated that, as of June 23rd, close to 177,000 villagers in Southeast Myanmar, including 50,000 in Kayin State, have been displaced since the February 1st coup (with over 140,000 still experiencing displacement as of August 23rd). KHRG also received a growing number of reports of direct attacks on civilians, including targeted killings, forced labour, looting and confiscation. That, combined with the SAC’s use of the COVID-19 pandemic as an additional weapon of war, has left rural villagers at-risk from multiple forms of attack.
What is evident in both rural and urban areas is not just the increase in acts of violence since the coup, but that the SAC has sought to legitimise its own abusive actions and inscribe in law the deprivation of fundamental human rights. The Myanmar military, in ousting the newly elected civilian government, not only illegally seized power by making unsubstantiated claims about election fraud, but also set about instituting legislative changes that would effectively legalize state-based repression and its own use of excessive force against civilians.
Similarly, the SAC is using the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) and calls for ceasefire to then give itself permission to undertake whatever measures it deems necessary to “keep the peace”. Although the SAC announced a unilateral ceasefire on its part since April 2021, it also stipulated that it would continue to respond to “actions that disrupt government security and administration”, thus authorizing its own military offensives. Since the coup, it has repeatedly accused other armed actors of failing to honor peace commitments, and to label any groups that oppose the SAC as terrorists.
From the outset, it has also used the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the Natural Disaster Management Law, to justify arrests. It has limited access to information about the health crisis, and more recently to vital medical care, using the pandemic as a political weapon against the public as well as ethnic armed groups.
With ongoing displacements, a worsening COVID-19 pandemic, and the SAC blocking national and international aid organisations’ access to critical areas, the humanitarian crisis has become dire, placing many in life-threatening situations.
Methodology
This report is based on interviews conducted with rural villagers as well as with participants in the protests and Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) who fled to KNU-controlled areas for their safety. KHRG began conducting interviews shortly after the February 1st coup, through the first week of June 2021. A total of 133 interviews were conducted, covering a wide range of topics related to the coup. Forty-nine of those interviews were with people who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, many of whom had either fled to their home village in Southeast Myanmar or been provided refuge in a KNU-controlled area.
This report also draws on raw data reports prepared by KHRG researchers working in local communities within KHRG’s operational area. The raw data for this report covers the period from the beginning of February through the end of July, thus the first six months of the coup. Over 100 raw data submissions were used for this report.
Key Findings
Chapter 1: Protests
After the February 1st coup, protests erupted throughout Myanmar in both urban and rural areas, often drawing tens of thousands of people in large cities, and/or uniting hundreds of villages in rural areas, all voicing their opposition to the coup and military dictatorship. Although peacefully engaging in the right to freedom of expression, civilian protesters became the target of repression and violence at the hands of the military regime.
Since the military overthrew the civilian government on February 1st 2021 and declared a state of emergency allowing for the transfer of all legislative, executive and judicial power to the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services, it has also instituted laws and policies that restrict or suspend the fundamental rights of citizens. In particular, it has enacted legislative changes that undermine freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and the right to privacy. Although in contravention of international law, these legislative reforms, along with the declaration of a state of emergency, are specifically being used to silence and criminalise any and all forms of dissent. Despite the peaceful nature of the protests, SAC security forces cracked down on the protests using excessive violence, including brutally beating and torturing protesters as well as shooting at them using both rubber and live bullets. Hundreds of protesters have been killed and thousands more injured as a direct result of violence by SAC security forces.
“In joining the protests in Yangon and Mandalay, it is like we pick straws over who will die in the street [joining the protests is like a deadly game of chance]. They [police] can shoot people at any time if they want. In fact, they shot people. Many people have already died. They [police] never gave a warning to people before cracking down on the protests.” --Maung E---, a university student in Yangon
KHRG conducted interviews with a number of SAC soldiers and police officers who had joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, and who confirmed the use of excessive force and violence by security forces during the protests. In some cases, this was violence that they had witnessed, but in other cases, it was violence that they were ordered to undertake as part of their security activities surrounding the protests.
“When there was a protest in Hledan, Yangon we would break up the mass gathering. There was a total of 50 of us. Six of us had real guns [machine guns] including me. We had to fire live rounds [against protesters]. Our bullets are not meant for shooting innocent civilians.” --A police officer based in Bilin Township, Doo Tha Htoo District
As the SAC responded to the protests with increased violence, the protesters adopted more varied protest strategies and also developed self-protection strategies in an attempt to make themselves less vulnerable to injury, violence and arrest by security forces. SAC security forces have also engaged in arrests without providing the reason for the arrest and without allowing access to legal counsel or communication with family members. Likewise, family members and friends of detainees have often been unable to access information about why they were arrested, where they are detained, how they are doing, whether they are alive or dead and other critical information about court proceedings.
“Laws are from their mouth [decided solely by the SAC] because whatever they say is considered law [toward the civilians]; they can kill, they can arrest, they can detain and they can do whatever they want [by the order of SAC authorities]. There is no rule of law. Every action they have been practicing is against the civilians.” --A young teacher from Hpa-an Town
Chapter 2: The Civil Disobedience Movement
On February 2nd 2021, healthcare workers across Myanmar walked off their jobs to express their opposition to the military coup. This form of protest quickly spread to other branches of public service, eventually turning into a nationwide, large-scale Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).
While CDM participants in general spoke of the desire for democracy, a return to civilian government, and the hope of undermining the SAC by shutting down the wheels of government, SAC security forces (police and military) who joined the CDM also cited unjust and unlawful orders as motivating factors. The CDM participants with whom KHRG conducted interviews faced major barriers to joining the movement, making it clear that a decision to join could have life-threatening consequences. Since joining the CDM, participants have experienced livelihood issues, increased risks and restrictions, as well as threats of arrest and attack by the SAC against themselves and their family members, leading many to go into hiding.
“I also worry for my family’s security because of the actions that the Burmese military has done. If they cannot arrest me, they will target my family. I heard that they will threaten my wife. I heard that they will harm my family.” --A CSO worker from Ayeyarwady Region
KNU local leaders have been attempting to provide security and necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing for CDM participants who have reached KNU-controlled territory, leading CDM members, protesters and human rights activists to flee to KNU territory seeking protection. Informal networks and local community support have also been particularly strong, with some civilians seeing this as their best way to contribute to the movement.
“Ordinary people like us do not need to participate in the CDM. We just have to support those who do participate in the CDM. The situation happening now is not right, so we have to support them. We have to care for them and we have to give them food, and support them in what they need. They are working for us as well.” --Saw Y--- from Ta Naw Th’Ree Township, Mergui-Tavoy District
Chapter 3: Militarisation and a return to violence
The security situation in rural areas of Southeast Myanmar rapidly degraded during the first six months following the military’s seizure of power. Since the military coup, human rights violations have steadily increased, as have displacements and threats of injury and death to civilians in rural areas. Just the news of the military takeover led many villagers to begin preparing for the possibility of fighting, and thus displacement, and for the re-emergence of the kind of human rights abuses that they had suffered in the past.
“Some people dare not to stay at home anymore. They go to stay at their huts. Those who are living close to the road dare not to sleep at their houses. They heard that Tatmadaw soldiers will patrol so they are afraid and go to sleep in other places. Then, they come back to their houses in the morning. Some people hide food in the jungle. If anything happens, they can go and hide there and they will have food.” --A missionary in Dooplaya District
Increased ground attacks in some areas began shortly following the military takeover but the airstrikes in Karen State, which began on March 27th, marked a pivotal moment in the escalation of fighting and attacks, and have contributed to a growing climate of insecurity that recalls earlier periods of military abuse. t is extremely difficult to estimate the total number of displacements due to conflict since the February 1st military coup. UNHCR, which is working on relief operations, estimated 47,700 in Kayin State, and another 1,100 in Mon State. The figures are likely much higher given the poor access to IDP sites and displacement information in many areas, and the variable nature of displacements, which can be recurring or extended, and can vary from several days to several months or longer. One of the biggest problems continues to be access to aid. Due to both COVID-19 and increased insecurity following the coup, many international stakeholders are no longer operating on the ground in some areas. Even attempts by local stakeholders to provide support to IDPs have met with opposition by the SAC.
“We will be shot dead so no boats dare to run. We dare not go to send rations for the IDPs. The supplies are accumulating on the Thai side. The boats from the Thai side do not go to the Myanmar side because they are afraid they will be shot by SAC soldiers.” --A boat driver interviewed by KIC
While airstrikes and fighting have led to large-scale displacements and a growing humanitarian crisis, the human rights situation has also degraded with an increase in abuses (like forced labour, targeted killings, looting and arbitrary arrest) that had curtailed following the NCA. Areas that have faced less fighting and attacks have still been heavily affected by the overall climate of insecurity. Aside from witnessing the movement of troops and reinforcement of troops and supplies in their region, many villagers noted increased patrolling by armed soldiers.
Another cause of concern for villagers in some areas has come from the emergence of various militia groups. Since the coup, the SAC has been appointing new members who are former Tatmadaw soldiers. They are rotating between different areas within the village tract, and have been appointed specifically to monitor the activity of villagers and the local KNU.
“We only dare to criticise the military coup secretly within our family because there are many junta spies that [report] people who criticise and disagree with the military government to the police.” --An interviewee from Dooplaya District
Since the coup, there has been renewed insecurity and threats to freedom of movement for villagers. The military has been checking travelers and making arrests, which has increased fear surrounding travel. KHRG has received an increasing number of reports about landmine accidents since the military coup. Despite ongoing calls on the Myanmar government and all ethnic armed groups to halt the use of landmines and to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty, the planting of new landmines continues to take place.
Chapter 4: COVID-19 since the coup
The lack of testing and reporting by the Ministry of Health and Sports (MoHS) has not been able to conceal the fact that, as of early July, COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed and Myanmar is facing a serious humanitarian crisis.
Since the announcement of the coup, KHRG has received multiple reports that most of the prevention measures that had been set up to protect villagers from the spread of the virus to rural areas were no longer being adhered to. The lack of accurate information about COVID-19 since the SAC took power has contributed to the sense that COVID-19 was no longer something villagers needed to be concerned about.
“Since the military coup, even in our village and at the national level, people didn’t continue thinking about COVID-19 anymore. I myself didn’t continue thinking about it anymore.” --A village secretary in Noh T’Kaw Township, Dooplaya District
The SAC has not only continued to provide inaccurate information, it has also restricted access to resources and services, and prevented other key actors from helping manage the spread of the virus and address the health needs of the people of Myanmar. Prior to the coup, the NLD government had been working to acquire COVID-19 vaccines, and began making plans for rolling out vaccinations. Because it is now the military government taking over this process, rural villagers are refusing the vaccination due to distrust of the military.
“[W]e worry that the Myanmar military will mix something into the vaccine. […] So no one dares to get the vaccine.” --A villager from T’ Nay Hsah Township, Hpa-an District
Chapter 5: Challenges to peace, democracy, and development
The coup has had devastating effects on all aspects of daily life in Myanmar, creating impacts as individualised as lack of access to the internet and as widespread as a downturn in the national economy. By eroding possibilities for peace, democracy and development, these problems have touched the lives of all civilians, but have impacted rural villagers in particular ways.
The coup involved not just a wider shift from elected civilian government to military dictatorship but also a replacement of local administrators with SAC-selected individuals. Replacing elected leaders with military-appointed ones not only serves to further undermine the democratic process, it erodes relationships of trust between local communities and the administrators that are supposed to serve and represent them.
“Everything depends on the village administrator, because no matter how much you protect your village, if the village administrator works under the military government you can’t do anything. He will simply send information to the SAC.” --A villager from Ta Naw Th’Ree Township, Mergui-Tavoy District
The coup has had harsh impacts on Myanmar’s economy, at both the individual and national levels. Civilians across Southeast Myanmar are experiencing job loss, higher prices on necessities, restrictions on travel, and loss of access to telecommunication systems, all of which are increasing food and livelihood insecurity. The CDM has had a large impact on education in Southeast Myanmar. After the SAC seized power, many teachers in government schools joined the CDM, so most of the government schools have had to close. Even when the SAC reopened some government schools on June 1st 2021, there was a shortage of both teachers and students. There have also been heavy impacts on access to healthcare. There are approximately 30,000 physicians in Myanmar, and about 20,000 work for the government hospitals. As a response to the coup, approximately 75 percent of those working in government facilities have joined the CDM and refused to work.
“If people need to go for an operation and they are not allowed to go […] they will just die.” --Naw O--- from Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District
The coup has also had an impact on access to information, through telecommunication interruptions and SAC control of news and media outlets. Telecommunication interruptions are particularly serious in rural areas where information is already limited to what people can access through their phone.
Chapter 6: Moving forward
Although there may have been early confidence that the Spring Revolution would be successful, there have been increasing divides regarding how the fight should go on. Many stressed the importance of continuing the fight until the end, and the need for more government staff to join the CDM. Others noted the lives already sacrificed.
“People from Myanmar have died many times already. Therefore, we must not feel hesitation to die this time [for this cause]. If we are afraid to die this time [for this cause] and just do nothing about it [military dictatorship], our lives will be dead forever.” --An interviewee from Kawkareik Town
For some, the coup has served as an awakening since it highlighted the oppression that ethnic minorities have faced at the hands of the military, as well as the level of violence the Myanmar military is capable of. In the eyes of many, a political solution involving negotiation with the military regime is not possible. Despite the sense that negotiation would not benefit civilians, some believe that the way forward is still through peaceful means. Others spoke of the necessity for well-planned self-defense and carefully executed offensives involving the collaboration of both the People’s Defence Force (PDF) and EAOs. Several interviewees highlighted the need for full inclusion of minority voices in any strategies and plans for moving forward. A strong emphasis was also placed on the need for a federal democracy that allows for self-determination as the only means of ensuring ethnic minority rights and equality.
“I protested for my country to be free from military dictatorship, for my country to become a real federal democracy and for the ethnic minorities to receive equal rights. If we don’t have equal rights in this country while we are living in this country, there is no reason we could consider ourselves citizens of Myanmar.” --A KECD teacher in Dooplaya District
Conclusion
Information continues to pour in regarding incidents of violence, with increasing stories of torture, forced labour and killings in rural Southeast Myanmar. Fighting and attacks continue and are becoming more widespread. Many facing displacement are still not receiving support, and some have reported having little left to eat. Displacements are ongoing and the possibility of seeking refuge across the border in Thailand remains limited. Reports of illness-related deaths are being submitted, yet villagers are unsure whether this is due to COVID-19 or some other illness, since there is little availability of testing or medical care.
Ethnic minorities want their voices to finally be heard, but also to be supported as they stand up for their own rights and for equality and justice.
“We have had [in the past] to solve whatever we face in our own way and suffer it by ourselves. Therefore, people think no one will stand with or for them when they have any problems or face anything. […] [I]t is critical that civilians feel that they are being supported by others, that they are not alone in this fight. They need others to stand with them and beside them.” --An interviewee in Kawkareik Town
Recommendations
To the State Administration Council (SAC)
Immediately step down and hand over power to the National Unity Government (NUG). End the crackdown, arrests and targeted attacks on protesters and CDM participants. Cease the halting and seizure of medical and humanitarian supplies intended to alleviate the COVID-19 and other humanitarian crises in Southeast Myanmar. Reverse the suspension of Sections 5, 7 and 8 of the Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of the Citizens (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 5/ 2017). Revoke amendments to the Ward or Village Tract Administration Law, the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure (SAC Law Nos 3/2021, 5/2021 and 6/2021). End interruptions to communication services and the suppression of media freedom since this is a violation of the right to access information. Cease attacks on civilian areas, as well as patrols and military transports through, in or near villages or livelihood areas; demilitarise areas close to villages and farms by removing troops and camps. Stop all forms of forced labour, including using villagers as human shields, porters, and navigators; and refrain from making arbitrary demands on local communities such as demanding the use of their vehicles, boats or other property for military purposes. End arbitrary and illegal taxation practices, as well as the confiscation of civilian property for military and personal use. Ensure compliance with international humanitarian standards and human rights law; and end impunity by ensuring that any armed actor who has violated the rights of any person is held accountable for abuses in fair and transparent investigations and judicial processes in independent and impartial civilian courts. Put an end to clearance operations, as well as activities, commonly termed the “four cuts strategy”, that prevent civilian access to food, communication, aid and other basic necessities.
To international organisations, NGOs, funding agencies, and foreign governments
Refrain from giving any legitimacy to the military junta and from recognising them in any international forum. Exclude the SAC as a partner for the distribution of aid. Urge UN agencies in Myanmar to take a clear and strong position in responding to the situation on the ground, and to use all possible resources to limit the human rights abuses and violations undertaken by the SAC. Provide financial and technical support as needed for the NUG, including on international human rights laws and standards and other matters of governance. Consult and sign MoUs with the NUG and EAOs to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis across the country. Support a UN Security Council resolution on a global arms embargo. Diversify international funding distribution so that more funding is made directly available to non-state actors, particularly ethnic service providers and civil society organisations, regardless of their registration status. Prioritise methods of service delivery and communication that rely on local CSOs/CBOs and ethnic service providers that have the ability and networks (due to consistent access and trust from the community) for local implementation of support programmes. Recognize the complex logistics of service delivery and be willing to contribute to solutions proposed by local CSO/CBOs and ethnic service providers. Mitigate the impacts of displacement, armed conflict and insecurity on livelihood through increased support and initiatives that reduce the vulnerability of small farmers and day labourers. Support EHOs and other non-state health actors, both regarding COVID-19 prevention and treatment (including screening/testing and the running of quarantine facilities), and the provision of other essential health services in rural areas. Urge Myanmar’s neighbours to ensure that their authorities do not deny entry to people crossing the border seeking refuge; and encourage them to work with cross border organisations to develop support and protection services for those seeking refuge. Provide neighboring countries with the necessary resources and technical assistance to provide humanitarian aid, including for COVID-19, for the people from Myanmar who are fleeing the military violence. Engage with Myanmar’s neighbours to ensure the passage of aid to Myanmar, in particular through cross border aid organizations and local civil society organizations already operating in the area. Advocate for the release of political prisoners, including political actors, protesters, activists, human rights defenders, journalists and their family members. Insist that the Security Council refer Myanmar to the ICC or set up an ad hoc tribunal to ensure all perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and mass atrocities are prosecuted and that justice is attained for victims and survivors.
To the SAC and EAOs/EAGs
Put an immediate halt to the planting of landmines and ban all further use of landmines; mark all areas contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), and inform the local communities of these locations for their safety. Comply with international humanitarian standards and human rights law, particularly with regard to the protection and safety of civilians..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians
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- 2021-11-24-KHRG-Military-Atrocities-and-Civilian-Resilience_Briefer-Karen.pdf
- 2021-11-24-KHRG-Military-Atrocities-and-Civilian-Resilience_Briefer-en.pdf
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Description:
"Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) is pleased to announce the release of its latest report, Military Atrocities and Civilian Resilience: Testimonies of injustice, insecurity and violence in Southeast Myanmar during the 2021 coup. This report highlights the serious crimes committed by the Myanmar military and the deteriorating human rights, humanitarian, and human security crisis as a result of the brutal violence inflicted upon civilians in Southeast Myanmar and throughout Myanmar since the military coup in February 2021. This report also presents the hopes and struggles of rural villagers and civilians, demonstrating that, despite the increased insecurity they face, they continue to seek ways to counter a military regime that is illegal and unjust.
Through interviews conducted with rural villagers as well as with participants in the protests and Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), this report exposes the violence that the military-led State Administration Council (SAC) has used against protesters, and the ways in which protesters have vehemently continued to voice their opposition to the coup in the face of increasing brutality and repression by the military. Interviewees recounted stories of fear and insecurity as they encountered the ruthless response of the SAC to their efforts to defend their rights and the future of their country. And yet, they also expressed a strong sense of hope and an unwavering commitment to upholding the fight for federal democracy and freedom from oppression to the very end.
This report also presents the increased insecurity in rural ethnic areas, where the Myanmar military has long used violence against civilian villagers as a key strategy in waging war against ethnic armed actors. This escalation of violence by the Myanmar military has led to the widespread displacement of villagers in Southeast Myanmar. It is estimated that, as of June 23rd, close to 177,000 villagers in Southeast Myanmar, including 50,000 in Karen State, have been displaced since the February 1st coup (with over 140,000 still experiencing displacement as of August 23rd, 2021).
Also explored in this report are the wider impacts of the coup, like the breakdown of the healthcare system since the military coup and the SAC's restrictions on access to information and healthcare services vital to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
KHRG hopes this report will allow national and international stakeholders to understand better the impact the military coup has had on ethnic minorities in Southeast Myanmar. Included in the report are several recommendations for national and international stakeholders. These recommendations state how stakeholders can develop and implement policies that limit the power of the SAC; facilitate humanitarian access without working with the SAC; protect human rights; and promote accountability for international crimes..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Families of activists hunted by authorities are often targeted for reprisal.
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"Myanmar families fearing arrest or confiscation of their property are severing ties with sons or daughters active in opposing military rule, with announcements posted prominently in public media, sources say.
At least 15 activists or militia members were disowned by their parents during the last week, according to media monitoring by RFA’s Myanmar Service.
Film actor Pai Phyo Thu, pop singer Kyar Paul, and well-known news announcer Kyaw Thet Linn — who had worked for Myanmar Radio and Television before the Feb. 1 military coup that overthrew civilian rule — were among those disowned.
Kyaw Thet Linn told RFA he understood the reasons for his parents’ decision.
“My parents, who are over 80, are more in danger than I am because they can’t run away. And if I return home, it would be dangerous for them and me both,” he said. “So, I think they did this hoping that it would be safer for everyone to totally cut their ties with me.”
“It hurts a lot, because both my parents and my wife have now abandoned me. But our sacrifices are nothing compared to the sacrifices suffered by those who have fallen in the revolution,” he said.
Sources said that the families of anti-junta activists living in countries beyond the reach of Myanmar security services have also been targeted for reprisal, leading them to cut ties with their offspring as well.
Ko Linn, an activist living in a Western country, says he has been given up by his family in Myanmar because he has led anti-junta protests in the country where he now lives.
“Some of us Burmese nationals living overseas have been staging protests in support of the shadow National Unity Government, raising funds and supporting Civil Disobedience Movement workers, and all these actions have affected my mother,” he said.
“My family back home has been questioned, and my mother has been detained because they couldn’t get to me instead. She has now been charged under certain laws,” he said.
Ko Linn’s mother has now been held in custody for almost two months, Ko Linn’s sister said, adding that she had to throw her brother out of the family in the hope that the move might get her mother released.
“My mother is still under arrest, and my family members are being threatened. Activists’ family members are now under pressure in Burma," she said, referring to Myanmar by its former colonial-era name.
“I have nothing to say about my brother’s situation,” she added.
'No guarantees'
Khin Maung Myint, a veteran high court lawyer in Myanmar’s commercial center and former capital Yangon, said that the announcements of severed family ties may not prevent arrests, as the country’s military rulers are simply arresting whomever they want.
“Despite these announcements, there is no guarantee the junta won’t take action against these families,” he said.
“I think that people are making these announcements out of fear, hoping they might be spared and that fall-out from the actions of their loved ones might be prevented."
Similar moves were made during national unrest in Myanmar in 1988, when troops killed thousands of civilians protesting another period of military rule, said Kyaw Htwe, a member of the Central Working Committee of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the government that was overthrown by a military coup earlier this year.
“There were many such incidents in 1988, and even after a person was imprisoned, his family could not carry on with their businesses unless they cast him out,” he said. “It’s not hard to imagine how heartbreaking it would be for the rest of the family to take this as a precautionary measure.”
Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government on Feb. 1, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the country’s 2020 election.
The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide demonstrations calling for a return to civilian rule, killing 1,291 people and arresting 7,530 over the last nine months, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP-Burma).
More than 70 family homes have been forcibly confiscated by military authorities since August, according to RFA records..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
[field_licence]
Type:
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"Being unbowed, defiant and outspoken are trademarks of Nan Khin Htwe Myint, the detained Karen State chief minister of the ousted National League for Democracy government.
When the military staged a coup on Feb. 1, the 67-year-old was detained, like other NLD government officials. She told The Irrawaddy in February that during her house arrest, the Karen woman challenged the commander who detained her, saying, “If the military thinks there is vote fraud, I am ready to contest with you via an open ballot system anytime, rather than a secret ballot.” That was her response after the commander read her the regime’s official notice announcing the coup, which said the military seized power due to electoral fraud. The commander responded with an uneasy laugh.
Even under house arrest, she urged the people to continue their anti-regime strike in whatever ways possible, whether by raising three-finger salutes—a symbol of defiance against military rule—banging on pots and pans, or joining the civil disobedience movement (CDM).
She herself engaged in all these different means of anti-regime protest. As she still had access to her phone, Nan Khin Htwe Myint gave interviews to the media, urging public support for “final efforts” to strike against the regime and to speak up for the release of detained leaders, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
She even posted a video online calling on people to unite to fight against military rule and urging soldiers to defend the people and unite with the general public.
On Feb. 8, two days after tens of thousands of Myanmar people took to the streets rejecting the military coup, she was taken to Hpa-an Prison in the Karen State capital.
In May, she was sentenced to two years in prison for comments she made following the Feb. 1 coup calling for people to show unity in striking against the regime, which were deemed by the junta to be incitement.
Then on Nov. 9, the NLD Central Executive Committee member was sentenced to 75 years in prison on four corruption charges—which she denied—by the junta court inside Hpa-an Prison. She is now serving a total of 77 years in prison, a move by which the junta hopes to ensure that the core NLD member stays behind bars.
Her family and people close to her say it shows the depth of the military’s grudge against her for her outspokenness and defiance.
Dedicated democracy activist
Nan Khin Htwe Myint has made many sacrifices due to her activism and family history of opposing military rule.
Her father was the Karen State head of the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) in the years shortly before and after independence from the British. Through family discussions Nan Khin Htwe Myint gained a homegrown knowledge of federalism, as well as political and ethnic history. Under Myanmar’s military rulers, her family was targeted for persecution for their political ties.
She has inherited her father’s commitment to working for ethnic rights and equality. She told The Irrawaddy in 2016 that she “is dedicated to establishing my country as a federal-based democratic nation.”
She was detained for the first time in 1975 for taking part in the student movement and imprisoned for six years. She continued to be imprisoned; she was jailed for two years in 1997, and then arbitrarily detained multiple times throughout the 1990s, without any charges.
She became a dedicated member of the NLD upon its formation in 1988, following the nationwide uprising that year. She contested and won a seat in the 1990 general election, in Hpa-an Constituency, the same constituency she represented in the 2015 and 2020 general elections.
The military regime’s targeted acts of oppression against her include prison sentences and numerous arbitrary detentions. Now, she is being defamed by the junta with corruption charges. The allegation is ironic given that as chief minister of Karen State, Nan Khin Htwe Myint was known for her anti-graft stance.
“We are really surprised by the charges and the verdicts,” said her younger brother Saw Than Htut, who won election to an Upper House constituency in the 2020 election.
“We, ourselves, loathe committing graft. She has never committed any corruption. The charges are a complete swindle,” said the brother. “The junta’s charges against her are totally based on grudges as she is a decisive, outspoken and courageous politician.”
Those who know her well speak of her as leading a very simple and far from luxurious life, even though she was the chief minister. She didn’t even own a car.
A senior NLD leader who has known her for more than 30 years, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she is loyal to both the party and the country and “a role-model” in the NLD after chairperson Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Trumped-up charges
After they were detained in prison in the second week of February, the regime filed complaints against Nan Khin Htwe Myint and U Than Naing, Karen State’s municipal minister under the NLD government, accusing them of violating tender and financial regulations related to infrastructure development projects in Karen State. She was given 75 years while her colleague got a total of 92 years for corruption and sedition.
The pair told the court that they “didn’t commit the offenses,” according to their lawyer U Aung Thein.
A source close to the court said that “the rulings were unjust” because they were entirely based on the prosecutors’ arguments, neglecting the defense lawyers’ arguments. The judge just read out a prepared ruling, the source said.
Some lawyers said such cases could be solved through departmental inquiries and did not need to be brought to trial.
“These cases are simply based on grudges,” said a lawyer who is familiar with the cases.
Knowing her integrity, a judge reportedly apologized to her during one proceeding, according to the source close to the court.
Junta’s grudges against NLD
Reflecting their desire for NLD members to stay behind bars, the Myanmar junta’s grudges against the party’s leaders become more obvious by the day. Nan Khin Htwe Myint’s cases are just the latest examples.
Similar charges have been brought against other senior leaders including detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other chief ministers.
The junta has filed 11 charges against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD party chairperson, including for sedition, alleged breach of COVID-19 restrictions, violating the Official Secrets Act and corruption, which are also widely believed to be trumped-up charges.
The 76-year-old Nobel Laureate faces up to 102 years in prison if found guilty.
In the 10 months since the military coup, the junta’s courts across the nation have handed jail sentences to 286 people including NLD members, former lawmakers, students and civilians participating in the peaceful anti-regime movement, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which documents rights abuses and killings.
Civilian courts have sentenced them to terms ranging from at least two years to life imprisonment, while fewer than a dozen civilians have been sentenced to death by a military court.
Among them, 80-year-old NLD patron U Win Htein was sentenced to 20 years in prison for high treason by a court inside Naypyitaw Prison for criticizing the coup on Oct. 29.
Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu was sentenced to two years in prison for incitement by Sittwe Court on Oct. 8. Magwe Region Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo was sentenced to the same term on June 8. Mandalay Region Chief Minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who is also the NLD’s vice chair, is also accused of sedition and corruption, and awaits trial..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Articles on the NLD, Human Rights Defenders
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The 40-year-old high school teacher was taken into military custody at 11am—by 5pm his family was notified that he had died
Description:
"A teacher from Mandalay Region’s Thabeikkyin Township who had been taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) was arrested on Wednesday afternoon. Within hours, his family was notified that he had died at an interrogation centre.
Zaw Min Aung, 40, was a high school teacher participating in a general strike across Myanmar in accordance with the CDM, which aims to topple the junta that seized power in February’s military coup.
He was arrested from his home in Myintha village at around 11am by a large group of soldiers and policemen.
A local teacher told Myanmar Now that the victim’s family was notified at around 5pm by officials from the police station in the nearby village of Kyar Nyat that he had died.
“We were only told that he died during the interrogation. We don’t know the exact cause of his death. His body was all wrapped up with only his face exposed,” the teacher said, adding that Zaw Min Aung was reportedly cremated at the Kyar Nyat cemetery.
Another local said that it was likely that Zaw Min Aung was wrongly flagged by a military informant as being involved in the anti-coup movement beyond his participation in the CDM, and was subsequently targeted.
“He was a very honest and quiet person. He liked to help people, too. His only political action was taking part in the CDM. I think he was tipped off to the military by an informant,” the local man said.
Another Myintha resident, 30-year-old Moe Kyaw, was also arrested for shouting warnings to villagers that junta troops had arrived on Wednesday. He was later released from the Kyar Nyat police station, but was reportedly tortured during his interrogation, another villager told Myanmar now.
Of Zaw Min Aung, the latter villager said, “it saddens me a lot to see that a teacher from our village had to face such a fate.”
Myanmar Now tried to contact the Kyar Nyat police station in Thabeikkyin regarding the arrests and the teacher’s death, but all calls went unanswered.
Zaw Min Aung leaves behind a wife and two young sons.
Other teachers participating in the CDM have been recently targeted in Mandalay Region, arrested and killed in military custody.
Thein Zaw, a teacher from Kin village in Madaya Township, was accused of supporting the anti-coup People’s Defence Force and kidnapped by the military on October 6. He was forced to guide his captors to his home three days later, and was killed en route. His body was disposed of by the junta’s armed forces near the village cemetery.
Win Lwin, from Ywar Bo village in Sintgaing Township was also arrested on November 1 and died one day later in military custody.
Villagers in Leik San Khun in Amarapura Township tore up a notice posted on the junta’s local administration office, threatening teachers with death if they did not return to work.
Soldiers responded by carrying out a raid on a group of locals preparing for a wedding, and beating those present.
Thabeikkyin Township was once the site of mass demonstrations against military rule, but the protests waned after leaders were forced into hiding by the junta’s crackdowns..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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The troops also badly beat Htay Aung’s wife when they raided his home in Mandalay Region
Description:
"Police took a 13-year-old boy hostage from a village in Mandalay’s Amarapura Township on Sunday when they were unable to find and arrest his father, who is a local member of the National League for Democracy (NLD). locals said.
The police officers also badly beat the wife of Htay Aung, who is in hiding after fleeing his village of Kantaw.
“The wife was covered in blood from their beatings,” said a local man who wanted to remain anonymous. “When the family went to the junta’s administrator to ask about the child, they told them that they would release the kid if the father turned himself in.”
The boy was reportedly being held at Myitnge police station as of Wednesday.
Another villager said it was unclear why junta authorities are targeting Htay Aung. “The man is not even a party leader, he’s just a regular member,” the local said. “We don’t know why they were looking for him so desperately. Our best guess is that a military informant named him.”
In October, soldiers put up notices containing death threats at the local administration office in the Yay Kyi Pauk village tract, where Kantaw is situated. The notice ordered teachers taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) to return to work, the two locals said.
Villagers tore up the notices and were later beaten by soldiers for doing so, they added.
Last week the same thing happened in the nearby village of Leik San Khun; villagers tore up notices containing death threats to teachers who refuse to return to work and were then beaten by soldiers.
The Mandalay regional police force did not answer calls seeking comment on the detained boy.
The coup regime has taken dozens of family members hostage, including young children, in a bid to force its opponents to give themselves up in recent months.
Last week a man was killed in detention after junta authorities in Madaya Township detained him because they were unable to find his nephew..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-18
[field_licence]
Type:
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Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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"အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအတိုင်ပင်ခံကောင်စီ (National Unity Consultative Council - NUCC) ၏ ဖွဲ့စည်းမှု၊ လုပ်ငန်းဆောင်ရွက်မှုတို့နှင့် စပ်လျဉ်းသည့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်
(တိုင်းရင်းသားဘာသာစကား)
ကချင်၊ ကယန်း၊ ကရင်၊ တအာင်း၊ ပအို့ပ်၊ မွန်၊ ရှမ်း..."
Source/publisher:
National Unity Consultative Council
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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"ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ
ဆက်သွယ်ရေး၊ သတင်းအချက်အလက်နှင့် နည်းပညာ ဝန်ကြီးဋ္ဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁၀/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ခြင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-15
[field_licence]
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398.9 KB
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Description:
"ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရ
လူသားချင်းစာနာထောက်ထားရေးနှင့် ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ဆိုင်ရာ စီမံခန့်ခွဲရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၁၅) ရက်
ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ လူသားချင်းစာနာ ထောက်ထားရေးနှင့် ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ဆိုင်ရာစီမံခန့်ခွဲရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် အန္တရာယ်၊ အခက်အခဲ အမျိုးမျိုးကြားမှ မိမိတို့ မြတ်နိုးတန်ဖိုးထားကြသည့် အသက်မွေးဝမ်းကျောင်းအလုပ်အကိုင်ကို စွန့်လွှတ်ကာ ပြည်သူ့ဘက်တွင် မားမားမတ်မတ်ရပ်တည်ပေးခဲ့ကြပြီး နိုင်ငံနှင့် ပြည်သူလူထုအပေါ် သစ္စာစောင့်သိခဲ့ကြသည့် ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ အောက်ပါအတိုင်း အသိပေး ကြေညာ လိုက်သည်-
(က) အကြမ်းမဖက် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Civil Disobedience Movement – CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသော နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းကောင်း အမှုထမ်း၊ အရာထမ်းများ အားလုံးကို နိုင်ငံနှင့် ပြည်သူအပေါ် သစ္စာစောင့်သိကြသည့် သူရဲကောင်းများအဖြစ် မှတ်တမ်းတင် ဂုဏ်ပြုအပ်ပါသည်။
(ခ) ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့မှစတင်၍ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု အလိုကျ ၎င်းတို့၏ အာဏာရှင်ယန္တရား လည်ပတ်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် ထပ်မံခန့်အပ်ထားသော ဝန်ထမ်းအသစ်များ၏ ရာထူးတည်မြဲရေး၊ အာဏာရှင်ထောက်တိုင်အဖြစ် ဆက်လက် ရပ်တည်နေကြသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ ရာထူးတိုးမြှင့်ရေးဆိုင်ရာ ဆောင်ရွက်ချက်များနှင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင် လက်အောက်မှ ပြည်ပသင်တန်းနှင့် ပညာတော်သင်သွားရောက်ကြသူ များ၏ ဘွဲ့ထူး၊ ဂုဏ်ထူးရယူခြင်းများနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ လုံးဝ (လုံးဝ) အသိအမှတ်ပြုမည် မဟုတ်ကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်အပ်သည်။
(ဂ) ပြည်သူ့အစိုးရလက်ထက် COVID 19 ကပ်ရောဂါကြောင့် ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာနိုင်သော သက်ရောက်မှုများကို ကုစားနိုင်ရေးအတွက် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများသို့ ပံ့ပိုးပေးခဲ့သည့် အတိုးမဲ့ချေးငွေများကို ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ရန် မလိုသည့် ချီးမြှင့်ငွေအဖြစ် သတ်မှတ်ကြောင်း အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှု ဝန်ကြီး ဌာနက ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၂/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် ထုတ်ပြန်ထားပြီးဖြစ်၍ ဤဝန်ကြီးဌာနအောက်ရှိ ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အဆိုပါ (၂) လစာချေးငွေများကို ပြန်လည် ပေးဆပ်ရန်မလိုကြောင်း ထပ်လောင်း အတည်ပြုအပ်သည်။
(ဃ) မတရားအာဏာသိမ်းမှုနောက်ပိုင်း တရားမဝင်ခန့်အပ်ထားသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းအသစ်များ အတွက် ထုတ်ယူထားသော လစာများနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ဘဏ္ဍာများကို အလွဲသုံးစားပြုခြင်း၊ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ရန်မလိုသည့် နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်း အတိုးမဲ့ချေးငွေများကို ဖိအားပေး ခြိမ်းခြောက် တောင်းခံခြင်းနှင့် အာဏာအလွဲသုံးစားပြုခြင်းများကို ကျူးလွန်နေသည့် စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်ရှိ လူမှုဝန်ထမ်း၊ ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးနှင့် ပြန်လည် နေရာချထားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန၊ ဝန်ကြီးရုံး အပါအဝင် ဦးစီးဌာနအသီးသီးမှ အကြီးအကဲများနှင့် အရာထမ်း၊ အမှုထမ်းများ အနေဖြင့် မိမိတို့၏ ပြုလုပ်မှု၊ ပျက်ကွက်မှုများနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ အပြည့်အဝ တာဝန်ယူ၊ တာဝန်ခံရမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သိစေအပ်သည်။
ဒေါက်တာဝင်းမြတ်အေး
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management - NUG
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-15
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"၁။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နို၀င်ဘာ (၁၃)ရက်နေ့တွင် ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သော“ပညာဖြင့်တော်လှန်၊ နွေဦးရဲ့အောင်လံ” Virtual Live Show ပွဲဖြစ်မြောက်အောင် နည်းပညာပိုင်း တွင်လိုလေသေးမရှိအောင် ကူညီဆောင်ရွက်ပေးကြသော ဆက်သွယ်ရေးနှင့် နည်းပညာဝန်ကြီးဌာန ဝန်ကြီး ဦးထင်လင်းအောင်နှင့် တကွ MoCIT အဖွဲ့သားများ၊ ပညာရှင်များ၊နည်းပညာရှင်များအားလုံးနှင့် Live streaming ပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရန် အသုံးပြုခွင့်ပေးသူ၊ အွန်လိုင်းလက်မှတ် ရောင်းချခြင်းမှ အစ Live Show အစီအစဉ် ဖြစ်မြောက်အောင် နည်းလမ်းရှာဖွေ စီစဉ်ပေးကြသူများ၊ ပါ၀င်ကူညီကြသူများအားလုံး၊
၂။ ပွဲကို ဦးဆောင်စီစဉ်ပေးသူ Education and Healthcare for Myanmar မှ ကိုရောဘတ်စောထူးအောင်၊ ကိုရန်နိုင်ဘို၊ ကိုရန်ကုန်နှင့် အဖွဲ့သားများအားလုံး၊
၃။ တော်လှန်ရေးစိတ်ဓါတ်အပြည့်ဖြင့် အခက်အခဲအမျိုးမျိုးကြားမှ ပါဝင်ကူညီပေးကြသော နိုင်ငံကျော် ရုပ်ရှင်၊ ဂီတ၊ DJ၊ စာပေ၊ ပန်းချီ၊ performance၊ ကာတွန်း အနုပညာရှင်များ၊ Guest Speaker အဖြစ် ပါဝင်အားဖြည့်ပေးကြသော ထင်ရှားသော နိုင်ငံရေး ဦးဆောင် လှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ social influencer များအားလုံး၊
၄။ နိုင်ငံအသီးသီးမှ တော်လှန်ရေးစိတ် ထက်သန်စွာဖြင့် အားတက်တရော လက်မှတ်ကူညီ ရောင်းပေးကြသော လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ်များ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအားလုံး၊
၅။ လိုအပ်သော ဒီဇိုင်းနှင့် Multi-media ပိုင်းကူညီပန့်ပိုးပေးသော ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန Media Team
၆။ တော်လှန်ရေး အောင်စေချင်သောစိတ်ဓါတ် အပြည့်ဖြင့် လက်မှတ်များ ဝယ်ယူအားပေးကြသော ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပ မိဘပြည်သူများအားလုံးကို
အထူးပင်ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါကြောင်း အလေးအနက် ဂုဏ်ပြု မှတ်တမ်းတင်အပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-14
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"Editor’s Note: This post is the first installment in an ongoing series, Chronicle of a Coup, comprised of reports, dating from February 22 and written from within Myanmar, which together sketch one person’s first-hand account of the weeks and months following the February 1 military coup. The impressions of Christopher J. Walker (pseudonym), the primary correspondent, are occasionally paired with those of family, friends, and colleagues. Christopher’s copious reports, which are still being written, will be posted weekly, on Fridays for the foreseeable future, and are available in chronological order here.
Tea Circle is grateful to Christopher for sharing his personal account of life under military rule in Myanmar, and to Mathieu Lukas (pseudonym), his friend and amateur editor. Recognizing that Christopher’s voice is one of many, we encourage other authors to submit their own accounts, which might be written independently, or in conversation with the other letters posted here. Tea Circle is also currently accepting Burmese-language submissions, including those describing everyday experiences since the coup. We welcome others to join this ongoing conversation.
An ominous morning | February 22, 2021
Every morning, beginning at 5:15, itinerant pe byouk-, nambya– and rice-sellers walk through the various quarters calling out the names of the foods they are peddling. But today, not one of them is to be seen.
5:30 – By this time, those who sell from pushcarts are in the street out front preparing their carts and wares for the day’s business. This morning there is none of that.
5:45 – By now the call to morning prayers would have been broadcast from the mosque over a loud public address system. Today it’s dead quiet. Strangely, even the roosters and other birds are largely silent.
6:30 – This street serves as an outlet for our quarter. Usually, at this hour scores of private cars and taxis would be coming through. So far today I have counted five. And judging by the markings on the vehicles, they are being driven by supporters of the civil disobedience movement.
As I look up and down the street, all the parking spaces, except one, remain occupied.
The trishaw stations at either end of the street are empty; even they seem closed for the day.
There are no newspaper delivery boys.
7:00 – An elderly woman returns from shopping, but her basket is empty. Obviously the market and its shops are closed.
In the distance, not a single commuter train can be heard, but this is no longer unusual since the railway workers have been on strike for more than a week.
7:45 – I walk over to the main commercial district. Every shop is shuttered except for three that are preparing small food packets to hand out for free to demonstrators.
Many businesses in this area are protected during the night by private security guards, some of whom, ordinarily, would still be lingering around after their shifts. Today, they have all disappeared.
People are angry with the military, very angry. During the night graffiti artists again expressed their indignation in written format. This time they used oil paint, which is not so easily cleaned off.
Painting on the pavements has become commonplace. Yesterday in the late afternoon, in twelve-foot letters, a neighbourhood volunteer work party repainted a statement of their displeasure on the main road. What amazes me is that this was done in broad daylight: the painters were protected by citizens who kept the police at bay.
Protesters, easily identified by their white, black or sometimes red clothing, are beginning to leave their apartments and are headed to the various local staging points before continuing to the main assembly areas.
Today, a Monday, is a day of national strikes. Offices and businesses will be closed.
A message has come that the internet will be shut down until 1:00 pm, apparently to discourage strike and demonstration organisers. But this will have minimal effect because everyone has a cellphone and information spreads quickly.
(Typically, the internet has been down from 1:00 to 9:00 am every day anyway. While it has, at times, been operating outside of these hours, service is frequently intermittent or dreadfully slow. The only reason that the junta tolerates the internet is that institutions and businesses now rely on it in order to function. This was not the case in 1988 or 2007 when there were no internet providers or cellphones, and the vast majority of people had no telephones even in their homes.)
To date the military has done everything it can to incite riots, but for the most part, people are aware of this and are not “biting.” I earnestly hope that they will continue in this way.
I just received word that protesters are being discouraged from demonstrating in the town centre because they can easily be trapped there. There is a widespread fear that starting today police and soldiers have orders to shoot at them. (I had first-hand experience of this tactic in 2007 when I and others were hemmed in by soldiers, and people were beaten and fired upon.)
9:00 – Surprise! The internet is working.
9:15 am – From my window I can see large groups of protesters advancing toward the centre of town, in spite of the danger.
Security | February 26, 2021
As you can probably imagine, communication has been one of the more challenging things for me in the past few weeks. At issue is my safety as well as that of those around me. These days anyone can be imprisoned for the most spurious of reasons. Friends have been of great comfort and help in keeping my communications safe.
At this point I feel reasonably secure, having several layers of security built in with multiple devices, ISPs, passwords, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. This in itself creates numerous challenges as I try to recall passwords, and which computer or device, SIM card or phone number I use for which transmission. I have tiny pieces of paper hidden all over, not just in my apartment but in other places too. And of course I have to remember where those are!
Now that I feel reasonably safe, I shall try to write more regularly and geared more to what you are unlikely to see in the media. No doubt some of you will think that I shouldn’t do this, but it is something I really must do. I promise to use the utmost caution. What I ask, in fact encourage, is that everything I send be shared with as many others as possible.
Every day I experience guilt and frustration because there is so little that I can do to help. However, one thing that I can do is try to explain what life here now is like, the struggles and fears that the Burmese face each and every day.
Few of us know what it is like to go to bed with an intense fear that tonight trucks full of soldiers might pull up in front and take me away, or awake with the thought that I survived another night.
I subject myself to this because it is important that others know what is actually happening here and what the people of Myanmar are going through. The daily news cannot possibly cover it all. I believe that the more people elsewhere know of the situation, the more likely it is that outside assistance will come. Without pressure and support from sources abroad, the struggle here will become all the more difficult.
A simple act can be powerful. A case in point: On day two of the coup an apparently famous American singer named Rihanna posted a message on Twitter expressing her support for the Burmese people. I have no idea whatsoever who this person is, but everyone here was happy to get her message. The response and gratitude were amazing.
The Burmese desperately want the rest of the world to know of the injustices and violence visited upon them daily. They are pleading for assistance from the United Nations, the U.S., U.K., Australia and Japan. Whenever a representative of any of these countries speaks out, here it gets everyone’s attention and appreciation. Most understand that support from abroad is vital for their civil disobedience movement (CDM) to be successful.
…
I just got interrupted. A neighbour, a woman in her 80s, came from across the street to deliver a meal to us. She is doing this for all those in our quarter who have supported the CDM, and in memory of a person who was recently shot and killed by soldiers. I gratefully attempted to refuse her offer hoping that she would pass it on to others who are more needy and worthy, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
…
More than ever I have to look for the positives in all of this, and one is that people have grown closer and more patient with each other. These are incredibly sad times here. I just cannot figure out how such things can happen. Tears start to well up as I think of it. To turn my back on what is occurring is something I could never live with. I must do what I can.
People’s bravery, courage and commitment are truly incredible. Most impressive is their commitment to a nonviolent movement. I have not seen a single example of violence on the part of the CDM demonstrators, although I’ve heard that in some parts of the country it is slightly different. I have heard too that folks in other areas have suffered the worst kinds of torment and brutality, so can understand their frustration and anger. How far can people be pushed?
On one occasion I witnessed a hundred or so protesters throwing plastic water bottles at retreating police trucks, and a few times I saw bricks and stones thrown at police. Twice I saw people using slingshots. And I do see more and more people carrying sticks, but these are rather for defensive purposes. I have never seen nor heard of a single instance when anyone was struck by a demonstrator. When speaking with people I always mention the great importance of remaining peaceful, and to a person they understand and agree.
At times 5,000-kyat men have come into our quarter to cause trouble, and been caught by our new local security team. The 5,000-kyat men are spies and provocateurs hired by the Tatmadaw, the military, often felons and drug addicts freed from prison in exchange for their “services.” They are used to infiltrate the quarters to gather information, to cause diversions by committing acts of vandalism such as breaking windows and lighting fires, and to assault demonstrators in an attempt to provoke them to violence and provide an excuse for soldiers to attack. As a deal-sweetener, they are supposedly paid 5,000 kyat, about US$3.25, for each assignment.
I have seen these provocateurs detained and questioned by our local team. As angry as the local security volunteers were, they never once harmed these people in any way. I once saw the police return to their barracks apparently forgetting two of their vehicles that were left in a throng of protesters. No one laid a finger on either one. Elsewhere in the world, how long would those vehicles have lasted before they were engulfed in flames?
Groups of police or soldiers typically include a photographer. In one situation, the police left an area but their photographer somehow didn’t realize it and quickly found himself alone. A dozen CDM demonstrators surrounded and began photographing him. They didn’t hurl any abuse, nor did they in any way threaten or detain him. When they finished, they just left him to hurry off. In many other places such an opportunity would have resulted in the policeman being badly beaten, or worse.
It is now 9:45 on a Friday morning. In various quarters across town, the police have already begun arresting and shooting people. Previously, this would only happen in the afternoon or under the cover of darkness. At the same time, 100 metres from my window, thousands are beginning to march as they do every day. These are the kinds of things that I see and hear, and do my very best to report as objectively as possible. How long the demonstrators’ peaceful and commendable responses will keep up is anyone’s guess. We all have a breaking point.
I am so very exhausted. My brain is painfully full. I apologize that my writing is so poor—my sixth-grade grammar teacher would be very disappointed. I’m sorry, but I cannot bear to go through this report again. I shall send it as is, knowing that you will understand.
Now, as I finish, police have appeared in our quarter. I don’t know what they are up to. Two nights ago the local citizens took control of the offices of the oakkahta, the elected head of the quarter. Now I am told that police have retaken them. Eventually they leave, and I hear one of my neighbours say, “It’s OK. Tonight we will take them again.”
တို့အရေး တို့အရေး Dote ayae, dote ayae. Our cause, our cause..."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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"The knife that carved through Gue Gue’s abdomen wasn’t exactly meant for pulling out her inflamed appendix. But it was the only one available in the sweltering jungle clinic, a bumpy ride over mountainous terrain from her guerrilla training camp.
There was no option for general anesthesia to put her under, so Gue Gue was conscious for the operation. The former tour guide, a stylish 26-year-old who listed her interests on Facebook as “Traveling, Adaptive Hiking, Dance, Writing, Gymnastics, Fashion Photography, Listening to Music, and Reading,” tried to keep her mind focused on all the work she had yet to do and not the surgery. “They were cutting the muscle like we are chopping pork,” said a friend who was there.
Gue Gue had no regrets, she said later, except about the jagged red mark left behind. “I really don’t want any scars!” she said, laughing. “After the revolution, I’ll go and remove my scar with a laser.”
Only a few weeks earlier, on an April evening, Gue Gue had slipped out of her family home in Mandalay, an ancient royal city careening into the 21st century, with shiny new malls, snappily dressed students and hipster cafes. Carrying a single change of clothes, she left behind the home where she had lived with her parents as the baby, the youngest daughter, well-loved and comfortable.
She was going to fight the junta, and not just with words.
Since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, toppling the civilian government, Gue Gue had seen many of her peers killed by troops on the streets of her hometown as they chanted democracy slogans. Hopes that the international community would respond to the military’s mounting brutality with practical action had fizzled. For her, and thousands like her, the only option was force.
“I have family. I have dreams. I have things that I want to achieve. I want to travel. I want to write. I want to study,” Gue Gue said a few weeks before her operation in the jungle, in the first of a series of interviews over several months. Two other people, and video and photo footage shared with Reuters, confirmed the outline and many of the details of her story.
Because she still hasn’t healed from her ad hoc surgery, she hasn’t yet been involved in any fighting. But she says she is ready. “I sacrificed all this and joined this training with only one ambition: that we must win.”
Two faces of the resistance
The men and women rebelling against Myanmar’s junta vow to be the last generation to live under the boot of the country’s military. This, they say, is the “final battle” to root out the army, which has been the most powerful institution in the country since it became an independent nation in 1948. The military has withstood popular uprisings and civil war for decades, including the mass uprising in 1988 that led to the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi as a human rights icon.
It is a fight that has in a few short months made guerrilla fighters of university lecturers, day laborers, I.T. workers, students and artists and forced countless young men and women into a life on the run.
Some, like Gue Gue, who had never considered herself particularly political until the bloodbath on the streets in the wake of the coup, are in clandestine rebel training camps. Hundreds of armed outfits have popped up across the country, according to an October report by the International Crisis Group, many calling themselves People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). A famous poet formed one. Beauty queens and actresses who were wanted by the authorities for supporting the protests re-emerged on social media in areas controlled by armed groups, posting pictures with rifles slung over their shoulders.
Others, like a skinny 32-year-old librarian named Tayzar San, have been hiding in cities, organizing clandestine demonstrations, funneling money to striking workers and strategizing. A young man who once spent his spare time buried in books – as often Burmese romance novels as nonfiction political tracts – he now lives out of a backpack, moving from apartment to apartment to evade the authorities who have put a $5,600 bounty on his head. By September, he said, he hadn’t seen his wife and daughter in seven months.
The utterly changed worlds of Gue Gue and Tayzar San paint a portrait of sacrifice and resolve in a young Burmese generation who, unlike their parents, grew up in a world of smartphones and greater political freedoms. Many are willing to pay any price, including their lives, to overthrow a junta that they say threatens to take them back to a darker past.
Speaking in October, army chief and coup leader Min Aung Hlaing said the junta, which has vowed to hold elections within two years, was working on a five-point plan to reach a “true union based on democracy and federalism.” He said the leadership was working to “change the country peacefully.” In a message to Reuters responding to detailed questions, the junta’s “True News” information unit said, “We have no plan to answer meaningless questions.”
At stake is the fate of a country of 55 million people that once looked to be on its way to becoming Asia’s newest semi-democratic state, a nation on the crossroads of India and China rich with natural resources, considered a frontier market for foreign investors and a keystone in U.S-led efforts to counter Chinese power in Southeast Asia.
It is one of the bloodiest chapters yet in a decades-long struggle to shrug off a series of military dictators who have waged some of the world’s longest-running civil wars, displaced millions of people and consigned multiple generations to poverty and dashed dreams.
Since Myanmar, then Burma, won independence from colonial Britain seven decades ago, it has known less than 25 years of civilian governance. Successive juntas ruled the country from 1962 until 2011, when Gen. Than Shwe appeared to step back and hand limited powers to a civilian government.
It was a managed process that reserved vast political influence under the constitution for the military. Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been imprisoned in her home for 15 years, was freed to participate in elections and, in 2015, won them.
In the years following, Suu Kyi drew criticism for standing by the military as they carried out what the United Nations termed a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Testifying in the Hague, where Myanmar faces charges at the International Criminal Court, she admitted that war crimes may have been committed but denied genocide, saying Rohingya had “exaggerated” the extent of abuses against them.
But her government made some steps toward weakening military power and attracting foreign investment. The Myanmar kyat became Asia’s best-performing currency, and the World Bank was predicting economic growth in the country despite the COVID-19 pandemic..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-12
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Human Rights Defenders, Anti-coup protesters
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"During the past two weeks, SAC troops have scaled up military operations in Pekhon and
Demawso townships, in an attempt to secure control of the main access roads from southern
Shan State to Loikaw, and from Loikaw to southern Karenni State. SAC troops have shelled
directly into towns and villages, killing and injuring civilians and damaging numerous buildings.
Hundreds more SAC troops have been deployed from Naypyidaw to try and sweep out
resistance forces in the hills west of Pekhon town.
On October 25, SAC troops fired artillery shells and shot guns at Lud Mae Taw Catholic church
in San Pya 6 mile, Demawso township. They also indiscriminately shelled into Mar Ner Plaw
quarter in Demawso township, damaging a house there.
On October 26, combined KA and KNDF troops clashed with SAC troops travelling between
Htu Lwi Belar village and Ngwe Taung Ywa Thit village in Demawso township. 10 SAC
soldiers were killed and 2 military trucks damaged.
On October 26, Pekhon PDF troops and other Karenni forces clashed with SAC troops camped
near Katheh village in Gone Hsone village tract, Pekhon township, causing one of the PDF
soldiers to be injured. The SAC then indiscriminately shelled into Katheh village, injuring 3
villagers.
On October 27, the SAC again indiscriminately shelled into Katheh village in Pekhon township
damaging five houses and a local clinic.
On October 29, Moe Bye-based LIB 422 battalion indiscriminately shelled into and around Moe
Bye town, killing a woman from Sigan 2 quarter and injuring a man from Pau Oo 2 quarter; and
also killed a villager in his farm near the town.
On October 30, SAC troops carrying out operations between Loikaw town and Moe Bye town
set fire to stacks of harvested paddy along the roadsides.
On October 31, SAC troops shot at two villagers from an IDP camp in Demawso township while
they were returning to their village to get rations, luckily causing no injury. SAC troops also
burned down several houses in Ngu Plau quarter in Demawso township, according to a
Demawso PDF statement. Moreover, SAC troops fired shells into Daw Tama Nge village in
Demawso township, injuring one villager and damaging some houses.
On November 1, SAC troops patrolling from Shwe Yauk quarter in Demawso township
indiscriminately shelled into Daw Nga Khan quarter 2 in Demawso township, damaging a
community-owned store and 3 houses..."
Source/publisher:
Karenni Civil Society Network
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
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Sub-title:
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
Description:
"ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၈/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၈) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီမှ မတရားရယူခဲ့ပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်အလုပ်အကျွေးမပြုဘဲ တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် ပြည်သူတို့၏အကျိုးကို ရှေးရှု၍ မတရားသော အမိန့်အာဏာအားဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်ကြရန် အကြိမ်ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ်ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ဆက်သွယ်ရေး၊ သတင်းအချက်အလက် နှင့် နည်းပညာဝန်ကြီးဌာန၏ လက်အောက်ရှိ မတရားသောအမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး CDM လှုပ်ရှားမှု၌ ပါဝင်လျက်ရှိသည့် ပြည်သူ့၀န်ထမ်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်လျက်ရှိသော Non-CDM ၀န်ထမ်းအချို့မှ ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်း၊ ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်း များပြုလုပ်နေသည်ကို နေ့စဥ် တွေ့မြင်နေရပါသည်။
၃။ ယင်းကဲ့သို့ CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအပေါ်၌ မတရားသဖြင့်ဖိအားပေးခြင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံနှင့်ပြည်သူကို သစ္စာဖောက်ကာ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအတွက် ထိရောက်သော အခန်းကဏ္ဍမှ ကျိုးနွံစွာ အလုပ်ကျွေးပြုနေသည့် ပြည်နယ်/တိုင်း ဒေသကြီး၊ ခရိုင်တာဝန်ခံအရာထမ်းဝန်ထမ်းများ အားလုံးနှင့် အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်ခံများအား နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ (၄၁) အရ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ်(dismiss) ပြီး ယင်းတို့သည်နိုင်ငံ့သစ္စာဖောက်များဖြစ်ကြောင်း အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။
(မှတ်ချက်။ ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက် စာရင်းတွင်ဖေါ်ပြပါရှိသော ရာထူး၊ နေရာများသည် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ဆက်သွယ်ရေး၊ သတင်းအချက်အလက်နှင့် နည်းပညာဝန်ကြီးဌာန ကအသိအမှတ် မပြုသည့် စစ်ကောင်စီကပေးသော ရာထူး၊ နေရာ များသာ ဖြစ်ကြောင်း သိစေအပ်ပါသည်။)..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
897.01 KB
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Description:
"1. On 8th November 2020, the multi-party democratic general election was
held in accordance with the Election Laws and Rules by the Union Election
Commission in a free and fair manner and was actively voted by the citizens
with a strong desire for democracy even during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
2. In the election, 1117 seats out of 1171 constituencies were successfully
voted for Pyithu Hluttaw, Amyotha Hluttaw and Regional/State Hluttaws and
there were a total of 5639 candidates from all the political parties and
independent members. More than 71 percent of the eligible voters took part
in the election and it was recognized as a free and fair election by the teams
of local and international observers.
3. On 1st February 2021, against the result of the votes from the citizens,
the brutal State Administrative Council (SAC) accused that voting fraud was
found in the election and seized the state power from the civilian government
neglecting the Election Law and Rules and the 2008 Constitution. The
announcement of the invalidation of the 2020 general election's results by
the SAC was only to destroy the desire and hopes of the citizens using the arm
power. Therefore, in order to retain the citizens' rights, including the Civil
Disobedience Movement (CDM), people took part in different ways of protest
against the military coup.
4. The peaceful protestors against the dictatorship were handled by the
SAC with violence including illegal arrests, unjust detentions, murders,
appropriation and destroying the properties of the people which have created
the emergence of revolution.
5. The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw has been formed with
the mandate from the people to conduct the functions of Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
and we have performed the legislation, relations with international
parliamentary bodies and revoking the 2008 Constitution. We have also
formed the Interim National Unity Government (NUG) after the
announcement of the Federal Democracy Charter drafted by the National
Unity Consultative Council (NUCC).
6. We appreciate and recognize all the contribution and efforts in the battle
for democracy in Myanmar by our new generations, public officials and
people in the Civil Disobedience Movement, Ethnic Armed Organizations,
political parties, protest groups, civil societies, organizations for public
security and those international governments, parliaments, organizations
who stand with us at this challenging period.
7. On the anniversary of the 2020 election, we, the Committee
Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) would like to announce that we will
continue working together with all stakeholders to eliminate military
dictatorship and establish a federal democratic state in the future and will
continue working steadfastly to ensure the State power is returned to its
original owner, the citizens..."
Source/publisher:
Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, National Unity Government (NUG), Anti-coup protesters
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"၁။ ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၈) ရက်နေ့တွင် ပြည်ထောင်စုရွေးကောက်ပွဲကော်မရှင်က ပါတီစုံ ဒီမိုကရေစီအထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲကို လွှတ်တော်ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေ၊ နည်းဥပဒေများ နှင့်အညီ လွတ်လပ်ပြီး တရားမျှတစွာ ကျင်းပပေးနိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး ဒီမိုကရေစီလိုလားသည့် ပြည်သူလူထုမှ COVID-19 ကူးစက်ရောဂါ ကပ်ဘေးကြားမှပင် ရဲရဲဝံ့ဝံ့ တက်ကြွစွာ ဆန္ဒမဲပေးခဲ့ကြသည်။
၂။ ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ ပါတီစုံဒီမိုကရေစီ အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ပြည်သူ့လွှတ်တော်၊ အမျိုးသား လွှတ်တော်နှင့် တိုင်းဒေသကြီး/ပြည်နယ်လွှတ်တော်မဲဆန္ဒနယ် ၁၁၇၁ နေရာရှိသည့်အနက် ၁၁၁၇ နေရာ အတွက် ကျင်းပပေးနိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများနှင့် တစ်သီးပုဂ္ဂလလွှတ်တော် ကိုယ်စားလှယ်လောင်း ၅၆၃၉ ဦး ဝင်ရောက်ယှဥ်ပြိုင်ခဲ့ကာ ဆန္ဒမဲပေးပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသူဦးရေ၏ ၇၁ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းကျော်က ဆန္ဒမဲပေးခဲ့ပြီး ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲလေ့လာစောင့်ကြည်ရေး အဖွဲ့များက လွတ်လပ်ပြီး တရားမျှတသည့် ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဖြစ်ကြောင်း အသိအမှတ်ပြုခဲ့သည်။
၃။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ တခဲနက်ဆန္ဒမဲပေးရွေးချယ်ခဲ့သော ရွေးကောက်ပွဲရလဒ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်လျက် မဲမသမာမှုရှိသည်ဟု မမှန် မကန်စွပ်စွဲ၍ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲဥပဒေ၊ နည်းဥပဒေများအရ ဖြေရှင်းဆောင်ရွက်ရန် ပြဋ္ဌာန်းထားသည်ကို လျစ်လျူရှုလျက် ၂၀၀၈ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေကို ကျော်လွန်ပြီး နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အာဏာကို ပြည်သူက ရွေးချယ်တင်မြှောက်ထားသည့် အစိုးရထံမှ အတင်းအဓမ္မ သိမ်းယူခဲ့သည်။
၄။ ၂၀၂၀ ပြည့်နှစ်၊ အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲရလဒ်အား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ဖျက်သိမ်း ကြောင်း ကြေညာခဲ့ခြင်းသည် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဆန္ဒသဘောထားနှင့် မျှော်လင့်ချက်ကို လက်နက် အားကိုးဖြင့် ဖျက်ဆီးခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး ပြည်သူလူထုက အကြမ်းမဖက် အာဏာဖီဆန်မှုအပါအဝင် နည်းလမ်း မျိုးစုံဖြင့် မိမိတို့၏ နိုင်ငံသား အခွင့်အရေးမဆုံးရှုံးစေရန် ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန်ခဲ့သည်။
၅။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန္ဒဖော်ထုတ်ခဲ့သည့် ပြည်သူလူထုအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်များက အင်အားသုံး အကြမ်းဖက်ဖြိုခွင်းခြင်း၊ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်း၊ သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ပြည်သူ့အိုးအိမ် စည်းစိမ်များအား ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း၊ မတရားသိမ်းဆည်းလုယူခြင်း စသည့် အကြမ်းဖက်နည်းလမ်းများဖြင့် ဖိနှိပ်ခဲ့ခြင်းကြောင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရေး အခင်းအကျင်းသည် တော်လှန်ရေးအသွင် ပြောင်းလဲလာခဲ့သည်။
၆။ ပြည်သူလူထုက အပ်နှင်းထားသည့် အခွင့်အာဏာကို ကျင့်သုံးလျက် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော် ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ (CRPH) ကို ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ပြီး ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကို တာဝန်ခံလျက် ဥပဒေပြု ကိစ္စရပ်များကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာလွှတ်တော်အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် ဆက်ဆံရေးထူထောင် ချိတ်ဆက်ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း၊ ၂၀၀၈ ခုနှစ် ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေကို ဖျက်သိမ်းခြင်း၊ အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေး အတိုင်ပင်ခံကောင်စီကရေးဆွဲသည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပဋိညာဉ်ကို အတည်ပြုထုတ်ပြန်၍ ကြားကာလ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ(NUG) ဖွဲ့စည်းခြင်းတို့ကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခဲ့သည်။
၇။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ ဒီမိုကရေစီပြန်လည်ရရှိရေး ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်ရာတွင် ပါဝင်သည့် မျိုးဆက်သစ် လူငယ်များ၊ အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်မှု (CDM) လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွင် ပါဝင်သည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ပြည်သူ များ၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားလက်နက်ကိုင် တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများ၊ နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများ၊ သပိတ် အင်အားစု များ၊ လူမှုအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဘဝလုံခြုံရေးကို အကာအကွယ်ပေးသည့် အင်အားစုများ နှင့် ခက်ခဲကြမ်းတမ်းသည့် ယခုကဲ့သို့ အချိန်ကာလတွင် မိမိတို့နှင့်အတူ ရပ်တည် ကူညီပေးကြသော နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက်အဝန်းမှ အစိုးရများ၊ လွှတ်တော်များ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများကို တန်ဖိုးထားလေးစားစွာ ဖြင့် ဂုဏ်ပြုမှတ်တမ်းတင်အပ်ပါသည်။
၈။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ စစ်အာဏာရှင် အမြစ်ပြတ်ချုပ်ငြိမ်းရေးနှင့် အနာဂတ် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ နိုင်ငံတော်သစ် တည်ထောင်နိုင်ရေးအတွက် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်နေသော အင်အားစုအားလုံးနှင့် လက်တွဲ ပြီး နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အာဏာကို မူလပိုင်ရှင်ဖြစ်သည့် ပြည်သူလူထုထံ ပြန်လည်ရောက်ရှိရေးကို မမှိတ်မသုံ ဆက်လက်ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ယနေ့ကျရောက်သော ရွေးကောက်ပွဲတစ်နှစ်ပြည့်မြောက် သည့်နေ့တွင် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ(CRPH) အနေဖြင့် သဘောထားထုတ်ပြန် အပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-08
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Type:
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Category:
Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, National Unity Government (NUG)
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Justice For Myanmar reports that Mytel suffered major financial losses in the three months after the military coup due to a boycott campaign
Description:
"Telecommunications provider Mytel lost nearly US$25m in profits and millions of customers in the three months that followed the February 1 coup, activist group Justice for Myanmar (JFM) announced on Friday.
The losses were due to boycotts by both users and shops due to the company’s ties to the junta; Mytel is jointly owned by the Myanmar military and Viettel, under Vietnam’s defence ministry.
Boycotts launched after the coup by the public called for Mytel sim cards to be destroyed, a refusal to accept calls from those using Mytel mobile numbers, and a blacklisting of Mytel products by shops. Signboards and banners advertising Mytel were also removed and destroyed.
The company lost staff to mass resignations, too, according to JFM. Mytel’s sales representatives dropped by around 30 percent in six months from more than 54,400 in January to around 38,190 in July.
Citing leaked data, JFM said that some 80 percent of Mytel’s sales came from private mobile phone shops nationwide.
A mobile phone shop owner from Mawlamyaine in Mon State told Myanmar Now that they destroyed 700,000 kyat (nearly $390) worth of Mytel top-up cards and sim cards in the days immediately after the coup.
“We never used Mytel but we had to sell their products because we’re a phone shop,” the shop owner said. “We’re not going to sell them again. We don’t even accept phone calls from Mytel numbers.”
The owner said that some wholesale shops have continued to offer Mytel products, since the company has offered incentives—such as new phones, power banks, and even a new Hyundai car—if they meet certain sales benchmarks.
“Turning down their offers would mean great losses for the wholesale businesses. Therefore, I’m sure they won’t be boycotting them. Several retail stores are part of the movement, though,” he explained.
He said he hoped that other shops and users would participate in the boycott campaign.
“We can’t only think about our own interests at a time like this. The whole country is in peril and we can’t give them the money they will use to buy ammunition,” he said. “I am going to boycott them no matter how hard it gets for us or no matter what incentives they offer us.”
“I want everyone else to boycott them, too,” he added.
Another staff member from a Mytel shop in Mon State said that while users have widely stopped using the provider’s services in other states and regions, sales in Mon State had actually gone up around 30 percent since the coup.
He attributed this to the reliability of Mytel’s signal in rural areas where other operators, such as MPT, Ooredoo and Telenor, offer less stable connections.
Mytel has also been offering internet data packages and top-ups at half-price during the boycott campaign, the staff member added.
He estimated that use of Mytel’s wifi doubled in Mon State when the military council cut off mobile internet services on March 15, amid a crackdown on anti-coup protests.
“Mytel likely gained subscribers by selectively implementing the military’s own shutdown orders, maintaining internet access for users when other subscribers were in the dark,” JFM wrote, adding, “Mytel has deployed costly and illegal strategies that undercut the market, breach telecommunications regulations and hurt their own staff.”
JFM’s analysis of the Myanmar Investment Commission reveals that the junta is expected to earn more than $700m from Mytel over the next decade, according to the whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Mytel is 49 percent owned by Viettel, with the remaining shares owned by Star High—28 percent—under the junta-run Myanmar Economic Corporation, and 23 percent by Myanmar National Telecom Holding.
The company had not responded to JFM’s statement at the time of reporting.
Mytel telecoms towers have been targeted for attack nationwide by anti-junta resistance forces in recent months, using bombs and makeshift explosive devices at the sites. The military responded by laying landmines around towers, engineers on strike in accordance with the Civil Disobedience Movement told Myanmar Now.
Former military officer and Mytel executive Thein Aung was shot dead near his Yangon home on Thursday morning, in what some speculated was an inside job. Myanmar Now was unable to verify those claims..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-07
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"ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
အမျိုးသမီး၊ လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်ရေးရာဝန်ကြီးဌာန
အမိန့်အမှတ်(၁၀/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၇)ရက်
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ အမျိုးသမီး၊ လူငယ်နှင့် ကလေးသူငယ်ရေးရာဝန်ကြီးဌာနအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသော နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းကောင်း လူမှုဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ လူမှုဖူလုံရေး၊ ဘေးကင်းလုံခြုံရေးနှင့် ဖိအားကင်းစင်ရေးအတွက် အထူး(အထူး)အလေးထားဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၂။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ တရားမဝင်အာဏာလုစစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ယန္တရားတွင် ဆက်လက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်ကာ နိုင်ငံတော်ပုန်ကန်မှုကို အားပေးထောက်ပံ့ပြီး (CDM) လူမှုဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဖိအားပေးခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းနှင့် ဖိနှိပ်မှုအမျိုးမျိုးကို ယနေ့အထိ ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိသည့် ပြည်သူ့ဝန်ထမ်းကျင့်ဝတ်နှင့် မလျော်ညီသော လူမှုဝန်ထမ်းဦးစီးဌာနမှ အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အရာရှိများအား ယနေ့ (၇.၁၁.၂၀၂၁) ရက်နေ့မှစ၍ အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း (Black List) သွင်းလိုက်ပြီး ထာဝရ နိုင်ငံ့တာဝန် ထမ်းရွက်ခွင့် ပိတ်ပင်ကာ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ် (Dismiss) ကြောင်း အမိန့်ချမှတ်လိုက်သည် -..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-07
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"Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government will start selling bonds this month to fund the revolutionary movement against the junta. It is a first for shadow administrations from Myanmar opposing military rule since the 1962 coup.
A large majority of Myanmar’s population rejects military rule and the junta faces opposition in various forms, including flash-mob protests, armed resistance, cyberattacks and advocacy.
The NUG, which was largely formed by the National League for Democracy and representatives of ethnic minorities and anti-regime protest groups in April, said the bond sales will offer no interest.
Anti-regime movements have been largely supported by donations since the February coup, although the NUG officially introduced voluntary taxation in August.
Excluding military spending, the NUG is hoping to raise at least US$800 million (1.4 trillion kyats) for social and humanitarian support, including health care, education, social care and funding for military personnel and police officers who defect.
The alternative government is offering three ways to contribute: lottery ticket sales, bonds and voluntary tax.
The NUG is urgently seeking to fund health care, education, and humanitarian assistance, U Tin Tun Naing, the NUG’s minister for planning, finance and investment, told an online press conference on Thursday.
He said he hopes citizens at home and abroad will help as the majority of people desperately want the dictatorship to fall.
U Tin Tun Naing said the move to sell bonds by a “revolutionary government” against a dictatorship is unique in history.
The bonds are valued at $100, $500, $1,000 and $5,000.
It aims to raise $1 billion from the two-year bonds, which do not offer interest.
“We sell bonds to help our revolution prevail. People have shown their willingness to buy bonds for the revolution to succeed, not for the interest,” he said.
U Tin Tun Naing added that businesses can safely buy bonds with each investor given a secret ID to hide their identity for security reasons.
In August, the NUG introduced a pilot project selling “Spring Lottery” tickets online to support civil servants in the civil disobedience movement (CDM). More than 200,000 ticket orders were made but many of the payments were cancelled and the actual sales only managed to support around 5,800 striking staff.
Almost 410,000 civil servants have joined the anti-regime movement, refusing to work under the junta, according to the NUG.
Increasing numbers of civil servants, military personnel and police are joining the CDM with some 800 military personnel and police defecting in September and October, according to the NUG.
On Friday, the NUG began the commercial launch of its lottery and aims to secure 20 billion kyats ($11 million) to support around 200,000 CDM staff, who have been deemed most in need.
Last month, the NUG invited taxpayers, including businesses at home and abroad, to voluntarily pay tax online through a self-assessment process, after the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Union Parliament) approved the Union Taxation Law in September.
In a month, the NUG said it collected more than $150,000 in tax.
U Tin Tun Naing said the tax payments prove businesses and individuals have joined the anti-regime movement..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-05
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၉/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၄) ရက်
ရာထူးမှ ထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Health, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-05
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"ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၇/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၄) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီမှ မတရားရယူခဲ့ပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်အလုပ်အကျွေးမပြုဘဲ တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် ပြည်သူတို့၏အကျိုးကို ရှေးရှု၍ မတရားသော အမိန့်အာဏာအားဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်ကြရန် အကြိမ်ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ်ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ဆက်သွယ်ရေး၊ သတင်းအချက်အလက် နှင့် နည်းပညာဝန်ကြီးဌာန ၏လက်အောက်ရှိ မတရားသောအမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး CDM လှုပ်ရှားမှု၌ ပါဝင်လျက်ရှိသည့် ပြည်သူ့၀န်ထမ်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ် ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်လျက်ရှိသော Non-CDM ၀န်ထမ်းအချို့မှ ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်း၊ ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်း များပြုလုပ်နေသည်ကို နေ့စဥ် တွေ့မြင်နေရပါသည်။
၃။ ယင်းကဲ့သို့ CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအပေါ်၌ မတရားသဖြင့်ဖိအားပေးခြင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံနှင့်ပြည်သူကို သစ္စာဖောက်ကာ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအတွက် ထိရောက်သော အခန်းကဏ္ဍမှ ကျိုးနွံစွာ အလုပ်ကျွေးပြုနေသည့် ပြည်နယ်/တိုင်း ဒေသကြီး၊ ခရိုင်တာဝန်ခံအရာထမ်းဝန်ထမ်းများ အားလုံးနှင့် အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်ခံများအား နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ (၄၁) အရ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ်(dismiss) ပြီး ယင်းတို့သည်နိုင်ငံ့သစ္စာဖောက်များဖြစ်ကြောင်း အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-04
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Sub-title:
A local guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for the killing and said it also destroyed five junta-owned phone towers
Description:
"Soldiers burned down the home of an anti-coup activist and arrested the mother of a protest leader in Tanintharyi on Monday after local guerrillas shot and killed a police officer.
Military units arrived in Pyinhtein village, Launglon Township shortly after officer Nay Myo Aung was gunned down on the nearby Launglon-Sitpye road.
The soldiers raided the home of Min Lwin Oo, 31, who is part of the anti-junta Dawei District Strike Committee. When they were unable to find him they took his 56-year-old mother, Cho Than, instead.
“It’s just absurd that my mother was taken for my involvement in the revolution,” Min Lwin Oo told Myanmar Now.
“There’s no law stating that they can do such a thing,” he added. “I should be the one paying for my actions, not my mother. She didn't even talk with anyone in the neighbourhood. She was always just busy with housework.”
He added that he would not surrender to the junta despite his mother being taken hostage.
“My mother’s a fearless woman, she would have already expected this. I even told her to stay elsewhere but she didn’t. She just said that she would face them bravely if she got arrested.”
Soldiers also ransacked the neighbouring village of Sitpyea the same day. They stormed the home of 21-year-old Wai Yan Soe, another Dawei District Strike Committee member, and when they couldn’t find him they burned the house down.
The military also broke furniture and stole his belongings during the raid on his house, Wai Yan Soe told Myanmar Now.
Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun did not answer calls seeking comment.
Soldiers arrested a 14-year-old girl and four women working as Covid-19 control volunteers in Sitpyea in late August following an anti-coup street protest the same day. Those arrested were not involved in the protest, locals said.
The Dawei District Strike Committee has used flash mob tactics to keep street protests alive in the area amid deadly crackdowns by the junta. Meanwhile other local groups have engaged in armed resistance.
A group called the Nway Oo Guerilla Force claimed responsibility for the assassination of the police officer on Monday and said it has also destroyed five junta-owned Mytel communication towers.
Junta forces have repeatedly targeted the family members of protesters since the February 1 coup with arrests and violence, which serve both as an attempt to coerce activists into handing themselves in and as a means to punish them.
Late last month soldiers viciously beat a five-year-old girl and a 70-year-old woman in a village in Magway Region because, locals believe, they are distantly related to a local protest leader..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-03
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders
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"ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၅/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၂) ရက်
အမည်ပျက်စာရင်းကြေညာခြင်း
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်၊ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ မတရားရယူခဲ့ပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းများအနေဖြင့် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက်အလုပ်အကျွေးမပြုဘဲ တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် ပြည်သူတို့၏အကျိုးကို ရှေးရှု၍ မတရားသော အမိန့်အာဏာအားဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်ကြရန် အကြိမ်ကြိမ်ဖိတ်ခေါ်ကမ်းလှမ်းခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၂။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ဆက်သွယ်ရေး၊ သတင်းအချက်အလက် နှင့် နည်းပညာဝန်ကြီးဌာန ၏လက်အောက်ရှိ မတရားသောအမိန့်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး CDM လှုပ်ရှားမှု၌ ပါဝင်လျက်ရှိသည့် ပြည်သူ့၀န်ထမ်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်တွင် ဆက်လက် တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်လျက်ရှိသော Non-CDM ၀န်ထမ်းအချို့မှ ဖိအားပေးခြင်း၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ခြင်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်း၊ ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ပြန်ဆပ်ရန်မလိုတော့သည့် လစာချေးငွေများအား အတင်းအဓမ္မ ပြန်လည်ပေးဆပ်ခိုင်းခြင်း များပြုလုပ်နေသည်ကို နေ့စဥ် တွေ့မြင်နေရပါသည်။
၃။ ယင်းကဲ့သို့ CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအပေါ်၌ မတရားသဖြင့်ဖိအားပေးခြင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံနှင့်ပြည်သူကို သစ္စာဖောက်ကာ စစ်ကောင်စီအတွက် ထိရောက်သော အခန်းကဏ္ဍမှ ကျိုးနွံစွာ အလုပ်ကျွေးပြုနေသည့် အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီလက်အောက်ခံများအား နိုင်ငံ့ဝန်ထမ်းဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ (၄၁) အရ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပယ်(dismiss) ပြီး ယင်းတို့သည်နိုင်ငံ့သစ္စာဖောက်များဖြစ်ကြောင်း အမည်ပျက်စာရင်း ကြေညာ လိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-02
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"Myanmar’s junta atrocities are continuing with the murder of more than 10 civilians, including a Buddhist monk and National League for Democracy (NLD) supporters, over the past five days.
Regime forces have looted houses, destroyed property, bombarded civilians with artillery, burned down homes and arbitrarily killed civilians during operations against civilian resistance forces, especially in Magwe and Sagaing regions and Chin, Shan and Kayah states.
By Saturday, 1,222 people had been killed by junta forces since the February coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which records deaths and arrests.
Last Thursday, the bodies of two NLD supporters, U San Lwin, 60, and U Kyaw Htay Aung, 50, were reportedly dumped by junta forces near the NLD office in Chanayethazan Township, Mandalay.
A photo was released of two bloody bodies lying beside a road in Mandalay.
The two victims were arrested with another NLD supporter, U Moe Gyi, 50, on Wednesday night, according to the AAPP.
The police retrieved the bodies and then reportedly asked family members to retrieve the corpses, according to the media.
Many torture injuries, including knife wounds, were found on the bodies, according to the AAPP.
A 25-year-old NLD member Ko Min Min Thu, also known as Mohammad Har Ni, from East Mawtone village in Tanintharyi Region, on Wednesday was tortured to death two days after being detained. He was seized at his home by regime forces last Monday.
On Thursday night, regime forces detained a married couple, U Myo Lwin and Daw San San Lwin, after failing to find their son who has been accused of being a People’s Defense Force (PDF) member.
U Myo Lwin was reportedly tortured to death during interrogation after the couple were accused of supplying the PDF, according to the media.
The AAPP said a Buddhist monk, U Kuthala, an assistant head of the monastery in Yinshae village, Yegyi Township in Ayeyarwady Region, was shot dead by regime forces last Tuesday while returning from shopping in Ngathaingchaung near Yegyi.
A novice monk was also injured in his ear during the junta shooting, the AAPP said.
On Thursday, former political prisoner Ko Kyaw Naing Tun, who was released from prison in Magwe Region in mid-October, was reportedly tortured to death by the regime after being detained again on Wednesday.
Another three civilians were shot dead by junta forces during raids on villages in Myaung, Budalin, and Khin-U townships in Sagaing Region on Sunday and Monday.
One or two displaced villagers were shot dead by the regime forces while returning home to fetch food at a village in Demoso Township, Shan State, on Sunday.
The Demoso PDF said junta forces burned down houses and randomly attacked villages and residential areas of Demoso on Sunday and Monday.
Troops burned harvested rice in Demoso on Saturday while advancing on neighboring Pekon Township in Shan State, the PDF said.
On Friday, troops bombarded the mountaintop town of Thantlang in Chin State. More than 160 houses, including two churches, burned down in junta artillery fire.
Except for Rakhine State, regime forces nationwide are facing increasingly intense attacks by civilian resistance forces and ethnic armed forces..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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"လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ ဖွဲ့စည်းကြောင်းကြေညာခြင်း
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၈ /၂၀၂၁)
၃၀ ရက်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ပြည်ထဲရေးနှင့် လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁) ရက်နေ့မှစ၍ နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာကို အဓမ္မနည်းဖြင့် ရယူသိမ်းပိုက်ခဲ့သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအား အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (Civil Disobedience Movement - CDM) ဖြင့် ပါဝင်လှုပ်ရှားနေကြသည့် CDM လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေး ဦးစီးဌာန ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ညှိနှိုင်းတိုင်ပင်ပြီးသည့်နောက် CDM လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ဝန်ထမ်းမိသားစုများ၏ ကြုံတွေ့နေရသော အခက်အခဲများအားကူညီဖြေရှင်းဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်ရန် နှင့် ပြည်သူလူထုဗဟိုပြုလုပ်ငန်းများအကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက်ရာတွင် စနစ်တကျ စုဖွဲ့ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ရန် တို့အတွက် “လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများကိုယ်စားပြု ကော်မတီ” အားဖွဲ့စည်းလိုက်သည်။
ပုံ
လွင်ကိုလတ်
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး
ပြည်ထဲရေးနှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ.."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-31
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Before he became the leader of the Zero Guerrilla Force, Thet Naing Aung was putting his life on the line in other ways
Description:
"Most of Myanmar’s resistance fighters prefer to keep a low profile on social media; but one, a 47-year-old man from Myingyan, in Mandalay Region, is more than happy to show his face to those who would just as happily see him dead.
“I’m not afraid of them,” says Thet Naing Aung, a sturdily-built man with a greying beard and a determined look. “I’ve been fighting them since before I had a weapon. Now that I have weapons in my hands, I have nothing to fear at all.”
Thet Naing Aung—or Thet Gyi, as he is usually called by those who know him—is the leader of the Zero Guerrilla Force, one of many armed resistance groups that have emerged around the country in the months since the military seized power.
Like most other groups of its kind, the Zero Guerrilla Force is a largely anonymous outfit—a small army of faceless fighters who ambush troops, carry out hits on regime collaborators, and sabotage telecoms towers.
But as leader of the group, Thet Gyi stands out. On his Facebook page, for instance, he can be seen posing in front of an array of rifles as his juniors pay their respects to him at the start of this year’s annual Thadingyut festival.
While another photo shows him in an even more militant light—holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, ready to fire—he was not always so keen on displays of firepower.
The turning point came on March 3, when a young protester named Zin Ko Zaw was shot in the head in the same ward that Thet Gyi lived in in Myingyan. It was then that he decided he had to join the fight against a murderous regime.
But what truly radicalized him, he said, was witnessing firsthand the carnage that the junta would continue to inflict on innocent civilians over the ensuing weeks.
Before he actually joined the armed resistance movement, he spent his days trying to deal with the horrific situation unfolding around him, and around the country, as the junta unleashed hell on unarmed protesters.
He did this by risking his own life to recover the bodies of those murdered by the regime. He also formed a funeral committee and raised funds for the families of fallen youths.
In all, he pulled 22 bodies out the junta’s killing fields.
“I carried their bodies myself, cleaned them, and buried them. The more people I buried, the more my hatred for the military grew,” he said.
From volunteer to ‘terrorist’
Thet Gyi had a reputation for helping others in need long before the coup. According to one local volunteer, he regularly assisted Myingyan’s social welfare association with its Covid-19 relief efforts.
“He helped out at first as an external volunteer during the pandemic, but later joined the group as a member,” said the volunteer, who asked to remain anonymous.
But it was after the crackdowns began that Thet Gyi really started to be noticed in his community. In his neighbourhood, he was famous for showing up while the bullets were still flying to rescue bodies from the clutches of their killers.
“Whenever the military opened fire, he would arrive on the scene and just start collecting bodies while everyone else was running around in a panic,” said a local politician who also did not want to be identified.
There was little in Thet Gyi’s past to suggest that he would one day take the path of an armed insurgent.
After graduating from the Meiktila Technological Institute in 1997, he went into several different lines of work, from sculpting to recycling old vehicles and renting out cranes.
Politics held little appeal for him, but he always had an interest in finding practical ways to make a difference in people’s lives. By the time Covid-19 hit, he had amassed enough money to feel that he could afford to dedicate himself to charity work.
When the coup happened a year later, he was ready to play a different role, although it wasn’t immediately clear what that would be. It was only after finding himself drenched in the blood of young activists that he decided that combat was his true calling.
After a period of training in an area under the control of an armed group, he returned to his hometown to found the Zero Guerrilla Force. Active since April 18, it was among the first resistance groups formed in the wake of the coup.
Armed at first with handmade hunting guns, the group later acquired rifles and started using makeshift mortars in clashes with regime forces. Labelled a terrorist group by Myanmar’s junta, the Zero Guerrilla Force has killed at least 40 soldiers, including six army officers, according to Thet Gyi.
Its main targets, however, have been military informants and other junta collaborators. It has also destroyed a number of communications towers used by Mytel, a telecoms company partly owned by the military.
Nothing left to lose
So far, the deadliest mission carried out by Thet Gyi’s band of guerrillas has been an ambush on a military outpost in Mandalay Region’s Natogyi Township that left 11 soldiers dead and three others wounded on October 15.
Even before this incident, however, Thet Gyi had already been identified and targeted by the regime. In late September, a building he owned in Myingyan’s Sunlun ward was raided and all of his most prized possessions were confiscated.
“They couldn’t find me, much less capture me, so they took my belongings to deprive me of a livelihood,” he said.
The junta took everything he owned—from pots and pans to priceless antiques (including a vintage silver cup used by the great stage actor Shwe Man Tin Maung for his makeup and a sword that once belonged to a Shan prince).
Thet Gyi said he couldn’t begin to put a price on all the things he has lost because of his involvement in the armed resistance movement. (And as petty thieves, the regime’s forces certainly would have no idea of their value, he added.)
Now that he has nothing left to lose, Thet Gyi feels even closer to those who look to him for leadership.
“All of my comrades have been blessed by a monk. We’re not afraid to die in battle. Our group has exceptional unity. We’ve had no problem whatsoever to this day,” he said.
But even as he contemplates his own death, he dreams of a more peaceful future—of a time when weapons will no longer be needed. When that day comes, he says, he won’t hesitate to hand over all the arms he now has at his disposal and start a new life under a legitimate government.
Part of that life, he says, will be creating a new social welfare organization of his own. And he can think of no better name for it than one that has come to mean everything to him: Zero..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-31
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Type:
Individual Documents
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Description:
"On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar armed forces (known as the Tatmadaw) seized control of the country, following a general election that the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military-run State Administrative Council (SAC) has targeted doctors and other health workers for taking a leading role in the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).
Doctors and nurses have been served with warrants and arrested, health workers have been injured while providing care to protestors, ambulances have been destroyed, and health facilities have been raided. Now, nine months into the coup, the emergency in Myanmar has evolved into a protracted crisis; the violence against health care workers continues as part of the military’s offensive against anti-coup movements, and civilians’ access to health care is becoming increasingly compromised.
This document is the result of collaboration between Insecurity Insight, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights as part of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC).
It discusses reported incidents of violence against health workers, facilities, and transport in Myanmar between February 1 and September 30, 2021 to highlight the impact on the health system as a whole. It further includes personal testimonies by nurses on how the conflict is impacting them and analysis on the security situation for aid organizations working there. It does not include information on violence against patients.
The incidents referred to are based on the dataset 01 February - 30 September 2021 Violence Against Health Care in Myanmar Data, which is available on the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)..."
Source/publisher:
Insecurity Insight via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Public Health
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"အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၃၇ /၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ (၂၇) ရက်
ဆရာ၊ ဆရာမ၊ ဝန်ထမ်းများကို ဖိနှိပ်ခြိမ်းခြောက်လျက်ရှိသော
Non-CDMဝန်ထမ်းများ နှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ကြေညာချက်..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), Anti-coup protesters, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"As the military takeover in Myanmar enters its ninth month of oppression and threat, university teachers committed to the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) are facing more difficulties and challenges. Most of the university teachers chose this vocation for its stability and prestige. However, Myanmar’s coup is making university teachers’ lives unthinkably difficult. Therefore, this article, based on open-ended survey research with university teachers participating in CDM,[1] will explore the pathways that university teachers are using to overthrow the military regime and the challenges they have faced since the military coup.
This article is structured around Matthew Mullen’s argument that democratic change in Myanmar developed around three pathways: contentious politics; everyday resistance; and reconstructive politics. I use Mullen’s ‘pathways’ as a theoretical framework to explore how university teachers participate in the revolution against military dictatorship. The first pathway (contentious politics) entails people organizing and publicly challenging political targets. The second pathway (everyday resistance) describes how people in a personal capacity are engaging in subtle behaviors on a daily basis to subvert military rule. The third pathway (reconstructive politics) describes how people try to change the situation around them by creating new opportunities. I argue that through these three pathways Myanmar’s university teachers undermine the junta’s plan to use education as a site of normalizing military rule.
Contentious politics: university teachers and the CDM
After the coup on 1st February 2021, thousands of university teachers and school teachers, doctors and nurses across Myanmar joined the CDM. Soon after the military coup, some CDM teachers and students in various universities (including Dagon University, Mandalay University, Yadanarbon University, Technological Universities, Yangon University of Education, among others) staged a rally called the “Red Ribbon Campaign” in front of their respective universities, where they displayed the three-finger salute popularized by Thailand’s protesters. University teachers also joined in street protests by wearing teachers’ uniforms until the end of February and early March. The military targeted these university teachers in their crackdowns.
Although university teachers cannot participate in strikes and demonstrations any longer because of arrests by the military, many are still participating in the CDM. When asked about why she participated in the CDM, an associate professor at Mandalay University said “I participate in the CDM to reject military coup and get truth and justice by means of the CDM.” A tutor at Mandalay University said “I joined the CDM in order to end military rule, to show our disobedience against any forms of the junta and to reflect what we [university teachers] can do for our future generations.”
In early May, the state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar announced that the Education Ministry would reopen 134 universities on 6 May, demanding that teachers arrive on campuses on 3 May to prepare for teaching. Owing to fears about how the military would treat dissenting educators, some university teachers ended their commitment to the CDM when universities reopened.
“Some university teachers have already withdrawn from the CDM and come to class because of the threats made by the military” said a lecturer. Another lecturer said “I have withdrawn from the CDM to protect my family.” Many university teachers are returning to their respective universities, worried that they could lose their job and with it the income that their families rely on. Other CDM teachers think that those who suspended their involvement in the CDM lack the commitment necessary to end military rule.
On 6 May when universities reopened, university teachers who were still actively participating in the CDM had their jobs suspended by the military. Some university teachers that were suspended eventually returned to work, where they had to sign a pledge not to take part in the CDM. People in Myanmar are reluctant to speak up because they are living under the surveillance of military intelligence personnel and informers. Those who act against the military risk torture, long-term imprisonment and being treated as outcasts for life. To protect themselves and their families, Myanmar people participate in creating the silence that constrains many aspects of their lives.
On 21 May, the military issued removal letters for CDM teachers. However, many university teaching staff did not return to work despite various challenges and difficulties. In the words of an assistant professor at Mandalay University, CDM teachers believe that “CDM is very effective for overthrowing military dictatorship because until now governmental control or governance is not functioning all over the country”. Moreover, a tutor at Mandalay University added, “to some extent, it’s effective in overthrowing the military dictatorship. Even now, most of the students and teachers are not following the military’s rules to attend the classes. That’s absolutely what makes the junta look foolish.” Another tutor at Mandalay University answered “CDM is one of the most effective tools to overthrow the military regime, especially in challenging the military regime’s legitimacy.” Thus, many university teachers firmly determined that they will do CDM to the end.
Everyday resistance: other ways that university teachers challenge the junta
In addition to the CDM, university teachers are also using other ways which can overthrow the military regime. For instance, they refuse to pay taxes, boycott military products, and participate on social media. An associate professor at the Yangon University of Distance Education said “besides the CDM, I support the CDMers as much as I can by collecting the information and help them join the organizations they need”. A lecturer at Mandalay University answered “to reject the dictator, I don’t pay the municipal tax, don’t use the military products and don’t give back the government loan, etc.” A tutor at Mandalay University added “I act as a keyboard warrior on social media and also support the CDMers and the People Defense Force (PDF) as much as I can.” Another lecturer at Mandalay University said “I don’t pay electricity fee, I disobey the junta’s orders, and I share posts on social media to shame the military regime.” Thus, CDM university teachers also challenge the junta by using subtle tactics that subvert the junta.
Reconstructive politics: engaging in federal education with the NUG
Some university teachers are also participating in online educational activities with the National University Government (NUG). The NUG is working on plans to build a parallel education system for students who do not want to study at junta-controlled universities, in order to prevent the coup regime from governing and building legitimacy. Ja Htoi Pan, the Deputy Education Minister under the NUG, said “the NUG will first focus on an interim education plan for final year university students and Master’s students.”
Since then, universities have formed the University Interim Council, with student representatives and teacher representatives, to implement the NUG’s education plans. An associate professor at Yangon University of Distance Education said, “I am preparing for online education and collecting the information of the CDMers to join with the NUG.” A lecturer at Mandalay University answered, “now I am trying to build capacity by attending online classes under the support of the NUG.” Thus, CDM university teachers are engaging in parallel education with the NUG to create new federal educational opportunities for students. This demonstrates reconstructive politics, or the creation of new opportunities as a form of resistance.
Challenges faced by university teachers since the military coup
Since the military coup, university teachers who committed to the CDM faced various challenges and difficulties. At least 90% of students and teachers joined the CDM before university reopened and many have been forced by the military to return to universities. State-run newspapers and television report that around 20 people a day were issued arrest warrants, including education staff who participated in the CDM throughout April. Teachers from various townships taking part in protests against the coup have been charged under section 505 (a) of the criminal code, which makes it a crime to circulate any statement, rumor or report which could cause any military person to fail to carry out his duties. Hundreds of rectors, lecturers and teachers have been charged under 505 (a) and could be imprisoned for a maximum of three years if found guilty. At least a hundred educators have been detained. Door-to-door searches have forced many teachers and civil servants to go into hiding.
On the other hand, on April 26th, the NUG announced that they would blacklist 32 educators who had threatened or coerced CDM participants. The NUG also released the following statement: “Non-CDMers are betraying the country and they will be removed when the people’s government takes back power”. Some NUG supporters also posted on social media the names and pictures of non-CDM university teachers and added harsh comments in the name of social punishment.
Under this difficult situation for university teachers, there are growing concerns about the future, as university teachers play a vital role not only in providing high quality education but also in developing the human resources of the nation. University teachers described their difficulties and challenges of participating in the CDM as follows. A lecturer at Mandalay University said “I can’t live in one stable place as I am worried about arrest and persecution by the military as well as the lack of income and living difficulty. But I overcome these difficulties through my willingness to win the revolution. Therefore, I am firmly determined not to return to work.” An associate professor at Mandalay University answered, “there are many challenges that I faced in participating in the CDM such as insecurity, fear of arrest, and removal order.” Moreover, she added that “temporary dismissal and removal order are challenges that I face because university teacher is my vocation. But this is the end of the military coup in our generation and so I decided to participate in the CDM to the end despite challenges.”
Despite the determination of these educators, it is important to understand the serious challenges university teachers face, including threats to their safety and livelihoods. A tutor at Mandalay University reported “I face three main challenges by participating in the CDM. The first challenge is living difficulty as I do not receive my regular salary and it makes our living difficult sometimes. The second challenge is safety – we have to stay in a safer place due to arbitrary detention of CDM teachers. The final third challenge is that of emotional attacks because even though we participate in CDM, sometimes, most people near us don’t support the CDM and even discourage us. We don’t ask for much help from our neighbors but just for some words of support like ‘we will win one day, stay strong!’” She also added that “I feel depressed sometimes as there is no work or income but I feel proud to stand against injustice and I continue my life with the perception that I did what I should do for the public.” Thus, offering moral support is also vital for CDM teachers.
There have also been complications regarding the loans that university teachers have received. A lecturer at Mandalay University reported “while the National League for Democracy (NLD) government was still in power, the NLD government gave loans that were equal to two months of salary for university teachers. The NUG said that university teachers do not need to give back loan. But the military dictatorship said that they will prosecute CDM teachers who don’t repay the loans. That threatens all CDMers.” Moreover, university teachers who are participating in educational activities with the NUG described that they have internet and communication difficulties and also fear for personal security.
Overall, the main issue for CDM teachers is security. They face fear of arrest and threat by 505 (a) and thus many are living in hiding. The loss of a regular salary and a job they loved creates many difficulties for CDM teachers. Although CDM teachers sometimes feel depressed because of discouragement by neighbors and no income, they overcome these difficulties with a strong willingness to win the revolution.
Support for university teachers participating in the CDM
There are many local, regional, and national support groups like universities’ CDM support teams and the CRPH-CDM support team which are trying to provide financially for the CDMers. University teachers hold a variety of opinions about the financial support they have received while participating in the CDM. A lecturer at Mandalay University answered “I am satisfied with the supporting groups as they support as much as they can even though there are many difficulties. For instance, the military tries to disturb and block the supporting groups.” An associate professor at Mandalay University said, “I didn’t join the CDM with the expectation that I would be as well supported as we have been, so I am satisfied with how much support people have given us.” Although there are support groups which are trying to provide for the CDMers, there are still some teachers falling through the gaps. A tutor at Mandalay University responded, “I am not satisfied with support as teachers in rural areas do not have enough financial support from the support groups. Even if some CDMers receive support, it is not enough for their living costs.”
There seems to be a big difference between the CDMers who are well off economically and those who are not. Although the loss of regular salary may not be as big of a problem for the CDMers who can rely on savings and support from their families, the CDMers who lack this security face more challenges due to loss of their regular salary. It is also difficult for the CDMers to find another job. Knowing that the CDMers will eventually return to their old jobs makes employers reluctant to hire CDMers over other candidates looking for permanent positions.
As there is no regular income during this period, university teachers are trying to survive with the help of their family, or by living off savings or making more through irregular self-employment, like starting online shops. A lecturer at Mandalay University said “as I am single, my parents support me. For another job, as I got traditional medicine diploma certificate in 2001, I am trying to produce a medicine product to sell.” A tutor at Mandalay University answered “I try to survive by living with money I saved throughout the year and I have the plan to start working a new job but at the present I can’t do anything due to COVID-19 pandemic and political instability.” A lecturer at Yadanarbon University said, “I am running online shops and also my parents are able to support me.” It was found that although CDMers are facing difficulties, they never regretted their choice: they made up their mind to commit to CDM to the end.
University teachers also recommended various ways to overthrow the military regime, encompassing international action, donations to the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), and the involvement of the ethnic armed organisations. They all stress unity for the cause. A tutor at Mandalay University suggested “international forces are crucial to overthrow the dictatorship. Also, the international actors should discuss Myanmar affairs and take action.” Another tutor at Mandalay University described “donating to the CDM and PDF and persuading military officers and police officers to cooperate in the CDM should be continued to overthrow the military dictatorship.” A lecturer at Mandalay University said “now under the NUG government, Generation Z are trying to fight against military dictatorship by taking up arms and attending training under KNU, KIA, and other ethnic groups. They have a strong desire to eradicate the military dictatorship, so we are heavily reliant on Generation Z and believe that we will win.” An associate professor at Mandalay University also suggested “we must unite each other to overthrow the military dictatorship and we need to continue participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement until we achieve this revolution.”
Conclusion
University teachers, who are at the heart of political activism, are prime targets for oppression and prosecution by the junta. Despite oppression by the junta, university teachers are using three of Matthew Mullen’s pathways to overthrow the military dictatorship. The first pathway they use is contentious politics such as participating in strikes, and the CDM. The second pathway is everyday resistance such as disobedience to the military’s orders, a refusal to pay municipal tax and electricity fees, boycotts of military-related products, donating to the PDF and CDMers, and speaking out on social media. The third pathway is reconstructive politics such as participating in a parallel education plan under the NUG. Thus, we can say that teachers have been in the forefront of the fight for democracy in Myanmar since the military coup on 1 February.
Due to the impacts of the military coup in Myanmar, many university teachers who participated in the CDM have been removed from their position. They are in hiding and at risk. Some have been charged under criminal code 505(a) and detained. Besides personal insecurity, many are struggling to survive as they no longer get paid. Although they were facing various difficulties, they will continue participating in the CDM until the end and hope that the revolution shall win.
Notes
[1] The author contacted fifteen familiar university teachers through Facebook Messenger and requested that they answer a questionnaire for this article. Out of fifteen requests, ten teachers completed the survey for a response rate of 66.6%...."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
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Title: Ministry of Electricity and Energy: Notification No.15/2021 - အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် (၁၅/၂၀၂၁)
Description:
"အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ လျှပ်စစ်နှင့်စွမ်းအင်ဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့မှ စ၍ တော်လှန်ရေး၏ အဓိက မဏ္ဍိုင်ဖြစ်သော CDM လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွင် ယခုအချိန်အထိ ပါဝင်ပေး နေသော လျှပ်စစ်နှင့်စွမ်းအင်ဝန်ကြီးဌာနမှ ဝန်ထမ်းများအားလုံးကို လေးေလးစားစားအသိမှတ်ပြုပြီး ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိပါကြောင်း၊ ပြည်သူများ အနေဖြင့်လည်း တော်လှန်ရေး၏ ပင်မမဏ္ဍိုင်ဖြစ်သော CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ လိုအပ်ချက်များအား တတ်စွမ်းသမျှ ထောက်ပံ့ကူညီပေးကြစေလိုကြောင်း နှင့် တော်လှန်ရေးသည် အားလုံး ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်နိုင်မှ ပြီးမြောက်အောင်မြင်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းကို ၂၂-၁၀-၂၀၂၁ ရက်စွဲပါ အမိန့်ကြော်ငြာစာအမှတ် (၁၅/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Electricity and Energy
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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"Emerging as the first act of defiance after the military coup on 1 February 2021, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) is a general strike mobilisation spearheaded by hundreds of thousands of civil servants. The CDM has become the centre of focus for all parties involved in the post-coup era in Myanmar. To those opposing the coup and the military, the CDM is not only an anti-coup campaign but also a foundation from which to replace the military-controlled administrations. For the military and its supporters, the CDM was a surprise, and represents a threat to maintaining coercive and central power in the post-coup era—a threat that needs to be dealt with through the strongest measures available.
The civil disobedience campaign in Myanmar comprises a wide range of forms including banging pots and pans, street protests, refusal to pay bills, and boycotting state-sponsored lottery and military-affiliated businesses. However, this report, which can be downloaded by clicking on the cover image below, mainly focuses on the actions and roles of CDM civil servants, locally known as the CDMers, as the civil disobedience campaign is widely referred to the act of civil servants pledging not to work under the military. The report explains the CDM in three different phases—emergence, growth, and consolidation—by highlighting the significant developments, campaigns, and relationships among key political actors and organisations involved; it also explains the measures taken against the CDM by the military to consolidate its grip.
The coup was almost universally unpopular, sparking mass protests and boycotts against military-affiliated businesses, but also creating renewed fighting with several ethnic armed organisations, including signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA).
The Emergence of the Civil Disobedience Movement
Mobilisation of politicians and activists to launch the civil disobedience campaign was vital, but the movement began with healthcare workers refusing to go to work on the day after the coup. In his first interview with the local media on 1 February, U Win Htein, a patron of the NLD, urged the public to initiate a non-violent movement to protest against the coup, referring to the civil disobedience movement of India led by Mahatma Gandhi. A group of medical doctors from Mandalay created a network and launched the online campaign by circulating a statement condemning the military coup. A day after the coup, healthcare workers from about forty hospitals, medical institutes, and COVID-19 testing centres announced their decision to join the movement and stop work indefinitely.
Growing popularity of the Civil Disobedience Movement
The CDM gained momentum with the onset of street protests. The “CDM” and “Don’t go to office, break away” became some of the most popular slogans of the anti-coup demonstrations across the country. While some portrayed the CDM as the best bulwark in defense against the military-rule, others went further in describing the CDM as a silver bullet that could entirely end the military’s dominance in politics.
The health and education sectors have the highest volume of CDM participation. About 90% of the total number of healthcare workers reportedly joined the CDM in the first month after the coup. In some states and regions, 50 to 65 percent of teaching staff joined the movement. The participation of civil servants from three military-controlled ministries—Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Border Affairs—has attracted much public attention. In some townships in Yangon and Mandalay, CDM participation among ward offices is as high as 100%. Moreover, at least 2,000 soldiers and police have reportedly joined the movement as of mid-August. However, all of them are low-ranking, with the highest rank being an acting police colonel and army major, proving the military’s leadership is less likely to split. The movement was nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize by six academics in Norway. It is estimated that more than 410,000 of about one million civil servants have participated in the CDM since the coup.
Consolidating the Civil Disobedience Movement
Having witnessed the deadly crackdown and impact of the CDM, the CDMers and tech-savvy youth have resorted to various tactics, including controversial online “Social Punishment” campaigns, to grow and sustain the movement. For the National Unity Government (NUG), an alternative government to the State Administration Council formed by the military, the CDM is perceived as the most important pillar in boosting domestic support; some CDM participants have become leaders of the NUG. The CRPH and civil society organisations have set up networks across the globe to finance CDM participants, despite the military’s strict control over banking systems.
With the assistance of the CDMers, there have been efforts to develop alternative administrative mechanisms to challenge the military’s rule, which are most evident in education and heath sectors. Defectors from the security forces have also been known to conduct training for the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs), liaising with others keen to defect, and leaking information about military affairs to the press and the NUG. In Kayah (Karenni) State, groups opposing the coup formed a state police force comprised of 300 CDM police as part of an alternative governing force.
Military’s Responses
Surprised by the impact and popularity of the CDM, the military has used all the tools at its disposal to weaken and co-opt the movement. The military at first only asserted authority through intimidation and warnings via their subordinates and lure the civil servants with promotions and benefits. When the movement grew exponentially, soldiers and police carried out lethal and extra-lethal violence to crackdown on the movement. As of May, more than 140,000 teaching staff were suspended. At least 252 attacks were carried out against healthcare workers and medical facilities, resulting in 25 deaths by 31 July. Hundreds of CDMers and supporters have been charged and more than 70 of their family members have been taken hostage by the military. In mid-August, more than 150 people, including 48 doctors, were still in custody in connection with the CDM and many of them were reportedly sexually abused, beaten, or tortured to death..."
Source/publisher:
New Mandala
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, National Unity Government (NUG), Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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"Lu Nge Khit, the era of youth, is a small media organisation formed by young journalists in Myanmar on Monday, 13 September, when they held their very first newsroom meeting. The founding group of journalists, from a variety of backgrounds, all shared a desire to unite and create a new platform to fill the huge information void left by the military coup on 1 February. A string of subsequent measures inflicted on the people by the Tatmadaw, first as the “State Administration Council” and now as a “Caretaker Government” have stymied access to information across the country.
Soon after Senior General Min Aung Hlaing fronted the cameras on 8 February, seemingly confused at the millions-strong rejection of his poorly thought-out grab, the Tatmadaw began increasing murders, detentions and other attacks on civilians and peaceful protesters, and banned existing media houses, starting with those most extensively covering the anti-coup protests. The Tatmadaw raided offices, explicitly targeted journalists for abduction and tortured them on the street and in shadow detention centres.
The Detained Journalists Information Group and Reporting ASEAN has counted a total of 102 journalists arrested, of whom 48 are still detained, including American Danny Fenster. Four media houses have been charged under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code and seven media houses have had their publishing licenses revoked. Although some organisations have managed to relocate staff to areas in the country outside of the Tatmadaw’s control and continue reporting, others, such as 7 Day News Journal and The Voice Daily, have completely ceased their operations. Myanmar is now “the country without newspapers”: for the last seven months since March 17, 2021, Myanmar has not had a single independent print newspaper in publication.
Since 1 February, as the Tatmadaw’s horrific subjugation of the nation’s people has increased, so has public access to information decreased. After initially imposing nationwide internet blackouts, the Tatmadaw has shifted to employing strategic township-level blackouts, with 25 townships still affected this month. Some of the military’s most egregious crimes and massacres in rural areas take place under these blackouts.
One consequence of increasing challenges to accessing information is a rise in the spread of propaganda, “fake news”, disinformation and misinformation. Access to accurate and balanced information is crucial in this time of crisis. In such an unsafe reporting environment, media organisations are now––more than ever–– dependent on citizen journalists. Organisations struggle every day to verify sources and claims from these brave people on the ground, who are shot at, beaten and arrested by security forces and their proxies if caught filming newsworthy events.
At the same time, many young journalists have lost their jobs and others are in hiding, with either no income or with meagre support from the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Even though activists have been shouting out loud that “Journalism is Not a Crime”, reporters are being treated as criminals under the military regime. The story of one of our own reporters, pseudonym Ko Y, illustrates this.
Ko Y was arrested earlier this year while reporting on mass street protests in Yangon. He was held in Insein prison for three months. When released, the newspaper he worked for had stopped publishing due to having its license revoked by the military.
“While I was in prison in March, I heard the news that my newspaper had stopped printing and I felt helpless. For me, it is not only about me losing my job, but also about losing press freedom in our country,” he said.
Nevertheless, Ko Y is eager to continue reporting under the military regime and went into hiding after joining Lu Nge Khit. As a newsroom team member of Lu Nge Khit, he risks his life along with the rest of the team and Myanmar’s thousands of citizen journalists every day. Ko Y says, “I’m glad that I can continue my work reporting conflicts over the country. It makes me feel confident that I’m reporting right and accurate news for the people who need it”.
Lu Nge Khit was formed to be a bridge between the people of Myanmar––who deserve easier access to journalism of the highest standard––and journalists with the passion and skills to pursue the verification and reporting of news needed to meet this essential right to information. As part of this goal, one of Lu Nge Khit’s missions is to target and support youths with information useful for them and their generation. The majority of the Lu Nge Khit team lived their childhood and adolescence under the military regime before the changes of the decade from 2010-2020, but we were also shaped by that decade and its opportunities, helping us to understand the profound concerns facing Myanmar’s youth of today.
Many of my own childhood memories are filled with military propaganda. It is a shame, but I believed it all then. It was hard for me in my young age to find job and opportunities. Access to information is a basic human right and we do not want today’s youth to suffer from a lack of information like we did.
Lu Nge Khit is also intended to be a platform for youth, enabling and supporting young people to raise and express their own voices. As a first step, we are developing an online program for youth to share their experiences, their concerns and opinions. The program will be open to all young people in the country, and more information will be available soon.
Another mission of Lu Nge Khit is to create opportunities for journalists and try to rebuild the devastated media industry in Myanmar. Lu Nge Khit cannot hire all the journalists who have been forced out of work by the Tatmadaw, but it can create opportunities for those journalists who are particularly energetic and keen to continue their career during this terrifying crisis. At present, a team of seven reporters and three editors are running the newsroom in collaboration with a video editor and a translator.
Please visit Lu Nge Khit and like/follow its Facebook page, which is currently the best way to stay engaged with the organisation. We are currently in the process of setting up a website and other secure media channels to reach the people of Myanmar, but for now, Facebook remains our central distribution service..."
Source/publisher:
"Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Sub-title:
Announcement follows junta chief being barred from summit over failure to commit to de-escalation
Description:
"Myanmar’s military has announced plans to release more than 5,000 prisoners, days after the junta chief was blocked from attending an upcoming regional summit over his failure to commit to de-escalating the country’s crisis.
A total of 5,600 people arrested or subject to arrest warrants for taking part in anti-coup protests since the military seized power in February would be released, it was announced on state TV on Monday.
Late into the evening the first of the prisoners were released. It was not immediately clear how long it would take for all those scheduled for release to be freed.
More than 7,300 political prisoners – including medics, elected politicians, journalists and protesters – are being held, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) Burma, an advocacy group that tracks the arrests.
In cases where the military’s targets cannot be found, security forces have instead abducted their relatives, including children, the UN special rapporteur for the country, Tom Andrews, said last month.
Many rushed immediately to find out if their relatives or friends would be released following the announcement. A woman from Yangon, who spoke anonymously, was among those who went to the prison to search for information about her sister, a journalist detained in August.
The family had not been able to visit her sister since the arrest, she said. “We received a letter that says she is healthy and OK. We didn’t hear any other news.” The letter had asked for the family to send her a newspaper to read; they tried to pass one to prison staff, but are unsure if she received it.
“We hope for her freedom. But we can’t expect too much,” she added.
Another woman whose two younger brothers were arrested separately, in May and July, said she too was trying to find out if they would be released. Both were in their 20s, she said. “There is no reason to thank [the military]. We even want to curse them. Many of my friends and two brothers are arrested, so there is no reason to thank them.”
At least 1,178 have been killed in the military’s deadly crackdowns, according to AAPP Burma, including 131 people who were killed in detention. There have been widespread reports of torture in prisons.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which has led international efforts to negotiate, agreed a five-point plan with the military to de-escalate the crisis in April. This included an agreement that Asean would send an envoy, Brunei’s second foreign minister, Erywan Yusof, to the country to mediate. However, he cancelled his trip this week after the military announced he would not be permitted to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
The bloc decided to exclude the junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing, from its upcoming summit, which will be attended by Joe Biden, due to the lack of progress. The decision was a rare rebuke from Asean, which maintains a non-interference policy, and is a major blow to the junta’s hopes of gaining greater legitimacy internationally.
Minn Khant Kyaw Linn, a 23-year-old student activist whose friends were killed during the spring revolution protests this year, said the international community should not be fooled into believing the military’s pledges. “This army also tortured and arrested innocent people. We demand the international community to take action on this army,” he said.
Among those being held is the American journalist Danny Fenster, who has been in detention since his arrest on 24 May.
AAPP said in a statement that the prisoner release was intended as “a form of distraction for the foreign governments” and that it was no coincidence that the announcement came days after Asean’s decision to exclude Min Aung Hlaing from its gathering.
“The junta will continue to refuse to be transparent about the individual persons released, and who remains detained. Released prisoners from 18 October may include some political prisoners but the intention is not to relax repression,” AAPP said.
“If the junta wanted to make concessions, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint and all political prisoners would be released unconditionally, and the democratically elected leaders reinstalled.”..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Sub-title:
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ CDM မီးသတ်ဝန်ထမ်းများ ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီဖွဲ့စည်းကြောင်း ကြေညာခြင်း
Description:
"မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ CDM မီးသတ်ဝန်ထမ်းများ ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီဖွဲ့စည်းကြောင်း ကြေညာခြင်း
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၅/၂၀၂၁)
ရက်စွဲ ၊ ၁၃ ရက် အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ပြည်ထဲရေးနှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် အာဏာသိမ်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီအား အကြမ်းမဖက်အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုတွင် တက်ကြွစွာပါဝင်လှုပ်ရှား နေကြသည့် CDM ပြည်သူ့မီးသတ်ဝန်ထမ်းများ နှင့် ညှိနှိုင်းတိုင်ပင်ပြီး၊ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ်နှင့် နိုင်ငံတော်အတွင်းရှိ ကုန်ထုတ်အရင်းအနှီးများ၊ ယဉ်ကျေးမှုအမွေအနှစ်များကို မီးဘေးအန္တရာယ်မှ တားဆီးကာကွယ်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ် နှင့် သဘာဝဘေးအန္တရာယ် အပါအဝင် အခြားသော ဘေးအန္တရာယ်များကျရောက်သည့်အခါ အရေးပေါ်ရှာဖွေ ကယ်ဆယ်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ တာဝန်ယူဆောင်ရွက် ခြင်း၊ CDM ပြည်သူ့မီးသတ်ဝန်ထမ်းများကို စနစ်တကျစုစည်းခြင်း နှင့် အထောက်အပံ့များပေးနိုင်ရန် ရည်ရွယ်၍ “မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ CDM မီးသတ်ဝန်ထမ်းများ ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ” အား ဖွဲ့စည်းလိုက်သည်။
ပုံ
လွင်ကိုလတ်
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး
ပြည်ထဲရေး နှင့် လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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Format :
pdf
Size:
159.78 KB
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Description:
"အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများ အုပ်ချုပ်မှုကော်မတီ
ဖွဲ့စည်းကြောင်း ကြေညာခြင်း
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၆/၂၀၂၁)
၁၄ ရက်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ၊ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်
၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ(၁)ရက်နေ့မှစ၍ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်မှ နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာအား အဓမ္မနည်းဖြင့် ရယူသိမ်းပိုက်ခဲ့ပြီးနောက် ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး၏ မောင်းနှင်အားတစ်ခုဖြစ်သော အကြမ်းမဖက် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု ( CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT ) ဆောင်ရွက် နေကြသည့် အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန ဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ပြည်ထဲ ရေးနှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာနတို့မှ အောက်ပါလုပ်ငန်းတာဝန်များကို ဆက်လက်အကောင် အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် ညှိနှိုင်းအစည်းအဝေးကျင်းပပြီး “အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေး ဦးစီးဌာန CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများ အုပ်ချုပ်မှုကော်မတီ” အား ဖွဲ့စည်းလိုက်သည်။
(က) CDMဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် ယင်းတို့၏ မိသားစုဝင်များအား ပြန်လည်စုစည်း၍ ဘေးကင်း လုံခြုံမှု ရှိစေရေး စီမံဆောင်ရွက်ရန်။
(ခ) CDMဝန်ထမ်းများနှင့် မိသားစုများအကြား ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာမည့် အခက်အခဲများကို ကူညီ ဖြေရှင်း ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်ရန်။
(ဂ) CDM မပြုလုပ်ရသေးသောဝန်ထမ်းများအား CDM နှင့် Pre CDMများ ပြုလုပ်လာ စေပြီး မကြာမီ ကာလများတွင် အကောင်အထည်ဖော်မည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ နိုင်ငံတော်အတွက် ပြည်သူဗဟိုပြု အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးစနစ်သစ်တစ်ရပ် ပေါ်ပေါက်လာစေ ရေး အထောက်အပံ့ကောင်းဖြစ်စေရန်။
ပုံ
လွင်ကိုလတ်
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီး
ပြည်ထဲရေးနှင့်လူဝင်မှုကြီးကြပ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-15
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"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
CDM အောင်မြင်ရေးကော်မတီ
မြန်မာ့မီးရထား CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဝန်ထမ်းအိမ်ရာမှ အတင်းအဓမ္မ ဖယ်ရှားနေသော လုပ်ရပ်များနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်း၍ ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခြင်း
၁၄ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၀၂၁
၁။ ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီ မှ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ မတ်လ ၁ ရက်နေ့ တွင် ကြေညာချက် အမှတ် (၁၀/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်နှင့် နိုင်ငံသူ နိုင်ငံသားများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက်မှု တိုက်ဖျက်ရေး ဥပဒေပါ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိသည့် “နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံရေးအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ” အား “အကြမ်းဖက်အုပ်စု” အဖြစ် ကြေညာခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၂။ တစ်ဖန် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ မတ်လ ၇ ရက်နေ့တွင် ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၁၁/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် ပြည်သူက ဒီမိုကရေစီ နည်းလမ်းအရ တရားဝင်ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ထားသော ပြည်သူ့အစိုးရ စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်သည့် နိုင်ငံတော်ကိုသာ ကျေးဇူးသစ္စာစောင့်သိရိုသေရန် ဖြစ်ပြီး တရားမဝင် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီက ဥပဒေမဲ့ အာဏာလုယူ စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်နေသည့် နိုင်ငံတော်၏ ကျေးဇူးသစ္စာကို စောင့်သိရန် မလိုအပ်ကြောင်း ဖော်ပြခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
၃။ သို့သော် Non-CDM အရာထမ်း / အမှုထမ်းများသည် တရားမဝင် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ အားသစ္စာခံ၍ အကြမ်းမဖက် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှု ( Civil Disobedience Movement ) တွင် ပါဝင်ကာ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးတွင် ပြည်သူနှင့်အတူ ရပ်တည်လျက်ရှိသော မြန်မာ့မီးရထားCDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ဝန်ထမ်းအိမ်ရာများမှနေ၍ ဖယ်ရှားပေးရန် အကြမ်းဖက် ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ဖြင့် ခြိမ်းခြောက်ကာ အတင်းအဓမ္မ ဖယ်ရှားခိုင်းလျက်ရှိသည်ကို စိစစ်တွေ့ရှိရပါသည်။
၄။ မိမိတို့အနေဖြင့် ယခုကဲ့သို့ မြန်မာ့မီးရထား CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအား ရာထူးမှထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအိမ်ရာများမှ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်နှင့် ရဲများကို အသုံးပြု၍ ဖယ်ရှားစေခြင်း တို့ကို စက်ဆုတ်စွာ ရှုံ့ချပါသည်။
၅။ ထိုသို့ ရာထူးမှ ထုတ်ပယ်ခြင်း၊ ဝန်ထမ်းအဖြစ်မှ ထုတ်ပစ်ခြင်း တို့အပြင် ဝန်ထမ်းအိမ်ရာများမှ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်နှင့် ရဲများကို အသုံးပြု၍ ဖယ်ရှားခြင်းများပြုလုပ်ရာတွင် အမိန့်ပေးစေခိုင်းသော၊ လက်တွေ့ပြုမူဆောင်ရွက်သော၊ အားပေးကူညီသော လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ်များအားလုံးကို မှတ်တမ်းပြုစုကာ လိုအပ်သော အရေးယူဆောင်ရွက်မှုများ ပြုလုပ်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ပြီး ပြုမူခံရသော မြန်မာ့မီးရထား CDM ဝန်ထမ်းများအားလဲ ပြည်သူလူထုတစ်ရပ်လုံးက ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီ ပံ့ပိုးပေးကြပါရန် မေတ္တာရပ်ခံအပ်ပါသည်။
မန်းဝင်းခိုင်သန်း
ပြည်ထောင်စုဝန်ကြီးချုပ်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ဥက္ကဋ္ဌ
CDM အောင်မြင်ရေးကော်မတီ..."
Source/publisher:
National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-14
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"The situation regarding human and labour rights in Myanmar has continued to deteriorate since the military junta coup in February. The military has brutally violated human rights and, in their attempt to wipe out opposition, targeted workers, activists, labour rights organisations and trade unionists. As a result, Clean Clothes Campaignmembers in Myanmar have been forced into hiding. As of September 18th, 1109 people have been killed by the military since the coup and 6613 are currently detained in custody.
We stand in solidarity with all those working to end military rule in Myanmar and fully support the call to bring back democracy and to respect human rights. The Clean Clothes Campaign’s role is to amplify the voices of garment workers and to be guided by the demands of our members regarding protection of their rights. Having consulted with our Myanmar members, we call for the suspension of the EU’s preferential trading system ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA). Under the EBA, businesses in Myanmar can export goods tariff-free (barring weapons and ammunition) to the EU market. The EBA has significantly bolstered Myanmar’s economy and the EU receives more than half of Myanmar’s total apparel exports. EBA preferences can be revoked in cases of serious and systematic violations of human rights and suspension of it will hit the ruling military.
The Clean Clothes Campaign will continue to push all garment brands sourcing from Myanmar to prioritise workers’ rights in all their actions.
This means that brands who are stopping production in Myanmar must abide by their responsibilities to exit responsibly, honour all existing commitments and payments and ensure workers receive all wages, benefits and severance pay owed to them. This is vital as the coup, combined with Covid-19, have resulted in job losses, povertyand economic instability, which are severely impacting upon workers and their families. Myanmar has approximately 700,000 garment workers; brands must act now to ensure these workers and their families do not face further hardships.
Our demands to brands:
Publicly condemn the military coup, call for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, and to support the people’s protests and the Civil Disobedience Movement;
Prioritise workers’ rights and take concrete steps to protect them, including but not limited to: protecting, supporting and collaborating with the labour movement, ensuring workers receive full wages and benefits owed including full severance payments as necessary; as far as possible, protecting the safety of workers including ensuring suppliers don’t have links to the military.
Be thorough and transparent in their due diligence process concerning human and labour rights in Myanmar, including disclosure of an up-to-date list of all their direct and indirect suppliers.
If brands are currently committed to producing in Myanmar, they should create robust contingency plans regarding payment of severance and a pathway for a responsible exit, should their situation change.
Our call to the European Union, the United Kingdom and international communities:
Withdraw EBA preferential trading tariffs due to the serious and systematic violations to human rights by the military.
Support the people of Myanmar in their call for democracy through targeted sanctions and diplomatic means.
Continue to pursue all avenues for remedy of human rights violations, including pressuring the military to release all political prisoners..."
Source/publisher:
Clean Clothes Campaign
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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Sub-title:
With three of her sons in prison and the fourth in hiding, Khin Kyi finds herself alone and struggling in precarious times
Description:
"Until four years ago, 63-year-old widow Khin Kyi made a living selling used books in the Myaynigone commercial district in Yangon's Sanchaung Township. Then she started selling noodle salads to make ends meet. Now she has nothing to rely on, not even her four sons.
First the pandemic, then the coup, robbed her of her livelihood. Of the two, the latter has done far greater harm. She may have been strong enough to survive a recent bout of Covid-19, but recovering from the coup may prove far more difficult.
Thanks to a niece, she has food to eat. But that is far less support than she would have had if her four adult sons were still around. Before the coup, they often visited her home. Now she has no idea when they will return.
“My niece has been sending me food these days. I feel quite small since I don’t have my sons with me anymore, but I’m trying my best to stay strong as I want to see them all again,” she said.
Her oldest son, 34-year-old Thu Zaw Kyi Win, has a family of his own, with two young sons, aged three and four, and a third child on the way. It has been months since he saw them last.
He longs to reunite with his family—not only with his wife and children, but also with his mother and brothers. But as the only son who is not in the custody of the coup regime, he doesn’t dare return to any of the homes he has known, lest he, too, ends up sharing his brothers’ fate.
“The only way all of our families will ever be able to reunite is if we win this revolution,” he says in a determined voice.
The solitary son
Now in hiding, Thu Zaw Kyi Win plays down the price he and his brothers have had to pay for opposing Myanmar’s dictators: “I knew I would have to face these things if I did this, so it wasn’t unexpected when my brothers got taken.”
In his eyes, however, there is a look of deeper concern. Perhaps he is thinking of his mother, and the mother of his sons. But rather than dwell on this, he returns to the subject of his brothers.
Naing Zaw Kyi Win, the next in line, was arrested on April 10 for taking part in a workers’ strike in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township. He is currently being held in Insein Prison, where the two brothers previously served 14 months for their involvement in a similar strike in February 2015.
Twenty-seven-year-old Naing Zaw Kyi Win was working as a driver at a factory before the coup. A loner who kept largely to himself, he was also known for helping his co-workers with their problems.
Thu Zaw Kyi Win acknowledged that his brother had drifted away from the rest of the family before the coup. “He lived alone and never really talked to any of us,” he said.
Ironically, before the coup tore the family apart, it brought the two brothers together again. United in their commitment to fighting the regime that seized power on February 1, they were both quick to join the Spring Revolution.
Thu Zaw Kyi Win has heard that his brother was among those who took part in a protest inside Insein Prison in July. As punishment, he was reportedly beaten and placed in an isolation cell.
Although this could not be confirmed, it has added to the emotional burden of both his mother and the only brother still in a position to know anything about the rest of his family.
The twins
When Thu Zaw Kyi Win and Naing Zaw Kyi Win joined forces in the early days of the anti-coup movement, they also counted a third brother among their closest comrades.
Yan Naung Kyi Win was working as a tattoo artist near Shwepyithar’s Amoe Gyi bus station before the turmoil began. Just 22 years old, he already had a history as a student activist.
According to a former central committee member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), Yan Naung Kyi Win served as chair of the Shwepyithar Township Student Union from 2017 and became president of the township’s executive team of the Basic Education Students Union in 2018.
“He was dead set on destroying the dictatorship from the time he started working with us. I’m very worried about him now that he’s being detained,” the former ABFSU official said.
Yan Naung Kyi Win was arrested in Bago on April 16 and is currently being held in Bago Prison.
Despite being his identical twin, Yan Naing Kyi Win, the fourth brother, could not have been more different from Yan Naung Kyi Win, at least in terms of his political orientation.
Unlike his brothers, Yan Naing Kyi Win kept himself aloof from the unrest that has swept across the country since February. He preferred to focus on his phone and computer repair business in Hlaing Tharyar Township.
But his apolitical attitude did little to protect him when, in July, he was arrested while visiting his mother. As Thu Zaw Kyi Win later learned, he has since been charged with incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code.
“They accused him of taking part in the protests and arrested him. I think they mistook him for one of us,” said his oldest brother.
Targeting families
According to Bo Kyi, the associate secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), such unjustifiable arrests are not simply a matter of guilt by association. Targeting family members has always been one of the military’s ways of punishing its opponents, he explained.
“The military has not changed. In the past, they would often arrest the father if they could not find the son. But now they’re doing it even more than before,” he said.
But the regime doesn’t just lock up relatives of activists—it also ensures that families suffer in other ways, as well.
“Sometimes they fire family members from government jobs if someone in the family is politically active. And they will make it impossible for children of activists to study abroad,” he said.
As a mother deprived of the support of her sons in a time of desperate need, Khin Kyi is like millions of others in Myanmar who are struggling to survive under the rule of an army indifferent to the needs of ordinary citizens.
For Thu Zaw Kyi Win, who is as powerless to help his mother as her other three sons who are now behind bars, knowing how much she must be suffering is perhaps the bitterest pill he has had to swallow.
But even now, he remains convinced that the day will come when the people will prevail over their oppressors, and his family will be reunited.
“We will make sure to meet up at Mom’s house again, just like old times,” he says, with hope in his eyes..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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Description:
"ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်
အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ
ပညာရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန
ကြေညာချက်အမှတ်(၃၄/၂၀၂၁)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလ (၁၀) ရက်
PGDMA အပတ်စဉ် (၂၀) သင်တန်းဆင်းများနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခြင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Education, National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2021-10-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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Format :
pdf
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163.59 KB
Local URL:
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