Burma

Myanmar Junta Fires Striking Ministry of Foreign Affairs Staff

Anti-regime protesters urge civil servants to join the civil disobedience movement. / The Irrawaddy

By THE IRRAWADDY 23 March 2021

Myanmar’s military regime has dismissed a total of 56 staff from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) who have gone on strike in protest against military rule and the junta’s Feb.1 coup.

The regime’s foreign affairs ministry notified the civil servants of their dismissal last week, claiming that they had breached the civil service code of conduct, according to leaked documents. The staff fired range from assistant directors to clerks who are refusing to work for the regime’s cabinet.

Thousands of civil servants across the country have joined the civil disobedience movement (CDM) in protest at the junta’s overthrowing of the democratically-elected civilian government.

On Monday Myanmar coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing urged civil servants to return to work saying that despite their different opinions, they need to serve dutifully no matter what government takes office.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that civil servants must follow civil service rules and codes of conduct.

He warned that civil servants will have to sign confessions the first time they fail to go to work. For any subsequent violations, action will be taken against them in accordance with civil service rules.

Other MOFA staff, including over two dozen Myanmar diplomats in foreign missions, have been on strike since early March in protest at the security forces increasingly lethal crackdown on peaceful anti-regime protesters.

The junta has also recalled at least 100 staff from overseas missions in at least 19 countries, including the US and UK, after Myanmar’s United Nations (UN) envoy U Kyaw Moe Tun broke ranks with the regime to condemn their coup in front of the UN General Assembly in New York and pleaded for the international community’s help in restoring democracy to Myanmar.

In late February, nine MOFA staff in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw were arrested and charged for refusing to work for the military regime.

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Lawyer Helping Secure Release of Detained Protesters Beaten, Arrested by Myanmar Troops

Topics: CDM, civil disobedience movement, Coup, junta, military regime, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MOFA, Naypyitaw, Senior General Ming Aung Hlaing, U Kyaw Moe Tun, UN, United Nations

The Irrawaddy

Burma

Made Homeless by Junta, Myanmar Govt Workers Vow to Continue Strike Till Regime Falls

Hospital staff at Mandalay General Hospital vacated their government housing on March 20 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime.

By THE IRRAWADDY 23 March 2021

In its latest attempt to stifle workers’ protests, the military regime has given striking workers in several cities an ultimatum: return to work or face eviction from their state-provided housing.

On Saturday, the regime issued a letter warning striking railway workers in the country’s second-biggest city, Mandalay, that they would have to move out of their government housing within five days unless they resumed work on Monday.

Unbowed, thousands of railway workers moved out of their homes rather than give up their protest against the regime.

Railway employees and their families in Mandalay Region vacated their government housing on March 20 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ CJ

Myanmar government employees—including doctors, nurses, teachers, railway workers, engineers, garbage collectors, electricity workers, administrative staff, bankers and employees of a range of government ministries—have been taking part in the civil disobedience movement (CDM), a widespread protest movement against the regime, since a few days after the Feb. 1 coup, refusing to work under the men in uniform in an effort to make the country impossible for them to govern.

Furious at the collective resistance that has paralyzed the government mechanism for over a month, the regime has attempted to intimidate striking workers by, among other things, firing weapons during nighttime patrols of residential areas, arresting people, and dismissing or suspending workers from their positions. However, the eviction warnings and other threats have failed to deter the protesting workers.

“We were in tears as we left our homes. Not because we are sad or scared of them. But because we are indignant at being bullied and abused by those armed with weapons,” a 50-year-old woman said. Her family moved out of the largest railway staff housing complex in Mandalay Region, where they lived for more than 10 years, on Sunday.

“We have nothing to fight back with—not even a toothpick. But we will fight [the junta] with the CDM until they fall,” she said.

Around 450 households in the housing complex—more than 1,000 people—moved out over the weekend. Other housing centers for railway workers in Mandalay also saw striking workers leave to continue their protest.

Railway employees and their families in the Mon State capital Mawlamyine left their government housing on March 23 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ Mawlamyine’s Voice

“All of us are poor. But we don’t care, even if we don’t have any place to relocate to, or face hunger. No matter what, we will continue the strike.”

For her, the fight against the junta is a fight for the future of her young son. She said she doesn’t want him to experience a repeat of the suffering she faced under the previous military dictatorship after the coup in 1988.

Mandalay residents and charity groups helped the workers move out, carrying furniture and other household items and providing free trucks, vans, pickup trucks, meals and temporary shelter.

A volunteer group assisting the workers said support will be required to meet the evicted workers’ basic needs, including shelter and food supplies, in the long term, adding that it is important that all who need such assistance receive it.

The evictions compound the hardship for the striking workers, who have already forgone their salaries.

A son of a 59-year-old railway worker at the Mahlwagone Railway station in Yangon Region said many families of station employees who had been evicted from staff housing were struggling to find shelter and feed themselves.

Around 1,000 workers and their families living at the station’s staff quarters fled their homes on March 10 after security forces raided their neighborhood.

Railway employees and their families at the Mahlwagone Railway Station in Yangon Region fled their government housing on March 10 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ The Irrawaddy

The son of the striking railway worker said soldiers and police told the strikers that if they returned to work, they could stay in the housing. However, more than 90 percent of the workers there fled their homes rather than return to work under the military regime.

Given only a few hours to vacate the premises, the workers were each only able to bring a few items of clothing and some food, leaving furniture and household items behind.

“My parents were only able to bring their national registration cards and a few clothes with them when they fled, as I was away at that time. My mom left her medicines behind and many other older people in the quarter did too. But at this time we can’t afford to buy pills and medicines while we are struggling to find food and shelter,” he said.

Railway employees and their families at the Mahlwagone Railway Station in Yangon Region fled their government housing on March 10 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ The Irrawaddy

The railway employee’s son added that many striking workers have no idea how to connect with the support groups and lack secure and systematic channels to do so. Regardless of the hardship, the young man believed all the striking workers and their families were determined to continue their strike until the end.

The military regime has issued arrest warrants for several well-known CDM supporters on incitement charges. Leading strike organizers, including several medics who initiated the protest movement among government staff, have also been targeted for arrest.

It is estimated that more than 60 civil servants taking part in the CDM have been arrested and charged since Feb. 1. Doctors, engineers, teachers, railway staff, directors and managers of governmental departments and administrative staff are among those who have been detained.

A doctor from a hospital in Naypyitaw who went into hiding to evade arrest said hundreds of doctors, nurses and healthcare workers now faced financial hardship as many of them are on the run.

: Railway employees and their families in the Mon State capital Mawlamyine left their government housing on March 23 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ Mawlamyine’s Voice

More than 400 employees of his hospital had to move out of their staff housing in mid-February to continue the protest, and have been hiding in temporary shelters since then. The number of healthcare workers evicted from government housing in different states and regions has been growing in recent days.

The doctor said the threats had failed to stop the CDM, and in fact it was continuing to grow. He estimated that around 90 percent of government staff across the country were now taking part in the movement.

On Tuesday morning, 140 railway workers in Mawlamyine, Mon State also moved out of their staff housing rather than return to work.

Railway employees and their family members at the Mahlwagone Railway station in Yangon Region fled their government housing on March 10 rather than abandon the CDM and go back to work under the military regime./ The Irrawaddy

Acknowledging the power of the CDM, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas H. Andrews, said, “The junta knows how to fight weapons of war, but it is ill equipped to fight weapons of peace, which is what the CDM [is].”

“The CDM—and the broader opposition to the junta—will be strongest and most effective if it, and its leadership, can resist calls and any impulse to fight violence with violence,” he added.


Topics: CDM, Coup, Doctors, Eviction, government housing, homes, leave, military regime, Protests, Railways, return, strike, ultimatum, work, workers

Burma

Dissidents Fleeing Myanmar Junta Find Shelter and Support with Ethnic Armed Groups

KNU troops during a parade in 2018. / The Irrawaddy


By THE IRRAWADDY 23 March 2021

An increasing number of activists, dissidents and politicians have sought refuge in Myanmar’s eastern borderlands with ethnic armed groups, in particular the Karen National Union (KNU). But this situation is not new for the ethnic armed groups. In 1988, thousands of students and activists fled to the Thai-Myanmar border and the border with India to seek shelter and to take up the armed struggle against the then junta. Those areas were known as “liberated areas.”

Now hundreds of newly-arrived activists (including journalists fleeing the military regime) have taken refuge in insurgent-controlled areas in Karen, Kayah, Mon and Shan States along Myanmar’s eastern border with Thailand.

On Monday, military-owned Myawaddy Television announced that the regime was looking into reports that many NLD members and supporters had fled to KNU-controlled areas in the country’s southeast.

Military information team leader Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun said during a press conference on Tuesday that more than 1,000 people had fled to border areas in the country’s southeast to evade arrest.

Known as ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), the ethnic groups have publicly denounced the junta’s Feb.1 coup and the rule of the military’s State Administration Council (SAC). Karen insurgents in Karen State deployed troops to protect peaceful anti-regime protesters.

The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) has stated publicly that it will shelter and support any victims of the SAC and the military.

Several ethnic groups, with the notable exception of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), in the north of Myanmar along the border with China are supportive of the coup and will likely focus more on signing ceasefire agreements with the military.

Most notably, a parallel government – the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) – has formed in the areas under the control of the EAOs. The CRPH is made up of elected lawmakers from the ousted National League for Democracy-led (NLD) government.

The same thing happened in 1990 after the then military regime refused to hand over power to the elected representatives of the NLD following its 1990 election victory. Then, many MPs fled to the eastern borderlands to escape imprisonment and the junta’s crackdown. Those MPs formed the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). That government in exile was known to be ineffective but received backing from the US and the West. The exiled government was dissolved in September 2012.

Talks between the CRPH and several ethnic groups in the south are ongoing. Sources said that without military representatives sitting in the meetings, there is a free flow of discussion between the CRPH and EAOs without fear.

There has been some talk on social media about the idea of creating a “federal army”. Just like in 1988, some young activists who have fled to areas controlled by the EAOs now want to receive military training from those ethnic armies. But it is not known how and where they will find support and resources.

A number of new EAOs, such as the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) have emerged in the last 10 years, but initially they received assistance and backing from the KIA and, subsequently, from other powerful ethnic armies along the Chinese border. They have been allowed to open offices and to run businesses in China.

The SAC has warned ethnic groups not to establish contact with the CRPH. But a member of the Peace Process Steering Team along the Thai-Myanmar border said that the two sides continue to hold talks. Last week, the CRPH removed all EAOs in Myanmar from the terrorist and unlawful associations list. Several ethnic armies have had unstable relationships with the NLD government in the past.

The junta has now invited EAOs to attend the upcoming Armed Forces Day on the 27thof March in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw. Many have declined the invitation.


You may also like these stories:

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Topics: 1988, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, Coup, CPRH, EAOs, ethnic armed organizations, junta, Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Karen National Union, KNU, military regime, SAC, State Administration Council

Environmental groups: Discarded masks, gloves creating pollution problem

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 03/24/21 THE HILL

© getty

Discarded face masks and gloves during the coronavirus pandemic has led to a sharp increase in pollution, particularly in coastal areas, environmental groups warn.

Discarded personal protective equipment (PPE) has been on the rise on beaches, according to the Pacific Beach Coalition, which conducts cleanups near Pacifica, Calif., according to The Associated Press.

This is a marked difference from the past 25 years, when the group said the most common litter was cigarette butts and food wrappers.

“What are we going to do? We got masks. We got gloves. We got all those hand wipes, the sani wipes. They’re everywhere. They’re in my neighborhood, in my streets. What can we do?” Lynn Adams, the coalition's president, told the AP.

The materials in question pose an environmental risk associated with plastic litter in general, such as the danger of being eaten by animals and upsetting the ocean’s ecological balance.

“Obviously, PPE is critical right now, but we know that with increased amounts of plastic and a lot of this stuff getting out into the ocean, it can be a really big threat to marine mammals and all marine life,” Adam Ratner, conservation educator for the Marine Mammal Center, told the AP.

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He added that there are steps people can take to mitigate environmental harm, such as cutting mask loops before discarding them.

Advocacy organization OceansAsia said in a 2020 report that nearly 1.6 billion masks likely ended up in the oceans over the course of the year.

“The 1.56 billion face masks that will likely enter our oceans in 2020 are just the tip of the iceberg,” says Teale Phelps Bondaroff, director of research for OceanAsia said in a statement. “The 4,680 to 6,240 metric tonnes of face masks are just a small fraction of the estimated 8 to 12 million metric tonnes of plastic that enter our oceans each year.”

Asian Americans Have Been Protesting Violence Against Their Community For Months

PHOTO ESSAY THESE ARE A FEW CLICK ABOVE FOR THE REST

Strf / STRF/STAR MAX/IPx
Posters against anti-Asian prejudice are seen in the Barclays Center subway
station in Brooklyn on Jan. 1, 2021.



People demonstrate in Los Angeles on March 13. Ringo Chiu / Getty Images



Protesters attend the American Asian Federation's Anti-Asian Hate Rally

 at Foley Square in lower Manhattan, Feb. 27, 2021.Media Punch / AP


Jason Redmond / Getty Images
Someone holds a sign featuring Vichar Ratanapakdee, 84, who was fatally
attacked in San Francisco on Jan. 28, during a Seattle rally on March 13.

ALSO SEE

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/claudiakoerner/stop-asian-hate-rallies-atlanta-victims

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/piapeterson/japanese-detention-photos-anti-asian-racism

BOOKS
I'm Still Thinking About This Book About The Worst Earthquake In US History A Year After Reading It

Jon Mooallem’s This Is Chance! tells the story of the worst earthquake in US history, but its themes of community are universal.

Arianna ReboliniBuzzFeed News Reporter


Posted on March 23, 2021

Bill Ray / The LIFE Picture Collection via
Scene showing earthquake destruction in Anchorage.

“There are moments when the world we take for granted instantaneously changes,” Jon Mooallem writes in the opening pages of his 2020 book, This Is Chance!, “when reality is abruptly upended and the unimaginable overwhelms real life. We don’t walk around thinking about that instability, but we know it’s always there: at random and without warning, a kind of terrible magic can switch on and scramble our lives.”

Mooallem is talking about the Great Alaskan earthquake — a 9.2 magnitude quake that struck on March 27, 1964, decimated Anchorage, led to over 100 deaths, and remains the most powerful earthquake in US history — but when I read the book for the first time last March, the scene felt uncomfortably familiar. At the time, I was beginning to suspect we were on the brink of our own catastrophe. My husband and I had, fortuitously, just moved to a new apartment so we no longer had to share a bedroom with our 6-month-old son, but after just three days of figuring out my new commute we were told we should probably work from home. Out on walks to explore our new neighborhood, neighbors were starting to wear masks; stores were starting to close. Soon those daily walks ended, too. But it was early enough that I believed in the brevity of this newly named pandemic’s effects. We’d all stay at home for a couple of weeks, maybe a month or two, until we got a handle on the spread.


But then my husband’s salary was cut; soon after, mine was, too. We said goodbye to our nanny. We tried to find toilet paper. I sat on the floor of the shower and sobbed. You know how this story goes; you were there, too. We, like those at the epicenter of the 1964 quake, would soon find ourselves in a “jumbled and ruthlessly unpredictable world they did not recognize.”

I’ve returned to This Is Chance! a few times since last March. I interviewed Mooallem over text message, joking about the parallels between the book and our current bewildering reality, not yet realizing how far the destruction would reach. I wrote about the book for both our best of spring and end of year lists. For a while, I wouldn’t shut up about it to friends and acquaintances who, like me, were slowly losing the ability and will to read. And now, suddenly, it’s March of 2021. I’m putting together a list of new paperbacks, and there it is. I remember what it was like to read it for the first time, and I think, God, was I ever so young?


Courtesy of Jan Blankenship
Genie Chance

This Is Chance! is about Genie Chance, a broadcast journalist and mom — diligent but often underestimated, forced to placate the egos of her male colleagues and subjects (and husband) — who experienced what’s now known as the Great Alaskan earthquake while driving with her son. She dropped him off at home and immediately ran back out to investigate. Using her transistor radio, Chance started broadcasting from her car, and then set up a station at the Public Safety Building, which became an impromptu command center. She began not even an hour after that first quake, and continued for the next thirty.

Everything that happens in Anchorage over the course of the following three days passes through her; her story is the story of her city. Anchorage, which had been incorporated as a city just 44 years earlier, was unprepared; it “had no protocol for this kind of emergency.” Chance saw the chaos around her — felled buildings, crushed cars, split roads — and decided to claim the responsibility of preventing a possible “breakdown of civil society,” to “stave off that mayhem.”

Others followed suit. A public works employee spearheaded a campaign to map out the city’s destruction and hazards, deputizing a group of city employees and volunteers using DIY armbands — strips of white bedsheets with the word “police” handwritten in lipstick. Amateur ham radio operators became ad hoc messengers, “hunkering in their radio-equipped cars to function as a kind of substitute telephone system.” An assistant professor took the lead on “organizing a systematic effort to scour the city for those still missing and to collect the dead.” Not to mention the countless people digging through rubble on the street, pulling neighbors out of trapped cars, administering first aid. Recalling the response in the immediate aftermath, one resident said, “everybody tried to help […] Clerks, bookkeepers. Everybody was trying to do a little bit of everything for everybody.”

The city’s Civil Defense bureau was theoretically in charge of the emergency response, and the morning after the first 9.2 magnitude quake, Douglas Clure, who had recently resigned as the agency’s director, returned to the Public Safety Building to announce that it was taking control. But the office was a mess of “antic ineffectualness.” Those who’d been doing the agency’s job for almost a full day “found it was faster, and less frustrating, to bypass Clure [and] just solve the problem themselves. They complained that Clure’s people moved too slowly, or in circles. Clure seemed hamstrung by finicky questions of protocol. ‘Who’s going to give me this authority?’ one Disaster Control worker remembered him asking continually, whenever some unconventional emergency action was proposed.”

The earthquake revealed the fragility of the young city’s literal and figurative foundation. It also revealed its citizens’ strength. Facing a “complete breakdown of all bureaucracy,” the community improvised its own disaster management system, comprising “volunteers … ordinary citizens, many of whom seemed no more qualified to handle such a crisis than Genie was.” But handle it they did.

Anchorage’s government failed the city largely because at the time it was “still an excruciatingly young place.” Ours had no excuse. We’ve spent over a year being failed — by state and federal politicians voting against financial relief, botching lockdowns and vaccine distribution; by banks and landlords; by employers; and, yes, by some neighbors. But in the midst of the negligence of the systems ostensibly built to protect us, community formed around those looking to support and be supported by others. What else was there to do? People turned to mutual aid funds, crowdfunded support for small businesses, fought evictions, found and distributed PPE. If the pandemic has taught me anything, it’s that many of us survived not because of our governments, but in spite of them.


Courtesy of Jan Blankenship
Downtown Anchorage is seen minutes after a powerful earthquake in this image by Genie Chance.

We can’t talk about This Is Chance! without talking about Our Town. Thornton Wilder’s 1938 meta play about small-town life, about the extraordinary masquerading as the ordinary and vice versa, drives Mooallem’s narrative. When the earthquake hit Anchorage, its small local theater was preparing for a production of the experimental work; in the midst of the destruction, a fallen banner reading “Our Town” lay in the rubble. It’s a detail that would read as too on-the-nose if this were fiction.

Our Town’s plot is uneventful and almost beside the point — in a small town called Grover’s Corners, two young neighbors fall in love, get married, grow old, and die. The star is the Stage Manager, a narrator with godlike omniscience who shoots into the future to describe each character’s whole life and eventual death, and zooms out to remind the audience how painfully insignificant a town and a life can seem when considered from a distance. Mooallem writes:

"The Stage Manager is saying: Remember us. Recognize us. It’s one community’s simple insistence that it mattered, made urgent by a suspicion that, ultimately, it might not matter. In other words, the overwhelming disaster everyone in Our Town is confronting is irrelevance: a creeping awareness that no matter how secure and central each of us feels within the stories of our own lives, we are, in reality, just specks of things, at the mercy of larger forces that can blot us out indifferently or by chance."

In This Is Chance!, Mooallem fills the role of the Stage Manager; by tracking those three days in Anchorage, hour by hour, he takes up the mantle of demanding these people, this town, be recognized, despite the inevitability and mundanity of disaster. In a year of universal grief and loneliness — when, so often and in so many ways, we were told our lives were expendable — this rings especially true.

What I realize now, revisiting the book, is that it didn’t stick with me because of its prescient portrayal of disaster — it was its unsentimental testimony of cooperation, its rejection of nihilism in the face of catastrophe upon catastrophe. When describing the Chance family’s refusal to separate after the earthquake, despite Genie’s parents’ insistence that she send the kids to their home in Texas, Mooallem writes, “Our force for counteracting chaos is connection.” It’s a sentiment that travels well. Nothing is unique in the grand scheme of things: how bleak, how beautiful. ●

PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS

WHO: Vaccine inequity becomes 'more grotesque every day

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF BIG PHARMA

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded with rich countries on Monday to share vaccines with poorer countries if not out of morality then to do so out of their self-interest. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/EPA-EFE


March 22 (UPI) -- World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus chastised rich nations on Monday for seeking to inoculate their entire populations against COVID-19 at the expense of lives in poorer countries, describing the inequitable distribution of vaccines as "becoming more grotesque every day."

"Countries that are now vaccinating younger, healthier people at low risk of disease are doing so at the cost of the lives of health workers, older people and other at-risk groups in other countries," he said during a press conference on Monday. "The world's poorest countries wonder whether rich countries really mean what they say when the talk about solidarity."

In mid-January, Tedros warned the world is on "the brink of a catastrophic moral failure," the price for which would be the lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries.

At the time, more than 39 million doses of vaccine had been administered to some 49 richer countries while one poorer nation had only administered 25, he said.

According to Oxford University's Our World In Data project, some 500 million doses have been administered, with the United States at 124 million doses and China at 75 million compared to Nigeria and the Bahamas who as of last week had administered 8,000 doses and 110, respectively.

By doses per 100 people, Israel led the world with 112.52. Nigeria, with a population of more than 200 million, was at zero and the Bahamas and Vietnam were at 0.03 doses.

COVAX, the WHO-led initiative to provide equitable access to vaccines, as of Monday has shipped some 31 million doses to 57 participating nations, including Ghana, Brazil, Uganda, Mali, Malawi and others.

Tedros warned Monday that this inequitable distribution was not simply a moral failure but was also misguided, with rich nations attempting to buy "a false sense of security" through rushing to inoculate their entire populations.

"The more transmission, the more variants and the more variants that emerge the more likely it is they will evade vaccines," he said. "And as long as the virus continues to circulate everywhere, anywhere, people will continue to die."

Trade and travel will continue to be disrupted, he said, and it will also undo economic recoveries.

Without naming any nation, Tedros appealed to them that if they weren't going share vaccines for "the right reasons" then do it "out of self-interest."

He praised South Korea, a wealthier nation that could have secured doses through deals inked directly with countries, for having "waited its turn" for those supplied through COVAX.

He also named pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca as being the only COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer to commit to not profiting off of its medicine and for licensing its technology to other companies that have produced more than 90% of the vaccines distributed through COVAX.

"We nee more vaccine producers to follow this example," he said.

Since being inaugurated in January, U.S. President Joe Biden has committed $2 billion to COVAX.

In December, the People's Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of health and humanitarian organizations, accused richer nations of having "hoarded" vaccines, stating while dozens of poorer nations were for doses, the richest countries secured enough to inoculate their populations three-fold.

According to data curated by Johns Hopkins University, more than 123.6 million people have been sickened by the virus, including 2.7 million who lost their lives.

EU, U.S. impose new sanctions on Myanmar military over coup


Demonstrators display placards during a protest against 

the military coup in the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, 

on March 13. Photo by EPA-EFE

March 23 (UPI) -- The European Union and the United States have leveled new rounds of sanctions against Myanmar's military leadership over its February coup and subsequent escalation of violence against protesters.

The EU announced the sanctions Monday targeting 11 people, 10 of whom are among the highest ranks of the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, including its commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing. The 11th person is the chairman of the Union Election Commission over his role in cancelling the results of the 2020 parliamentary elections.

The Tatmadaw seized control of the country Feb. 1 in a coup on accusations that the fall elections were fraudulent, declaring itself the State Administrative Council and arresting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of Myanmar's democratically elected government.

Millions who have since flooded into the streets nationwide in opposition to the coup have been met by escalating state violence. On Monday, the death toll rose to 261 after three people were shot dead in the northern city of Mandalay, the country's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said in its daily update.

More than 2,680 people have also been arrested, charged or sentenced in relation to the coup, it said.

"On Myanmar, we took stock of the situation in the country, which sadly continues to deteriorate dramatically following the military coup," EU High Representative Josep Borrell said in a press conference.

The sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes and follows the EU's 27-member states' Feb. 22 agreement to impose targeted sanctions while withholding direct financial support from the government. It already maintained an arms embargo around the country.

"The excesses of violence in Myanmar are not acceptable," Heiko Maas, Germany's minister of foreign affairs, said Monday. "We in the EU will not be able to avoid imposing sanctions, specifically against those responsible. At the same time, we continue to rely on dialogue in order to achieve a peaceful solution."

Many of those sanctioned have been targeted by Britain, Canada and the United States, which also on Monday blacklisted Myanmar chief of police Than Hlaing and Bureau of Special Operations commander Lt. Gen. Aung Soe.

The United States also sanctioned army units -- the 33rd and 77th Light Infantry Divisions -- for engaging in actions that prohibit, limit or penalize the freedom of expression or assembly of Myanmar protesters.

"The Burmese security forces' lethal violence against peaceful protesters must end," Andrea Gavki, director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement, referring to Myanmar by its old name. "Treasury will continue to use the full range of our authorities to promote accountability for the actions of the Burmese military and police."

Than Hlaing was sanctioned for being a leader of the police force, which has deployed violence against protesters since he was made its commander Feb. 2, the Treasury said, adding that under his leadership, the force "has gone from attacking peaceful protesters with water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas to using live ammunition."

Aung Soe was sanctioned in response to those under his command conducting "vicious attacks" on peaceful protesters while armed with weapons meant for the battlefield.

The two military units were targeted for employing excess force that resulted in the deaths or protesters.

"Both the 33rd LID and 77th LID are part of the Burmese security forces' planned, systemic strategies to ramp up the use of lethal force," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

"Today's actions send a strong signal that we will follow through on our pledges to continue to take action against coup leaders and those who perpetrate violence," he said.

upi.com/7083528

Thailand denies extending support to Myanmar's military

DESPITE SUPPORTING THE BURMESE JUNTA

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha denied a local media report alleging that Thailand is helping Myanmar’s military amid a crackdown against pro-democracy protesters. File Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA-EFE

March 23 (UPI) -- Thailand's prime minister denied assisting Myanmar's military amid an ongoing crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha said his government has not provided any supplies to Myanmar's forces, the Bangkok Post reported Tuesday. The military has maintained authority since staging a coup Feb. 1.

Prayuth's statement comes after a local media report suggested that Thailand's army delivered 700 sacks of rice to Myanmar army units on Myanmar's eastern border, the report said. The two countries share a 1,500-mile boundary.

The prime minister, who led a coup that forced former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra out of power in 2014, said Thailand sent food to people in the border area for "humanitarian reasons," and that the Thai government has a long-term relationship with border villagers originating from Myanmar.

"Since the area has not yet been clearly demarcated, no one in the area has been allowed to cross the border and buy food on the Thai side of the border, but they can order goods directly from vendors," Prayuth said.

"Therefore, don't use the issue to accuse the Thai government of supporting Myanmar's military rulers. That's not true."

Prayuth previously revealed he received a letter from Myanmar's Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, commander of the country's army, in February.

The Thai leader at the time said he "supports" Myanmar's political process and that it is "their business what they will do next."

"What we need to do today, though, is to maintain our good relationship as much as possible because it affects the people especially economic and cross-border trade aspects which are important at this moment," Prayut said last month.

Thailand has stayed the course of "non-interference" after other ASEAN member states -- Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore -- criticized the use of force in Myanmar.

The civilian death toll continues to rise in the country.

Myanmar Now reported Tuesday the junta killed eight civilians, including a 14-year-old boy in Mandalay.

The boy had no involvement in the protests, according to reports.

U.N. Human Rights Council condemns Sri Lanka for crimes against Tamils

Hundreds of demonstrators call for the end of "genocide" against the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, during a rally near the White House in Washington, D.C. File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI | License Photo

March 23 (UPI) -- A divided United Nations Human Rights Council voted Tuesday in favor of a resolution condemning Sri Lanka for war crimes against the minority Tamil population.

Twenty-two HRC members voted for the resolution, 11 voted against and 14 abstained.

The Tamil population has a long and bloody history with the Sri Lanka government, most notably during a civil war that lasted between 1983 and 2009.

India, a Sri Lankan ally and one of its closest neighbors, was one of the nations that did not vote. In a statement beforehand, the government said they support "equality, justice, dignity and peace" for the Tamil population.

"We have always believed these two goals are mutually supportive and Sri Lanka's progress is best assured by simultaneously addressing both objectives," the statement read.

Amnesty International said the resolution allows the U.N. human rights office to collect and preserve evidence for future cases against Sri Lanka for its treatment of the Tamils.

"This is a significant move by the Human Rights Council, which signals a shift in approach by the international community," Hilary Power, Amnesty International representative to the United Nations, said in a statement.

"Years of support and encouragement to Sri Lanka to pursue justice at the national level achieved nothing. This resolution should send a clear message to perpetrators of past and current crimes that they cannot continue to act with impunity."

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted that the vote is a "major victory for the people of Sri Lanka."

"The U.N. Human Rights Council ... recognizes the utter lack of accountability for war crimes in Sri Lanka," he said.

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