Conflict since coup pushes Myanmar’s displaced to nearly 900,000
2022.03.25
Refugees in Kayah state's Demawso township, Jan. 12, 2022.Widespread conflict since the military took control of Myanmar has increased the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to nearly 900,000, according to the United Nations, and aid workers say that worsening food shortages are pushing the country ever closer to the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
Earlier this week, the U.N. Humanitarian Office said that 519,900 people had been displaced by clashes between the military and anti-junta forces throughout the country of 54 million since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, bringing the total of IDPs in Myanmar to 890,300.
The estimate of IDPs, which adds to the 370,400 people who had already fled conflict zones in Myanmar prior to the coup, came as a rights group called on foreign governments to take stronger action against the military’s widespread abuses in the lead up to Armed Forces Day celebrations planned by the junta for the weekend.
The agency said that civilians are suffering the consequences of escalated fighting in northwestern Myanmar’s Magway and Sagaing regions and the southeastern states of Kayah and Kayin, while aid groups have been hampered by tight security. The four areas are centers of fierce resistance to junta rule and have seen some of the worst violence since the coup.
An aid worker who spoke to RFA’s Myanmar service on condition of anonymity said refugees in the isolated Kayah townships of Demawso and Phruso have only poor-quality rice to eat each day because roadblocks erected amid the clashes had led to food shortages.
“The situation in Phruso is particularly bad. There’s been a severe food shortage there for a long time because they don’t have rice fields in the area and no rice can be transported there,” the worker said. “Even if you have money, you can’t buy rice anywhere.”
The worker added that those who have sought shelter in makeshift camps are also suffering from shortages of drinking water and medicine.
In Sagaing region, where the military is engaged in a scorched earth campaign, junta troops have attacked villages, setting some on fire and forcing residents to flee.
A resident of Shar Lwin village in Sagaing’s Khin Oo township, where 63 houses were recently destroyed by arson during a military raid, said inhabitants are too frightened to return to the area and are facing a water shortage while in hiding.
“Many villagers are in trouble. We are hiding in the forest and … as summer approaches, the major problem is water scarcity,” he said.
“There are health problems due to the change in climate. Not just our village, but all the villages in the area are suffering. I’m praying for a quick end to these troubles.”
In Khin Oo’s Kala Lu and Shar Lwin villages alone, troops set fire to at least 327 homes during the month of March, displacing an estimated 2,500 people.
In Southern Chin state’s Kanpetlet township, a week of intense fighting between the military and the anti-junta Kanpetlet Chin Defense Force (CDF) from March 10-17, forced more than 1,000 people from 10 villages to flee to the jungles, residents said — most of them with only the clothes on their backs.
“Fighting has been going on for some time between the junta and the CDF and the military fired heavy weapons randomly into the area several times,” said one of the township’s residents, who also declined to be named.
“All the elderly, children and disabled are now hiding in the forests and mountains. When fighting broke out, people were not prepared, so they had to flee to safety in a rush with nothing they needed. Everyone is having a hard time without any food.”
An official with the Chin Affairs Federation, who asked to be identified only as Mary, said the junta is actively blocking supplies to the area, exacerbating food shortages.
“People in the country are now living in fear. As soon as the soldiers enter a village, their priority is to destroy rice mills, if there are any. They always burn the rice mills first and then the barns,” she said.
“This is their strategy. When they cut off the food supplies, it becomes very difficult for people to survive. That’s the main problem facing IDPs in the country.”
She added that it was impossible to provide adequate assistance to refugees because of blocked food supply routes.
Ko Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, which helps refugees in Kayah state, called on the junta to reopen supply routes to alleviate hunger in the region.
“Food embargoes should never be imposed on IDPs emerging from conflict zones, regardless of the political situation,” he said. “The blockades must be reopened so that international aid can flow freely. These [IDPs] are the people of Myanmar, not enemies of the state.”
Ko Banyar also urged the U.N. to hold talks with the junta to ensure that refugees receive the help they desperately need.
The U.N. Humanitarian Office said staff have assisted refugees in northern Shan State but warned that the number of IDPs has increased drastically, as fighting intensified between the military and ethnic armed groups.
Last week, the agency said in a statement that despite an influx of humanitarian aid for 6.2 million non-IDPs in need of assistance, Myanmar has yet to receive funding for key sectors.
Also on Friday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on concerned governments to strengthen economic sanctions against junta members and other senior military officers, as well as military-owned conglomerates, as it highlighted the military’s atrocities ahead of Armed Forces Day, observed in Myanmar on March 27.
The group also called for the United Nations Security Council to adopt a global arms embargo against Myanmar and refer the country situation to The Hague-based International Criminal Court over atrocities targeting civilians since the coup.
“Governments joining Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day celebrations are celebrating the military’s brutal suppression of its own people,” said Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Governments should instead participate by enacting targeted sanctions against the generals and military businesses.”
On March 27, 2021, Myanmar security forces killed as many as 163 anti-coup protesters in deadly crackdowns in what is thought to be the bloodiest day of violence since military takeover.
Since the coup, security forces have killed people more than 1,700 civilians and arrested more than 9,900, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
On Thursday, a joint report by Fortify Rights and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School identified 61 senior military and police officials who ordered abuses or are otherwise directly implicated in what it designated crimes against humanity in the first six months after the coup.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the Biden administration had imposed sanctions on five Myanmar nationals and five entities in response to the junta’s crackdown on civilians.
In a statement that highlighted the deadly violence in Myanmar on Armed Forces Day last year, Blinken said that the sanctions were levelled by the administration “to show our strong support for the people of [Myanmar], and to promote accountability in connection with the coup and the violence perpetrated by the regime.”
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
‘Crimes against humanity’ after Myanmar coup warrant ICC referral, new report finds
2022.03.24
Family members of a protester killed during a crackdown by security forces on demonstrations against the military coup escort their body outside a morgue as mourners hold up the three finger salute at Thingangyun Hospital in Yangon, March 15, 2021.In the six months after seizing power in a coup, Myanmar’s military regime committed widespread and systematic crimes against humanity, according to a damning new report that identified dozens of junta officials it said should be investigated for their alleged roles in the atrocities.
The 193-page report, entitled "Nowhere is Safe" and published Wednesday by the Southeast Asian rights group Fortify Rights and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, draws on more than 120 testimonies and leaked documents to detail how the junta murdered, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, forcibly displaced, and persecuted civilians for months following its Feb. 1, 2021 putsch.
The report provides some of the most in-depth legal analysis of the atrocities in the aftermath of the coup to date and asserts that they meet the standard required by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant. It comes a week after a U.N. report concluded that the Myanmar army was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The junta has yet to respond, but has previously dismissed such accusations as foreign interference based on falsehoods.
In a statement accompanying its release, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews said that Fortify Rights and the Schell Center had compiled key evidence that could one day be used to deliver justice to the junta’s victims.
“Published just days prior to the first anniversary of the Armed Forces Day Massacre, this report provides the international community a better understanding of the junta’s crimes, the individuals responsible, and their battalions’ locations in relation to attacks,” said Andrews, Robina Senior Fellow at the Schell Center, and author of the foreword to the report.
“This pivotal report on the junta’s horrendous crimes can help guide efforts to ensure accountability,” he added, calling on United Nations member states to “ensure accountability for these ongoing atrocities.”
On March 27, 2021, Myanmar's security forces killed more than 100 pro-democracy protesters in the bloodiest day since the coup, as the junta staged a show of might on its annual Armed Forces Day. In the nearly 14 months since seizing power, authorities have killed at least 1,700 civilians and arrested more than 9,870 – mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights organization based in Thailand.
In their report, Fortify Rights and the Schell Center identified 61 senior military and police officials they said are potentially liable for crimes against humanity, including junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Deputy Commander in Chief Vice Senior General Soe Win, and the Joint Chief of Staff General Mya Tun Oo. The men are also responsible for what the U.S. Biden administration on Monday determined to be genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya in Rakhine state in 2016 and 2017.
Other military and police suspects identified in the report are 19 Regional Commanders of the Police Force, 13 Regional Commanders from the military, and 27 other senior officials from the junta.
Only 20 of the 61 officials have been sanctioned by at least one government, according to Fortify Rights and the Schell Center.
“All individuals responsible for these crimes should be sanctioned and prosecuted,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Rights and co-author of the report.
“Governments should revamp and calibrate their foreign policies to support the people of Myanmar in ending the military’s attack. Governments should acknowledge the [shadow] National Unity Government of Myanmar, end weapons transfers to the military, and create conditions to ensure international jurisdiction over these crimes.”
The report also provides new details of the junta’s chain of command during the crackdown, including Min Aung Hlaing’s establishment of a “Special Command” in Naypyidaw, led by four senior generals, that had sole authority to deploy and command troops in civilian areas.
Active-duty military personnel critical of junta rule helped Fortify Rights and the Schell Center to establish the locations of 1,040 military units nationwide in their report, which could be used by prosecutors and policymakers geo-locate alleged perpetrators vis-a-vis crime scenes throughout the country.
In addition to collecting testimonies, Fortify Rights collected 1,153 data points of open-source information about specific incidents of human rights violations uploaded by Myanmar citizens.
In its examination of the evidence, the Schell Center found that from February to July 2021, forces under the junta’s command conducted “a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population with knowledge of the broader attack.” Based on its findings, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the junta committed crimes against humanity” as defined by the Rome Statute, the international treaty that led to the establishment of the ICC.
Among 28 recommendations made in their report, Fortify Rights and the Schell Center called on governments to ensure international justice for past and ongoing atrocity crimes Myanmar and to push the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation there to the ICC.
The report also urged U.N. Security Council member states to support a resolution to impose a global arms embargo on the Myanmar military – a recommendation U.N. Special Rapporteur Andrews made to the council in a report last month, saying that weapons purchased by the junta are almost certainly being used to kill innocent people.
Additionally, the report said governments should impose targeted sanctions against military-owned enterprises and block the junta’s access to natural gas revenues and access to financial services.
“The Myanmar military poses a threat to international peace and security,” said Roger Polack, Schell Center Visiting Human Rights Fellow and co-author of the report.
“The Security Council must live up to its mandate to respond to such threats—and must discharge its responsibility to protect—by putting forward a resolution that imposes the recommendations in this report.”
Polack said that absent action by the council, its member states should coordinate a similar response.
“Without a concerted effort to stop ongoing atrocities and to hold the junta accountable for the crimes it has committed to date, the junta will undoubtedly continue to persecute its opponents, murder civilians, and devastate the social, health, and economic well-being of Myanmar,” he said.
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