Myanmar
ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar urged to meet Aung San Suu Kyi
Asian Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Chair Charles Santiago has said Prak Sokhonn, as ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar, must now ensure that he meets with all stakeholders, including the National Unity Government (NUG), civil society, and detained leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi.
"We welcome Cambodia's repositioning to respect ASEAN's stance to hold the junta accountable to the Five-Point Consensus," said Santiago on Friday regarding Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen's latest comments on Myanmar.
Read:Myanmar says it won’t attend ASEAN foreign ministers meeting
The APHR Chair said they have also been encouraged by comments from Malaysia's Foreign Minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, calling on the envoy to meet with the NUG and representatives of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC)."
“As the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meet this week, without a Myanmar representative, the bloc must use this as the opportunity to form a meaningful and cohesive response to the Myanmar crisis, one that helps the Myanmar people, " said the APHR Chair.
This includes supporting local non-state actors and networks that the people already trust in order to distribute much-needed humanitarian assistance.
Myanmar says it won’t attend ASEAN foreign ministers meeting
Myanmar will not participate in this week’s meetings in Cambodia of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, spurning an invitation to send a non-political representative instead of its chief diplomat, its government said Monday.
Cambodia, the current ASEAN chair, said earlier this month that members of the regional group had failed to reach a consensus on inviting Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin to its meetings on Thursday and Friday in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
Wunna Maung Lwin was appointed foreign minister after the military seized power in Myanmar last year, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
The decision to restrict Myanmar’s participation reflected a disagreement over Myanmar’s lack of cooperation in implementing measures agreed upon by the 10-member group last year to help ease that country’s violent political crisis following the army’s takeover.
The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was not invited to last October’s virtual meeting of ASEAN leaders because of the disagreement. That rebuke was issued shortly after Myanmar declined to let an ASEAN special envoy meet with Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since the military took power.
Also read: One year into Myanmar coup: Stronger course of int’l action needed
“Despite the efforts made by the ASEAN chair and Myanmar to promote cooperation in ASEAN, it is regrettable to see the return of the decision made last year which Myanmar in principle is unable to accept,” Myanmar’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement Monday night. “In this regard, Myanmar’s inability to participate or even designate a non-political representative ... is inevitable since it contradicts the principles and practice of equal representation in ASEAN.”
ASEAN was chaired by Brunei when it snubbed Min Aung Hlaing, but under its annual rotation system, Cambodia now heads the group. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has said he believes it is important that Myanmar attend the next summit meeting.
Hun Sen traveled to Myanmar in January, becoming the first foreign leader to visit since the military takeover. He has repeatedly declared his interest in resolving the impasse between ASEAN and Myanmar.
Japan’s foreign minister met in Tokyo on Monday with Hun Sen’s son and agreed to cooperate in dealing with the situation in Myanmar. Hun Manet, who heads Cambodia’s army and is Hun Sen’s favored successor, accompanied his father during his visit to Myanmar.
Japan has taken a softer line on Myanmar’s military than Western nations that have sanctioned the generals. But in a sign that attitudes in Japan are mixed, Japanese brewery Kirin Holdings announced on Monday that it has decided to withdraw from its business in Myanmar and terminate its joint venture with a military-linked partner.
Cambodia’s Chum Sounry said the failure to reach a consensus about inviting Myanmar to this week’s foreign minister’s meeting was due to “little progress in carrying out the ASEAN’s 5-Point Consensus,” agreed to by all the group’s members, including Myanmar.
ASEAN leaders at a special meeting last April issued a statement expressing a consensus calling for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.
Myanmar has not rejected the consensus but has done little to implement it.
Also read: Dozens arrested to suppress protests on Myanmar anniversary
Myanmar’s military council has also continued its harsh military actions against areas of the country where it faces a low-level insurgency, as well as its relentless effort to prosecute Suu Kyi to remove her from political life.
Suu Kyi went on trial on Monday on election fraud charges, the latest in a series of criminal prosecutions by the military-run government in which she has already been sentenced to six years in prison.
The army said it seized power because of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 general election, an allegation not corroborated by independent election observers. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won the election by a landslide, while the military-backed party did poorly.
The military’s takeover prompted widespread peaceful protests and civil disobedience that security forces suppressed with lethal force. About 1,500 civilians have been killed, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Some opponents of the military have turned to armed resistance in response.
Suu Kyi, 76, has faced a raft of charges since she was taken into custody. Her supporters and human rights groups say the cases against her are baseless.
Myanmar takeover anniversary marked by strike, int’l concern
Opponents of military rule in Myanmar marked the one-year anniversary of the army’s seizure of power with a nationwide strike Tuesday to show their strength and solidarity amid concern about what has become an increasingly violent contention for power.
The “silent strike” sought to empty the streets of Myanmar’s cities and towns by having people stay home and businesses shut their doors from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In Yangon, the country’s largest city, and elsewhere, photos on social media showed normally busy streets were almost empty.
The anniversary has also attracted international attention, especially from Western nations critical of the military takeover, such as the United States.
President Joe Biden in a statement called for the military to reverse its actions, free the country’s ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees and engage in meaningful dialogue to return Myanmar on a path to democracy.
The military’s takeover on Feb. 1, 2021, ousted the elected government of Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party was about to begin a second five-year term in office after winning a landslide victory in the previous year’s November election. The military said it acted because there was widespread voter fraud in the polls — an allegation that independent election observers have said they’ve seen no serious evidence for.
Widespread nonviolent demonstrations followed the army’s takeover initially, but armed resistance arose after protests were put down with lethal force. About 1,500 civilians have been killed but the government has been unable to suppress the insurgency, which some U.N. experts now characterize as a civil war.
The U.S. on Monday imposed new sanctions on Myanmar officials, adding to those already applied to top military officers. They freeze any assets that those targeted may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. Britain and Canada announced similar measures.
UN envoy: Year of violence has hardened positions in Myanmar
A statement from the office of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted “an intensification in violence, a deepening of the human rights and humanitarian crises and a rapid rise of poverty in Myanmar,” which it said required an urgent response.
People in Myanmar rushed before the start of Tuesday’s strike to buy essentials, and in Yangon appeared to have done their shopping on Monday.
Pro-democracy flash mob marches were held in several places before the start of the strike in the early morning hours, when clashes with police and soldiers are less likely.
Local media reported ongoing violence on Monday, with at least six bombings believed to have been carried out by resistance forces in Yangon, and another at a police station in Myitkyina in northern Kachin state. The opposition carries out daily guerrilla actions, while the military engages in larger-scale assaults in rural areas, including air strikes, which are blamed for many civilian casualties.
Despite tight security in cities including Yangon, Mandalay and Sagaing, young protesters including Buddhist monks held spirited but peaceful protests at dawn, carrying banners and chanting anti-military slogans.
Many also held up three fingers, the resistance salute adopted from “the Hunger Games” movie that has also been used by pro-democracy demonstrators in neighboring Thailand.
Shopkeepers has been threatened with arrest by the authorities; consequently some were open for business Tuesday, but appeared to have few if any customers.
Since last week, the government had issued official warnings in state-run media that anyone taking part in the strike could be prosecuted, including under the Counter-Terrorism Law with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and the possible confiscation of their property.
Dozens of business owners who had announced they planned to be closed were arrested, according to reports in the state-run newspaper Myanma Alinn Daily.
The detainees, from areas around the country, included shopkeepers, restaurant owners, medical workers, a monk, a make-up artist, a mobile phone repair shop owner and an astrologer.
The military-installed government initiated other measures to try to undercut the strike. In Yangon and Mandalay, city administrators scheduled special events, including a cycling contest, to try to draw crowds. City workers in Yangon were told to attend during strike hours, according to leaked documents posted on social media.
Several pro-military demonstrations, widely believed to have been organized by the authorities, were also held.
Leaders of the opposing sides also broadcast speeches marking the anniversary.
Duwa Lashi La, acting president of the opposition’s National Unity Government, said the group is understood by the people as the guiding force of the revolution, and it promises to do its utmost to make the revolution a success. The NUG, established by elected lawmakers, considers itself the country’s legitimate administrative body and has won the loyalty of many citizens. The military has branded it a “terrorist” organization.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the military-installed government, reviewed its performance since taking power in an hourlong speech. He pledged a “genuine and disciplined multiparty democratic system,” calling for cooperation “so as to achieve a better future for the country and people.”
No peace in Myanmar 1 year after military takeover
The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi not only unexpectedly aborted the country’s fledgling return to democracy: It also brought a surprising level of popular resistance, which has blossomed into a low-level, but persistent, insurgency.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s military — known as the Tatmadaw — seized power on the morning of Feb. 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and top members of her government and ruling National League for Democracy party, which had won a landslide election victory in November 2020.
The military’s use of deadly force to hold on to power has escalated conflict with its civilian opponents to the point that some experts describe the country as being in a state of civil war.
The costs have been high, with some 1,500 people killed by the security forces, almost 8,800 detained, an unknown number tortured and disappeared, and more than 300,000 displaced as the military razes villages to root out resistance.
Other consequences are also significant. Civil disobedience hampered transport, banking services and government agencies, slowing an economy already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. The public health system collapsed, leaving the fight against COVID-19 abandoned for months. Higher education stalled as faculty and students sympathetic to the revolt boycotted school, or were arrested.
The military-installed government was not at all anticipating the level of resistance that arose, Thomas Kean, an analyst of Myanmar affairs consulting for the International Crisis Group think tank, told The Associated Press.
“We saw in the first days after the coup, they tried to adopt a sort of business-as-usual approach,” with the generals denying they were implementing any significant change, but only removing Suu Kyi from power, he said.
“And of course, you know, that unleashed these huge protests that were brutally crushed, which resulted in people turning to armed struggle.”
The army has dealt with the revolt by employing the same brutal tactics in the country’s rural heartland that it has long unleashed against ethnic minorities in border areas, which critics have charged amount to crimes against humanity and genocide.
Its violence has generated newfound empathy for ethnic minorities such as the Karen, the Kachin and the Rohingya, longtime targets of army abuses with whom members of the Burman majority now are making common anti-military cause.
People opposed the army takeover because they had come to enjoy representative government and liberalization after years of military rule, said David Steinberg, a senior scholar of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.
Youth turned out in droves to protest despite the risks, he said, because they had neither families nor careers to lose, but saw their futures at risk.
They also enjoyed tactical advantages that previous generations of protesters lacked, he noted. Myanmar had caught up with the rest of the world in technology, and people were able to organize strikes and demonstrations using cellphones and the internet, despite efforts to limit communications.
A driving force was the Civil Disobedience Movement, founded by health care workers, which encouraged actions such as boycotts of military products and people not paying electricity bills or buying lottery tickets.
Kept in detention by the military, Suu Kyi has played no active part in these developments.
The ruling generals, who have said they will probably hold a new election by 2023, have tied her up with a variety of criminal charges widely seen as trumped-up to keep her from returning to political life. The 76-year-old Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, with the prospect of many more being added.
But in the days after the army’s takeover, her party’s elected members of parliament laid the groundwork for sustained resistance. Prevented by the army from taking their seats, they convened on their own, and in April established the National Unity Government, or NUG, which stakes a claim to being the country’s legitimate administrative body and has won the loyalty of many citizens.
The NUG has also sought to coordinate armed resistance, helping organize “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, homegrown militias formed at the local and neighborhood levels. The military deems the NUG and the PDFs “terrorist” organizations.
With urban demonstrations mostly reduced to flash mobs to avoid crackdowns, the battle against military rule has largely passed to the countryside, where the badly outgunned local militias carry out guerrilla warfare.
The army’s “Four Cuts” strategy aims to eradicate the militias’ threat by cutting off their access to food, funds, information and recruitment. Civilians suffer collateral damage as soldiers block essential supplies, take away suspected militia supporters and raze whole villages.
When the military enters a village, “they’ll burn down some houses, maybe shoot some people, take prisoners and torture them — the sort of horrific abuses that we’re seeing on a regular basis,” said analyst Kean.
“But when the soldiers leave, they lose control of that area. They don’t have enough manpower to maintain control when 80% to 90% of the population is against them.”
Some ethnic minority groups with decades of experience fighting the Myanmar military offer critical support to the PDF militia movement, including supplying training and some weapons, while also providing safe havens for opposition activists and others fleeing the army.
“We never accept a coup at all for whatever reason. The position of our organization is clear,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, the chief of the Karen National Union’s foreign affairs department, told the AP. “We oppose any military dictatorship. Therefore, the automatic response is that we must work with those who oppose the military.”
He said his group began preparing immediately after the takeover to receive people fleeing from military persecution and noted that it played a similar role in 1988 after a failed popular uprising.
There is a quid pro quo — the NUG says it will honor the minority ethnic groups’ demands for greater autonomy when it takes power.
The military, meanwhile, keeps the pressure on the Karen with periodic attacks, including by air, that send villagers fleeing for safety across a river that forms the border with Thailand.
The support of the ethnic groups is seen as key to sustaining the resistance, the thought being that as long as they can engage the army, its forces will be too stretched to finish off the PDFs.
No other factors are seen as capable of tilting the balance in favor of the military or the resistance.
Sanctions on the ruling generals can make them uncomfortable — U.S. actions, especially, have caused financial distress — but Russia and China have been reliable allies, especially willing to sell arms. The U.N. and organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are seen as toothless at best.
“I see the stage sort of set for a prolonged conflict. Neither side seems willing to back down or sees it as in their interest or a necessity to back down or to make concessions in any way to the other,” said analyst Kean.
“And so it’s just very difficult to see how the conflict will diminish, will reduce in the near term, even over a period of several years. It’s just very difficult to see peace returning to many areas of Myanmar.”
1 year into Myanmar coup: Govts, businesses urged to intensify pressure on military
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has urged the international community to intensify pressure on the military to stop its campaign of violence against the people of Myanmar and to insist on the prompt restoration of civilian rule.
“One year after the military seized power, the people of Myanmar – who have paid a high cost in both lives and freedoms lost – continue to advocate relentlessly for their democracy,” Bachelet said.
“This week, I had a chance to speak in person with determined, courageous human rights defenders who are pleading to the international community not to abandon them, but to take robust, effective measures to ensure their rights are protected and the military is held accountable.”
The UN Human Rights Office will publish a report in March 2022 detailing the human rights situation in the country since the 1 February 2021 coup.
Also read: UN labor group says 1.6M jobs lost in Myanmar in 2021
“I urge governments – in the region and beyond – as well as businesses, to listen to this plea. It is time for an urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure that perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account,” Bachelet said.
Bachelet said she had heard chilling accounts of journalists being tortured; factory workers being intimidated, silenced and exploited; intensified persecution of ethnic and religious minorities – including the Rohingya; arbitrary arrests, detentions and sham trials of political opponents; “clearance operations” targeting villagers; and indiscriminate attacks including through airstrikes and the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas, showing gross disregard for human life.
“And yet, courageous human rights defenders and trade unionists continue to protest, to advocate, to document and accumulate the mounting evidence of violations,” she said.
The brutal effort by security forces to crush dissent has led to the killing of at least 1,500 people by the military since the 1 February coup – but that figure does not include thousands more deaths from armed conflict and violence, which have intensified nationwide.
The UN Human Rights Office has documented gross human rights violations on a daily basis, the vast majority committed by security forces.
At least 11,787 people have been arbitrarily detained for voicing their opposition to the military either in peaceful protests or through their online activities, of whom 8,792 remain in custody.
At least 290 have died in detention, many likely due to the use of torture.
Armed clashes have grown in frequency and intensity, with every part of the country experiencing some level of violence. In those areas of highest intensity military activity – Sagaing region, Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states – the military has been punishing local communities for their assumed support of armed elements.
The Office has documented village burnings, including places of worship and medical clinics, mass arrests, summary executions and the use of torture.*
The crisis has been exacerbated by the combined forces of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the banking, transportation, education and other sectors, leaving the economy on the brink of collapse.
Also read: Myanmar military reverts to strategy of massacres, burnings
The daily lives of people have been severely impacted, with devastating effects on their enjoyment of economic and social rights. There are projections that nearly half of the population of 54 million may be driven into poverty this year.
“Members of Myanmar civil society have told me first-hand what the impact of the last year has been on their lives and those of their families and communities," Bachelet said.
“The people have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in standing up for their basic human rights and supporting each other. Now the international community must show its resolve to support them through concrete actions to end this crisis.”
While there has been near universal condemnation of the coup and the ensuing violence, the international response has been “ineffectual and lacks a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis,” Bachelet said.
The actions taken by the UN Security Council and by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been insufficient to convince Myanmar’s military to cease its violence and facilitate humanitarian access and aid deliveries.
The High Commissioner welcomed some private corporations’ decisions to withdraw based on human rights grounds, as a “powerful tool to apply pressure on the financing of the military’s operations against civilians.”
Bachelet also stressed that the current human rights crisis is “built upon the impunity with which the military leadership perpetrated the shocking campaign of violence resulting in gross human rights violations against the Rohingya communities of Myanmar four years ago – and other ethnic minorities over many decades beforehand.”
“As long as impunity prevails, stability in Myanmar will be a fiction. Accountability of the military remains crucial to any solution going forward – the people overwhelmingly demand this,” Bachelet said.
Bangladesh, Myanmar agree to accelerate citizenship verification of Rohingya refugees
Bangladesh and Myanmar at a technical level discussion on Thursday expressed readiness to continue working closely to address the reasons causing delay in the verification of the past residency of the displaced people in Rakhine.The first ever meeting of the newly formed technical level ad-hoc task force for verification of the displaced persons from Rakhine was held on Thursday virtually between Bangladesh and Myanmar.Shah Rizwan Hayat, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief of Bangladesh and Ye Tun Oo, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Immigration and Population of Myanmar led their respective sides.RRRC Shah Rizwan Hayat highlighted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s humanitarian gesture to give temporary shelters to the huge number of displaced people from Rakhine despite numerous constraints and challenges of Bangladesh.
Read: Hasina seeks Japan’s support for early solution to Rohingya crisis He expressed dismay over the slow pace of verification of past residency by Myanmar and offered all cooperation under the three bilateral instruments, to expeditiously complete the verification process.He mentioned that solving difficulties and gaps in pending verification will pave the way for the early commencement of the sustainable repatriation of the displaced people of Rakhine which also demands creation of conducive environment in Rakhine and confidence building among them.
Read: Global community's strong commitment sought to resolve Rohingya crisis
Detailing the technical difficulties and information gaps, the Myanmar delegation assured their cooperation to complete pending verification.They expressed optimism that the Task Force would be instrumental to complete the verification process.
Keep up pressure on Myanmar for Rohingya repatriation: FM to UK
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has urged the British government and parliament to keep up pressure on Myanmar for the “safe, dignified and voluntary” repatriation of the forcibly displaced Roihingyas to their homeland soon.
He reiterated the call at a meeting with the British Parliamentary delegation on the eve of the latter’s visit to the Rohingya camps in Kutupalong and Bhasan Char on Sunday.
Read: British parliamentary delegation visits Rohingya camps
UK’s Conservative Party MPs Thomas Patrick Hunt and Paul Bristow interacted with Rohingya leaders in Kutupalong and visited various facilities in the two camps.
They reaffirmed their solidarity with the Rohingya and assured them of remaining seized with their legitimate demands for citizenship, security and freedom of movement in Myanmar.
The UK MPs noted that the British people, especially the British Muslims, felt strongly about the Rohingya situation, and that the international community had a responsibility to stand by this large group of people generously supported by the government and the people of Bangladesh.
Bristow recalled the UK’s humanitarian assistance to the tune of 320 million GBP since 2017 and said they would continue to raise the issue of further improving the living conditions of the Rohingya while they awaited their repatriation.
Earlier, during their meeting with Foreign Minister Momen on Saturday evening, the British parliamentary delegation exchanged views on further enhancing trade and investment between the two countries in the post-BREXIT context.
They reiterated their appreciation for the multi-dimensional contributions being made by the British-Bangladesh diaspora in their respective constituencies as well as in the land of their origin or ancestors.
Minister Momen hoped that there would be exchange of high level political visits between the two countries on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
He recalled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s various engagements during her visit to Glasgow and London in November 2021 and thanked the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for undertaking the ‘Brit-Bangla Bandhan’ initiative.
The UK delegation thanked the Bangladesh Foreign Minister for accompanying them during their visits to the greater Sylhet region over the last weekend.
Read:Cambodian chairmanship of ASEAN to expedite Rohingya repatriation: FM
The delegation included, among others, Vijay Shamdas Daryanani, MP, Gibraltar Minister for Business, Tourism, Transport and the Port, Samantha Helen Cohen CVO, CEO of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, and Zillur Hussain, MBE, Founder of Zi Foundation.
Faruk Khan, MP, Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Shamima Begum, MP were present.
Genocide: ICJ to hold public hearings on objections raised by Myanmar from Feb 21-28.
The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will hold public hearings on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar from February 21-28.
The hearings of the Gambia v. Myanmar case related to application of the convention on the prevention and punishment of the “crime of genocide” will be held at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court.
“The hearings will be devoted to the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar,” said the ICJ on Wednesday, adding that in view of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the hearings will be held in a hybrid format.
Read: Hun Sen’s rogue diplomacy a threat to ASEAN, Myanmar: APHR
Some Members of the Court will attend the oral proceedings in person in the Great Hall of Justice while others will participate remotely by video link.
Representatives of the Parties to the case will participate either in person or by video link.
Members of the diplomatic corps, the media and the public will be able to follow the hearings through a live webcast on the Court’s website, as well as on UN Web TV, the United Nations online television channel.
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sentenced to 4 more years in prison
A court in Myanmar sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison on Monday after finding her guilty of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions, a legal official said.
Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges and given a four-year prison sentence, which was then halved by the head of the military-installed government.
The cases are among about a dozen brought against the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate since the army seized power last February, ousting her elected government and arresting top members of her National League for Democracy party.
If found guilty of all the charges, she could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Suu Kyi’s supporters and independent analysts say the charges against her are contrived to legitimize the military’s seizure of power and prevent her from returning to politics.
Monday’s verdict in the court in the capital, Naypyitaw, was conveyed by a legal official who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, who have restricted the release of information about Suu Kyi’s trials.
Read: Tortured to death: Myanmar mass killings revealed
He said she was sentenced to two years in prison under the Export-Import Law for importing the walkie-talkies and one year under the Telecommunications Law for possessing them. The sentences are to be served concurrently. She also received a two-year sentence under the Natural Disaster Management Law for allegedly violating coronavirus rules while campaigning.
Suu Kyi was convicted last month on two other charges — incitement and breaching COVID-19 restrictions — and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. Hours after that sentence was issued, the head of the military-installed government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, reduced it by half.
Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in a 2020 general election, but the military claimed there was widespread electoral fraud, an assertion that independent poll watchers doubt.
Since her first guilty verdict, Suu Kyi has been attending court hearings in prison clothes — a white top and a brown longyi skirt provided by the authorities. She is being held by the military at an unknown location, where state television reported last month she would serve her sentence.
The hearings are closed to the media and spectators and the prosecutors do not comment. Her lawyers, who had been a source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October.
The military-installed government has not allowed any outside party to meet with Suu Kyi since it seized power, despite international pressure for talks including her that could ease the country’s violent political crisis.
It would not allow a special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, to meet her. The refusal received a rare rebuke from fellow members, who barred Min Aung Hlaing from attending its annual summit meeting.
Even Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who took over as the regional group’s chair for this year and advocates engagement with the ruling generals, failed to meet her last week when he became the first head of government to visit Myanmar since the army’s takeover.
Read: Myanmar military reverts to strategy of massacres, burnings
The military’s seizure of power was quickly met by nonviolent nationwide demonstrations, which security forces quashed with deadly force, killing over 1,400 civilians, according to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Peaceful protests have continued, but amid the severe crackdown, an armed resistance has also grown, to the point that U.N. experts have warned the country could be sliding into civil war.
“Throwing a plethora of criminal charges at Aung San Suu Kyi ... reeks more of desperation than confidence,” said Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, a democracy promotion group.
He said in an email interview after her first convictions that the military “massively miscalculated” in thinking that it could prevent protests by arresting Suu Kyi, her fellow party members and veteran independent political activists.
“A new mass movement was born which doesn’t depend on a single leader. There are hundreds of small groups organizing and resisting in different ways, from peaceful protest, boycotts and armed resistance,” Farmaner said. “Even with more than 7,000 people arrested since the coup, three times the average number detained under the previous military dictatorship, the military have been unable to suppress dissent.”
Suu Kyi was charged right after the military’s takeover with having improperly imported the walkie-talkies, which served as the initial justification for her continued detention. A second charge of illegally possessing the radios was filed the following month.
The radios were seized from the entrance gate of her residence and the barracks of her bodyguards during a search on Feb. 1, the day she was arrested.
Suu Kyi’s lawyers argued that the radios were not in her personal possession and were legitimately used to help provide for her security, but the court declined to dismiss the charges.
Read: Myanmar public urges gas sanctions to stop military funding
She was charged with two counts of violating coronavirus restrictions during campaigning for the 2020 election. She was found guilty on the first count last month.
She is also being tried by the same court on five counts of corruption. The maximum penalty for each count is 15 years in prison and a fine. A sixth corruption charge against her and ousted President Win Myint in connection with granting permits to rent and buy a helicopter has not yet gone to trial.
In separate proceedings, she is accused of violating the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Additional charges were also added by Myanmar’s election commission against Suu Kyi and 15 other politicians in November for alleged fraud in the 2020 election. The charges by the military-appointed Union Election Commission could result in Suu Kyi’s party being dissolved and unable to participate in a new election the military has promised will take place within two years of its takeover.
Myanmar military reverts to strategy of massacres, burnings
When the young farmhand returned to his village in Myanmar, he found the still smoldering corpses in a circle in a burned-out hut, some with their limbs tied.
The Myanmar military had stormed Done Taw at 11 a.m. on Dec. 7, he told the AP, with about 50 soldiers hunting people on foot. The farmhand and other villagers fled to the forest and fields, but 10 were captured and killed, including five teenagers, with one only 14, he said. A photo taken by his friend shows the charred remains of a victim lying face down, holding his head up, suggesting he was burned alive.
“I am very upset, it is unacceptable,” said the 19-year-old, who like others interviewed by the AP asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
The carnage at Done Taw is just one of the most recent signs that the Myanmar military is reverting to a strategy of massacres as a weapon of war, according to an AP investigation based on interviews with 40 witnesses, social media, satellite imagery and data on deaths.
The massacres and scorched-earth tactics — such as the razing of entire villages — represent the latest escalation in the military’s violence against both civilians and the growing opposition. Since the military seized power in February, it has cracked down ever more brutally, abducting young men and boys, killing health care workers and torturing prisoners.
The massacres and burnings also signal a return to practices that the military has long used against ethnic minorities such as the Muslim Rohingya, thousands of whom were killed in 2017. The military is now accused of killing at least 35 civilians on Christmas Eve in Mo So village in an eastern region home to the Karenni minority. A witness told the AP that many of the bodies of the men, women and children were burned beyond recognition.
But this time, the military is also using the same methods against people and villages of its own Buddhist Bamar ethnic majority. The focus of most of the latest killings has been in the northwest, including in a Bamar heartland where support for the opposition is strong.
More than 80 people have died in killings of three or more in the Sagaing region alone since August, according to data from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, a group that monitors verified arrests and deaths in Myanmar. These include the deaths of those in Done Taw, five people in Gaung Kwal village on Dec. 12 and nine in Kalay township on Dec. 23, part of a trend that has made Sagaing the deadliest region in Myanmar.
The military is also reprising a hallmark tactic of destroying entire villages where there may be support for the opposition. Satellite imagery the AP obtained from Maxar Technologies shows that more than 580 buildings have been burned in the northwestern town of Thantlang alone since September.
The violence appears to be a response to the local resistance forces springing up across the country, but the military is wiping out civilians in the process. In Done Taw, for example, the military moved in after a convoy hit a roadside bomb nearby, but the people killed were not part of any resistance, another villager told the AP.
“They were just normal workers on the betel-leaf plantation,” the 48-year-old welder said. “They hid because they were afraid.”
For the investigation, the AP spoke to dozens of witnesses, family members, a military commander who deserted, human rights groups and officials, along with analyzing data on deaths from the AAPP. The AP also reviewed satellite imagery and dozens of images and videos, with experts checking them against known locations and events.
The numbers likely fall far short of actual killings because they tend to happen in remote locations, and the military suppresses information on them by curtailing Internet access and checking cell phones.
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“There are similar cases taking place across the country at this point, especially in the northwest of Myanmar,” Kyaw Moe Tun, who refused to leave his position as Myanmar’s United Nations envoy after the military seized power, told the AP. “Look at the pattern, look at the way it’s happened….it is systematic and widespread.”
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, did not respond to several requests by phone and by email for comment. Three days after the Done Taw attack, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper dismissed reports of the slayings as “fake news,” accusing unidentified countries of “wishing to disintegrate Myanmar” by inciting bloodshed.
“The nature of how brazen this attack was is really indicative of the scale of violence we can expect in the coming months, and particularly next year,” said Manny Maung, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Just in the week of the Done Taw massacre, the military killed 20 more people in Sagaing, the AP analysis shows. And on Dec. 17, soldiers killed nine people, including a child, in Gantgaw township in the neighboring region of Magway, a witness told the AP, confirming AAPP data. Troops brought in by helicopter occupied the village for two days, and those who fled returned to find, identify and cremate rotting bodies, the witness said.
The movement of troops suggests that violence in the northwest is likely to pick up. Two military convoys of more than 80 trucks each with troops and supplies from Sagaing have made it to neighboring Chin state, according to an opposition group. And a former military captain told the AP that soldiers in Chin State were resupplied and reinforced in October, and the army is now stockpiling munition, fuel and rations in Sagaing.
The captain, who goes by the nom de guerre Zin Yaw, or Seagull, is a 20-year military veteran who deserted in March and now trains opposition forces. He said he continues to receive updates from friends still in the military and has access to defense documents, several of which he shared with the AP as proof of his access. His identity was also verified by an organization of military deserters.
“What the military worries about most is giving up their power,” said Zin Yaw. “In the military they have a saying, if you retreat, destroy everything. It means that even if they know they are going to lose, they destroy everything.”
The Tatmadaw overthrew the enormously popular Aung San Suu Kyi in February, claiming massive fraud in the 2020 democratic election that saw her party win in a landslide. Since then, the military and police have killed more than 1,375 people and arrested more than 11,200, according to the AAPP.
One of the earliest mass killings took place on March 14 in the township of Hlaing Tharyar in Yangon, the biggest city in Myanmar, according to a report this month from Human Rights Watch. Witnesses said that security forces fired on protesters with military assault rifles and killed at least 65, including bystanders.
As the military’s tactics have turned increasingly brutal, civilians have fought back. Opposition started with a national civil disobedience movement and protests, but has grown increasingly violent with attacks on troops and government facilities.
In May, the opposition National Unity Government announced a new military wing, the People’s Defense Force, and in September declared a “defensive war.” Loose-knit guerrilla groups calling themselves PDF have since emerged across the country, with varying degrees of allegiance to the NUG.
An early example of the military unleashing its battle-tested tactics on majority Buddhist areas came just 23 miles up the river from Done Taw in Kani township. In July, images circulated of massacres in four small villages that Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations called “crimes against humanity.” Four witnesses told the AP that soldiers killed 43 people in four incidents and discarded their bodies in the jungle.
On July 9, soldiers in trucks rolled into Yin village in Kani, launching an attack that would leave 16 dead, according to three witness accounts. The soldiers started shooting and sent people fleeing. Troops surrounded a group in the nearby jungle, said one woman who was captured with her brother.
She was set free, but would never see her brother alive again. When she returned with others three days later, they discovered his body on the forest floor, already rotting in the heat and showing signs of torture.
“We all live in fear,” said the woman, who like the other villagers asked to remain anonymous for safety. “We are worried that they might come back during the night.”
One 42-year-old man said a search party of 50 villagers found three separate clusters of bodies. Some appeared to have been dragged to death along rocky ground with ropes or with their own clothes. The bodies had been pillaged for gold.
“There were some fleshly remains and the odor was so foul,” the villager said. “We couldn’t even get close because of the smell.”
The village is now terrorized into silence, he said, listening for the next attack with their bags packed and the normal rhythms of life frozen in fear.
Another Kani resident told the AP that when soldiers approached his village of Zee Pin Twin on July 26, he fled into the jungle. He returned to find his home broken and blackened by fire. Precious goods were stolen, and important documents, food, and other belongings like wedding photos lay in a smoldering heap.
Two days later, villagers with search dogs found 12 bodies, some buried in shallow pits in the jungle. A villager told the AP that they saw bruises and other signs of torture on the corpses, and that one man’s hands were tied with military boot laces and his mouth gagged.
The descriptions match photographs and videos of burned and brutalized bodies given to the Myanmar Witness monitoring group.
“When there’s image and videos (in) three separate events…it’s very hard to deny,” said Benjamin Strick, head of investigations for the Britain and Thailand-based group.
The AP could not independently verify the grisly images, but they also match incident reports collected by the AAPP. John Quinley, a human rights specialist with Fortify Rights, said the group believes the violence in Kani and in Sagaing is a “direct result” of PDF operations there.
“The Myanmar junta’s strategy is to try to create an environment of terror and try to silence civilians and also try to drive out the PDF,” Quinley said.
That strategy may not be working. Resistance has only stiffened, according to the Kani villagers.
“The whole village plays a role,” one man said. “Some women make gunpowder; people do not work; all the villagers somehow take part in the revolution.”
Another described a few shattered survivors in a village unified by hatred of the military.
“I am not afraid anymore,” he said. “Instead of dying fleeing, I will use my life for a purpose.”
Thousands of army desertions have been reported, although usually of lower ranks, said Quinley from Fortify Rights.
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“These atrocities are happening to everyday people, you know, engineers, university students, businesspeople,” he said. “And so I think there’s a growing solidarity movement across religious and ethnic lines.”
The Tatmadaw has the advantage of airpower and automatic weapons. But the opposition in Sagaing and Chin state relies on knowledge of the terrain and the support of locals, some lightly armed with muzzle-loaded home-made traditional guns.
“They just modify their skills of fighting to the defensive war and guerrilla warfare,” said Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s minister for human rights, in an interview from Europe.
The army’s attacks in Sagaing are thought to be the opening salvo in a campaign to stamp out resistance in Myanmar’s northwest, called Operation Anawrahta. Anawrahta was an 11th-century Buddhist king who established a Burmese empire, and the name carries a special meaning to the military, said the deserter, Zin Yaw.
“That means they are going to brutally crush the people,” he said.
More than 51,000 people are already displaced in seven Sagaing townships, including Kani, and another 30,200 in Chin State, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs.
“What we’re seeing in Sagaing is really interesting, because we’re talking about the Bamar heartland that basically should be the core foundation of this military,” said Maung of Human Rights Watch. “It’s telling how worried the military is of its own people.”
There are now growing signs that the military is turning its focus on Chin state. Chin fighters claim to have killed dozens of soldiers, according to social media analysis by Myanmar Witness.
As fresh soldiers have flowed into Chin state, residents have reported troops putting down protests with live rounds and brutal beatings. A teacher in the town of Mindat said many fled early on, but she was determined not to be forced out.
Then the military fired artillery into the town so the “houses would shake like an earthquake,” she said. Her cousin, a member of the PDF, was killed by a sniper and his body boobytrapped, the teacher said.
That evening, villagers tried to move the body from a distance with a stick. The body blew up.
“We didn’t get back a body,” she said. “Instead we had to collect pieces.”
She fled to neighboring India in October.
A half-day’s drive west from Mindat lies Matupi, a town with two military camps that is now bereft of its young people, according to a college student who fled with her two teenage brothers in October. She said the military had locked people into houses and set them alight, hid bombs in churches and schools, killed three protest leaders she knew and left bodies in the middle of roads to terrorize people.
Yet the resistance has spread, she said.
“People are scared of the military, but they want democracy and they are fighting for democracy,” she said from India, where she now lives. “They are screaming for democracy.”
Thantlang, a town near the Indian border, has also been emptied of its people after four months of heavy fighting, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization. Drone footage shot by the group in October and December and seen by the AP shows fires raging inside buildings and charred churches, collapsed schools and ruined homes. The footage matches fires detected by satellites and interviews with villagers.
Rachel, a 23-year-old who had moved home to Thantlang in June to escape the COVID pandemic in Yangon, said residents started hearing explosions and gunfire in the distance. The sounds gradually got closer starting in September.
As the shelling hit the town, she and others hid on the ground floor of their local church for four days, she said.
She then fled for a nearby village. But she sneaked back into town on Dec. 3 to gather belongings. While she was in her home with three friends, small arms fire and explosions suddenly erupted outside.
She felt a hot burn as a bullet tore into her torso. Two of her friends bolted, leaving her alone with a cousin who has trouble walking due to a birth defect.
She told him she was going to die and asked him to leave. But he stayed, wrapping her scarf around her stomach to stem the bleeding. The two managed to get to her motorbike, and her cousin held her with one hand as he drove with the other.
A local doctor determined that the bullet had hit her cell phone and then gone into the left side of her stomach.
“I think I would have died there if it had not hit the phone,” said Rachel, who asked to be identified by one name only for her safety.
The following day she got across the border to Mizoram in India. In an interview with the AP from Mizoram, she said she would return home despite the danger to look after her ailing 70-year-old mother.
In the meantime, the farmhand who told the AP about the Done Taw massacre is defiant. He had been passively supporting the PDF before, but is now vowing to avenge the killings of his neighbors.
“I have just decided to fight until the end for them,” he said. “I will do whatever I can until I die or until I am arrested.”