The world must pay more attention to the civil war in Myanmar and work harder to deny the military junta access to the weapons it has used to carry out a reign of violent terror against its civilian population, 12 U.N. experts said in a statement released on Monday.
Issued as the civilian death toll in the nearly four-year civil war passed 6,000 people, the statement calls for a “course correction” from the international community to stop “failing the people of Myanmar” and to move the “disaster” there out of “the shadows of international attention.”
Thousands among those 6,000 civilians had their lives cut short by “indiscriminate attacks” by junta forces, it says, adding that the military often purposefully “targets civilian homes and infrastructure.”
“Unlawful killings by junta forces are common and are characterized by their brutality and inhumanity,” the experts said. “According to credible reports, nearly 2,000 individuals have been killed in the custody of junta forces, 365 have been shot in the head, and 215 burned alive.”
“Many victims have been tortured to death. Others have been subjected to acts tantamount to enforced disappearance before execution,” they added. “Beheadings, dismemberment, and the disfiguration of bodies are shockingly common.”
Some 21,000 people arrested by the junta since the civil war broke out also remain in detention, the statement says, with most being held with their family “having no information on their fates or whereabouts.”
Among others, the statement is signed by Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, and Gabriella Citroni and Grażyna Baranowska, the chair and vice-chair rapporteurs of the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
‘Grossly inadequate’
Myanmar’s military seized power from the country’s democratically elected government in February 2021 and has since been stuck in battle with various militias and rebel armies across the country.
Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar and a former U.S. congressman, last year issued a report called “The Billion Dollar Death Trade,” which extensively detailed how Chinese, Russian and Singaporean companies were profiting by selling arms to the junta.
Since then, the world has taken several steps to try to limit the junta’s access to arms, including efforts by the U.S. government to cut off the military from its air fuel supply to limit aerial attacks on civilians.
However, observers say the junta is finding ways around such initiatives and more must be done to cut off the junta from arms.
In their statement, the U.N. experts said global efforts had cut the junta’s access to “weapons, dual-use technologies, and manufacturing equipment” by about one-third since the release of Andrews’ report.
“As welcome as these actions have been, they remain grossly inadequate and lack the coordination and strategic targeting necessary to deliver the support the people of Myanmar need and deserve,” the experts said in the statement. “We can and must do better.”
The statement also called for governments around the world to reject the junta’s plans to hold “elections” for a new government next year.
“You cannot hold an election when you deposed a democratically elected Government in an unconstitutional coup, and continue to arbitrarily arrest, detain, disappear, torture and execute opposition leaders,” they said, describing the election plans as “a fraud.”
