ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
Recent Posts
- Junta targeting rebel-held areas in northern Myanmar with airstrikes and artillery
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 8 to 14, 2024)
- Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum 2024
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 1 to 7, 2024)
- Red Cross chief calls for greater aid access after visit to Myanmar
CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON THE VISIT OF HEAD OF OCHA TO MYANMAR
/in Member statements, Press Releases and StatementsCivil society statement on the visit of Head of OCHA to Myanmar
While noting efforts by UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, to negotiate humanitarian access across Myanmar, including to Rakhine State following deadly Cyclone Mocha, we, the undersigned 513 civil society organizations, are concerned that Mr. Griffiths’ visit lacked substantive achievements and was used as propaganda by the military junta. We urge the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to officially engage and partner with legitimate stakeholders of Myanmar and civil society service providers to deliver humanitarian assistance.
As Mr. Griffiths’ end-of-visit statement affirmed, “it is critical for us to have the humanitarian space we need for safe, sustained aid deliveries around the country.” Principled humanitarian engagement must see OCHA and other UN humanitarian agencies cut ties with the illegal criminal junta which is weaponizing aid and is the root cause of human suffering in Myanmar. Rather, OCHA must immediately partner with legitimate governance actors that control large parts of the country and deliver aid through local service providers. This includes Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs), the National Unity Government (NUG), and civil society organizations who have been effectively providing essential services on the ground, including through cross-border channels. Such stakeholders have the access, legitimacy, capacity and, most importantly, trust from the people that the junta simply lacks.
Given that the visit happened three months since Cyclone Mocha devastated communities in Chin and Rakhine States, Sagaing Region and beyond, the junta has proven to have no intention to address the acute needs of affected communities. Rather, OCHA visit has become the military junta’s latest propaganda exercise to attempt to gain international recognition and legitimacy. We are alarmed that OCHA’s statement omits the fact that the cause of the escalating humanitarian crisis is the junta’s violence and atrocities, or that it is the junta’s weaponization of humanitarian assistance that is blocking access to Cyclone Mocha’s victims.
While the junta has restricted humanitarian access and prevented aid from reaching vulnerable communities affected by the natural disaster, it is also the perpetrators of a nationwide man-made humanitarian catastrophe. Its widespread and systematic campaign of arson, military offensives, extrajudicial killings, and aerial attacks on civilians are, according to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, strong evidence of “increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.” In addition to these heinous crimes, severe restrictions of humanitarian aid delivery, including targeting aid workers, are the junta’s collective punishment of a population that is rejecting its ongoing brutal attempt to grab power. In his recent report to the 53rd Session of the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, outlines how “As part of its attempts to assert control, the military has imposed a range of legal, financial, and bureaucratic requirements on civil society and humanitarian activity that have severely reduced civic space and delivery of life-saving assistance.”
We further note OCHA’s recognition of the Myanmar military’s unconstitutional body of the “State Administration Council” in its statementwhich is inconsistent with the language used by the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly in their resolutions. It also legitimizes Min Aung Hlaing’s claim to be head of government by referring to him as the Chairman of the State Administration Council. We express serious concerns that OCHA’s current approach will embolden the junta to further its war of terror across the nation. Such actions risk exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, the very crisis OCHA is mandated to address and alleviate.
Despite the junta attempting to gain diplomatic legitimacy over this type of visit, OCHA must ensure substantial benefits are provided for the millions of people in dire need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the junta’s violence and atrocities. Access for OCHA staff to parts of Rakhine State and nearby areas is one issue at stake, but so is the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons in central, southeast and northwest Myanmar, where the junta is launching non-stop deliberate attacks on civilians. In these areas, the junta does not have effective control and cannot grant access to affected communities. On the contrary, local governance and civil society actors have been effectively delivering assistance to affected communities, but must be supported by more resources.
OCHA must reflect on its current failed approach and take critical, concrete actions which truly serve Myanmar communities that are in dire need. To fulfill its mandate and principles to do no harm, OCHA must immediately pivot to delivering aid in collaboration or partnership with local humanitarian and civil society groups, ethnic service providers, diaspora communities, local administration forces of the Spring Revolution, members of the Civil Disobedience Movement, EROs, and the NUG who have been effectively providing life-saving services on the ground, including through cross-border channels.
The Myanmar military has a long history of weaponizing humanitarian aid and UN agencies have a long history of being criticized for complicity in military atrocities, all done in the name of access. OCHA can no longer afford to rehash failed models of humanitarianism, and thus tacitly giving credence and status to the illegal military junta. Rather, OCHA must be innovative and supportive of local service providers, as well as engage and collaborate with the legitimate stakeholders of Myanmar. This will ensure the most effective and widespread delivery of humanitarian assistance to affected communities suffering from international crimes committed by a brutal military junta.
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Signed by 513 Myanmar, regional and international organizations including 260 organizations who have chosen to not disclose their name:
Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 15 to 21, 2023)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 15 to 21, 2023
Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Bago Region, Kayin State, and Kachin State from August 15th to 21st. Military Junta troops attacked with heavy artillery which seemed to contain chemical poison, to Thasi Village, Kale Township, Sagaing Region, and 20 civilians were poisoned and took medical care. They also arrested over 30 civilians from Sagaing Region and Magway Region as human shields. Military Junta arrested and killed 8 civilians from Pinlebu Township and Khin-U Township.
Civilians were forced to leave their places by the Military Junta troop’s matching, for 5 times within a week. 2 children died and 1 was injured by the Military’s Human Rights Violations. 5 underage youth were arrested within a week. Military land mines killed a civilian and injured 2 people.
Infogram
Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 8 to 14, 2023)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 8 to 14, 2023
Military Junta Troops launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region and Bago Region from August 8th to 14th. Military Junta troops arrested almost 50 civilians and used them as human shields in Tanintharyi Region. Juna’s troops arrested 2 civilians and burnt and killed them in Kale Township on August 12th. They also destroyed the part of the Seikphyu Road which connects Pathein- Monywa Road.
Pyusawhtee militias that work under the Military Junta are threatening the civilians in various ways and collecting money in Sagaing Region and Tanintharyi Region. 8 civilians were killed by the Military Junta troop within a week. A child died and 2 were injured by the Human Right Violations of the Military Junta.
Infogram
Beaten in prison for marking Martyrs’ Day, two Burmese inmates die
/in NewsOther inmates, including female prisoners, who participated were placed in solitary confinement.
Two Burmese political prisoners beaten by the ruling military junta’s prison authorities for participating in a ceremony marking Martyrs’ Day have died of their injuries, sources with knowledge of the situation said.
They were among four inmates authorities physically assaulted in Tharrawaddy Prison in Bago region on July 19 for marking the national holiday, RFA reported earlier.
The holiday marks the memory of renowned fallen figures within Burma’s independence movement, including Gen. Aung San, father of deposed and jailed former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, seven other independence leaders, and one bodyguard who were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon on July 19, 1947.
The holiday is marked annually by both pro-democracy groups and the military junta, which seized control of the elected government in a February 2021 coup and later sentenced Suu Kyi to 33 years in prison following trials that rights groups have condemned as shams.
The two inmates — Than Toe Aung, organizer of the National League for Democracy’s youth group in Yangon’s Thanlyin township, and Hla Soe from the town of Thone Sal in Bago’s Tharrawaddy (Tharyarwady) district — died after they were taken to the prison hospital, sources close to the prison told RFA on Monday.
The other two beaten inmates also received treatment in the prison hospital.
They were among the inmates in the men’s section of the detention center who held a saluting ceremony and discussion to commemorate Martyrs’ Day, while female prisoners in the women’s section wore black ribbons.
Solitary confinement
Because of these activities, prison guards placed 16 male inmates and 15 females to solitary confinement. Four of them were severely tortured and had required medical treatment in prison since July 21.
Prison authorities have not notified the victims’ families about their deaths, Nyo Tun, a former political prisoner and a friend of Than Toe Aung, told Radio Free Asia.
“The news that the two political prisoners have died came from not just one source, but from two or three from the prison,” he said.
Than Toe Aung, serving six years in prison for violating the Explosive Substances Act, died on Aug. 5 from severe head injuries.
Hla Soe, serving 20 years for violating the Counter-terrorism Law, died on Aug. 8.
Thaik Tun Oo of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network said he was able to confirm the death of the two prisoners.
RFA could not reach the spokesman of Myanmar’s Prison Department for comment.
Prison guards have allowed some of the female inmates who participated in commemorating the holiday to return to their cells, while the situation of the men’s section remains unknown, said people close to the prison.
As of Aug. 14, more than 19,700 pro-democracy activists and civilians had been detained by authorities under the military junta since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group.
RFA News
Fire station raid triggers junta attacks in Budalin Township
/in NewsThe attacks come as resistance forces continue to hold the township’s fire department chief and others for helping the regime to target dissidents
Regime forces have begun carrying out raids in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township following the capture late last week of fire department staff and their families by local resistance groups.
According to sources in the area, a column of around 100 soldiers based in the Depayin Township village of Saing Pyin started attacking villages north of the town of Budalin early Thursday morning.
This column was later joined by another of around 70 troops based in Ku Taw, a village in western Budalin Township. At around 11am, the two columns converged in Kin San, a village some 20km north of Budalin, the sources said.
“The two columns combined to make one large force that I think will now start searching for the firefighters,” a local with ties to a resistance group told Myanmar Now.
The raids have forced hundreds of civilians from Kin San and other villages in the area to flee, according to residents.
Last Sunday, anti-regime groups stormed a fire station in downtown Budalin and detained 21 people, including the township’s fire department chief, 12 firefighters and other staff, and eight family members.
The resistance groups said they targeted the fire department because of its collaboration with the junta in sealing off dissidents’ houses and arresting civilians, and for its failure to help put out fires set by regime soldiers.
The groups say the detainees are being held in a safe place as they face prosecution for their role in supporting the junta.
There were also reports that the army column from Saing Pyin is holding around 30 local villagers hostage. Myanmar’s military routinely uses civilians as human shields in areas where it faces attack from resistance forces.
“Many of the hostages were middle-aged people just going about their business when they were taken away. Some of them didn’t seem to think that the army posed a threat to them,” said the source close to local resistance forces.
Budalin is less than 40km north of Monywa, Sagaing Region’s capital and largest city, and the seat of the junta’s Northwestern Regional Military Command.
In late July, three student leaders were tortured and killed following a raid on their office in western Budalin Township. Sources say they were repeatedly stabbed in the chest before being put to death.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, around 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes in Myanmar since the military seized power in February 2021, with Sagaing Region alone accounting for more than half of this figure.
Myanmar Now News
‘Dramatic increase’ in Myanmar war crimes: UN probe
/in NewsInvestigators say they are looking for evidence linking crimes to specific individuals, especially high-level officials
UN investigators said Tuesday they had gathered strong evidence of surging war crimes in Myanmar, including mass executions and sexual violence, and were building case files to help bring perpetrators to justice.
The Southeast Asian country has been ravaged by deadly violence since a coup deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021, unleashing a bloody crackdown on dissent that has sparked fighting across swathes of the nation.
The United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had evidence that Myanmar’s military and affiliated militias were “committing increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.”
It pointed among other things to indiscriminate aerial bombardments, the burning of villages and mass killings of civilians and detained combatants, as well as torture and horrific sexual violence.
The investigation team warned in its annual report that “the number of incidents bearing the hallmarks of serious international crimes” had surged since the coup.
“Every loss of life in Myanmar is tragic, but the devastation caused to whole communities through aerial bombardments and village burnings is particularly shocking,” Mechanism chief Nicholas Koumjian said in the statement.
“Our evidence points to a dramatic increase in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country, with widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, and we are building case files that can be used by courts to hold individual perpetrators responsible.”
‘Highest level of cruelty’
The IIMM was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes and prepare files for criminal prosecution.
While the team has never been permitted to visit Myanmar, it said it had engaged with over 700 sources and had collected “over 23 million information items,” including witness statements, documents, photographs, videos, forensic evidence and satellite imagery.
The team—already cooperating with the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court—said it “plans to accelerate its collection of evidence of the most serious international crimes.”
The investigators said they were particularly looking for “linkage evidence” demonstrating responsibility of specific individuals, especially high-level officials.
The IIMM report explained that military commanders have a duty under international law to prevent and punish war crimes committed by those under their command.
“Repeatedly ignoring such crimes may indicate that the higher authorities intended the commission of these crimes,” the report said.
It highlighted evidence of the use of child soldiers by “various armed actors,” and said it was seeing “more and more evidence concerning torture, sexual violence and other forms of severe mistreatment at numerous detention facilities.”
The evidence indicated that such crimes were “being committed with the highest levels of cruelty and harm to the victims, including rape with objects, other forms of humiliation, mutilation, gang or serial rape and sexual enslavement,” the report said.
The IIMM said it was also investigating rampant sexual violence committed during the bloody crackdown on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority that in 2017 resulted in the displacement of nearly a million people.
“Sexual and gender-based crimes are amongst the most heinous crimes that we are investigating,” said Koumjian, saying these were “pervasive during the Rohingya clearance operations.”
Myanmar Now News