Heavy artillery fire and airstrikes were reported in northern Maungdaw Township following an attack on a junta base last Friday

A woman was killed on Saturday as fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA) continued through the weekend in northern Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township.

May Thar Sein, 60, died after an artillery shell fired by regime forces landed in the village of Min Gyi early Saturday morning, local sources reported.

The shell, which was reportedly fired by junta forces stationed in the nearby village of Kyein Chaung, killed May Thar Sein instantly, according to a man who lives in the area.

“She was getting some firewood from a pile near her house when the shell fell near her. She was killed on the spot,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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A junta soldier in Maungdaw in 2018 (EPA)

Later the same day, there were also reports that the military had carried out an airstrike near the village of Hka Maung Seik, more than 30km to the north.

According to a resident of the village, two helicopters were used to carry out attacks in the area, where AA forces had mounted an assault on a tactical base the day before.

“The airstrike was between Nang Yar Kaing and Lay Myo Kayti, but closer to Kayti. We don’t know if anyone was killed or injured,” said the local, referring to two nearby villages.

Myanmar Now has been unable to find out more information about the aerial assault, which reportedly lasted about 30 minutes.

According to teachers at a school in Hka Maung Seik, the two sides clashed for about an hour from around 3pm on Friday, and again from around 2am to 7am on Saturday.

After a shell landed on the school’s staff residence, those staying there decided to flee, said a teacher who did not want to be identified.

“We left the school on our on motorcycles at around 6am, and it was around 9am when we arrived at the Kyein Chaung security checkpoint, where they would not let us pass,” said the teacher.

“We tried to tell them that we were teachers from Hka Maung Seik, but not only would they not let us pass, but they also threatened to shoot us,” he added.
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The entrance to Min Gyi, where a woman was killed by a Myanmar army shell on August 27 (Myanmar Now)

However, soon after they started heading back towards Hka Maung Seik, the group of around 10 teachers heard the sound of heavy artillery as they approached the village of Yan Aung Pyin, which is located about 1km from Min Gyi.

“We decided to go into Yan Aung Pyin to avoid the shelling,” said the teacher, adding that he had also heard reports of casualties in Min Gyi.

The Min Gyi resident who spoke to Myanmar Now about May Thar Sein’s death said that a social welfare group that had come to collect her body was also turned away at the Kyein Chaung checkpoint.

“The township administrator said he’d send a car to retrieve the body, but it never arrived because it couldn’t get past the Kyein Chaung checkpoint,” he said.

The fighting that followed the attack on the Hka Maung Seik base reportedly began after junta reinforcements arrived in the nearby village of Min Kha Maung on Friday evening.

Before leaving later the same night, the column of around 50 soldiers took around a dozen villagers, including a former village administrator, hostage, according to a resident.

“They were taken to be used as human shields, but three of them managed to escape,” said the local, adding that the whereabouts of the remaining hostages was not known.

Neither the Myanmar military nor the AA have released a statement about the latest hostilities between the two sides, which have also affected parts of southern Chin State.

Myanmar Now News

Myanmar’s military launched a ferocious crackdown against the country’s Rohingya Muslim population in 2017, driving more than 740,000 refugees into neighboring Bangladesh.

Here are the key dates in the five-year crisis:

Army operations

Early on the morning of Aug. 25, 2017 a shadowy Rohingya militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) stages coordinated attacks on dozens of police posts in Myanmar’s coastal Rakhine State, killing at least a dozen officers.

The army retaliates with operations in Rohingya villages, ostensibly to flush out insurgents.

It says it killed 400 militants but opponents say most of the dead are civilians.

The UN says at least 1,000 people were killed in the first two weeks of the military operations.

Refugee exodus

By Sept. 5 more than 120,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh, overwhelming its ill-equipped refugee camps.

There are already at least 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh from previous waves of violence.

Suu Kyi breaks silence

International anger mounts against Myanmar. Soldiers are accused of razing Rohingya homes and some world leaders allege “ethnic cleansing” has taken place.

In her first statement on the crisis, Myanmar’s civilian leader and Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi pledges on Sept. 19 to hold rights violators to account but refuses to blame the army.

Possible ‘genocide’

Bangladesh and Myanmar on Nov. 23 agree to start repatriating refugees.

But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says conditions are not in place for their safe return and the process halts.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Dec. 5 warns of possible “elements of genocide” and calls for an international investigation.

Courts and sanctions

On Aug. 25, 2018, tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees stage protests to mark the first anniversary of their exodus.

UN investigators call for the prosecution of Myanmar’s army chief and five other top military commanders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In November an attempt to repatriate 2,260 Rohingya fails as they refuse to leave without guarantees for their safety.

Reporters jailed

On Sept. 3, two Reuters journalists who are accused of breaching Myanmar’s state secrets law while reporting on a Rohingya massacre are jailed for seven years.

They will spend more than 500 days behind bars before being released on a presidential pardon.

US sanctions

On July 16, 2019, Washington announces sanctions against Myanmar’s army chief and three other top officers.

About 3,500 Rohingya refugees are cleared to return home but none turn up to make the journey on Aug. 22.

Legal challenges mount

On Nov. 11 Gambia files a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of genocide for its treatment of the Rohingya.

Three days later the separate Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) green-lights a full investigation into the persecution of the Rohingya.

In the same week, a third case is filed by rights groups in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Suu Kyi in court

On Dec. 11 Gambia lays out its case at the ICJ with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi personally leading Myanmar’s defense.

She refutes accusations of genocide, denying “misleading and incomplete” claims and insisting Myanmar is dealing with an “internal armed conflict”.

She admits the army may have used excessive force.

Court ruling

Delivering its ruling on Jan. 23, 2020, the ICJ orders Myanmar to take urgent steps to prevent alleged genocide and to report back within four months.

Coup d’etat

Myanmar’s military seizes power on Feb. 1, 2021,m ousting the civilian government and later waging a bloody crackdown on dissent.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is put under house arrest and later jailed for 17 years following a closed-door trial in junta court.

With several charges still hanging over her, the 77-year-old faces the possibility of decades behind bars.

US calls genocide

The United States on March 21, 2022 officially declares that the 2017 violence amounted to genocide, saying there was clear evidence of an attempt to “destroy” the Rohingya.

The ICJ rules on July 22 that the case filed by Gambia can proceed.

In the same month the junta executes four prisoners, the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

Camp killings

On Aug. 10 two Rohingya community leaders are shot dead in one of the Bangladesh refugee camps, the latest in a string of killings in the settlements.

Rohingya sources tell AFP that ARSA is behind the shootings.

ARSA is accused of running narcotics, murdering political opponents and instilling a climate of fear in the camps.

META DESCRIPTION: A look at the key events that have unfolded since the Myanmar military launched a deadly crackdown on Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2017.

Topics: Coup, genocide, junta, Military, Myanmar, Refugees, regime, Rohingya, Suu Kyi

Irrawaddy News

Last week’s meeting between UN special envoy Noeleen Heyzer and the Myanmar junta chief ended without any breakthrough, becoming yet another failed UN mission to the country, one of many involving the world body’s diplomats and military rulers of Myanmar since 1990.

Rather, regime chief Min Aung Hlaing took the meeting as an opportunity to personally vent his discontent at the UN, as well as to lecture the envoy, according to a transcript of the meeting the regime released on Friday in response to the envoy’s statement, which the regime said was “one-sided” and “created misunderstanding about Myanmar.” In her statement after the meeting on Aug. 17, the envoy outlined the discussion and said the meeting didn’t in any way confer legitimacy on the regime.

According to minutes of the meeting, Min Aung Hlaing expressed his displeasure at the world body’s refusal to recognize the regime’s representative, among other things. He also told a barefaced lie, claiming that “Myanmar has gained stability”, which he said made it hard for him to understand why the UN has issued many statements expressing concerns about the country. He told Heyzer that it would be more appropriate to make comments on Myanmar only after gaining an understanding of the real situation in the country, and criticized her decision to take a flight from Yangon to Naypyitaw, saying she missed an opportunity to see the situation on the ground by traveling in a car. Plus, contradicting mounting evidence, he denied his troops were torching civilian homes.

In short, the envoy returned from Myanmar barehanded after enduring an hours-long dressing-down on various topics from Min Aung. She was given a low-grade reception and used by the junta to promote its legitimacy, something it has been internationally denied. She outdid her predecessors, however, by prompting the regime to release a transcript of the meeting, which was unprecedented.

The meeting between the UN special envoy and Myanmar regime leader was the UN’s latest attempt to mediate peace in the country, which has been consumed by conflict sparked by the military coup last year.

But it failed, just as all the world body’s previous efforts in the country did, especially those dealing with the country’s military rulers over the past more than 30 years.

The UN has appointed a series of envoys on Myanmar since 1990, when the country was under military rule after the failed pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

It started with Japanese diplomat Sadako Ogata, who was appointed as an independent expert by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Her successors included Malaysian businessman Razali Ismail and Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari, who tried to create a dialogue between then junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Razali, who served from 2000 to 2006, made 12 visits and Gambari traveled to Myanmar at least four times. But both failed to bring tangible results.

When the Malaysian diplomat quit in 2006, he told The Irrawaddy, “It is best to conclude that I have failed.” Some of the UN envoys brought with them conflicts of interest that tainted the public’s perception of them. Rumors circulated that some UN envoys took “boxes of presents” from the generals. Some Myanmar people called Gambari “kyauk yu pyan,” which means “one who takes gems and then leaves,” according to The Associated Press.

A Malaysian company headed by Razali, IRIS Corp, even clinched a business deal with the military government, selling high-tech passports to the regime.

Then came Heyzer’s predecessor Christine Schraner Burgener. In September last year, shortly before her term as the UN Secretary General’s special envoy on Myanmar was to end, the Swiss diplomat tweeted that her efforts to facilitate an “all-inclusive dialogue in the interest of the people were not welcomed by the military.” In other words, she confessed that her months-long attempts, in the wake of the takeover, to persuade the coup leaders in Naypytaw to engage in dialogue to settle the political and social turmoil caused by the coup had failed.

Heyzer began her duties in December 2021. Unlike her predecessor, she was invited by Min Aung Hlaing to visit the country. But like all the envoys before her, she failed the Myanmar people.

Her failure highlights one of the UN’s historic problems: its lack of muscle, especially in dealing with such a repressive country. It has now been 32 years that the UN has failed the Myanmar people by sending one envoy after another. It must take harsher approaches to the regime. If not, the world body will merely be a thing of ridicule, not only among Myanmar people but to Min Aung Hlaing himself.

In the wake of the meeting, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), a group of former UN experts on the country, urged Heyzer to engage more with Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG) instead. While meeting with Min Aung Hlaing may have been essential to the special envoy in attempting to fulfil her mandate, it said, “It is clear that nothing of significance will come of it.”

SAC-M member Yanghee Lee, a former UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, said Heyzer must now be looking forward to formally engaging with the NUG, which was formed by the elected lawmakers of the ousted National League for Democracy and their ethnic allies, and commands the loyalty of the vast majority of Myanmar people.

“She must go the extra mile to find a solution acceptable to the peoples of Myanmar,” Lee said.

Topics: junta, Military, Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, regime

Irrawaddy News