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
- Myanmar military still bombing towns despite earthquake crisis, rebels say
- PRESS STATEMENT: CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR DISASTER RELIEF FOR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS AND AFFECTED COMMUNITIES IN MYANMAR
- AAPP Launches its New Report on Justice, the Judiciary and the Weaponization of Law to Repress Civilians in Burma
- Junta offensives leave 4 dead, thousands displaced in northwest Myanmar
- Open letter: Special Envoy’s conflicts of interest signal urgent need for investigation and complete end of mandate
Myanmar junta looks to placate ASEAN with prisoner releases
/in NewsThe military’s amnesty is a calculated move to win bloc’s backing for elections next year.
The Myanmar junta’s announcement that it is releasing several high-profile prisoners including a former UK ambassador and an Australian economist, is an attempt to stave off pressure from ASEAN as the military looks to win legitimacy for national elections slated for next year.
On Thursday, the junta, formally called the State Administrative Council, said it was releasing Australian Sean Turnell, Briton Vicky Bowman, Japanese journalist Toru Kubota, U.S.-Burmese national Kyaw Htay Oo and several senior opposition figures. It was part of a prisoner amnesty of 5,774 prisoners, including 712 political prisoners, to mark a national holiday.
Turnell, an academic, was a close economic advisor to deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now in prison herself – convicted and sentenced on multiple charges for a total of 26 years. Turnell was arrested days after the 1 Feb. 2021 coup, and sentenced to three years. Former ambassador Bowman, who ran an NGO which advocated corporate responsibility, was arrested with her husband Htein Lin, in September 2022. They were each sentenced to one year each on immigration charges. Lin was also released. Toru Kubota was arrested in July 2022 and sentenced to seven years.
The trumped-up charges against Bowman, Turnell, and Kubota indicate that they were effectively used as hostages to prevent their respective governments from endorsing tougher economic sanctions against the junta.
Why Now?
The releases came just days after Indonesian President Joko Widodo assumed the rotating presidency of ASEAN. His predecessor as ASEAN chair, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, had largely advocated an engagement policy with the junta, though he was pressured by ASEAN members to disinvite their political leadership to the summits.
In reality, Cambodia’s “leadership” was a gift to the junta. But a sympathetic chair is no longer a given.
Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, announced his dissatisfaction with the grouping’s failure to get the junta to abide by the terms of the Five Point Consensus, reached between the junta and ASEAN in April 2021. It was intended to foster a political settlement and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
A Nov. 13 statement from ASEAN after its leaders met for a summit in Cambodia, called for “concrete, practical and measurable indicators” of progress in implementing the consensus, and the junta has reason to believe that Indonesia will be more forceful in its approach. Jokowi stated that “Indonesia is deeply disappointed the situation in Myanmar is worsening,” and worried that the organization’s dithering was “defining” the Southeast Asian bloc.
While one might be skeptical that Indonesia may take a substantially harder line on the junta, would the generals in Naypyidaw be willing to take the risk? Foreign policy has never been a high priority for the Indonesian president, but having successfully hosted what could have been a very contentious G-20 summit and now assuming the presidency of ASEAN, Jokowi may be looking towards his legacy. His time in office will end in 2024.
But it was more than the ASEAN meeting that accounts for the timing.
On Nov. 14, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah announced that said that Malaysia would not support the junta’s planned elections in 2023, as it would be “biased” and rejected by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League of Democracy, which won overwhelmingly in the November 2020 polls, the shadow National Unity Government or other stakeholders.
“The pro-democracy group that won the previous election won big but before they could convene Parliament, the junta took over power,” Saifuddin said. “Therefore, it is completely illogical for Malaysia and ASEAN to support the election.”
The junta has every reason to fear that Indonesia may follow suit, paving the way for other ASEAN states, such as the Philippines and Singapore, to share that position.
The proposed election in Myanmar in 2023 will be shambolic, for a host of reasons. The junta has established a proportional representationsystem it believes that will be in its favor, arrested hundreds of NLD members of parliament and activists, gerrymandered districts, moved to ban parties, and controlled the media. It is also moving to establish a national identity card system that would be required for voting, but likely unavailable to much of the electorate. The junta also controls the Union Election Commission and the judiciary.
Various ethnic resistance organizations have already stated that no electoral activities will be allowed in their territory. The shadow government that emerged after the coup, the NUG, will probably lead a nationwide boycott of the elections, further diminishing the credibility of the vote.
Yet, while the junta is confident that they can rig a vote in their favor, they are much less confident that the international community will accept it. Coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing really believes that elections would allow him, Thai style, to cling to power and legitimize his regime.
While he can count on China, Russia and India, along with Japan and South Korea, to endorse any elections, giving the regime a fig leaf of legitimacy and allowing business as usual to resume, the key to international acceptance will be the stance of ASEAN.
The U.S. and the West have always said that ASEAN has to be the lead to any political resolution to the crisis in Myanmar. So it’s essential for the junta to try to preempt the bloc from rejecting the election’s results, before they’ve even happened.
The junta’s theory of victory
Despite considerable battlefield losses against Ethnic Resistance Organizations and People’s Defense Forces that have taken up arms since the coup, and a multi-front civil war, the junta has a theory of victory. The NUG’s center of gravity is their alliances and working relationships with the various ethnic armed organizations who also provide the NUG’s network of militias with arms and training. So they continue to dangle autonomy agreements and revenue sharing with any ethnic resistance organization that will show up in Naypyidaw.
The SAC also knows that time is on their side. Despite their gross economic mismanagement, they still have more resources than the NUG, they have access to weapons and arms, and can borrow money from abroad.
The junta simply has to hang on, and not lose any more territory before the elections slated for next August. Indeed, they are poised to begin their dry season offensive, trying to retake as much territory as possible and use their air power to bomb the ethnic resistance forces in the hopes that they quit the NUG and enter into peace talks.
And that’s why the release of Turnell, Bowman and others is so important. It will be interpreted by many in ASEAN and the international community as a goodwill gesture by the junta that will allow states that were starting to call for greater isolation of the junta to accept continued engagement.
For the junta, it all comes down to next year’s elections. It worked for the Thai junta that seized power in 2014, and was able within a few years to go from pariah to a normalized state, all while politically emasculating the opposition.
For Min Aung Hlaing, Bowman, Turnell, Kubota, and others are tokens to be exchanged for international endorsement. And they have many more to play, including the Lady herself — as Aung San Suu Kyi is known in Myanmar — as they maneuver to hold onto power. This is no humanitarian gesture, but a cynical and calculated ploy for international legitimacy.
RFA News
Australian economist, former UK ambassador among thousands freed in Myanmar amnesty
/in NewsThe surprise announcement comes as the country’s military junta continues to face pressure both at home and abroad
Myanmar’s military junta will release thousands of prisoners, including political detainees and a number of prominent foreigners, as part of a general amnesty announced on Thursday, according to state media.
Among those set to be freed are Sean Turnell, an Australian economist who has been detained since the regime seized power in February 2021, and Vicky Bowman, a former British ambassador to Myanmar who was arrested in August.
The amnesty, which was announced to mark Myanmar’s National Day, will see the release of 5,744 prisoners. Among them are some detained under Section 505a of the Penal Code for incitement in the wake of last year’s coup.
Turnell, who was an economic advisor to ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was sentenced in late September to three years in prison under the Official Secrets Act and Immigration Act by a junta-controlled court in the regime’s administrative capital Naypyitaw.
Suu Kyi and other senior leaders of her deposed ruling party, the National League for Democracy, were not included in the amnesty.
Bowman and her husband, Myanmar national Htein Lin, were both handed one-year sentences in September for immigration offenses related to the former ambassador’s alleged violation of the terms of her visa. Htein Lin will also be freed under the amnesty.
Two other foreign nationals—Japanese filmmaker Toru Kubota, who was sentenced last month to ten years in prison for his contact with anti-coup protesters during the making of a documentary, and Kyaw Htay Oo, an American citizen arrested on terrorism charges—were also named in Thursday’s announcement.
All four of the foreigners included in the amnesty will be deported, according to state media reports.
The regime has also dropped charges against 11 Myanmar celebrities convicted in absentia for their role in opposing the military takeover, the reports added.
Myanmar’s military continues to face staunch opposition to its rule nearly two years after overthrowing the country’s civilian government. Like previous juntas, the current regime has announced a number of amnesties since seizing power to ease both domestic and international pressure.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the regime has arrested more than 16,232 dissidents since the coup, of whom more than 13,000 remain in junta custody.
Myanmar Now News
Veteran activist Mya Aye and other prominent junta critics released as part of mass amnesty
/in NewsSeveral of those freed under an amnesty announced on Thursday had been arrested on the day of last year’s coup
Veteran democracy activist Mya Aye, who has been in junta custody since the military seized power in February of last year, was among nearly 5,800 prisoners pardoned in a mass amnesty on Thursday. He was released from Yangon’s Insein Prison along with several other detainees on Thursday afternoon.
A regime-controlled court sentenced the prominent ‘88 generation student leader to two years in prison in March under Section 505c of the Penal Code for “inciting hate towards an ethnicity or a community.” He was handed the sentence on his 56th birthday.
“I will always be with the people of Myanmar,” he told reporters gathered outside the prison upon his release.
Several others arrested on the day of the February 2021 coup were also freed on Thursday, including two senior members of the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy—party spokesperson Dr. Myo Nyunt and legal advisor Kyaw Ho.
Satirist Maung Thar Cho and junta critic Ven. Pyinya Thiha—a senior monk better known as Shwe Nya Wah Sayadaw—were among the other notable figures released after more than 21 months in detention.
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Writer Maung Thar Cho is seen outside Insein Prison on November 17 (Supplied by citizen journalist)
A total of 143 prisoners were due to be released from prisons in Mandalay Region, including 14 from Obo Prison. Several sources confirmed that those released from prisons across the country include a number of journalists held for incitement.
Four foreign nationals—Australian economist Sean Turnell, former UK diplomat Vicky Bowman, Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota, and American botanist Kyaw Htay Oo—were also among those freed. The military said the four would be deported upon their release. Details are still unknown.
Also granted amnesty were the ousted minister of the State Counsellor’s Office Kyaw Tint Swe and former Tanintharyi Region chief minister Le Le Maw, who had been sentenced before the coup to 30 years behind bars for corruption.
Meanwhile, filmmaker Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, another longtime critic of the military, was released on Tuesday after completing a two-year sentence. However, singer Saw Phoe Khwar was re-arrested on the same day and sent to Taungoo Prison in Bago Region after another charge was filed against him. Further details were not available at the time of reporting.
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Families wait outside Insein Prison as prison authorities begin to release detainees granted an amnesty on November 17 (Supplied by citizen journalist)
Myanmar Now News
Myanmar junta raids in Sagaing leave at least 14 dead
/in NewsThe victims, who include both resistance fighters and civilians, were killed in a series of attacks in three townships that began late last week
Myanmar junta troops killed at least 14 people in a series of raids carried out in three Sagaing Region townships over the past week, according to local resistance sources.
The deaths, which include that of a 14-year-old boy, were the result of attacks on villages in Sagaing’s Wetlet, Ye-U and Budalin townships that began last Wednesday.
On Sunday, around 60 regime soldiers raided the village of Htan Gyi, located some 20km southeast of the town of Wetlet, killing at least five people and torching around 300 homes, according to the leader of a local defence team.
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The charred remains of bodies discovered in Htan Gyi following a raid by junta troops on November 13 (Supplied)
The bodies of the deceased were found in two houses that had been set on fire by the regime forces, he said. Four were in a house just outside of the village near the local train station and the fifth was inside the village, he added.
The four bodies found near the train station belonged to members of another local defence team based in Pauk Kan, a village about 4km northwest of Htan Gyi.
“One had his throat slit. They were all badly disfigured. They were burned with their motorbikes. I don’t know if they were burned alive or set on fire after they were killed,” said the defence team leader, who did not want to be named.
He added that the junta forces initiated the raid on Htan Gyi from the area near the train station, firing on the village with heavy artillery before entering it and beginning their arson attacks.
The fifth victim was identified as Thinn Ko, a 50-year-old Htan Gyi resident who was ill and unable to flee the village when the soldiers arrived.
“It seems he died hiding inside one of the houses that was burned down,” the defence force leader told Myanmar Now.
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A vehicle destroyed in an arson attack by junta troops (Supplied)
After leaving Htan Gyi on Sunday evening, the junta column moved southeast to Kyaung Phyu, about 4km away, where they clashed with local defence groups, sources said.
Two days earlier, the military launched a series of airstrikes between the villages of Si Thar Myay and Lein Taw in Ye-U Township, about 80km northwest of Wetlet, using two Mi-35 attack helicopters, according to local resistance sources. Two Mi-17 transport helicopters were also used to airlift soldiers into the area, they added.
The two attack helicopters bombed the area for about 20 minutes before the other helicopters arrived with around 100 troops, the sources said.
Three resistance fighters were trapped during the air raid, which was reportedly ordered after the military received information that resistance forces were planning to hold a meeting in the area.
According to a source within Battalion 14 of the Shwebo District chapter of the People’s Defence Force led by the shadow National Unity Government, the three resistance fighters were later captured and killed.
All three had bullet wounds in their heads, the source said.
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Members of a local defence team in Sagaing (Myanmar Now)
For the next two days, the junta troops remained in the nearby village of Pan Kone, which they used as a base to carry out ground assaults on other villages in the area.
During this time, soldiers killed two local civilians, including a 50-year-old mentally handicapped man living in Pan Kone, according to a Ye-U-based resistance fighter.
“They were both regular civilians, not politically active at all,” he said, adding that two other residents of the village were also taken hostage and had not been released by the time the regime forces left Pan Kone for the town of Ye-U on Sunday.
Meanwhile, regime troops also carried out a series of attacks in Budalin Township, about 50km southwest of Ye-U, beginning on November 9. A total of four people, including two resistance fighters and a 14-year-old boy, were killed in these assaults, local sources reported.
The first two victims were killed in the village of Thet Shey Kan, where the village head and a resistance fighter died trying to help residents flee a column of around 50 soldiers.
The two men, identified as Bo Mee Tauk and Myo Thu Win, were both tortured after being captured, according a resistance source based in Budalin.
“When we found his body, the hands were all twisted and there were also cuts on the arms, stomach and back. His intestines were also falling out of his stomach,” said the source, referring to the body of village head Bo Mee Tauk.
“Both had also been hit repeatedly in the jaw with rifle butts, leaving the entire area black,” he added.
After spending last Wednesday night in Thet Shay Kan, the junta troops left for Ywar Shay, another village about 6km to the east.
Two residents of the village were shot dead when they encountered soldiers as they were trying to flee heavy artillery fire, according to a local who managed to escape.
The victims were identified as U Shan, 50, and Aung Myo Thant, 14.
Despite being located near Monywa, where the Northwestern Military Command is based, Butalin Township is largely under the control of anti-regime forces, and so is frequently targeted by the military.
Additional reporting by Moe Oo
Myanmar Now News
AA vows ‘retaliation’ for Myanmar army’s mass killing of civilians
/in NewsThe group accused junta troops of killing nine civilians—mostly elderly villagers—during a raid late last week
The political wing of the Arakan Army (AA) has declared that it will retaliate for the Myanmar military’s mass killing of civilians in northern Rakhine State’s Ponnagyun Township last week.
In a statement released on Friday, the United League of Arakan (ULA) accused troops from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 550 of killing at least nine civilians, including elderly people, during a raid on the village of Sin Inn Gyi the day before.
Residents of the village said they found the bodies of nine people—mostly elderly residents and their carers who were unable to flee the attack—early Friday morning.
Junta forces from LIB 550 raided the village late Thursday after the AA ambushed two military vehicles in the area earlier in the day, local sources told Myanmar Now.
Soldiers torched several homes and shot the nine civilians dead before leaving the village, locals said.
The victims were identified as Sin Inn Gyi residents Ma Gyi, 86, Maung Kyaw Thein, 62, Kyaw Zan, 60, Khin Maung, 58, May Nu, 54, Mhe Ni, 45, Maung Maung Thein, 43, and Maung San Hla, 37, as well as Kyaw Naing, a 60-year-old traditional medicine specialist who was in the village to see a patient.
Villagers said they were only able to give the deceased makeshift burials due to the military’s heavy artillery shelling in the area.
In its statement, the ULA described the incident as one of the military’s “most inhumane war crimes” and called its forces cowardly for targeting unarmed civilians instead of engaging in combat with armed opponents.
There were also reports that shelling and drone and air attacks had left at least two other local civilians dead and five others injured.
“We will retaliate most seriously against the Ponnagyun-based LIB 550 for committing these war crimes and others who were involved in this incident,” said the ULA statement.
The AA said that it attacked the junta forces because the military’s recently imposed land and water travel restrictions in northern Rakhine State were causing undue hardships to the local civilian population.
According to residents of the state capital Sittwe, all traffic in and out of the city has been blocked since Thursday morning, leaving many buses and transport trucks from other parts of the country, including Yangon, stranded.
Myanmar’s military regime has not made any response to the ULA’s claims that its forces targeted civilians in last week’s attacks.
Myanmar Now News
UN Chief Admits World Has Failed the People of Junta-Ruled Myanmar
/in NewsThe UN Secretary-General says the globe has failed the people of Myanmar, which has been engulfed by violence since the military staged a coup last year.
“The international community as a whole has failed. And the UN is part of [the] international community. It is dramatic to see the suffering of the Myanmarese people,” said António Guterres, after being asked at Saturday’s ASEAN Summit for his response to criticism that the United Nations and ASEAN have failed the Myanmar people.
Myanmar has been plunged in bloody conflict since the military ousted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in February last year.
The UN chief’s admission came after almost two years in which the junta has brutalized the country with extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and airstrikes despite pleas by its people for the world body to intervene. The junta has so far killed more than 2,400 people amid the lack of international pushback.
The UN Secretary-General said, however, that he believed the Indonesian government would make progress on Myanmar when it takes the ASEAN helm next year.
“My special envoy is ready to fully cooperate with the ASEAN envoy in order to be able to create the conditions, to establish, as I mentioned, a democratic transition to let the political prisoners go in freedom and to end the dramatic violations of human rights in Myanmar,” he said.
Like the UN, ASEAN has been accused of failing Myanmar by sticking to its five-point peace plan despite it being largely ignored by the junta.
Saturday’s summit saw the bloc announce additional measures for implementation of the plan, known as the Five-Point Consensus, after ASEAN leaders identified the military regime as responsible for blocking progress. ASEAN also called on the UN to support implementation.
The additional measures include “concrete, practical and measurable indicators with a specific timeline” and engagement with all stakeholders – which opens the way to meetings with representatives of Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel government dominated by former lawmakers from Suu Kyi’s party.
“Engagement would be done in a flexible and informal manner, primarily undertaken by the Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair on Myanmar,” ASEAN leaders said in the statement.
On Monday, former United Nations experts from the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) called on the UN to answer the ASEAN call for support.
“The UN must respond to ASEAN’s calls by using enforceable mechanisms to advance accountability for Myanmar and exert all possible pressure on the junta. ASEAN cannot deal with the junta alone,” said Marzuki Darusman, former chair of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.
ASEAN leaders also maintained the ban on regime representatives participating in the bloc’s high-level meetings but failed to extend it throughout the ASEAN system, where Myanmar retains influence.
The junta dismissed the decisions made at Saturday’s summit, saying it would not accept ASEAN resolutions made in Myanmar’s absence.
The military regime, which brands the NUG and its affiliates as terrorist organizations, said it “strongly objected and condemned the attempts by ASEAN member states to engage with those unlawful and terrorist organizations through any means and forms.”
The regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus was a process and “inserting additional pressure by setting a timeframe will create more negative implications than positive ones.”
Irrawaddy News