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
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- 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
UN must end its ‘failed approach’ in Myanmar, report says
/in NewsCriticising the UN’s Myanmar Country Team for accepting the junta as ‘de facto authorities,’ international experts urge direct coordination with the publicly mandated government, ethnic governance bodies and other resistance groups to deliver aid
The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) criticised the United Nations (UN) for “failing” the people of Myanmar through its dealings with the military regime in a report released on Tuesday.
The group of independent international experts outlined how the UN Country Team (UNCT)—the officials representing the UN Secretariat and all UN agencies operating in Myanmar—prioritises ”appeasing” the junta in order to maintain a presence in the country rather than finding ways to deliver aid directly to people “in line with their needs and their democratic will and aspirations.”
It also reinforces the military council’s claim to legitimacy, they pointed out, even though cooperation with the administration—formed after the army attempted a seizure of power in the 2021 coup—contradicts the UN’s stated non-recognition of the junta as Myanmar’s government. The report described the UNCT’s treatment of the regime as the country’s “de facto authorities” as “factually and legally inaccurate.”
“There is not just one de facto authority or state actor in Myanmar—there are many,” SAC-M stated, referring to ethnic political organisations, the publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG), and the armed resistance under its command.
The NUG and several other organisations resisting the regime, including the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, and Chin National Front, have called on the UN to coordinate with them directly in humanitarian aid efforts, noting that they, and not the military, control wide swathes of territory where most of the country’s internally displaced persons have sought refuge from the Myanmar army’s offensives. This population has been cited by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as numbering 1.7 million—a figure that civil society organisations operating in these areas say is an underestimate due to the agency’s lack of access.
“The UNCT subjects itself to the junta’s access restrictions and so is unable to reach the majority of people in need,” SAC-M explained.
The group pointed to an August meeting between the head of the UNOCHA Martin Griffiths and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw as a failed attempt to secure broader access for humanitarian aid work through engagement with the regime. Volker Türk, who heads the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), is cited as saying that the meeting had no effect on the access the military was willing to provide to humanitarian workers within Myanmar.
Yet the UNCT’s compliance with the military council’s restrictions is effectively an acceptance of them, SAC-M argued.
“The junta uses arbitrary administrative tools, such as a complex bureaucratic system for travel authorisations, registration processes and visa issuance, to restrict the movements of humanitarian actors,” the group explained. “The junta also delays customs clearance or confiscates humanitarian supplies, and places tight controls on the banking system.”
SAC-M’s independent experts recommended that the UNCT rewrite its principles of engagement and directly coordinate with the NUG and “resistance authorities” to provide humanitarian assistance; they also urged the country team to increase support for existing civil society networks able to deliver cross-border aid.
While the group criticised the UNCT as a whole for its strategy in Myanmar, they noted that one of its member agencies, the OHCHR, is an exception due to its “effective exclusion” from the country “as a result of some of the in-country UN entities opposing its investigation and reporting mandates.”
The OHCHR has been operating as part of the Myanmar UNCT from neighbouring Thailand since 2019. The government, then run by the elected National League for Democracy—which was later ousted in the 2021 coup—granted authorisation to the OHCHR to establish a presence in the country on the condition that it would restrict its activities to technical assistance, which the high commissioner at the time refused to accept, according to SAC-M.
“We should be located inside the country, but we are not,” said James Rodehaver, the current chief of the Myanmar Team for the OHCHR Regional Office for Southeast Asia, at a media briefing on Monday. The event followed the release of the office’s latest report on the situation of human rights in Myanmar earlier this month, which it described as “continu[ing] to incessantly deteriorate” due to an increase in military airstrikes, ground offensives, mass killings, and arson attacks.
“OHCHR is a key part of the country team and we try to help wherever we can,” Rodehaver said. “We try to work with them so that they are getting human rights guidance.”
He denied any tension between his office and the members of the UNCT operating from within Myanmar, describing these agencies as following “a very different set of considerations and criteria than the way we view things from outside the country.”
Rodehaver, however, noted that some guidance from the OHCHR “has gotten muted, somewhat.”
Public messaging, he explained, largely centres on the urgent issue of humanitarian access, while “the need for accountability, the need to be clear about who the perpetrators of the attacks are—that has become muted.”
Like SAC-M, the OHCHR condemned the “widespread impunity” to which Myanmar’s military has become accustomed for decades, blaming the institution for “driving the humanitarian crisis” and “instilling fear” in the general population.
In addition to outlining changes required within the Myanmar UNCT, SAC-M directed recommendations to the UN General Assembly, Security Council, and Human Rights Council, the latter being the entity to which OHCHR’s Myanmar section presents its own regular reports; SAC-M urged the Council to call for the team to be granted “a full mandate” within the country.
The group’s independent experts also advised UN bodies to adopt a more comprehensive arms embargo and financial sanctions targeting military officials, military companies and their subsidiaries; refer human rights violations to international courts; and take other measures that would better align their strategies and actions to their stated support for the country’s people.
Myanmar Now News
Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 22 to 30, 2023)
/in HR Situation, NewsHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Sep 22 to 30, 2023
Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Shan State, Kachin State, Kayin State, Mon State, Magway Region, and Sagaing Region from September 22nd to 30th. 6civilians from the Magway Region were arrested and used as human shields. 18 underaged children were injured by the Military’s heavy attack in Wuntho Township, Sagaing Region. 32 local civilians including 27 PDF fighters died from the Military’s arresting and killing in Sagaing Region.
2 civilians died and 3 were injured by the land mines within a week. 32 Civilians died and over 14 were injured by the heavy and light artillery attacks of the Military Junta. They arrested over 12 civilians within a week. An underaged child died and over 21 people were injured by the Military Junta committed violations.
Infogram
Forced Relocation (Cartoon Animation)
/in Cartoon Animation, Multimedia, Newsအတင်းအဓမ္မရွှေ့ပြောင်းခံရခြင်းကို လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုတခုအဖြစ် မှတ်တမ်းတင်နိုင်ရန်အ တွက် အောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါ အင်္ဂါရပ် ချိုးဖောက်မှုမြောက်သော အချက်အလက်များ ထင်ရှားကြောင်း သက် သေ တင်ပြရပါမည်။ ၁။ တစုံတဦး၏ အိုးအိမ် သို့မဟုတ် မြေနေရာမှာ ဖယ်ရှားခံရခြင်း ၂။ အကြောင်းမဲ့ အတင်းအကျပ် ဖယ်ရှားပစ်ခြင်း ၃။ အလိုမတူခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် ဆန္ဒမပါဘဲ လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်း ၄။ အစိုးရ၏ လုပ်ဆောင်ချက်တို့ ဖြစ်သည်။
Junta shells school in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, injuring 18 kids
/in NewsSix children were severely wounded in the attack that took place while school was in session.
At least 18 children were injured and receiving medical care after junta troops fired artillery shells on a village in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region during the middle of the school day, according to residents.
The incident was the latest example of casualties caused by the junta targeting a civilian area in Myanmar, where authorities have killed at least 4,131 people since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat and embarked on a nationwide offensive to root out its opposition.
On Wednesday, the military’s Light Infantry Battalion 102, based in the town of Wuntho, fired three howitzer shells at Gyoe Taung village around 13 kilometers (8 miles) to the northeast, one of which exploded around 6 meters (20 feet) away from the village school while classes were in session.
Residents told RFA on Friday that eight boys and 10 girls between the ages of eight and 12 were injured in the shelling, six seriously.
“It’s a relief that the shell exploded outside the school,” said one resident of Gyoe Taung who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “If it directly hit, the children would likely have died.”
The resident said that several of the children suffered severe bruising to their chests, but that most “are doing fine” after receiving medical treatment from the People’s Administrative Organization, which opened the school serving more than 100 children between the ages of four and 12 in the courtyard of the village monastery.
The school had to be temporarily closed due to damage from the shelling, he said.
According to military experts, the 155-millimeter howitzer used in the attack is typically deployed to back ground troops on the front line of a conflict and is capable of lobbing shells from up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.
More than 1,000 residents of villages on the eastern side of Wuntho township are currently sheltering in Gyoe Taung to avoid other fighting in the area, sources said.
Another resident of Gyoe Taung told RFA that people are “terrified” and described the children hit by the shelling as “panic-stricken” due to the random use of heavy artillery by junta troops in the township.
“The shelling hit right near the school where the children were studying and the monastery, which is unacceptable,” the resident said. “The children were scared and started to cry. They panicked as their bleeding injuries were treated.”
The resident said that villagers are “afraid for their lives, as [the soldiers] fire indiscriminately in the township.
“Even if they don’t carry out a raid, the people here are scared,” he said.
‘Unprovoked’ retaliation
The shelling took place a day after members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, paramilitary group approached and opened fire on a military checkpoint in Wuntho, killing some members of the pro-junta Pyu-saw-htee militia and capturing weapons, residents told RFA, calling the attack “unprovoked.”
A member of the Wuntho PDF said that while the situation in the township is currently stable, the risk of military shelling is constant.
“The junta column is not in much of a position to leave its base to attack,” he said. “As the revolutionary forces attack them jointly, whenever they leave [the safety of their base], they can only remain in close proximity to the town center.”
“As the [junta troops] couldn’t defeat the [opposition], they just fired [shells] randomly,” he said.
In a statement on Thursday, the Ministry of Defense of the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG – made up of former civilian government leaders and anti-junta activists – described the Gyoe Taung village incident as a “military war crime.”
“We have witnessed the junta targeting civilians without exception for children, the elderly, pregnant women and religious leaders,” said NUG spokesperson Nay Phone Latt. “The NUG will make sure that all perpetrators are held accountable for these crimes and are given due punishment in the future.”
Deadly Sagaing shelling
The incident follows one on Sept. 10 when an unexploded military 60-millimeter shell went off in Wuntho’s Taung Boet Hla village, killing one child and seriously injuring six others who had been playing with the munition.
The situation in Gyoe Taung village also came as junta troops fired heavy artillery fire on Sagaing’s Kale township on Friday, killing a civilian woman and injuring a civilian man in Dine Kone village, residents said.
Three of 10 shells fired by the military hit the center of Dine Kone, killing 30-year-old Pae Hlaw, they said. The identity of the injured man was not immediately clear.
“One of their shells directly hit the home of the victims,” one resident said.
Two civilians in Kale’s Tat Oo Thida ward were injured by junta shelling on Thursday night, according to township residents, while on Wednesday, a civilian home in southern Kale’s Sha Pho village was hit by heavy artillery, killing four family members.
Attempts by RFA to contact Sai Naing Naing Kyaw, the junta’s minister of ethnic affairs and spokesman for Sagaing region, regarding the heavy artillery fire incidents, went unanswered Friday.
Junta troops have killed at least 414 children across Myanmar since the coup, the NUG’s ministry of youth and children’s affairs said in a June 6 statement.
According to statistics compiled by RFA, junta airstrikes and heavy artillery fire killed a total of 462 civilians and injured 812 others during the eight months from January to the end of August.
RFA News
Human Rights Violation Documentation Infographic
/in Other Human Rights Reports, ResourcesThe research team of Kachin Women Research Group and Kachin Human Rights Watch Group collected (50) cases of human rights abuses in Myitkyina, PutaO, Banmaw, and Mohnyin districts of Kachin State, and Lashio and Muse districts of Northern Shan State from July 2022 to February 2023. Among those (50) cases, (6) are from the period of 2011 to 2018, (44) are from the period of 2021 to 2023 All the collected cases can be categorized into nine forms of abuse; arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate shelling, direct shooting, air bombardment, landmine explosion, torturing, property confiscation, and destruction, intimidation, and rape. From 2011 to 2018, there was one case each of arbitrary arrest, indiscriminate shelling towards civilian villages, air bombardment, direct shooting of civilians, confiscating civilian properties and threatening civilian case. The majority of the perpetrators are Myanmar Tatmadaw (military), and a few cases were committed by local armed organizations. Summary of each type is described as follows.
English : https://docs.google.coam/uc?export=download&id=1GQYnrCkXYPTHw5JlM3R90KqXgH_vnECN
Burmese : https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1XrKVf_J4hzeHB4ENmkXqyOX8jq2L8n28
Junta troops kill 28 militia members in Myanmar’s Sagaing region
/in NewsLocals said there were too many bodies to cremate.
Junta troops ambushed and killed 28 People’s Defense Force members in Sagaing region’s Myinmu township, witnesses told Radio Free Asia on Monday.
The dead include 20 members of the Black Eagle defense force, five members of the Myaung Revolution Army, two members of People’s Security Group-Myinmu and a 14-year-old boy connected with the anti-junta militias, a People’s Security Group official told RFA Burmese.
A local who saw the bodies said that some were shot dead, but others died after their limbs were cut off.
“They were shot in their heads and chests and body parts were cut off,” said the local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisal.
“We were not able to cremate the bodies because there was not enough wood for the number of dead. They were buried by backhoe.”
Military violence across Sagaing
Sagaing region has been an anti-junta stronghold and cradle of resistance to the country’s brutal military rule since the army seized power in a February 2021 coup.
Junta forces have swept through villages across Sagaing, sometimes more than once, to find and punish suspected resistance fighters belonging to People’s Defense Forces and their civilian supporters.
Junta troops often torch not only the houses of families they suspect of being revolutionaries, but also those of teachers who participated in the nationwide civil disobedience movement following the coup.
In 2022, RFA reported that junta troops killed 29 men in Mon Taing Pin village, maiming and burning the bodies in a 44-hour orgy of violence that was recorded on a soldier’s cell phone.
RFA analyzed a cache of files retrieved from a cell phone that was dropped in a neighboring township and found by a villager. It included an image of about 30 men with their hands tied behind their backs on the grounds of a monastery, and victims of execution a day later.
Other instances of Burmese military atrocities and abuses by security forces have been revealed through testimony from victims and military defectors; images and footage from citizens’ cell phones; CCTV video; and satellite imagery analysis of dozens of villages in Sagaing burned to the ground.
More allegations of atrocities and war crimes by junta forces have piled up since the Mon Taing Pin massacre. In the deadliest reported incident since the coup, as many as 200 people were killed in an April 11 air strike on Pa Zi Gyi village in Sagaing’s Kanbalu township.
Video of mutilated victims
In last week’s incident in Myinmu township, video obtained by RFA showed women and children crying next to the mutilated bodies.
Residents said that the defense force soldiers killed were men from Myaung and Myinmu townships who joined the militias because they wanted to defend their villages after the coup.
Junta telegram channels said Saturday that the junta seized 10 guns and ammunition in Friday’s ambush.
The column of 70 troops who killed the defense force members occupied Myaung township on Saturday.
Calls to the junta spokesman for Sagaing region, Tin Than Win, went unanswered.
From February 2021 to July 2023, there were 144 killings of five or more people across the country, and 1,595 people died, the shadow National Unity Government’s Ministry of Human Rights announced on July 31.
The NUG, a shadow government formed of politicians ousted in the coup and other pro-democracy campaigners, did not specify whether the dead were civilians or defense force members.
RFA News