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A Brief History of the UN’s Failed Missions in Myanmar

August 22, 2022/in 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 […]

Workers from hotbeds of resistance to Myanmar junta say they face discrimination

August 22, 2022/in News

More than 100 laborers from Sagaing and Magway regions were fired from factories in Yangon. More than 100 workers from two regions in Myanmar where resistance to the military regime has been particularly strong have been fired from their jobs in Yangon industrial zones, while those who remain working face widespread discrimination in the workplace, […]

A Brief History of the UN’s Failed Missions in Myanmar

August 22, 2022/in News

Workers from hotbeds of resistance to Myanmar junta say they face discrimination

August 22, 2022/in News

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A Brief History of the UN’s Failed Missions in Myanmar

August 22, 2022/in News

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

Workers from hotbeds of resistance to Myanmar junta say they face discrimination

August 22, 2022/in News

More than 100 laborers from Sagaing and Magway regions were fired from factories in Yangon.

More than 100 workers from two regions in Myanmar where resistance to the military regime has been particularly strong have been fired from their jobs in Yangon industrial zones, while those who remain working face widespread discrimination in the workplace, labor union representatives and workers said.

There are 29 such zones in the Yangon region that employ hundreds of thousands of Burmese, the vast majority of whom are young women who work in garment factories.

But Moe Sanda Myint, president of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar, a trade union, told RFA that factory owners have been told not to employ workers with identification cards indicating they come from Sagaing and Magway, areas where fighting between the military and opposition forces has been fierce.

“We found out from the workers that the employers are implementing the directives of the Ministry of Labor regarding this issue of the [ID] cards,” she said.

“Rumors were flying that workers holding these registration cards would be fired because of those directives, and some workers have reported this to us. We learned that there were cases of those who had actually been fired,” Moe Sanda Mying added.

Myint Kyaing, the junta’s labor minister, told RFA on Aug. 17 that reports of the firings were false.

“That news is not true; it’s wrong,” he said.

Myint Kyaing said that the Information Ministry would clarify the issue at a press conference in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw that day, but RFA later learned that didn’t happen.

Most of the fired workers are from textile factories and shoe factories in Hlaingtharyar, Shwepyitha and South Dagon township industrial zones of Yangon.

A worker who was fired from a shoe factory in the South Dagon Industrial Zone, said 15 people, including those from Magway and Sagaing identified by the numerical prefixes on their ID cards, were fired at the same time in July.

“There was a clerk in our section who told us to bring our registration cards the next day, so we did as she requested,” she said. “After that, she said those whose cards began with No. 5/ [for Sagaing] and No. 8/ [for Magway] were to be temporarily suspended. She said they would be called back when the situation calms down.”

The worker, a native of Yesagyo township in Magway, said she was suspended only six days after she got the job at a shoe factory.

Another woman fired from a garment factory in the Shwepyithar Industrial Zone (2) said she was fired without any compensation on July 21.

“We were sacked straight away just after one warning,” she told RFA. “I’m angry with them as I have to look for another job now, and I feel I was fired unfairly as I didn’t get any severance pay. The factory asked me to sign a document and fired me, just like a transaction.”

The woman from Magway’s Myothit township also said a worker whose ID card indicated he was from Ayeyarwady region was fired along with her but later was allowed to resume work.

Situation has worsened

Most of the workers who were fired said that they did not receive any compensation, and employers often forced them to make it appear as though they left their jobs voluntarily.

Additionally, garment factories in Yangon’s industrial zones are no longer accepting job applications from Sagaing and Magway regions, the online news outlet Mizzima reported on Aug. 9, citing a garment factory worker as the source.

A worker who quit his job at a garment factory in the Hlaingtharyar Industrial Zone at the beginning of August said the violation of workers’ rights by factory owners has worsened since the military coup in 2021.

“Friends I used to work with tried to avoid me,” he said. “My section leader didn’t ask me to do any work, and there were even times when I wasn’t given any work for a whole week. Later, I got depressed, and I quit my job.”

Trade union and labor leaders who previously intervened to resolve workers’ disagreements with their employers fled their homes because of the insecurity that followed the coup, workers said.

The workers also said that their situation is worse than before because individuals and organizations which used to intervene on their behalf have been weakened.

A resident of Sagaing’s Myaing township said ID card holders have been subjected to stricter checks than those from other regions and provinces, and that employers discriminated against workers from the region.

An employee of one company, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said he has been checked more than others when he travels to other towns.

Those who have been refused hotel accommodations told RFA that when they provided their names to be registered as tourists, they were told that people from Sagaing were not welcome.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

RFA News

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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.

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