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Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

Noeleen Heyzer’s visit, which Min Aung Hlaing attempted to leverage for political legitimacy, was a failure, contributor Thuta Zaw writes UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, photographed wearing a green sarong and smiling as she shook the hand of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, has experienced a major backlash in the days that have […]

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 […]

Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

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

August 22, 2022/in News

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Analysis: Meeting with junta chief leaves UN Special Envoy with blood on her hands

August 23, 2022/in News

Noeleen Heyzer’s visit, which Min Aung Hlaing attempted to leverage for political legitimacy, was a failure, contributor Thuta Zaw writes

UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, photographed wearing a green sarong and smiling as she shook the hand of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, has experienced a major backlash in the days that have followed their August 17 meeting.

Since her appointment to the role by UN Secretary General António Guterres in October 2021, Ms Heyzer has been attempting to sit down with Myanmar’s internationally shunned murderer-in-chief, a move she achieved on a surprise visit to Naypyitaw last week.

Myanmar is known for its “colour politics,” in which green represents the military and red is associated with the Aung San Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD), whose elected administration was ousted in the February 2021 coup.

Was Heyzer’s own green attire selected in ignorance or was it a gesture intended to placate Min Aung Hlaing?

It can be said, after all, that there are no coincidences in politics.

A calculated colour choice does not seem to be out of the realm of possibility for Heyzer, who has in the past come under fire for comments seen as conciliatory to the junta, which has been violently crushing dissent nationwide since its attempted seizure of power last year.

While civil society and rights groups have repeatedly called on the international community to isolate and refuse to recognise the coup regime, Heyzer insisted in a January interview that the military be “included in talks to resolve Myanmar’s crisis,” describing the armed forces as being “in control” in the country.

Positions such as this, as well as any international engagement, have been used by the military council to further its claim to legitimacy.

In a press conference held just hours before their August 17 meeting, coup council spokesperson Zaw Min Tun strategically described the event as a discussion between the UN Special Envoy and “the current government of Myanmar.”

Heyzer issued a statement that day insisting that “UN engagement does not in any way confer legitimacy.”

A bitter junta responded by calling the press release “one-sided” and claiming that it had “created misunderstandings about Myanmar.” The military council released its own 28-page statement in Burmese on August 19, detailing the conversation between Min Aung Hlaing and Heyzer, which reportedly began with a claim by the coup leader that he was “taking responsibility to lead the Myanmar Government.”

Only the Special Envoy herself knows how she responded to this, but if she had announced in advance that her official visit would not be accompanied by an acknowledgement of legitimacy, the meeting arguably would not have taken place.

In any case, it was not a successful one. In his own administration’s recollection of events, Min Aung Hlaing appears to have systematically rejected all of Heyzer’s requests.

Relaying what were described as two key demands from the UN Secretary General, Heyzer called on the military to cease its airstrikes and arson attacks on civilian homes.

The junta chief claimed that the aerial attacks targeted insurgents, implying that they would continue, and he denied that his armed forces had burned villages, just as he denied that his troops had done so in the terror inflicted on Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State in 2017.

Heyzer also raised the issue of Rohingya refugee return, while avoiding using the term “Rohingya,” according to the junta’s statement. That decision may haunt her should she choose to visit the camps in Bangladesh housing hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya, as she has said she plans to do.

Min Aung Hlaing also went on to dismiss Heyzer’s request for a moratorium on executions after last month’s junta-sanctioned killing of four political prisoners, including two well-known democracy activists.

Myanmar junta executes four political prisoners

Two of Myanmar’s most prominent dissidents were among the four reportedly executed inside Insein Prison on Saturday

Inquiring about detained NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Special Envoy asked that the State Counsellor be allowed to return home from a Naypyitaw detention centre, where she is facing a total of 17 years in prison—six of which were handed down just one day before Heyzer’s visit.

The coup leader stated that Suu Kyi was already being granted “special privileges,” describing her cell as a “home-like arrangement.” Meanwhile, inside sources have described it as a 13-by-14-foot building within the jail walls, exposed to the elements.

“Although we could take more serious action against her, we have been lenient on her,” Min Aung Hlaing reportedly said.

The Special Advisory Council-Myanmar (SAC-M), a team of international experts who have been calling for the international prosecution of the military chief for crimes against humanity, acknowledged in an August 19 statement that Heyzer’s meeting was a “minimum requirement of her mandate,” but that it was “clear that nothing of significance will come from it.”

“We can only imagine how awful it must have been for the UN Special Envoy to meet with murderer-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, and the revulsion she must have felt at having to shake his blood-soaked hand,” SAC-M member Chris Sidoti is quoted as saying.

At the very time that Min Aung Hlaing was using the Special Envoy’s visit to defend both his claim to power and his military’s continued campaign of terror, locals in Sagaing Region’s Yin Paung Taing village were uncovering the bodies of civilians killed in a three-day junta siege on the community that left some 18 people dead.

There are no coincidences in politics.

With no gains to speak of, perhaps the most notable lesson from Special Envoy Heyzer’s visit to Naypyitaw is that in extending a hand to the junta, one’s own risks becoming stained with blood.

(This commentary was translated from Burmese and edited for clarity and brevity.)

Myanmar Now News

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

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Myanmar junta executes four political prisoners

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