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Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (November 22-28)2021

November 29, 2021/in HR Situation

Myanmar Junta, Armed Resistance Dig in For Long Slog

November 28, 2021/in News

BANGKOK — Fighting in Myanmar between the junta’s military and an ever-savvier armed resistance has hit a “deadly stalemate,” with both sides dug in but lacking the force for a knockout blow as violence continues to spiral, analysts say. Rights groups say soldiers and police have shot and killed more than 1,200 civilians at ongoing […]

Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (November 22-28)2021

November 29, 2021/in HR Situation

Myanmar Junta, Armed Resistance Dig in For Long Slog

November 28, 2021/in News

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Human Rights Situation in Myanmar: Post-Coup (November 22-28)2021

November 29, 2021/in HR Situation

For families in Myanmar, fear and uncertainty occupy their darkest thoughts. The possibility of being separated or killed during a raid by the junta has contributed to the harrowing ordeals civilians have been forced to confront since February. As more and more activists and former politicians are abducted by the Myanmar military, relatives of activists are among those being detained in their place. The taking of hostages is considered a war-crime under the Geneva Convention, and yet the junta continues to show disdain and disregard for any international human rights laws and principles.

As a result of the frequency of the raids, parents and grandparents have been forced to make devastatingly difficult decisions. Fearing for their physical and mental system, relatives of activists are cutting ties with them, though human rights defenders are not harboring any resentment. The junta is arresting anyone who they deem is a threat through unproven suspicions and often a racial bias based on ethnicity and religion. They want to cut all ties with leaders who strongly oppose the coup.

Family members taken hostage are being killed while in custody of the junta. Last week, a man detained in place of his nephew who could not be found during a raid was killed within hours of being interrogated by military intelligence and showed evidence of severe injuries. His nephew was a prominent protest organizer wanted by the regime. More recently, a 19 year old named Phone Myint Aung who was arrested with his father, was killed while in custody of the junta. His funeral was attended with plain clothed police officers. The extent of the growing numbers of arbitrary arrests was commented on by the United Nations who called for the attacks to stop with at least 175 people having died while in custody since February.

Children are also being used as pawns by the military. The seven year old daughter of a journalist detained by the junta was asked if her mother had bought guns. This type of behavior is not uncommon. The Myanmar military regularly uses desperate means of coercion to try and extract the information they desire. Their actions reinforce the urgency surrounding this years 16 Days of Activism which is held annually to bring attention to violence against women and girls. The safety of young women is in jeopardy with the military authorities dominating the legal system and soldiers with a reputation of impunity. The campaign is an important reminder of the perils women are faced with on a daily basis and the important work being done by women’s rights organizations which must continue to be supported.

KAYAH STATE

A catholic church which also housed a clinic in Loikaw was raided by junta soldiers on 22 November. Over 200 soldiers and policemen arrested 18 health workers (including four doctors, nurses, pharmacists and volunteers). They also forced over two dozen patients to leave the premises. Medical records were unjustly confiscated. Attacks on religious buildings where local populations have sought safety from violence are increasingly being targeted by the regime. Churches in predominantly Christian States such as Kayah and Chin States are being shelled by artillery and burned to the ground. At least 10 parishes in Loikaw Diocese have been impacted by the violence which has also forced over 100 000 to flee.

MAGWAY REGION

Internal displacement of innocent civilians continues to be fuelled by ongoing clashes between the military junta and local People’s Defence Forces (PDF).

In Magway region, over 2000 residents of Saw Township were forced to flee worsening offensives during retaliation strikes by the junta.. The junta used helicopters to fire at PDF positions which sent villagers from surrounding areas to also flee, including the elderly and children. Internally displaced persons who sought safety in the jungle said they have been moving constantly and have not been able to sleep well. Tatmadaw soldiers have stated anyone found hiding would be assumed an ‘enemy’ and killed.

SHAN STATE

Justice has yet to be met for Ko Nyi Khin, a volunteer supporting internally displaced people in Pekon township, southern Shan State. This area is under heavy militarization by the military junta as clashes escalated between civilian armed defence forces and the Tatmadaw. Ko Nyi Khin was arrested earlier this month and beaten by soldiers before being taken away. After three days of interrogation, his death was announced though his body has not been released by the authorities.

Violence in southern townships of Shan State has been forcing civilians to flee regularly. Military junta soldiers are repositioning themselves in local areas making fleeing a regular occurrence. They are fearful of being caught but risk survival in remote areas without food, shelter or water. The elderly and young children are especially hard hit by these challenges as livelihoods are crippled by farmers not safely able to access their fields to harvest.

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Myanmar Junta, Armed Resistance Dig in For Long Slog

November 28, 2021/in News

BANGKOK —

Fighting in Myanmar between the junta’s military and an ever-savvier armed resistance has hit a “deadly stalemate,” with both sides dug in but lacking the force for a knockout blow as violence continues to spiral, analysts say.

Rights groups say soldiers and police have shot and killed more than 1,200 civilians at ongoing protests against the military’s Feb. 1 coup against the previous, democratically elected, government.

Incensed by the bloody crackdown, dozens of communities across the country have taken up arms and formed so-called people’s defense forces to push back. Reports of ambushes, assassinations and bombings targeting the new regime are on the rise.

The military is stepping up the violence too, with a major offensive against PDFs across the northwestern part of the country over the past month that has driven tens of thousands of locals out of their homes amid reports of torture and sexual assault by junta forces.

Stretched out

In a recent report on the post-coup violence, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said Myanmar had entered “a deadly stalemate” with “no end in sight.”

“However much the Myanmar military has been able to inflict casualties on PDFs, on civilian targets, arrests of underground groups — none of that, at least so far, seems to have done anything very much to cripple the resistance movement,” Richard Horsey, a Myanmar analyst and senior adviser to the group, told VOA.

“Rather the opposite; attacks have continued to escalate. So … I think Myanmar is in for many months, possibly years of this confrontation,” he added.

With some 350,000 troops, Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, is among the largest in the region and battle-hardened by decades of fighting against ethnic armed groups vying for territory in the country’s borderlands. Between these groups and the new PDFs, analysts say the military has been stretched as never before.

“The Tatmadaw is facing security threats from all over the country” and “using its reserve forces and … auxiliary units to deploy to those areas,” said Min Zaw Oo of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, a local think tank.

An independent report on the fighting last month by Matthew Arnold, former Myanmar country director for the nonprofit Asia Foundation, says the regime has even deployed traffic police from Yangon, the country’s commercial hub, against PDFs hundreds of miles away, and sent pro-junta paramilitary groups from outside Yangon into the city to root out urban insurgents.

Joining forces

Once disparate and ill-equipped PDFs have also started joining forces with one another and falling under the command of ethnic armed groups with better weapons and decades of guerrilla combat experience, the analysts say.

“That’s how these groups of PDF fighters who have come together since the coup, in some areas with very little history of fighting, with very little military experience, how they’ve been able to so quickly evolve into effective fighting forces,” said Horsey.

In Myanmar’s north, the Kachin Independence Army, one of the oldest and largest ethnic armed groups in the country, is posting its officers among some PDFs “to coordinate command and control,” said Min Zaw Oo.

In western Chin state, over a dozen PDFs have allied with the Chin National Army, another established ethnic armed group, to forge the Chinland Joint Defense Committee to coordinate their own efforts, a local PDF member, Salai Van Bawi Mang, told VOA.

“We are working closely and together in terms of military operations,” he said. “Mostly we [plan how] to fight together under one command, like one command and control system.”

He claimed that resistance forces have killed some 500 soldiers in Chin state alone since February and lost about 50 of their own members.

A spokesperson for the junta could not be reached for comment.

‘Spiral of violence’

Analysts say resistance forces are also picking up the pace of targeted killings of alleged junta informants and collaborators and of attacks on infrastructure, moving beyond mobile network towers to power cables, water lines and bridges.

In mid-September the junta itself said the PDFs and other “terrorists” had murdered 799 civilians in targeted killings since the coup, a figure the International Crisis Group says roughly matches its own count of assassinations reported by independent media.

Min Zaw Oo and his team counted another 190 reports of targeted killings in October, the most in any month yet. He said the assassins have started going after the family members of their prime targets as well, and that those fearing they may be in the PDFs’ crosshairs are also arming and hunting down suspected assassins, laying the groundwork for a dangerous new, communal “spiral of violence.”

Last month, the United Nations’ outgoing special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said the fighting had swelled into a full-scale civil war.

Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the U.S. Institute of Peace, said ethnic armed groups have been waging war with the military for decades but agreed with the envoy that a broader civil war Is taking root.

“What’s new is that the population has overwhelmingly expressed that it’s not going to allow military rule,” he told VOA, adding that the junta’s mass arrests and assaults on whole towns harboring insurgents was only feeding the resistance.

“It’s pretty clear that there’s a lot more people who are joining PDFs and continuing this struggle, so I don’t see it going away,” he said.

VOA 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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