440 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organisations have written a letter to the UN General Assembly calling on it to take decisive action against the Myanmar junta and hold it accountable for atrocities in Myanmar.
Below is the text of the letter:
To: Member States of the United Nations General Assembly
CC: The United Nations Secretary-General
17 October 2023
Your Excellencies,
We – 440 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations – call on Member States of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to take immediate and decisive action to hold the Myanmar military accountable under international law through all possible avenues.
We welcome the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights which provided corroborated evidence of the military junta’s intensifying brutality – particularly airstrikes, the burning of villages, and mass killings. In addressing the worsening crisis in Myanmar, High Commissioner Volker Türk described the junta’s actions as “inhumanity in its vilest form,” emphasizing that there is “no reason to believe that the military will…break the cycle of impunity that has characterized its operations for decades.” It is clear that the military has continued and will continue to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against the people of Myanmar unless it is held accountable under international law. We thus express our strongest support for the High Commissioner’s call for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to refer “the full scope of the current situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
Nearly one year after its adoption in December 2022, we remain extremely disappointed by the insubstantial Security Council resolution 2669 on Myanmar. With this resolution, the Council has utterly failed to uphold its responsibilities under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and to ensure justice and accountability by failing to refer the current crisis in Myanmar to the ICC.
Despite the resolution’s demand of “an immediate end to all forms of violence throughout the country,” since its adoption, the junta has launched at least 965 airstrikes.[1] This amounts to a 150% increase in airstrikes following the resolution.[2] These aerial bombardments, often combined with attacks by ground
troops, are one reason why at least 4,149 people have been killed, as of 17 October 2023, and over 1.7 million have been internally displaced[3] since the coup attempt. One of the latest attacks is as recent as 9 October 2023, when the junta once again launched an artillery bombardment on an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp: this time in Munglai Hkyet Village in Kachin State. The attack killed at least 29 people, including 13 children, and injured at least 57 people. Among the displaced, elderly women, pregnant women, and children have the most vulnerabilities, which are severely exacerbated by the lack of sufficient food, water, shelter, and other necessities. Moreover, the military – which has long used rape as a weapon of war – continues, with blanket impunity, its widespread sexual and gender-based violence, particularly against women and girls, in detention and in areas of its scorched-earth campaigns.
Further, in flagrant disregard of the resolution’s call for “full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all people in need,” the junta continues to weaponize humanitarian aid by blocking, seizing, and destroying lifesaving supplies from displaced communities that have suffered from its heinous crimes. Even in natural disasters, such as the devastating Cyclone Mocha, the junta has proven its total disregard for human lives by blocking humanitarian access to affected communities across western Myanmar.
As the Myanmar human rights and humanitarian crisis further escalates, we express our greatest disappointment in the UN’s deferral of its responsibilities to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its futile Five-Point Consensus (5PC) over the past 29 months. The regional bloc and its current approach have utterly failed to take concrete measures to end the crisis, serving only to deter tangible action by the international community. In fact, ASEAN itself has explicitly requested UN support in addressing the crisis. To address Myanmar’s multi-faceted crisis, the UN must stop hiding behind the failed 5PC and take concrete actions to assume its responsibility to protect the people of Myanmar.
Excellencies, the loss of lives of the people of Myanmar at the hands of this ruthless military must not continue, and justice for the victims and survivors cannot wait. The Myanmar military’s decades-long impunity, and thus its systematic and widespread violence, will continue to prevail – and thousands of lives will continue to be lost – unless and until the military faces prosecution and is held to account for its genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Thus, it is with great urgency that we once again call on the UNGA and its individual Member States to strongly recommend the UNSC utilize all political and technical instruments at its disposal, namely a resolution on Myanmar under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Such a resolution must necessitate the referral of the crisis in Myanmar to the ICC or the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal; robust, coordinated, and targeted economic sanctions on the Myanmar military and linked entities; and a comprehensive arms embargo to end the flow of weapons, jet fuel, and dual-use technology to the junta. Equally, we urge the UNGA to further recommend its Member States, agencies, and mechanisms to stop lending legitimacy to
the junta; impose new and further coordinated, targeted economic sanctions; cut the flow of arms; and provide financial, political, and technical support for accountability efforts under universal jurisdiction, including in Argentina, Germany, and Turkey.
With Myanmar’s crisis reaching the point of unfathomable devastation, we look to the leadership of UN Member States to immediately actualize a UNSC resolution. If the resolution is vetoed by China or Russia, the people of Myanmar fully anticipate the UNGA’s adoption of the resolution, following in the footsteps of the decisive resolution on Ukraine promptly adopted by the same body in 2022.
Alongside a united call for a resolution, UN Member States must act immediately to ensure the response to the worsening humanitarian catastrophe across Myanmar is sufficient, effective, and harmless for affected populations. Member States must cease any partnership with the junta for the provision of aid, while increasing political and financial support through cross-border channels for locally led, frontline humanitarian responders – many of whom are women who serve and lead their communities in these roles in spite of great personal risks.
Now is the time for the UNGA and its Member States to fulfill their responsibility to the people of Myanmar. The UNGA and its Member States must ensure justice and accountability through all possible avenues, strengthen locally led humanitarian assistance, and unequivocally support the Myanmar people’s will for federal democracy.
