The UN Security Council held its first open meeting on Myanmar since 2019 in New York on April 4, 2024.
The following article was published in the May-June 2024 issue of NewsNotes.
More than three years have passed since the military overturned the democratically elected government in Myanmar and detained its leaders, including President Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi, a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor. Over that time, Myanmar’s humanitarian situation and human rights conditions have deteriorated, as the military government has ramped up attacks on civilians, including airstrikes, and increasingly blocked humanitarian aid – actions that have been reported as likely amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity according to key UN bodies and experts.
“Children are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” Lisa Doughten of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the UN Security Council during a rare open meeting on Myanmar on April 4, its first since February 2019. She reported that interruptions to education have affected 12 million students. Children and pregnant women are also at risk of malnutrition as hunger rises, especially among the estimated 2.8 million displaced persons, 90 per cent of them since the military takeover, according to Doughten.
In 2024, 18.6 million people out of a population of 55 million will need humanitarian assistance, a 19-fold increase from 2021, she said, noting that the 2023 humanitarian response plan for Myanmar was funded at only 44 percent and the 2024 plan is only 4 percent funded.
UN officials expressed concern about the military’s intention to move ahead with elections without implementing resolution 2669, which the Council passed in 2022, calling for a ceasefire and efforts for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. UN officials and state representatives also noted the new terror brought by the military government’s announcement in February that it would enforce the conscription law, forcing young men and women into military service for two years, something the representative of Malta described as a “new low in the junta’s campaign against the very people it is supposed to protect.”
The country’s crisis continues to spill over borders into neighboring countries. Refugees are fleeing to Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand. In Rakhine State, in the western part of the country facing the Bay of Bengal, fighting between the military and the Arakan Army has reached an unprecedented level of violence, trapping Muslim Rohingya people in the crossfire, a UN official said.
The official expressed concern about the surge in the number of desperate Rohingya refugees reportedly dying or going missing while fleeing by boat. Bangladesh already hosts more than a million Rohingya refugees and the UN has described the Rohingya as “the most persecuted minority in the world.”
Myanmar also has become a global epicenter of methamphetamine and opium production, and seen a rapid expansion of global cyber-scam operations, particularly in border areas. “What began as a regional crime threat in Southeast Asia is now a rampant human trafficking and illicit trade crisis with global implications,” a UN official said, adding “There is a clear case for greater international unity and support to the region.”
Despite the testimony by UN officials, some member states disagreed that the Myanmar crisis merits greater attention by the Security Council. Russia and China described it as an internal matter and Japan emphasized the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in facilitating a regional solution.
The scale of the Myanmar crisis requires more than domestic, bilateral or regional efforts, the representative of Korea said, underscoring the need for UN Secretary-General António Guterres to appoint a UN Special Envoy. The Bangladesh representative supported this, saying the absence of a UN Special Envoy and humanitarian coordinator limits the UN’s and international community’s engagement. With military attacks on civilians increasing five-fold in the last five months, the U.S. representative said he supported the role of a special envoy, asserting the situation requires senior UN leadership.
The day after the meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Julie Bishop of Australia as the new Special Envoy on Myanmar, to engage with ASEAN and relevant stakeholders “to advance toward a Myanmar-led political solution to the crisis.” On April 9, Thailand announced that it is preparing to accept 100,000 refugees from Myanmar. Their new commitment was put the test on April 12 when hundreds of refugees crossed into Thailand after rebels captured control of Myawaddy, a border town of 200,000, raising fears of airstrikes by the Myanmar military.
Faith in action:
Maryknoll Fr. John Barth is in Thailand, assisting the local church to provide humanitarian aid for refugees from Myanmar who are unable to access healthcare easily or get legal identification if they enter Thailand through informal means. Sign the Amnesty International petition for the Rohingya’s rights. https://mogc.info/Rohingya
Photo of child in Shan State, Myanmar, published on April 2019 by Jesse Schoff via Unsplash.