Myanmar: UN experts call for ‘course correction’ as civilian death toll reaches 6,000
“There are now 6,000 reminders that the international community is failing the people of Myanmar,” female Human Rights Council-appointed experts stated in a news release on Monday. “It is time for change, starting with bringing this disaster out of the shadows of international attention.”
Needs ‘course correction’
Experts call for an urgent “adjustment” in the international response, stressing that while targeted action has proven effective – with sanctions reducing arms procurement by a third authorities – current measures “Necessary strategic coordination and targeting is still lacking to provide the support the people of Myanmar need and deserve.”
They called for increased support for civil society organizations in documenting abuses and providing humanitarian aid.
“Governments and donors also need to increase their support significantly for civil society organizations to document human rights abuses, protect civilians, and deliver life-saving humanitarian aid.”
Experts reveal recent evidence demonstrating that coordinated international pressure can yield results.
“We know that international action makes a difference. We have documented that it has reduced the regime’s access to the weapons it uses to attack civilians,” experts said later. publishing UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews ‘Report on the ‘Billion Dollar Deadly Trade’.
Brutal and inhumane violence
Since taking power, “thousands of lives have been lost in indiscriminate attacks by the military, often targeting homes and civilian infrastructure.”
“Many victims were tortured to death. Others were subjected to similar acts of enforced disappearance before execution. Experts say beheadings, dismembering limbs and disfiguring bodies are extremely common.
According to reliable reports, Nearly 2,000 people died in military custody, with 365 victims executed by gunshots to the head and 215 burned alive.. Experts detailed how “unlawful killings by government forces are widespread and characterized by their brutality and inhumanity.”
The military’s repression campaign does not stop at killing. More than 21,000 people arrested since the February 2021 coup remain detained, many in solitary confinement. Experts expressed alarm about the widespread use of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances to silence the opposition.
“Many people are held in solitary confinement and in many cases their families and lawyers have no information about their fate or whereabouts,” they reported.
Fake election scheme
Experts have strongly condemned the government’s planned elections. “You cannot hold elections when you have overthrown a democratically elected Government in an unconstitutional coup and continue to arrest, detain, disappear, torture and execute opposition leaders arbitrarilyas well as when it is illegal for journalists to report the truth,” they said.
“It is time for change, starting with bringing this disaster out of the shadows of international attention. It would be unconscionable to allow thousands of innocent lives to be lost while effective options for action by the international community are still on the table,” they concluded.
The Special Rapporteur and other independent human rights experts work on a voluntary basis, are not employees of the United Nations, and do not receive a salary for their work.
