A UN report has accused Myanmar’s military of creating a ‘permanent human rights crisis’. It also called for an immediate end to violence in Myanmar.
On February 1, 2021, the country’s military seized power in Myanmar by overthrowing the democratic government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi through a coup.
Since then, chaos has been going on in the country. Protesters are fighting against the military. Bloody movements, conflicts, anti-coup protests are still going on. There is a massive crackdown on the protests.
Anti-junta government and resistance forces formed. A number of new international sanctions have also been imposed on the junta government.
The United Nations on Friday released a report on human rights violations in Myanmar between February 1, 2022 and January 31, 2023. It found that the army’s indiscriminate airstrikes, shelling, the burning of village after village to evacuate people and the obstruction of humanitarian aid access have fueled violence in Myanmar’s northwest and southeast.
According to the report, the army has adopted this strategy to completely isolate the armed groups that are not under the government, so that these groups do not get anything from food, funds to intelligence and cannot recruit anyone.
According to the report, the army has adopted this strategy to completely isolate the armed groups that are not under the government, so that these groups do not get anything from food, funds to intelligence and cannot recruit anyone.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in a statement that Myanmar’s army, which has always been able to get away with it, has been showing thumbs up to international obligations and principles.
“Urgent and practical measures are needed to prevent this escalating disaster,” he said.
Myanmar’s junta government had earlier said it was their responsibility to ensure peace and security in the country. Denying any atrocities in the country, they said only a legitimate operation was being carried out against terrorists.
But James Rodehaver, head of the UN Human Rights Office’s Myanmar team, said armed conflict is raging over about 77 percent of the country.
“Never before has there been such a situation and such a time that the crisis in Myanmar has spread so far across the country,” he told a news briefing in Geneva.
The UN report called on Myanmar authorities to end repression and violence against the opposition, saying “military operations must stop to create an environment for negotiations to end the crisis.”