It's strange how the focus of our attention can slip. Earlier this year, we, thanks to the media, were riveted by accounts of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Now, unless we make the effort to read the specialist press, we have no idea how the fighting is going. Our media have other matters to concern them. If it sounds like I am finger-pointing, I have to own up to having taken my eye off the ball in one of the four countries where I identified a threat to democracy in 2019: Myanmar/Burma. Happily, if that's the right word, I was shaken out of my unawareness after receiving a copy of "Burma Campaign News", sent by the Burma Campaign, U.K. I confess to having cursorily read the magazine in the past; this time, I read with attention.
Conscious as we are, and rightly so, of the plight of civilians in Ukraine, it's disturbing to read of what has been inflicted on Burmese civilians by their own military, since the anti-democratic coup of 2021. Over 2,000 people have been killed and 700, 000 have been forced to flee. A particularly nasty aspect of the military's campaign has been the indiscriminate use of air power, especially against the ethnic Karen people. Here is one day's reporting of bombing against the Karen, with 28 airstrikes carried out near the Thai border:
"The Karen Human Rights Group said the footage obtained from the Thai side of the border appears to show air raids targeting a civilian area and reveals a drone conducting reconnaissance over a village before deploying military jets to bomb the area.
"28 Burmese military airstrikes in Dooplaya, Karen State today,” wrote Zoya Phan, the campaign manager at Burma Campaign UK. “Indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas is a war crime. Time for the UK, EU, USA and international community to sanction aviation fuel a support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court.”
This is one of the key demands of the Burma campaign U.K. - that aviation supplies to the Burmese regime be stopped. Anyone wishing to support this campaign (as I now will) can find an online form HERE. If you explore the Burma Campaign website, you will find many similar petitions.
One facet of the Burmese military repression that has received international media attention is the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority, which has been in full swing since 2017, before the military coup. Readers will be disgusted, if not surprised, to learn that our present Home Secretary, Liz Truss, has been slow to join the international condemnation of the genocidal campaign against the Rohingya. As the Burma Campaign UK says:
"On Friday 22nd July the International Court of Justice, known as the World Court, has ruled that a case on whether or not genocide was committed against the Rohingya will now proceed...
Despite calls for the British government to join the case, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss refuses to do so... The military have enjoyed impunity for decades, encouraging more violations of international law and the attempted military coup which began last year. Now, finally, an international court is hearing evidence of their crimes. But the British government is refusing to take part..."
Just how vicious the campaign against the Rohingya can be is here illustrated by one awful incident in 2018:
The picture above shows most of a group of 10 men captured by the Burmese military in September, 2018. They all have two things in common: they are Rohingya and about to die violent deaths. Away from the camera, Buddhist villagers, presumably neighbours to these men, are digging a shallow grave.
Reuters continue the story:
"Soon afterwards, on the morning of Sept. 2, all 10 lay dead. At least two were hacked to death by Buddhist villagers. The rest were shot by Myanmar troops, two of the gravediggers said.“One grave for 10 people,” said Soe Chay, 55, a retired soldier from Inn Din’s Rakhine Buddhist community who said he helped dig the pit and saw the killings. The soldiers shot each man two or three times, he said. “When they were being buried, some were still making noises. Others were already dead.”
And this, please note, is just one of thousands of crimes committed against the Rohingya in the Burmese military's campaign of genocide. One wonders what it would take to galvanise Liz Truss into action.
Lastly, it will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that the Myanmar Army has reintroduced capital punishment. Not, it would appear, for criminals, or their own murderous troops, but opponents of the regime. Amnesty International reports that Myanmar state media has announced four executions recently. Two of these executions were highly significant:
"Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, and prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy, were convicted of and sentenced to death by a military tribunal in January for offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Law – charges that Amnesty International believes to be politically motivated."
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