Benedict Rogers for UCA News
Beheadings, gang rape and torture are now the weapons of choice for Myanmar’s illegal, barbaric and criminal junta, according to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the country, Tom Andrews.
“Victims have been tortured, raped and beheaded, and their bodies burned,” he said.
Describing Myanmar as “an invisible crisis,” and a “devastating human rights and humanitarian crisis,” Andrews called on the international community to act by stopping the flow of arms to the junta, increasing the provision of humanitarian aid to millions in need, and holding the perpetrators of atrocity crimes accountable.
Andrews’ latest intervention matches exactly with my own reading of the situation.
Although I have not been able to visit Myanmar or its borders for five years, I continue to closely follow the country’s situation to which I have devoted much of the past quarter of a century of my life.
I receive and read reports daily, and I weep and pray for Myanmar nightly. Every week, Myanmar’s human rights and humanitarian nightmare spirals to even greater depths of darkness. And still, the world puts its fingers in its ears and averts its eyes.
Last week, it was reported that the world’s largest number of casualties from landmines are from Myanmar. It was also claimed that the situation for children in Myanmar is especially “dire,” with at least 650 children being killed or maimed, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Over 3.4 million people are now displaced in Myanmar – and almost 40 percent of them are children. According to UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban, on Nov. 15, an air strike by the junta’s fighter jets hit a church compound in Kachin State, killing seven children and two adults as they played football.
Chaiban, who recently visited Kachin, said he “saw firsthand how vulnerable children and other civilians are in conflict-affected areas.” He urged all parties to “uphold international humanitarian law and protect [children] from such brutal attacks.”
Chaiban also noted that the civil war throughout the country – and the use of weapons to attack civilians in homes, hospitals and schools – has left children with virtually no safe spaces, “robbing them of their right to safety and security.”
UNICEF’s statement coincided with a statement by Andrews together with Heba Hagrass, special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, highlighting the fact that Myanmar having the world’s largest number of landmine casualties “is only part of the story of the military junta’s attacks on people with disabilities.”
The junta, the two experts claim, is not only forcing civilians to walk in mine-affected areas in front of its military units – as, in effect, “human minesweepers” – but it is also blocking victims’ access to emergency aid, medical care and prosthetics.
“This is contrary to Article 11 of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Security Council Resolution No. 2475,” the experts said.
As a consequence, they report, “amputees are being forced into hiding to avoid harassment and arrest as a missing limb has become a source of suspicion that they are part of the resistance.”
In a stark warning, they added: “Losing a limb is a challenge anywhere, but in Myanmar, an amputation is being seen as evidence of a crime.”
Over the 25 years I have worked in Myanmar, I have often heard stories of the use of human minesweepers. Indeed, I have interviewed landmine victims who lost their limbs in Karen, Karenni or Shan states as human minesweepers.
My violinist sister, who traveled with me to the Thailand-Myanmar border 20 years ago, played classical music to landmine victims in the refugee camps along that border, and my mother once funded a prosthetic leg for a dissident we met in the border town of Mae Sot.
This is not an unfamiliar scenario, so it is heartbreaking to see it retold and amplified on such a scale now.
The question then is what can be done. The U.N. has made some clear calls. It is now up to its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to seize them, show leadership and act upon them, and for the international community to mobilize.
First, the international community has to coordinate and redouble efforts to weaken the junta’s capacity to attack civilians. That means action to stop the flow of weapons to the junta, block aviation fuel to impede the junta’s fighter jets’ ability to bomb civilians, and accelerate humanitarian aid.
As Chaiban said, “The cost of inaction is far too high. Myanmar’s children cannot afford to wait.”
He is right. Andrews has called on Guterres to convene a conference to help “seize the attention of a distracted world and mobilize the resources and action necessary to save the many lives that hang in the balance.”
That is the least Guterres—who has been lackluster and inactive on Myanmar—could do. He needs to awaken from his apparent permanent siesta and do some work to make peace and address injustice, which surely is the responsibility of the U.N. Secretary-General, especially when several of his U.N. officials say so.
The world—and especially the invisible, inactive, ineffective, not at all proactive, uninspiring, and slumbering Guterres—must listen to Andrews and Chaiban and act imminently and urgently to save Myanmar.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.