Benedict Rogers for UCA News
Every few weeks, I write about Myanmar’s human rights nightmare. And every few weeks, that nightmare gets even darker.
Just a few days ago, it was reported that a church in the home village of Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, was destroyed by the military
Last week, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published its “Country Update,” which reported that the “escalating conflict” in Myanmar continued to impact negatively on freedom of religion or belief.
Between 2021 and December 2023, observers estimate that over 220 churches across the country were destroyed — including 100 Catholic churches in Kayah (Karenni) State alone. Such attacks have continued throughout 2024.
This year alone, a Catholic church in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Division, was burned down in January and a parish church was hit by airstrikes in Demoso Township, Kayah State, in February, along with a school and other buildings.
In May, a Catholic and Baptist church, along with villagers’ homes, were bombed in Tonzang Township, Chin State, and in June a Buddhist monastery in Sagaing was hit, killing 13 people, including three Buddhist monks.
On Aug. 15, another airstrike on a church by the military regime killed 11 civilians, including two children, and severely injured 11 others, in Rakhine State.
According to USCIRF’s report, attacks on religious leaders have continued with impunity and without investigation.
On March 18 this year, gunmen shot a Kachin Baptist pastor in Mogaung Township, and on April 12 two masked individuals shot a Catholic priest during Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Mohnyin village, Kachin state.
And while Christians have been disproportionately targeted, Myanmar’s brutal and illegal military regime is not exclusively targeting Christians. Muslims of course are very widely persecuted, but so too are Buddhists who oppose the junta.
On June 19 this year, for example, the military shot and killed a senior Buddhist monk, Bhaddanta Muninda Bhivamsa, in the Mandalay region.
And according to the Free Burma Rangers, as recently as Oct. 31 — just last week — Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, launched a drone strike targeting a group of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) sheltering at a Buddhist Monastery. An eight-year-old girl and a 32-year-old man were killed by the strike, which also wounded eight others.
If you just follow the Free Burma Rangers’ website or social media accounts — X and Facebook — you will receive updates on the daily carnage.
Meanwhile, the anguish over the plight of Myanmar’s jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the international community’s extraordinary inaction is expressed most poignantly by her son, Kim Aris, in his latest interview.
Yet Aung San Suu Kyi is far from being Myanmar’s only political prisoner. She’s one of 18,149 political prisoners still detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Journalists face grave danger in Myanmar — a country that now ranks tenth in the world for impunity in killing journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
It is with all this on the table that the United Nations Special Envoy to Myanmar Julie Bishop visited the country’s secluded capital Naypyidaw, to meet with the regime’s leaders last week.
She rightly described the crisis as “out of control” and told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee that “Myanmar actors must move beyond the current zero-sum mentality.”
Bishop, a former Australian foreign minister, is playing her part, and all credit to her. But quite frankly, given the scale of the crisis, it is time for the rest of the world now to act.
Myanmar’s human rights and humanitarian crisis should be on the agenda of the UN Security Council again urgently. While recent new coordinated sanctions on aviation fuel and equipment are very welcome, more is needed.
What is most needed more than anything else is international moral leadership. And that should come from the secretary-general of the United Nations.
Yet unfortunately the incumbent of that office is a zombie who seems to be in a semi-permanent siesta.
Antonio Guterres needs to wake up to the world’s crises, both threatening the international rules-based order and the existence of the free world and human tragedies that test the elasticity of our morality
Guterres has spent most of his time in office in slumber.
He must now awaken, however belatedly and however much he might rub his eyes from sleep, and show the leadership his office requires, to rescue Myanmar from complete disaster.
As they say in Portuguese, Senhor Guterres, é hora de acordar e trabalhar (It’s time to wake up and work).
Let’s work 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.
