The 1st of February 2020 in Myanmar the Tatmadaw putted in place a coup d’etat for the victory in the election of the National League of Democracy, arresting the President Win Myint and the State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi who is still detained. The Myanmar army commander-in-chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, justified this move by claiming a fraud in the 2020 general elections, and declared the state of emergency for a period of one year after which he promised that there would be fair elections to appoint a new government. The plans for the takeover of the government started immediately after the victory of the National League of Democracy, when the State Counselor Suu Kyi refused to give in to the military demands.
In Myanmar the military has a relevant influence in the government of the state, indeed, the 2008 constitution not only gives an unfair advantage of reserving 25% of the parliamentary seats for the military, but also hands within their control three of the most important ministries, namely home affairs, defence, and border affairs. Since they consider themselves as the ‘Father of the Nation’, the loss of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the 2020 general election was a source of shame and embarrassment for them, motivating them to usurp the power.
The Tatmadaw had expected Suu Kyi to go against them before the International Court of Justice in 2019, where there were allegations of genocide of the Rohingya against the Myanmar Military leaders, but instead, Suu Kyi denied these allegations and defended the military in an international forum. This decision of the State Counselor gave her the possibility to retain the public support for the National League of Democracy in the 2020 election, denying to the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party every chance to win. The military leaders after the coup have declared them as “regime” or “junta” and the Myanmar Ministry of information in a statement claimed that the power was taken constitutionally, indeed they argues that the purpose of the coup is pursuant to the 417 of the constitution which requires a sufficient reason for a state of emergency to be declared. However, the military junta fails to provide any evidence on the “sufficient reason” which is the data on the voter fraud that become the major reason of such coup attempt, and to prove evidence that such election has qualified the “circumstances which may cause loss of sovereignty or disintegration of national solidarity” that two of these phrases is essential to be proven in the article 417 of the constitution.
The military junta’s first move, after they have taken the power, was to curb all forms of the expression that challenges their authority. Immediately, they adopted a law regarding the cyber security which enable the arrest of social media users for post compromising of words and images that constitute “misinformation” or disinformation that cause public panic. It is clearly that the behaviour of the military junta shows that they want to strengthen their dominance over the population, eliminating every chance to provide a proof to the international community of the military crimes and abuse over the civilians.
In this framework, the majority of the Myanmar population is against the military junta who controls the country and since the very first moment they have protested and fight for the return of a democratic system with the elected government. In this year of protests and clashes between the population and the military forces more than 1.500 of people were killed and many others have been arrested according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The actions of the militaries amount to war crimes against humanity such as the Christmas Eve attack on civilians in eastern Myanmar that killed 40 civilians, including women and children and two staff from the non-profit organization Save the children or the hard crackdown of the protesters and bystanders in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township that caused the death of 65 people.
One of the area where the military junta has been committing repeated atrocity and several war crimes against the civilians is the Karenni State. In this part of the Myanmar the militaries are responsible for murdered, forcibly displaced, and other serious human rights and humanitarian violations against civilians. Reports from the Fortify Rights document the atrocities committed by the military Junta in this specific area of Myanmar, the last document they published describe how the authority used an 18-year-old man, his uncle, and two other men as human shields during clashes with fighters from the Karenni People’s Defence Force (PDF) in Moe Bye Township on the border with Shan state. These violations occurred in the context of armed conflict between the Myanmar military junta and several ethnic armies and People’s Defence Forces a community-led militias established in the aftermath of the coup for self defence and to resist military rule. The atrocities carried out by the Military junta to crack down the protests and the opposition must be stopped by the international community and the situation should be referred to the International Criminal Court in order to prosecute the responsible of the crimes committed over the civilians.
The international community recognize the serious violation of the Geneva Convention as “grave breaches” which is willful killing act of civilians qualified as non-combatant or protected person by the international humanitarian law, specifically protected under the Geneva Convention IV in 1949 containing rules limiting the barbarity of war and protecting non-combatants. In addition, to that breaches of the international law it is necessary to underline the fact that hundreds of Burmese refugees are forced to flee to neighboring countries to seek safe place represents the Junta Military disobedience to protect refugees settled in Myanmar as mandated in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Several members of the international community have made some steps to reach a de-escalation of the conflict in order to stop the atrocities and war crimes committed by the military junta. The United Nations General Assembly President, Volkan Bozkir, condemned the Myanmar coup, and called for the immediate release of all political leaders. However, the Security Council was unable to release a joint statement condemning the military coup in Myanmar due to China using its veto powers to block the action, failing in its role to provide protection to the population ensuring the peace and stability of the country towards the approval of a humanitarian interventions which is defined as the use of military force against another state. Furthermore, it shall be remembered that the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect, approved by the United Nations General Assembly 2005 and embraced by the international community corroborates the idea and the importance of humanitarian intervention in case of serious breaches of international law. The Security Council should launch an humanitarian intervention in Myanmar for two main reason: firstly because the citizens of Myanmar have been subjected to extreme human rights violations for a long period which the military junta does not seem to have great interest in alleviating their suffering and it is possible to identify the latter as the only perpetrator. While as second reason the Security Council should take into consideration the current situation in which the unprotection of non-combatant poses a humanitarian crisis which presents obstacles and inability to access public services and equality before the law, since there is no exact authority to rely on; except to the international community. Currently, the opposition in Myanmar as well as all the non-governmental organization claimed a strong response of the United Nations such as the imposition of an embargo on the arms supplied to the Myanmar military, the approval of sanctions by the member states, the release of the prisoners and the return of the democratically elected government.
What the Myanmar need in this moment is a strengthen of the efforts by the international community to solve the current civil war although, there are different powerful states such as Russia or China who are undermine all the initiative of the Security Council. To overcome this impasse the United nations General Assembly should call for an Emergency Special Session and invoke the General Assembly resolution 377(V), also known as the ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’ in order to approve measures to re-establish the peace and security for the people of Myanmar.
Fortify Rights, “New “flash report” details war crimes, ongoing attacks on civilians in Myanmar’s Karenni State”, https://www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-2022-02-15
Aljazeera,“World accused of ‘sitting and watching’ as Myanmar slides to war”, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/1/world-accused-of-sitting-and-watching-as-myanmar-slides-to-war.
Aljazeera, “Myanmar military committed war crimes in Karenni state: Report”, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/15/myanmar-military-committed-war-crimes-in-karenni-state-report
Reuters, “Statement from Myanmar Military on State of Emergency”,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics-military-text-idUSKBN2A11A2.
Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (signed in August 12, 1949, entered into force in August 12, 1949) 75 UNTS 287. Art 147
Melinda Negron Gonzales and Michael Contarino, ‘Local Norms Matter: Understanding National Responses to the Responsibility to Protect’. (2014) 20 Global Governance 255, 276
UN News. (2021a, February 2). Security Council unity ‘crucial’ to support democracy in Myanmar. UN News, https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1083622.
BBC News. (2021, March 17). Myanmar coup: China blocks UN condemnation as protest grows. BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55913947
United Nations General Assembly. (1950). 377 (V)-Uniting for Peace. United Nations,
https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/377(V)
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
