Burmese envoy calls for embargo

TAIPEI TIMES

AFP, YANGON, Myanmar

Sun, Apr 11, 2021 page5

Myanmar’s ambassador to the UN on Friday urged “strong action” against the junta as reports emerged of scores killed in the military’s latest crackdown.

The country has been in turmoil since the military on Feb. 1 ousted Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, with protesters refusing to submit to the junta regime and continuing to demand a return to democracy.

During a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, Burmese Ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun pushed for more concrete action — proposing a no-fly zone, an arms embargo and more targeted sanctions against members of the military and their families.

‘Come and see for yourselves’

THE Star

IMRAN HILMY

Sunday, 11 Apr 2021

LANGKAWI: Their 30ha settlement is a somewhat secluded neighbourhood hidden away from the iconic eagle in Kuah town and unknown to many Malaysians visiting this “touristy” island.

19 people sentenced to death by Myanmar military

CNN
Story by Reuters
April 10, 2021

Myanmar special envoy: It is time for the world to stop another genocide 05:27

Nineteen people have been sentenced to death in Myanmar for killing an associate of an army captain, the military-owned Myawaddy TV station said on Friday -- the first such sentences announced in public since a February 1 coup and crackdown on protesters.

The report said the killing took place on March 27 in the North Okkalapa district of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. Martial law has been declared in the district, allowing courts martial to pronounce sentences.

The military rulers who overthrew an elected government said Friday the protest campaign against its rule was dwindling because people wanted peace, and that it would hold elections within two years -- the first timeframe it has given for a return to democracy.

Ten Myanmar policemen killed in attack by ethnic armies opposed to junta-report

THE ECONOMIC TIMES

ReutersLast Updated: Apr 10, 2021,

More than 600 people have been killed by the military in the crackdown on protests against the Feb. 1 coup, according to a monitoring group.

An alliance of ethnic armies in Myanmar that has opposed the junta's crackdown on anti-coup protests attacked a police station in the east on Saturday and at least 10 policemen were killed, domestic media said.

The police station at Naungmon in Shan state was attacked early in the morning by fighters from an alliance that includes the Arakan Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, media reported.

Shan News said at least 10 policemen were killed, while the Shwe Phee Myay news outlet put the death toll at 14.

The battle for democracy in Myanmar

EUROPEAN UNION
EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE
11/04/2021

11/04/2021 - HR/VP Blog – The world is horrified by the bloody military coup in Myanmar, with reports of more than 80 people killed in Bago last Friday. We are pursuing a robust diplomatic initiative in close coordination with like-minded partners. However, geopolitical competition in Myanmar makes it difficult to find common ground, to halt the violence and ensure a return to democracy.

Democracy is increasingly challenged these days, but in few places in such a dramatic and brutal fashion as in Myanmar. In the early morning of 1 February, the clock on Myanmar’s democratic transition was turned back many years with a 1970s-style military coup. The army claimed that the November 2020 elections, which the National League for Democracy (NLD) had won with a landslide, had somehow been ‘fraudulent’, without offering any evidence. It declared a state of emergency and put State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint under arrest, together with other democratic leaders.

US urges action by UN Security Council on Myanmar coup

the journal.ie
11 April 2021

 

The US wants the UN to issue a resolution to pressure the military junta to restore democracy.

THE UNITED STATES yesterday demanded swift action from the UN Security Council on Myanmar amid a push for a resolution to pressure the military junta to restore democracy.

“The military needs to feel the cost associated with its horrific actions. The stability and prosperity of the region depends on swift action,” US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a Security Council meeting.

Why do we think of Buddhism as peaceful?

INDEPENDENT
Nick Swann

Buddhism is often regarded as the peaceful religion and its adherents as pacifists but is this true and why do we think so? Nick Swann explains

The Buddhist statue at Po Lin, Lantau Island, Hong Kong(Getty/ iStockphoto)

When teaching “Buddhism and violence”, I usually start by asking students to rank religious groups in the order of how many followers each has in the Army.

Typically, Christians are at the top of students’ lists and Buddhists at the bottom.

This reflects an unconscious bias many students have regarding Buddhism – they assume that all Buddhists are peaceful and that a Buddhist isn’t likely to embrace a career that may well involve violence.

What Is Keeping India on the Wrong Side of History With Myanmar?

THE WIRE
11 April 2021

India’s recent track record does not inspire confidence that democratic or humanitarian considerations will outweigh MEA’s perception of geo-strategic rationale and increasingly independent business interests.

Demonstrators are seen before a clash with security forces in Taze, Sagaing Region, Myanmar April 7, 2021, in this image obtained by Reuters. Photo obtained by Reuters

Why is India so defiantly indifferent to shaming to the point of attempting to deport a Rohingya girl child back to a Myanmar convulsed by violent turbulence?

And to compound that, the Supreme Court has legitimated Centre’s contentious directive of deporting the Rohingya refugees, holding inapplicable the legal principle of non-refoulement and turning its back on the genocide like situation in Myanmar.

What geo-economic and strategic compulsions are aligning democratic India on the wrong side of history with brutally repressive military dictators in Myanmar?

China, Russia undermine international Myanmar response, EU's top diplomat says

REUTERS

By Kate Abnett
APRIL 11, 2021

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union’s top diplomat said on Sunday Russia and China were hampering a united international response to Myanmar’s military coup and that the EU could offer more economic incentives if democracy returns to the country.

“It comes as no surprise that Russia and China are blocking the attempts of the U.N. Security Council, for example to impose an arms embargo,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a blog post.

“Geopolitical competition in Myanmar will make it very difficult to find common ground,” said Borrell, who speaks on behalf of the 27 EU member states. “But we have a duty to try.”

Security forces have killed more than 700 unarmed protesters, including 46 children, since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb. 1 coup, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) activist group.

Concern Worldwide Evaluation Report: Rohingya Emergency Response (2017 - 2020) - October 2020

Source-Concern

10 Apr 2021

Link : Here

Rohingya issue not Bangladesh’s responsibility alone: Kerry

Prothomalo

Diplomatic CorrespondentDhaka
09 Apr 2021,

John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate speaks at a joint briefing in the state guest house Padma after meeting with the foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on FridayCourtesy

Applauding Bangladesh for its extraordinary support for hosting 1.1 million Rohingya in the country, John Kerry, the United States’ Special Presidential Envoy for Climate on Friday said that the global community must step up its efforts in resolving the Rohingya crisis as it is not the responsibility of Bangladesh alone.

He came up with the views at a joint briefing in the state guest house Padma after meeting with the foreign minister AK Abdul Momen on Friday.

He said the US president Joe Biden is grateful for the support of Bangladesh towards the Rohingya people.

Myanmar’s military junta uses explosives against protesters

LA PRENSA

LATINA MEDIA
April 9, 2021

Bangkok, Apr 9 (EFE).- Myanmar’s security forces on Friday launched explosive devices against anti-coup protesters in the city of Bago, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Yangon, amid continued condemnation by the international community against the repression.

A resident told online news portal Myanmar Now that, since early morning, the security forces have been firing with heavy weapons at a group of protesters after at least two people died in the city the previous day as a result of repression by the authorities.

The news website also published a series of photographs showing a projectile, which could be a piece of mortar.

‘Supreme Court has signed our death warrant’: Rohingya in India

Aljazeera
Aakash Hassan
9 Apr 2021

Supreme Court refuses to stop deportation of about 170 Rohingya detained in the Indian-administered Kashmir region’s Jammu area last month.

India's Supreme Court also underlined government’s claim that Rohingya posed a 'threat to internal security of the country' [File: Altaf Qadri/AP]

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – India’s Supreme Court has refused to stop the deportation to Myanmar of about 170 Rohingya refugees detained in the Indian-administered Kashmir region’s Jammu area, with the members of the beleaguered community calling it a “death warrant” issued by the court.

“Possibly that is the fear that if they go back to Myanmar, they will be slaughtered. But we cannot control all that,” the top court said on Thursday, stating that the fundamental right to settle in India is available only to its citizens.

လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်နေတယ် လို့ ခံစားရတယ်

ဧရာဝတီ
11 April 2021

ဧပြီလ ၉ ရက်နေ့က ဖြစ်ခဲ့သည့် လူပေါင်း ၁၀၀နီးပါး သေဆုံးသည့် ပဲခူးပစ်ခတ်မှုတွင် သုံးသည့် အီနာဂါ ဗုံးသီး

 

ဧပြီ ၉ ရက် နံနက် ၅ နာရီမှစ၍ ပဲခူးမြို့ထဲရှိ ခံတပ်များဖြစ်ကြသော ဆံတော်တွင်း၊ မဂ္ဂတစ်၊ပုဏ္ဏားစု ခံတပ်များ ကို စစ်ကောင် စီတပ်များက လက်နက်ကြီးများ၊ စက်သေနတ်များဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် ဝင်ရောက်ပစ်ခတ် ဖြိုခွင်း ခဲ့မှုကြောင့် ခံတပ်အတွင်းရှိ Defense Team မှ လူငယ်များ အပါအဝင် ပြည်သူ ၇၀ ဦးကျော် သေဆုံးခဲ့ရ သည်။

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်တွင် CDM လူပ်ရှားမှုကို မလိုလားဟု AA စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ် ပြော

ဧရာဝတီ
11 April 2021

AA စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ် ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင် / AA

 

ရက္ခိုင့် စစ်တပ် (AA)တွင် ပီပြင်သည့် ရည်မှန်းချက် အခိုင်အမာရှိပြီး ဖြစ်သဖြင့် ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်တွင် အာဏာ ဖီ ဆန်ရေး အရပ်ဘက် လှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM)နှင့် လမ်းမပေါ်ရှိ ဆန္ဒပြပွဲများကြောင့် ၎င်းတို့၏ ရက္ခိတလမ်းစဉ် အေ ပါ်တွင် ရောထွေး ဝေဝါး သွားရန် မလိုကြောင်း AA ၏ စစ်ဦးစီးချုပ် ဗိုလ်ချုပ် ထွန်းမြတ်နိုင်က ပြောသည်။

The Arakan Dream: The Search for Peace in Myanmar’s Rakhine State on the Verge of Civil War

TERRORISM MONITOR
Jack Broome
April 9, 2021

  Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 19 Issue: 7

On March 23, the Arakan Army (AA)—an ethnic armed organization (EAO) based largely in Myanmar’s Rakhine State—finally released a statement condemning the military’s seizure of power in the February 1 coup. AA spokesperson, Khine Thu Kha, said that the AA was “together…with the people” and would “continue to go forward for the oppressed Rakhine people” (Dhaka Star, March 23).

Up until this point, the AA had held back from issuing any kind of response to the coup, despite an increasing number of EAOs having already declared their support for the civil disobedience movement (CDM). Some groups, such as the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which is one of the AA’s alliance partners, have even begun to carry out attacks against the military in retaliation (Kachin News, March 12). Similarly, when the State Administrative Council (SAC), Myanmar’s new military government, announced on March 10 that it had removed the AA from the list of terrorist organizations, the rebel group made no formal acknowledgement of the move (The Irrawaddy, March 11).

Treasury Sanctions Key Gems Enterprise in Burma

U.S. Embassy in Burma

By U.S. Mission Burma
April 8, 2021

News, Press Releases

WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Myanma Gems Enterprise (MGE), a Burmese state-owned entity that is responsible for all gemstone activities in Burma. Gemstones are a key economic resource for the Burmese military regime that is violently repressing pro-democracy protests in the country and that is responsible for the ongoing lethal attacks against the people of Burma, including the killing of children. These sanctions are not directed at the people of Burma.

“Today’s action highlights Treasury’s commitment to denying the Burmese military sources of funding, including from key state-owned enterprises throughout Burma,” said Andrea Gacki, Director of the Office of the Foreign Assets Control. “The United States will continue to work tirelessly, including with partners throughout the region and the world, to support the restoration of democracy and rule of law in Burma and to bring accountability to those who seek to undermine these values.”

Security Council Arria formula meeting on Myanmar

UN Web TV
9 Apr 2021 -

On 1 February, Myanmar’s military launched a coup that halted abruptly the country’s democratic transition. The military prevented the convening of the democratically elected parliament and arbitrarily detained the country’s civilian leaders, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. The reaction of the people of Myanmar has been resolute – hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters have taken to the streets to demand that the outcome of November’s election is respected and to call for the reversal of the coup. 

US focuses on Myanmar issues, lauds Bangladesh's extraordinary generosity for Rohingyas

Dhaka Tribune 

UNB
April 9th, 2021

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to be recognized for Bangladesh's leadership in tackling climate crisis

The US remains very focused on helping all concerned in finding a solution to the Rohingya crisis and restoring democracy in Myanmar, John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said on Friday.

He appreciated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's leadership in demonstrating "extraordinary active generosity" which, he thinks, is very expensive for Bangladesh.

Kerry made the remarks while responding to a question at a joint briefing at state guesthouse Padma after his meeting with Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen in Dhaka.

He said the global community needed to step up in demonstrating their responsibility.

US Special Envoy: Restoring Democracy in Myanmar Will Ease Bangladesh's Rohingya Burden

Radio Free Asia

2021-04-09

US presidential climate envoy John Kerry (left) speaks during a press conference with Bangladesh foreign minister A.K. Abdul Momen in Dhaka, Apri 9, 2021

Updated at 3:25 p.m. ET on 2021-04-09

Democracy must be restored in Myanmar to ease the Rohingya refugee burden on Bangladesh, U.S. special envoy John Kerry said Friday during a lightning visit to the South Asian nation to drum up support for a Washington-hosted climate summit.

The American diplomat heaped praise on Bangladesh for its “extraordinary” generosity in sheltering the refugees from Myanmar, and even mentioned Dhaka’s controversial decision to relocate thousands to a flood-prone island.

He called the current situation in Myanmar “one of the great moral challenges of the planet today,” in referring to a coup and deadly violence against civilians by the same military that caused hundreds of thousands of traumatized Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh in 2017.