ASEAN urged to address Myanmar crises, as special envoy named

Aljazeera
4 Aug 2021

Rights groups call on regional political bloc to work with shadow NUG, local health organisations to deliver urgent humanitarian aid.

Volunteers in protective suits carry a COVID patient lying on a bed as they try to relocate oxygen-dependent patients from the COVID centre during floods in Karen state [Karen Information Center/Handout via Reuters]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) urgently needs to address Myanmar’s “dire” human rights and humanitarian crises, which are being compounded by a COVID-19 health emergency and recent flooding, rights groups have said, warning the regional bloc to avoid giving legitimacy to the country’s military.

ASEAN Still Stalemated Over Choice of Myanmar Envoy

THE I DIPLOMAT
Sebastian Strangio
August 03, 2021

A candidate was expected to be announced at yesterday’s Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, but the bloc appears deadlocked on a number of issues.

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) kicked off a week of summitry-by-videolink, it remained deadlocked on the appointment of a special envoy to address the political crisis in Myanmar.

Alongside a discussion of COVID-19 and the South China Sea, yesterday’s 54th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was expected in some quarters to feature the announcement of an ASEAN envoy to shepherd Myanmar’s military junta and its opponents toward the negotiating table.

Fighting Myanmar's regime with compassion and military skills

NIKKEI ASIA
DENIS D. GRAY, Contributing writer
August 1, 2021 

Free Burma Rangers help thousands fleeing brutal attacks by security forces

David Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers aid organization, rescues a 5-year-old Demoa after her mother was killed by Islamists in the battle for Mosul. (Courtesy of Free Burma Rangers)

     CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- David Eubank, a former U.S. Special Forces officer, believes that some causes are worth dying for. His Free Burma Rangers aid organization, founded to help victims of an earlier Myanmar crisis, has since brought frontline help to many thousands in war-scarred Syria, Iraq and Sudan. Now, it is back in Myanmar helping ethnic minorities to flee escalating attacks by the regime's security forces.

Bangladesh-Myanmar Economic Ties: Addressing the Next Generation Challenges

moderndiplomacy

Shazzad Hussain
August 1, 2021

Bangladesh-Myanmar relations have developed through phases of cooperation and conflict. Conflict in this case is not meant in the sense of confrontation, but only in the sense of conflict of interests and resultant diplomatic face-offs. Myanmar is the only other neighbor that Bangladesh has on its border besides India. It is the potential gateway for an alternative land route opening towards China and South-East Asia other than the sea. Historically, these two countries have geographic and cultural linkages. These two bordering countries, located in separate geopolitical regions, have huge possibilities in developing their bilateral economic relations. At the initial phase of their statehood, both countries undertook numerous constructive initiatives to improve their relations. Nevertheless, different bilateral disputes and challenges troubled entire range of cooperation. Subsequent to these challenges, Bangladesh and Myanmar have started negotiation process on key dubious issues. The economic rationales over political tensions in Bangladesh-Myanmar relations prevail with new prospects and opportunities.

New Great Game rages in post-coup Myanmar

ASIA TIMES
Bertil Lintner
June 12, 2021

China and US on opposed sides in Myanmar's escalating civil war while Japan, India and ASEAN struggle to strike a middle ground

Anti-coup protesters show their support for Myanmar's National Unity Government. Photo: Jose Lopes Amaral / NurPhoto via AFP

CHIANG MAI – China has declared its support for Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s military-coup government in Myanmar. The United States and the European Union have implemented sanctions and declared their support for the people’s power movement agitating against the dictatorship.

India and Japan are keeping quiet because they don’t want to push Myanmar further back into the clutches of China. Thailand is too dependent on natural gas imports from Myanmar to dare to condemn or even criticize the coup.

The rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, has once again demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of resolving regional crises. 

Moscow sells warplanes to Burmese generals

ASIANEWS.IT

Vladimir Rozanskij
07/26/2021,

Sukhoi Su-30SME multirole fighter jets and military training aircraft​ delivered . After China, Russia is the main supplier of weapons to Naypyidaw. Like the Chinese, the Russians support Min Aung Hlaing's coup junta. Burma's military leadership relies on the Kremlin to balance Beijing's influence.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In recent days Russia has delivered a consignment of Sukhoi Su-30SME multi-role fighter jets and military training aircraft to Myanmar, contracted by the regime a few months ago. Head of the Federal Service for Military Cooperation, Dmitry Šugaev confirmed the sale to Interfax over the weekend.

Šugaev says "the supply of these technologies will significantly strengthen the capabilities of Myanmar's military aviation." During the Maks-2021 Air Show, in the presence of Vladimir Putin, he explained that "Naypyidaw remains one of Russia's key partners in Southeast Asia."

Myanmar’s Junta Tries – and Fails – to Appoint a New UN Ambassador

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio

July 21, 2021

But the military’s takeover has trapped foreign governments between dueling moral and diplomatic imperatives.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Myanmar’s military junta has attempted – unsuccessfully – to replace the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, foreshadowing a looming battle over diplomatic recognition at the world body.

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dated May 12, a copy of which was obtained by the news agency, the junta’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said he had appointed the former military commander Aung Thurein as Myanmar’s U.N. ambassador.

Wunna Maung Lwin said in an accompanying letter that Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s currently recognized U.N. ambassador, “has been terminated on Feb. 27, 2021, due to abuses of his assigned duty and mandate.”

Yunnan Sees COVID-19 Spike as Myanmar Slides Toward ‘Super-Spreader’ State

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
July 21, 2021

 

The former head of the Myanmar’s COVID-19 response says the country could be facing “up to 400,000” dead.

China yesterday reported its highest daily toll of COVID-19 infections since January, driven by a sudden increase in infections in Yunnan province, where cases are spilling across the border from Myanmar.

The National Health Commission reported 65 new confirmed cases on Monday, up from 31 the day before. As Reuters noted, this was the most since January 30, when 92 new cases were reported.

Inside A Myanmar Clinic Fighting A New COVID Surge

THE ASEAN POST
18 July 2021

Volunteers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) prepare to transport the body of a victim of the COVID-19 coronavirus to a cemetery in Hlegu Township in Yangon on 10 July, 2021. (AFP Photo)

In a clinic in a remote Myanmar town, some of the few doctors still working after the coup emptied hospitals are battling to keep their COVID-19 patients alive as the virus resurges.

Infections are spiking in Myanmar, with the State Administration Council – as the military junta calls itself – reporting more than 4,000 cases on Thursday, in a crisis made worse by shortages of critical medical equipment.

AFP footage from inside a clinic in the north-western town of Kalay showed patients slumped in makeshift beds, oxygen canisters at their feet.

Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui captured the people behind the story

bdnews24.com

Reuters
Published: 17 Jul 2021

A woman walks past a painting of Reuters journalist Danish Siddiqui, after he was killed while covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a border crossing with Pakistan, outside an art school in Mumbai, India, Jul 16, 2021. REUTERS

Danish Siddiqui, the Reuters journalist killed in crossfire on Friday covering the war in Afghanistan, was a largely self-taught photographer who scaled the heights of his profession while documenting wars, riots and human suffering.

A native of New Delhi, Siddiqui, 38, is survived by his wife Rike and two young children.

The Economic Impact of Myanmar’s Coup

BORGEN

ON JULY 17, 2021

MORRISTOWN, New Jersey — On the morning of February 1, 2021, a military coup in Myanmar ended a four-year experiment in democracy. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Myanmar’s military history, the militia’s lasting power on Myanmar’s politics and the increasing power of the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, created the conditions for a coup. To understand the possible economic impact of Myanmar’s coup, it is crucial to understand the country’s political and economic history.

‘We can’t breathe... and the whole world is silent’: Myanmar begs for oxygen as Covid crisis worsens

The Telegraph

ByNicola Smith, and Nandi Theint
ASIA CORRESPONDENT
IN YANGON
16 July 2021

Just like in India, Myanmar's citizens take their desperate pleas for help to social media.

People are lining up across Myanmar to find lifesaving oxygen CREDIT: Ye Aung Thu/AFP

Myanmar’s people were first deprived of their democratic rights, and are now being starved of oxygen itself, by a February coup that has plunged the Southeast Asian nation into a political and medical crisis.

As a deadly wave of Covid-19 fueled by the Delta variant sweeps a country where the healthcare system has virtually collapsed, people have flooded social media with pleas for oxygen supplies and coveted hospital beds as their loved ones suffocate at home.

Why the West won’t recognize Myanmar’s NUG

ASIA TIME
by David Hutt
July 16, 2021

While Western governments universally reject the military coup, they're also wary of the anti-junta National Unity Government's credibility

Protesters hold posters in support of the National Unity Government (NUG) during a demonstration against the military coup on "Global Myanmar Spring Revolution Day" in Taunggyi, Shan state on May 2, 2021. Photo: AFP / Stringer

“Defending Burmese democracy is no longer a progressive, sexy cause.”

That may be at the heart of why Western governments still have not recognized Myanmar’s government-in-opposition that formed months after February’s military coup, according to David Frederic Camroux, an honorary senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Paris.

UN resolution calls for reconciliation in Myanmar

Frontier
MYANMAR
AFP
JULY 13, 2021

The UN Human Rights Council on Monday adopted a resolution condemning human rights violations by Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya and other minorities, and called for a process of reconciliation.

The resolution, brought forward by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, was approved without a vote in the Geneva-based council.

China, one of the 47 council members, said it could not join the consensus but nonetheless did not insist on bringing the text to a vote.

Torture in Myanmar: Don’t Let the Junta Normalize Cruelty

THE I DIPLOMAT 

By Tomas Max Martin, Ergun Cakal, and Hannah Russell
JULY 13, 2021

Torture – and the fear that it engenders – has been central to the military junta’s efforts to quell popular resistance.

On June 26, CNN reported the story of American-Burmese journalist Nathan Maung, who was released by the Myanmar military after three months of detention, during which time he experienced severe torture. On June 22, Human Rights Watch published the account of a 17-year-old boy, who endured repeated beatings with a bamboo stick filled with cement, blows to the head with the butt of a rifle, and burial up to his neck in a mock execution.

China is not happy about Myanmar’s coup

The Economist

Banyan
Jul 10th 2021

Yet it is betting that the generals will prevail

Almost as soon as the tanks rolled into Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, in February, rumours began circulating on social media about how China would respond. It is a sign of its influence: China is probably the only country that could coax Myanmar’s generals to the negotiating table. The speculation was laid to rest only in June, when the Chinese embassy referred to Min Aung Hlaing, the Burmese commander-in-chief, as Myanmar’s “leader”. The next day, China convened a meeting of foreign ministers from asean, a club of South-East Asian nations, and included the military government’s representative. With their putsch, the generals are trying to wind the clock back to 2010, when they still ran the show. China appears to be adjusting its calendar.

ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 21 A

Lankaweb
KAMALIKA PIERIS
July 8th, 2021

The word genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 for the killing of Jews in World War II. Genocide was first recognized as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I). It was codified as an independent crime in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948. Sri Lanka signed the Convention in 1950. .The International Criminal Court (est. 2002) which is specifically mandated to judge crimes of Genocide uses the definition given in the UN Convention.

The international legal definition of the crime of Genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention. There must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Also action must be taken to carry out the intent. A crime must include elements, intent and action, to be called “genocide.” If the government is to be blamed, it must be a part of state policy.

Analysis: Myanmar turmoil deepens as clashes spread

REUTERS
July 7, 2021

  

July 7 (Reuters) - The farming town of Depayin joined Myanmar's list of shattered communities when the army moved in to crush a local anti-junta militia armed with makeshift weapons.

When army trucks arrived at Depayin around dawn last Friday, local youths assembled to fight back but were quickly overwhelmed, six residents told Reuters by telephone. Dozens of people were killed afterwards by the soldiers and thousands have since fled with whatever they could carry, the residents said.

Amid Coup Crisis, COVID-19 Hits New Daily Highs in Myanmar

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Sebastian Strangio
July 07, 2021

With health workers on strike and much of the public in open rebellion, a new wave of infections could prove devastating.

The coronavirus is rapidly spreading in crisis-hit Myanmar, with the country recording another record number of daily COVID-19 cases, suggesting that the political situation here is on the verge of being compounded by a grave public health emergency.

The regime’s health ministry reported records of 2,318 cases on Sunday and 2,969 cases on Monday, bringing the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic to 168,374, with 3,461 deaths.

Given the country’s unstable political situation, which has prompted sharp disruptions to COVID-19 testing and containment efforts, it is almost certain that these are underestimates. Yesterday, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that hundreds of people have died of COVID-19 over the past 30 days in a single township in northwestern Myanmar.

Why Myanmar may be heading for a full-scale civil war

THE WEEK
JOE EVANS
6 JUL 2021

Civilian death toll rises as military battles anti-coup resistance groups

Resistance fighter with improvised weapon in the southern city of Yangon
Stringer/Getty Images

Myanmar’s security forces have killed at least 25 people in clashes with opponents of the military junta in a township in the central Sagaing region.

Local people in Depayin say the violence erupted after “four military trucks dropped soldiers at the village early on Friday”, Reuters reports.

The alleged raid is the latest in a series of clashes as civilians “increasingly take up arms against the generals who seized power in a coup five months ago”, says Al Jazeera.