Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said conditions for Myanmar’s 54 million people had gone from “bad to worse to horrible” since the military seized power last year. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Andrews said the international response to the crisis sparked by the February 2021 coup had “failed” and that Myanmar’s military was also committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including sexual violence, torture, deliberate campaign against civilians and murders. Andrews was addressing the council on Wednesday, a day after it was revealed that at least 11 children were killed in a helicopter attack on a school in north-central Sagaing where the armed forces claimed anti-coup fighters were hiding. Myanmar was plunged into crisis when Senior General Min Aung Hlaing arrested re-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and seized power on the day the new parliament was due to meet. People took to the streets in mass demonstrations and began a nationwide civil disobedience movement to which the military responded with violence, leading some citizens to take up arms. More than 2,300 people have been killed since the coup and thousands arrested, according to the Political Prisoners Aid Association, a civil society group monitoring the situation. Andrews told the Human Rights Council that 295 children were among those detained, while at least 84 political prisoners were sentenced to death. The military sparked outrage in July when it hanged four pro-democracy activists, including a prominent former member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, marking the first use of the death penalty since the late 1980s. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing secured a coveted meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok earlier this month [File: Valery Sharifulin/Sputnik via AFP] Earlier this week, the head of the UN panel investigating human rights abuses in Myanmar also addressed the Human Rights Council, telling member states that the range and scope of alleged international crimes taking place in Myanmar have “expanded dramatically ». Nicholas Koumjian of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) told the council that the post-coup incidents were now also a “main focus” of its investigations. Senior generals and those with ties to the military have been hit by Western sanctions, as well as some of the military’s own operations, while some international operations have pulled out of the country. In response, the generals have deepened ties with Russia, which has also been isolated by its invasion of Ukraine. Given the situation, Andrews said the international community must take “stronger, more effective action to deprive the junta and its forces of revenue, weapons and legitimacy.” The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997, is leading diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis, but generals have ignored the five-point consensus agreed in April 2021. As a result, ASEAN has banned military appointees from the annual summit, but earlier this week Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said the group must consider whether more needs to be done and whether the consensus should be “replaced with something better ». Saifuddin has also argued that ASEAN should work with the National Unity Government (NUG) formed by the ousted elected officials, prompting an angry rebuke from Myanmar’s military.
