Every tool available needs to be used by the international community to stop the unfolding situation in Myanmar. That is the message from the Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General to that country who reported that more than 50 people had died with more than 1 200 detained since the army overthrew the elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Reports from the region point to a dramatic escalation from security forces with more than 30 deaths reported countrywide on Wednesday alone.
With large protests continuing unabated since the February 1 coup, the security apparatus has swung into high gear to counter the resistance as diplomatic efforts make little progress in dislodging the military’s power grab.
“I saw today very disturbing video clips. One was a police beating a volunteer medical crew, they were not armed. Another video clip showed a protestor taken away from police and they shoot him from very near, maybe only one metre. He didn’t resist his arrest and it seems that he died on the street. Altogether we have around 1 200 who people are now detained and many families don’t know where members of their families are detained if they are healthy or not. So how can we watch this situation longer,” says Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener.
Burgener explained that she has struggled to gain access to the country with the military saying she was welcome only once their investigations into dubious claims of “election fraud” were completed and only when they had quelled protests described as “a disobedience movement.”
“We know that several countries have taken bilateral sanctions but it’s clearly up to the member to decide what kind of measures they will take further and we know. I have discussions with the army and I warned them that member states and the Security Council might take huge, strong measures and the answer was – ‘We are used to sanctions and we survived those sanctions in the past’. When I also warned that they will go in isolation, the answer was ‘We have to learn to walk with only few friends’,” Special Envoy explained.
She is due to brief the Security Council on Friday in closed consultations and Russia and China will be in the room. “I hope that they recognise that it’s not only an internal affair, it hits the stability of the region because if we know that the ethnic armed organisations are determined not to allow this coup to continue and they also say that they suspend the dialog with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar army) and if both sides will start to use violence then we have a situation of a real war in Myanmar which is nobody’s interest, not for the people in Myanmar but also for the region. So I hope that China will realise that it will be important to work together but also for Russia. So, I really hope that this unity will be upheld on Friday.”
Any coordinated action from the Council is highly unlikely given the divisions with bilateral punitive measures, including sanctions, more realistic in the immediate term.
