RISK LEVEL: CURRENT CRISIS

Myanmar (Burma)

MARCH 2022 | POPULATION AT RISK

Rohingya populations in Rakhine State and in Bangladesh face an extreme risk of major cyclones. Opportunities to expand natural and artificial defenses should be explored through political sanctions and diplomatic peacemaking process currently underway.

BACKGROUND:

Climate change discussion….

On 1 February 2021 Myanmar’s military – the Tatmadaw – led by Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, overthrew the country’s civilian-led government and declared a state of emergency. Over the past year, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in peaceful protests and strikes against the reimposition of military rule, while numerous civilian militias known as People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) have also formed as part of an armed resistance. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 1,500 people have been killed by the security forces since 1 February and over 9,000 people remain detained for resisting the coup. At least 82 people have been sentenced to death by military tribunals (GCR2P).

On 16 April a coalition of democratic opponents to military rule formed the National Unity Government (NUG), which includes members of parliament ousted by the military. The military has charged their members with high treason and pronounced that the NUG and PDFs are terrorist organizations. On 1 August General Min Aung Hlaing declared himself prime minister and extended the state of emergency until August 2023. The NUG subsequently announced war against the military junta, urging a nation-wide revolt (GCR2P).

The Tatmadaw has increasingly targeted civilian areas, including in Magway and Sagaing regions and Chin, Kachin, Shan, Kayah, and Karen states, with airstrikes and other attacks, resulting in civilian casualties and mass displacement. Since December the military has intensified offensives against the armed resistance and civilians, particularly in northwest and southeast Myanmar, threatening to plunge the country into a protracted civil war. The military’s assault on Loikaw, Kayah State – which began on 6 January – is ongoing and has contributed to the displacement of approximately half the region’s population (GCR2P).

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, have indicated that abuses committed by the military since the coup may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. According to the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), the “security forces have carried out a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population,” and “the reports of murders, sexual assaults, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and persecution collected by the Mechanism, if substantiated, would amount to crimes against humanity” (GCR2P).

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 3 million people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. Nearly 440,000 people have been newly displaced since the coup, bringing the estimated total number of internally displaced persons to over 800,000 (GCR2P).

In 2018 the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)-mandated Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Myanmar concluded that senior members of the military, including General Min Aung Hlaing, should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states. In 2019 the FFM also asserted that Myanmar breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention and “continues to harbor genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya (GCR2P).

The majority of Myanmar’s Rohingya population were forced to flee the country after the military launched “clearance operations” in Rakhine State in August 2017, bringing the total number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh to over 900,000 people. The estimated 600,000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State face severe violations of their universal human rights. The 1982 Citizenship Law rendered most Rohingya stateless (G2R2P).

Western governments (UK, US and EU) as well as the UN have deployed several strategies, individually and collectively, to encourage the reinstatement of the democratically elected leader and avoid more bloodshed.

Integrating climate change policies and thinking into the current Western strategies can help facilitate a lasting peace in Myanmar.

JUMP TOOL: UK, US, EU, UN

United Kingdom | CiR2P Options

CiR2P Option 26 | Apply political sanctions

26 October 2021, ASEAN Leaders’ excluded Myanmar from attending its annual summit. The United Kingdom followed ASEAN’s lead for the upcoming meeting between the G7 and ASEAN foreign ministers in London in December banning the Myanmar military from attending in person, with only a “non-political representative” permitted via video.

The UK should extend this principled approach to the COP26 negotiations to be held Glasgow between 31 October and 12 November, banning the military Junta’s in person attendance.

United States | CiR2P Options

CiR2P Option 26 | Apply political sanctions

2 November 2021, US President Joe Biden called on Myanmar’s military to release political prisoners and halt all violence during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Biden also ‘expressed support’ for ASEAN’s position on Myanmar’s military government, which last month boycotted a summit of the Southeast Asian regional grouping after its chief was banned from the virtual event.

The international climate negotiations provides a good platform to “name and shame” the Junta’s unacceptable behaviour towards its own population. President Biden could have gone further however and announced sanctions on Myanmar’s oil and gas industry, which would have impacted directly on the Junta’s financial and commercial interests as well as drawn strong support from the climate activist crowd in Glasgow.

CiR2P Option 9 | Threaten economic sanctions

30 October 2021, US congressman Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the House to hold a vote on the BURMA Act, which would authorise additional targeted sanctions against the military (threat of sanctions). Already, US, UK and EU have placed sanction on high-ranking military officials and state-owned enterprises, they have yet to sanction American and French oil and gas companies working in Myanmar (which is the military’s single largest source of foreign currency revenue, which the Tatmadaw uses in part to buy weapons). Is the suggestion that the Act would allow sanctions on oil and gas.

European Union | CiR2P Options

FIND EU SANCTIONS

United Nations | CiR2P Options

CiR2P Option 3 (and 15) | Enact preventive diplomacy (Threaten criminal prosecution)

5 November 2011, the UN announced that a fact finding mission had found evidence of systematic attacks on civilians ‘amounting to crimes against humanity’ across Myanmar since the coup, indicating a centrally planned and implemented policy. The Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, led by Nicholas Koumjian, has collected more than 1.5 million items of evidence that are being analysed “so that one day those most responsible for the serious international crimes in Myanmar will be brought to account”. The UN investigative body was established by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in September 2018 with a mandate to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar. Koumjian was appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as its head in 2019 with instructions to prepare files that can facilitate criminal prosecutions in national, regional or international tribunals to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He said the Human Rights Council specifically instructed the investigators to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s probe into crimes committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority and the case at the International Court of Justice brought by The Gambia on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya.

The Rohingya population left in Rakhine State, in camps across the border in Cox’s Bazar, and on Bhasan Char island are extremely vulnerable to cyclones. All three locations are considered within the Bay of Bengal’s “cyclone alley”. Seven of the 10 deadliest cyclones in human history have smashed into this coast, the most deadly of which occurred in 1970 causing between 300-500 000 deaths. UN fact-finding missions and case-building exercises for international courts should include a discussion about the role played by junta in Myanmar’s past, present and prospective climate-related human catastrophes.