United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the world has failed Myanmar, and is expressing hope the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be able to pressure the member state to comply with its plan for peace over the next year
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Saturday that the world had failed Myanmar, and expressed hope the Association of Southeast Asian Nations would be able to pressure the member state to comply with its plan for peace over the next year.
ASEAN leaders at the group’s ongoing summit in Phnom Penh agreed on a plan Friday that largely puts the onus on Indonesia when it takes over the group’s rotating chair in 2023 to develop measurable indicators and a timeline for Myanmar to implement the so-called five-point consensus for peace.
Indonesia has been one of the ASEAN countries most outspoken about the need to do more to address the situation in Myanmar, and Guterres told reporters he felt “the Indonesian government will be able to push forward the agenda in a positive way.”
The ASEAN decision announced Friday includes asking the U.N. and other “external partners” for assistance in supporting the group’s efforts. Guterres said he hoped the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, would cooperate closely with her ASEAN counterpart to bring about an end to the “dramatic violations of human rights” in the country.
“Everybody has failed in relation to Myanmar,” Guterres said. “The international community as a whole has failed, and the U.N. is part of the international community.”
ASEAN’s peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence, a dialogue among all parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all sides.
Myanmar’s government initially agreed to the plan but has made little effort to implement it.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — U.S. President Joe Biden offered a full-throated American commitment to the nations of Southeast Asia on Saturday, pledging at a Cambodia summit to help stand against China’s growing dominance in the region — without mentioning the other superpower by name.
Chinese President Xi Jinping wasn’t in the room at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit in Phnom Penh. But Xi hovered over the proceedings just two days before he and Biden are set to have their highly anticipated first face-to-face meeting at the G20 summit in Indonesia.
The Biden White House has declared Xi’s nation its greatest economic and military rival of the next century and while the president never called out China directly, his message was squarely aimed at Beijing.
“Together we will tackle the biggest issues of our time, from climate to health security to defend against significant threats to rules-based order and to threats against the rule of law,” Biden said. “We’ll build an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”
The U.S. has long derided China’s violation of the international rules-based order — from trade to shipping to intellectual property — and Biden tried to emphasize his administration’s solidarity with a region American has too often overlooked.
His work in Phnom Penh was meant to set a framework for his meeting with Xi — his first face-to-face with the Chinese leader since taking office — which is to be held Monday at the G20 summit of the world’s richest economies, this year being held in Indonesia on the island of Bali.
Much of Biden’s agenda at ASEAN was to demonstrate resistance to Beijing.
He was to push for better freedom of navigation on the South China Sea, where the U.S. believes the nations can fly and sail wherever international law allows. The U.S. had declared that China’s resistance to that freedom challenges the world’s rules-based order.
Moreover, in an effort to crack down on unregulated fishing by China, the U.S. began an effort to use radio frequencies from commercial satellites to better track so-called dark shipping and illegal fishing. Biden also pledged to help the area’s infrastructure initiative — meant as a counter to China’s Belt and Road program — as well as to lead a regional response to the ongoing violence in Myanmar.
But it is the Xi meeting that will be the main event for Biden’s week abroad, which comes right after his party showed surprising strength in the U.S. midterm elections, emboldening the president as he headed overseas. Biden will circumnavigate the globe, having made his first stop at a major climate conference in Egypt before arriving in Cambodia for a pair of weekend summits before going on to Indonesia.
There has been skepticism among Asian states as to American commitment to the region over the last two decades. Former President Barack Obama took office with the much-ballyhooed declaration that the U.S. would “pivot to Asia,” but his administration was sidetracked by growing involvements in Middle Eastern wars.
Donald Trump conducted a more inward-looking foreign policy and spent much of his time in office trying to broker a better trade deal with China, all the while praising Xi’s authoritarian instincts. Declaring China the United States’ biggest rival, Biden again tried to focus on Beijing but has had to devote an extraordinary amount of resources to helping Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion.
But this week is meant to refocus America on Asia — just as China, taking advantage of the vacuum left by America’s inattention, has continued to wield its power over the region.
Biden declared that the ten nations that make up ASEAN are “the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” and that his time in office — which included hosting the leaders in Washington earlier this year — begins “a new era in our cooperation.” He did, though, mistakenly identify the host country as “Colombia” while offering thanks at the beginning of his speech.
“We will build a better future, a better future we all say we want to see,” Biden said.
Biden was only the second U.S. president to set foot in Cambodia, after Obama visited in 2012. And like Obama did then, the president on Saturday made no public remarks about Cambodia’s dark history or the United States’ role in the nation’s tortured past.
In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon authorized a secret carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia to cut off North Vietnam’s move toward South Vietnam. The U.S. also backed a coup that led, in part, to the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a bloodthirsty guerrilla group that went on to orchestrate a genocide that resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million people between 1975 and 1979.
One of the regime’s infamous Killing Fields, where nearly 20,000 Cambodians were executed and thrown in mass graves, lies just a few miles outside the center of Phnom Penh. There, a memorial featuring thousands of skulls sits as a vivid reminder of the atrocities committed just a few generations ago. White House aides said that Biden had no scheduled plans to visit.
As is customary, Biden met with the host country’s leader at the start of the summit. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has ruled Cambodia for decades with next to no tolerance for dissent. Opposition leaders have been jailed and killed, and his administration has been accused of widespread corruption, according to human rights groups.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Biden would “engage across the board in service of America’s interests and to advance America’s strategic position and our values.” He said Biden was meeting with Hun Sen because he was the leader of the host country.
U.S. officials said Biden urged the Cambodian leader to make a greater commitment to democracy and “reopen civic and political space” ahead of the country’s next elections.
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A day after his capture by Myanmar soldiers, Saw Tun Moe’s decapitated head was found impaled on the spiked gates to the smouldering remains of a school building.
The 46-year-old mathematics teacher was a vocal critic of Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup last year, and was running schools for the National Unity Government (NUG) – an administration established in opposition to the military by ethnic leaders, activists and the elected politicians the generals removed from office – in the central Magway region
“He was aware he could end up like this if he fell into junta hands,” one of Saw Tun Moe’s colleagues told the Irrawaddy newspaper after his death in late October. “Even then, he took the risk and chose to teach at the NUG school.”
All across Myanmar, men and women are taking similar risks.
Outraged at the military’s toppling of Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government just 10 years after the start of a shaky transition to democracy, and horrified by a brutal crackdown on unarmed protesters in the immediate aftermath of the coup, the people of Myanmar have taken matters into their own hands. Some, like Saw Tun Moe, went on strike and joined the NUG’s parallel education and health services, while others have taken up arms against the military, despite very little training or weapons expertise, including by joining ethnic armed groups or newly formed civilian militias, known as the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs).
Thwarted in his bid to consolidate his coup, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing responded with even more violence.
The military restarted political executions, burned entire villages to the ground and bombed hospitals and schools, even an outdoor concert – attacks human rights groups say may amount to crimes against humanity.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a global crisis mapping group, estimates that some 27,683 people may have died from political violence in Myanmar since the military’s power grab in February of last year. The group says it has recorded nearly 15,000 incidents of violence, including armed clashes and air attacks, in the 22 months since the coup.
Only in Ukraine, where Russia launched a bloody invasion on February 24, is the rate of deaths higher.
‘Junta may not survive till 2023’
Analysts say Myanmar has not seen violence of this scale since its struggle for independence in 1948. The conflict has spread to areas that have long been peaceful, such as Magway in Myanmar’s central plains.
Known as the Dry Zone, the central plains are home to Myanmar’s Bamar-Buddhist majority. Until now, it has largely been spared the kind of violence the military has unleashed on and off against the ethnic armed groups fighting for greater autonomy in the country’s borderlands.
But now, some 647 PDFs are fighting the military in the Dry Zone alone, according to ACLED data.
And these armed groups have turned to bombings, focused assassinations and ambushes on military convoys.
Under pressure, the military has drawn up civilian militias of its own, called Phyu Saw Htee, and launched a campaign of widespread arson, razing homes and villages to the ground in a bid to root out any resistance forces. The fighting is causing untold suffering, having also forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
For all its brutality, however, nearly two years after the coup, experts estimate the military has stable control over just 17 percent of the country.
“Armed resistance, bolstered by an extensive popular non-violent movement, is now so pervasive that the military risks losing control of territory wherever it is unable to commit resources to actively defend,” The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of rights experts, said in a September report (PDF).
“From northern Kachin State down to southern Tanintharyi and from western Chin bordering India over to eastern Karenni State bordering Thailand, the Myanmar military has not been stretched across so many fronts since the late 1940s.”
The council, made up of former United Nations experts on Myanmar – Yanghee Lee, Marzuki Darusman and Chris Sidoti – went as far as to assert: “The junta may not survive through 2023, unless something dramatically alters the current trajectory.”
‘Are you good only for playing golf?’
Despite the situation on the ground, the international community has failed to engage NUG in discussions about Myanmar’s future, relying on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which Myanmar joined in 1997, to tackle the crisis. But the 10-member regional bloc has so far avoided any official engagement with the NUG, despite having agreed last year on a “peace plan” that calls for facilitating constructive dialogue in Myanmar.
With ASEAN leaders meeting for a summit in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Friday, campaigners are urging the group to get tough on Myanmar.
“Hello? Are you going to be good only for playing golf and making statements?” asked Debbie Stothard, founder of ALTSEAN, a rights group. “The crisis in Myanmar poses one of the most serious threats to economic and regional stability, especially human security and economic security in the region. And yet ASEAN is not even doing one-tenth of what the European Union did in response to the Ukraine crisis.”
At the very least, campaigners say ASEAN must continue to exclude the Myanmar military from its summits and extend that ban to working-level meetings. Most importantly, they are calling on ASEAN to engage with the NUG and demand the generals agree to specific actions and timelines to end hostilities.
Anything less could allow the military to stall the process, giving them time to consolidate power ahead of elections it has said it will hold in 2023, according to experts.
Charles Santiago, a former Malaysian legislator and founder of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), said the military must not be given the chance to dictate the terms of the vote.
“This is something that has to be stopped,” he told Al Jazeera. “The heads of government must come up with a clear statement that ASEAN and the international community will not accept elections in Myanmar next year. This is something that has to be done otherwise ASEAN will be seen as colluding with the Myanmar junta.”
Southeast Asian foreign ministers met in Jakarta to discuss the political crisis in Myanmar ahead of November’s ASEAN leaders’ summit [File: Handout/ Indonesian Foreign Ministry/ AFP]
Observers see at least one bright spot as Cambodia is set to hand over ASEAN’s chairmanship to Indonesia at the upcoming summit.
Jakarta has favoured engaging with NUG, with or without the military’s permission, and Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has said ASEAN must tackle its problems head-on instead of sweeping them under the rug.
But despite the lack of a breakthrough so far, some observers say ASEAN remains key to tackling the crisis in Myanmar.
“The fact that ASEAN is a regional organisation where Myanmar is a member of makes it the only institution that has the legitimacy, and ideally, the willingness to deal with the issue,” said Lina Alexandra, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“Of course we don’t deny (the) possibility for other international actors to lead, but unfortunately until now we don’t see any intention so far from them. Nobody wants their hands to be dirty and everyone is busy with something else. Therefore, ASEAN should be the one that spearhead the process, then the other actors will follow to assist ASEAN.”
Union minister of civil aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia has said that the northeast was an important part of the central government’s strategy of making air connectivity the country’s lifeline even as he launched several new flights within the region.
Informing that while in 2013-14 India had only 70 airports, the minister said the country currently boasted 141 airports, water aerodromes and heliports. Over the next four years, this would be increased to over 200 airports.
“The northeast is an important component of this expansion. In 2013, where we had only nine airports in the northeast,” he said, adding, “Today, under the prime minister’s directive, we have additional airports in Lilabari, Tezpur and Rupsi in Assam, Tezu, Pasighat and, very soon, the new airport in Hollongi, in Arunachal Pradesh, and Pakyong, in Sikkim. So, we have built close to about seven new airports in the last eight years.”
Scindia was speaking at the virtual launch of six new departures on the Imphal-Aizwal, Aizwal-Imphal, Lilabari-Ziro, Ziro-Lilabari, Shillong-Lilabari and Lilabari-Shillong routes in the presence of the union minister of law and justice, Kiren Rijiju, minister of state of civil aviation, Gen. (Retd) Vijay Kumar Singh and chief ministers of the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya, and the state tourism minister of Mizoram.
The civil aviation minister noted that air connectivity was not merely about launching domestic and international flights, nor was it about launching flights between Tier-I cities, but it rather implied reaching every corner of India.
Fund for developing air connectivity in northeast
The minister said that a Rs 500 crore corpus had been set aside for enhancing both inter and intra-northeast connectivity. Of the 1,095 routes awarded under the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik-Regional Connectivity Scheme (UDAN-RCS), 136 or 14 per cent of routes had been awarded in the northeast.
“Under UDAN 4.2, out of 132 routes, 24 routes have been dedicated to the northeast. So, almost about 18 per cent of the total routes have been dedicated to the northeast,” the minister said.
Reiterating the role of air connectivity in advancing the potential of the northeast not only within the country but also overseas, the minister also announced two international routes from the region as part of India’s Act East policy.
“We would also like to announce that we will be starting two new international routes under international UDAN-RCS… Agartala-Chittagong-Agartala and Imphal-Mandalay-Imphal. We are expanding the scope from regional connectivity to national connectivity to international connectivity for the northeast,” he remarked.
He further mentioned how the convergence scheme involving eight ministries for the transportation of horticultural produce, Krishi UDAN, was helping reach chillies, jackfruit, lemons and grapes from the region to markets in the UK, Germany and the UAE.
The minister also praised Vineet Sood, the CEO of India’s largest regional carrier, Alliance Air, for taking the lead over other Indian carriers in enhancing regional connectivity.
Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in military airstrikes at a celebratory event in Myanmar’s mountainous Kachin state on Sunday, drawing international condemnation of the junta that seized power in the country more than a year and a half ago.
Victims had been attending an event organized by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to mark the 62nd anniversary of the armed ethnic rebel group’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), KIO General Secretary La Nan said on Tuesday.
La Nan said both men and women were among about 50 people killed, though no children have been identified among the victims yet. Another 54 are injured, many with burns and shrapnel wounds, he added.
CNN cannot independently verify the number of reported deaths.
La Nan said the event, which included musical performances, was one of the group’s most significant annual festivities, with “hundreds, if not thousands” in attendance including artists, business owners and elders. Many had traveled from across the state to attend, he said.
“We understand the intention of (the airstrikes) was largely to inflict chaos and massive pain to the public, in a large volume and with as much damage as they could inflict,” La Nan said.
The military junta, which overthrew the government in a bloody coup last February, claimed on Monday that reports of civilian deaths from the airstrikes were “fake news.”
It claimed the airstrikes had targeted the KIA’s military base, in response to the group’s earlier raids and attacks on passenger vessels along the Irrawaddy River. It also claimed it had followed international conventions “so as to ensure peace and stability of the region.”
La Nan refuted the junta’s claim, saying the celebration had been held in the A Nang Pa region – a small area where travelers often stop by a market. It’s “nowhere close to military installations,” he said.
Though KIO personnel were in attendance, “they were not there as military personnel but as entertainers,” helping welcome guests and performing, he added.
Since the coup, rights groups and observers say freedoms and rights in Myanmar have deteriorated; state executions have returned and the number of documented violent attacks by the army on schools has surged.
Myanmar’s shadow government, the National Unity Government – a group of ousted lawmakers, coup opponents and ethnic minority group representatives – condemned the attack in a statement on Monday, saying the military had “deliberately committed another mass killing.”
The attack “clearly violates international laws as the provisions of the Geneva Conventions,” it said in the statement, urging the international community and United Nations to “take effective actions urgently.”
The NUG operates undercover or through members abroad, seeking to gain recognition as the legitimate government of Myanmar.
The attack on Sunday drew international condemnation, with the United Nations saying it was concerned over reports of more than 100 civilians impacted.
“While the UN continues to verify the details of this attack, we offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of all those who were killed or injured. The UN calls for those injured to be availed urgent medical treatment, as needed,” it said in a statement on Monday.
It added that the military’s “excessive and disproportionate” use of force against unarmed civilians was “unacceptable,” and called on those responsible to be held to account.
La Nan, the KIO official, said the military had sealed off the roads surrounding A Nang Pa after the attack, imposed an internet and telecommunications blackout, and deployed plainclothes officers to local hospitals – meaning victims of the attack have little to no access to medical care.
“They are taking refuge in nearby makeshift clinics and rudimentary medical facilities in the mining area. Most of their relatives are very worried because there is very little access to medicine,” he said, calling it a “deliberate blockade.”
The KIO and local community is now trying to recover all the victims, and “have a proper burial according to our traditions and our religious rituals,” he said – adding that about 10 bodies were beyond identification.
CNN cannot independently verify the current situation.
On Monday, the ambassadors of Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States issued a joint statement condemning the strike.
“This attack underscores the military regime’s responsibility for crisis and instability in Myanmar and the region and its disregard for its obligation to protect civilians and respect the principles and rules of international humanitarian law,” the joint statement read.
Non-profit organization Amnesty International said in a statement the military’s actions – including executing pro-democracy activists, jailing journalists and targeting civilians – have been allowed to continue “in the face of an ineffective international response.”
“As officials and leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) prepare to host high-level meetings in the coming weeks, this attack highlights the need to overhaul the approach to the crisis in Myanmar,” the statement said, urging ASEAN leaders to take action when they meet for their annual summit in November.
At least 60 people have been killed in an aerial attack on a concert in Kachin state, sources have told Al Jazeera.
At least 60 people have been killed, including well-known artists and musicians, in an aerial attack on a concert in Kachin state by Myanmar’s military, sources have told Al Jazeera.
“Three Myanmar jets are reported to have been involved in the attack in Kansi village,” Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from neighbouring Thailand, said on Monday.
“The aftermath of the attack shows an awful lot of destruction. There is a lot of debris … vehicles strewn across the open ground,” he said from the Thai capital Bangkok, adding that there are “still 100 seriously injured people”.
Cheng said the attacks took place while artists were performing on stage as part of the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), a powerful separatist group based in the country’s north.
“Some very celebrated Kachin singers are also believed to be amongst the fatalities,” he said.
KIO has been fighting Myanmar’s military for decades and supports the resistance against last February’s military coup.
The organisation did not comment immediately on the attack.
Cheng said that, according to sources, the injured were not being allowed to leave the area by the military who closed off the area with checkpoints around the village.
“Many of them in urgent need of medical attention,” he said.
The National Unity Government (NUG) in exile – established by the democratically-elected politicians removed from office in last year’s military coup – condemned the attack. One NUG minister told Al Jazeera this was just another example of Myanmar’s military attacking civilians.
Cheng said the attack appeared to be part of a pattern that has emerged in recent months. Myanmar military, he said, has used its air superiority to conduct air raids, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
The South East Asian nation has been in political turmoil since the February 1, 2021, military takeover, which was met with peaceful nationwide protests. However, after the army and police killed demonstrators opposing military rule, civilians throughout the country formed armed units as part of a People’s Defence Force (PDF) to fight the military rule.
According to the rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which documents killings and human rights violations in Myanmar, at least 2,370 people have been killed and more than 15,900 arrested since the coup.
After four years, Pakistan has been taken off from the infamous grey list of FATF, the global watchdog on terror financing and money laundering, in the wake of Islamabad’s “high-level political commitment” in dealing with the menace and carry out reforms in its existing monitoring mechanism. Significantly, for the first time, the FATF put Myanmar in the “high-risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action”, often referred to as the watchdog’s black list. Iran and North Korea continue to be in the black list.
In other decisions, Russia was barred from participating in future projects of FATF. In a statement, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said it welcomes Pakistan’s significant progress in improving its anti-money laundering, and combating financial terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. The decision was taken by the FATF in its plenary held in Paris on October 20-21.
Later at a virtual press conference, FATF president T Raja Kumar, who is from Singapore, said Pakistan has largely addressed all the 34 items given by the FATF. “The FATF looked into the mechanism put in place by Pakistan to combat financial terrorism and money laundering. The team went down to Pakistan and found the high level political commitment of Pakistan not only act to combat financial terrorism and money laundering but ensuring reforms and strengthen the system,” he said.
Kumar said there has been significant progress on the part of Pakistan to combat financial terrorism and money laundering which resulted Pakistan being taken off from the increased monitoring mechanism or the grey list. However, he said, Pakistan still needs to continue to work in this regard and the FATF encourages Pakistan to cooperate with the FATF’s Asia Pacific Group to combat financial terrorism and money laundering.
The FATF statement said Pakistan has strengthened the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime and addressed technical deficiencies to meet the commitments of its action plans regarding strategic deficiencies that the FATF identified in June 2018 and June 2021, the latter of which was completed in advance of the deadlines, encompassing 34 action items in total.
“Pakistan is therefore no longer subject to the FATF’s increased monitoring process. Pakistan will continue to work with APG to further improve its AML/CFT system,” the statement said. With Pakistan’s exit from the “grey list”, Islamabad may now free try to get financial aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Union (EU), to boost its cash-strapped economy.
On Russia, Kumar said the move comes in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. He said Russia’s actions continued to violate FATF’s core principles, which aim to promote the security, safety and integrity of financial systems. In 2018, the FATF had found Pakistan’s deficiencies in its legal, financial, regulatory, investigation, prosecution, judicial and non-government sectors to fight money laundering and combat terror financing, which are considered serious threats to the global financial system.
Till June, Pakistan had completed most of the action items given to it by the FATF in 2018 and only a few items that were left unfulfilled included its failure to take action against UN-designated terrorists, including Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar, Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed and his trusted aide and the group’s “operational commander”, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.
Azhar, Saeed and Lakhvi are most-wanted terrorists in India for their involvement in numerous terror acts, including the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and the bombing of a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) bus in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama in 2019. A 15-member joint delegation of the FATF and its Sydney-based regional affiliate — Asia Pacific Group– paid an onsite visit to Pakistan from August 29 to September 2 to verify the country’s compliance with the 34-point action plan committed with the FATF.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Mozambique were added to the grey list while Nicaragua was removed along with Pakistan. The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terror financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. India is a member of the FATF consultations and its Asia Pacific Group. The FATF Plenary is the decision-making body of the FATF.
Delegates representing 206 members of the Global Network and observer organisations, including the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Bank and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, took part in a two-day meeting in Paris. It was the first Plenary meeting to be held under the Singapore Presidency of T Raja Kumar.
A court in military-run Myanmar has sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s deposed former leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to three additional years in jail for corruption, a source familiar with the case told CNN, extending her total prison term to 26 years.
Wednesday’s verdict is the latest in a string of punishments meted out against the 77-year-old, a figurehead of opposition to decades of military rule who led Myanmar for five years before being forced from power in a coup in early 2021.
Suu Kyi was found guilty of receiving $500,000 in bribes from a local tycoon, a charge she denied, according to the source. Her lawyers have said the series of crimes leveled against her are politically motivated.
Suu Kyi is currently being held in solitary confinement at a prison in the capital Naypyidaw.
Last month, Suu Kyi was found guilty of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, in a trial related to the November 2020 general election that her National League for Democracy won in a landslide, defeating a party created by the military.
It was the first time Suu Kyi had been sentenced to hard labor since the 2021 military coup. She was given the same punishment in a separate trial under a previous administration in 2009 but that sentence was commuted.
Suu Kyi has also previously been found guilty of offenses ranging from graft to election violations.
Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concerns about the punishment of pro-democracy activists in the country since the military seized power.
Last week, a military court in Myanmar sentenced a Japanese journalist to 10 years in prison for sedition and violating a law on electronic communications after he filmed an anti-government protest in July, a Japanese diplomat said.
Toru Kubota, 26, was arrested by plainclothes police in Yangon, where he was filming a documentary that he had been working on for several years, according to a Change.org petition calling for his release.
In July, the military junta executed two prominent pro-democracy activists and two other men accused of terrorism, following a trial condemned by the UN and rights groups.
BANGKOK (AP) — A court in military-ruled Myanmar has sentenced a Japanese journalist to serve seven years in prison after he filmed an anti-government protest in July, a Japanese diplomat and the Southeast Asian nation’s government said Thursday.
Toru Kubota was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years for violating the electronic transactions law and three years for incitement, said Tetsuo Kitada, deputy chief of mission of the Japanese Embassy. The sentences are to be served concurrently, meaning that Kubota faces seven years of confinement.
The military’s information office said in a statement that a separate trial is continuing on a charge of violating immigration law. A hearing on the immigration charge is scheduled for Oct. 12.
The electronic transactions law covers offenses that involve spreading false or provocative information online and carries a prison term of seven to 15 years. Incitement is a catch-all political law covering activities deemed to cause unrest, and has been used frequently against journalists and dissidents, usually with a three-year prison term.
Kubota was arrested on July 30 by plainclothes police in Yangon, the country’s largest city, after taking photos and videos of a small flash protest against the military’s 2021 takeover in which it ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Kubota was the fifth foreign journalist detained in Myanmar after the military seized power. U.S. citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, who worked for local publications, and freelancers Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan were eventually deported before serving full prison sentences.
Since the military seized power, it has forced at least 12 media outlets to shut down and arrested at least 142 journalists, 57 of whom remain detained. Most of those still detained are being held under the incitement charge for allegedly causing fear, spreading false news, or agitating against a government employee.
Some of the closed media outlets have continued operating without a license, publishing online as their staff members dodge arrest. Others operate from exile.
The army’s takeover triggered mass public protests that the military and police responded to with lethal force, triggering armed resistance and escalating violence that have led to what some U.N. experts characterize as a civil war.
According to detailed lists by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group based in Thailand, 2,336 civilians have died in the military government’s crackdown on opponents and at least 15,757 people have been arrested.
The military said soon after Kubota’s arrest that he was detained while taking pictures and videos of 10-15 protesters in Yangon’s South Dagon township. It said he confessed to police that he had contacted participants in the protest a day earlier to arrange to film it.
A graduate of Tokyo’s Keio University with a master’s degree from the University of the Arts London, Kubota, 26 at the time of his arrest, has done assignments for Yahoo! News Japan, Vice Japan and Al Jazeera English.
His work has focused on ethnic conflicts, immigrants and refugee issues, including the plight of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority. The military is particularly sensitive about the Rohingya issue because international courts are considering whether it committed serious human rights abuses, including genocide, in a brutal 2017 counterinsurgency campaign that caused more than 700,000 members of the Muslim minority to flee to neighboring Bangladesh for safety.
Fellow Japanese Kitazumi, a freelance journalist, was arrested in April 2021 and freed and deported just under a month later, after being indicted but not tried.
The military government said at the time it decided to release Kitazumi “in consideration of cordial relations between Myanmar and Japan up to now and in view of future bilateral relations, and upon the request of the Japanese government special envoy on Myanmar’s national reconciliation.”
Japan has historically maintained warm relations with Myanmar, including under previous military governments. It takes a softer line toward Myanmar’s current government than do many Western nations, which treat it as a pariah state for its poor human rights record and undermining of democracy, and have imposed economic and political sanctions against its army rulers and their families and cronies.
In Tokyo, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said Kubota is in good health, citing his lawyer who saw him on Wednesday.
“The Japanese government continues to request the Myanmar authorities an early release of Mr. Kubota,” Isozaki said, adding that the Japanese government has been providing as much support as possible for him and his family.
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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
A beauty queen from Myanmar who took refuge in Thailand after criticizing her home country’s ruling military junta has left Bangkok for Canada where she is expected to seek asylum, Thai immigration officials told CNN.
Han Lay, 23, captured international attention with an emotional pageant speech during the finals of the Miss Grand International Myanmar competition in 2021 when she held up a banner with the words “Pray for Myanmar” to raise awareness of human rights atrocities committed by junta officials.
She received death threats after the speech and decided not to return home after the competition – which was held in Thailand.
However, she appeared to face the threat of deportation after returning to Thailand last Wednesday following a trip to Vietnam. She was stopped by officials at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport who said they had discovered a problem with her passport and since then she had been in limbo.
Archayon Kraithong, deputy chief of Thailand’s immigration bureau, told CNN on Wednesday that Han Lay had left Bangkok on Tuesday night. “Her final destination is Canada,” he said without giving further details.
Han Lay previously told CNN that she was seeking political asylum in Canada despite wanting to remain in Thailand.
“Han Lay was the victim of a deliberate political act by the junta to make her stateless when she flew back to Thailand from Vietnam last week,” said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch, adding that it was “not the first time” junta officials had “weaponized” Burmese passports.
“There is no doubt that what transpired was a trap to try to force Han Lay to return to Myanmar, where she would have faced immediate arrest, likely abuse in detention, and imprisonment,” Robertson added.
The situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate following the 2021 military coup. Human rights violations remain rife, rights groups say and state executions have returned as conflict across the country rages.
Millions continue to resist the ruling junta led by Min Aung Hlaing, which has killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters and locked up the country’s democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
YANGON, Myanmar, December 14, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– Myanmar has been working hard to open more tourist sites and areas for foreign tourists to discover a country which has often been called “one of the last frontiers” to open up for tourists. Since the beginning of December, the “Secretariat building”, which is arguably the biggest colonial building in Southeast Asia has been opened for the public, offering guided tours four times per day through this historical building. “Visitors get to see historically significant sites such as Myanmar’s very first parliament, the flagpole where the Myanmar flag was raised for the first time on Myanmar Independence day (1948) and the Martyrs’ room where General Aung San and other martyrs were assassinated,” says U Kan Win Oung from Asia Tours Myanmar, who is operating the tours to travel agents as well as individual tourists. He continues saying, “Currently we are open on Mondays to Fridays (slots available at 9:30, 11:30, 13:30, and 15:30 respectively) and on Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. only.” Entrance fees for this site included a guided tour is 6 USD / person.
This latest tourists site added to the “must visit places” in Myanmar covers an area of 6.5 hectares right in the centre of Yangon. Early adapters visiting Myanmar in the beginning of 2000 might remember this as the heavily guarded site which couldn’t be approached or have pictures taken of. Yangon Heritage Trust chairman Dr Thant Myint-U said in a previous interview with the Myanmar Times about the building: “The Secretariat is a place of tremendous historical importance and a physical link to Myanmar’s colonial history as well as the history of anti-colonialism and the early post-independence governments.”
The Myanmar ministry of hotel & Tourism also announced that it’s possible again to apply for permits to travel overland from Inle Lake to Keng Tung over highway No 4 which has been called one of the most scenic drives in Myanmar and opens up possibilities for overland road trips to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China. The area is offering stunning nature and traditional tribes that have come across few western tourists.
The Bago Yoma forests, home to many Myanmar elephants that are in danger of being poached for their skin, has opened the Bago Yoma Eco Resort in an effort to open the area up for tourism. In Southern Rakhine state, the Arakan Nature Lodge has started operating an eco-lodge right on the pristine Zikhone village beach, making it an excellent opportunity to consider this part of Southern Rakhine state as a viable new tourist destination.
The opening of this new tourist attraction comes at a time when the number of tourists arriving at Yangon airport (from January – November 2017) still shows a 7 percent increase compared to the same period in 2016. The numbers, released on 11 December by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism show that the number of tourists — especially Asian tourists — increased by a double-digit percentage from Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. The number of tourists from Western Europe, North America and Australia and New Zealand show a slight decrease of 8-9 percent for tourist arrivals at Yangon International Airport. Not visiting Myanmar is “a big loss for those thousands of people working in tourism in Myanmar who have nothing to do with the issue in Northern Rakhine State,” as May Myat Mon Win, Myanmar Tourism Marketing Chairperson said earlier this year.
Further recent and future openings in Myanmar include the Pan Pacific Hotel that opened its doors a few weeks ago and the upcoming Hilton Mandalay and Pullman Yangon which are planned for the first quarter of 2018.
About Myanmar Tourism Marketing Myanmar Tourism Marketing (MTM) aims to promote Myanmar as a sustainable tourism destination that can be visited the whole year round. It is part of the Myanmar Tourism Federation and is mainly privately funded by key members of the tourism industry in Myanmar. The MTM team is happy to assist press and media to publish more about tourism in Myanmar.
Myanmar Tourism Marketing invites social media influencers to share their experiences under @visit.myanmar or by using the hashtag #MyMyanmar.
For editors & journalists Media queries and questions regarding this Press Release or future media trips or TV and film opportunities in Myanmar can be addressed to:
