Myanmar's military-backed government is intentionally attacking civilians to terrorise them and force them into submission, and its growing weapons purchases from China, Russia and elsewhere are fuelling the conflict and the catastrophic human rights situation in the country, a United Nations rights investigator has said. The warning came as the civil war triggered by the army's 2021 seizure of power continued across much of the country.
Kelley Currie, the Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said it was worrying that countries in the region and beyond were engaging with the government without asking for anything in return, such as a reduction in violence, freedom for thousands of political prisoners, or dialogue towards peace with all parties. Myanmar's fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which had rebuked the military for its 2021 takeover from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, have lately seemed receptive to warmer relations.
The army's takeover triggered widespread pro-democracy protests that were brutally suppressed, leading to armed resistance that has spread civil war over much of the country. The government's forces hold a huge advantage in arms and manpower but have failed to overcome their opponents despite heavy use of force, including unchallenged air power using planes from China and Russia.
A warning over the coming ICJ ruling
Currie also raised concern about the potential for violence if the International Court of Justice, the UN's highest tribunal, rules that Myanmar's military engaged in genocide or failed to prevent it during the 2017 crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority. She said she had seen signals on the ground that groups responsible for hate speech and stirring up violence against non-Buddhist, non-Bamar minorities, including the Rohingya, were becoming much more active online, in political spaces and under the regime's control, and she saw that as a prelude to potential violence after the court's decision.
She called on all countries to monitor the situation closely. Nick Koumjian, head of the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, said he had seen many reports that the ICJ judges wanted to rule this year, with October mentioned, and that the court was expected to give some notice of when it would deliver its judgments.
An economy hollowed out by war and graft
Currie said Myanmar's legal economy had shrunk and its illicit economy had grown because of the 2021 takeover and the government's mismanagement of the economy. Military officers running an economy generally did a poor job, she said, and in Myanmar they were spectacularly bad at it, while also deeply corrupt, relying on patronage networks, illegal kickbacks and activities across the normal economy, a grey economy in between, and the black market.
She said the government did everything from currency arbitrage to demanding shares in companies doing business and requiring kickbacks from farmers all the way up the food and agriculture supply chain. It had many schemes of graft and corruption to fund its activities and buy the military equipment it needed to continue the war, she said, and had also used those funds to upgrade its surveillance capabilities and its ability to police the roughly half of the country still under its control.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent watchdog group, more than 32,000 people, including Suu Kyi, have been detained since the 2021 takeover and at least 15,000 remain behind bars. The picture Currie described was of a regime sustaining its war through corruption and repression while civilians bore the cost.
