Justice for Myanmar, a human rights organization, has condemned the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for its decision to hold a conference of air force chiefs that will be chaired by Myanmar’s Air Force Chief General Htun Aung, guilty of hundreds of airstrikes against civilians.
The meeting is set to take place in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyidaw between 12 and 15 September, while fighting rages on in much of the country between the regular military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, and resistance forces.
ASEAN’s diplomatic efforts to solve the Myanmar crisis so far boil down to a five-point peace plan that has never been implemented. Divisions within the regional organization have prevented real action to curb violence in the Southeast Asian country.
For Justice for Myanmar spokesman Yadanar Maung, “ASEAN is legitimizing and emboldening war criminals through its defense and security cooperation, endangering the lives of Myanmar people and worsening the crisis.”
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), about a thousand people were killed between January 2022 and July 2023 in 930 airstrikes under General Htun Aung’s command.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which monitors civilian deaths and arrests since the coup, reported on 24 August that the number of civilians killed by regime forces topped 4,000, an average of 130 noncombatant casualties per month.
Sagaing, where resistance forces are concentrated, has borne the brunt recently of government raids, massacres, shelling, and airstrikes both in rural and urban areas, with thousands of homes set on fire and almost 1,800 civilians killed, 45 percent of the total.
The regime recently admitted that the humanitarian crisis is getting worse. Junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that a third of Myanmar’s population is in need of humanitarian assistance, asking his ministers to better coordinate local and foreign aid.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 1.9 million people have been displaced by the fighting, mainly in Kachin and Chin States, and in the Mandalay and Sagaing regions. That’s a fivefold increase in less than three years.
The military regime, however, has repeatedly blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid fearing that charities and UN agencies will support resistance forces. In Rakhine State, hit by Cyclone Mocha in May, a million displaced people have not yet received adequate assistance.
Instead, the regime has restricted aid, setting up a 19-member committee to draft a new law on domestic and foreign NGOs, intended to prevent NGOs from interfering in the country’s affairs with financial and other assistance from foreign countries.
In October 2022, General Min Aung Hlaing had the legislation amended, tightening sanctions against those with links to “terrorist” groups (a label used by the junta for resistance forces and the government-in-exile), requiring humanitarian groups to reserve 40 percent of seats on their board to Myanmar nationals.
