A demonstrator is detained by a Myanmar soldier
Credit: AFP
The stream of images showing the lethal force inflicted on protesters and medics by the Myanmar security forces this week have been sickening, but as the global community wavers over a united response, worse may still be to come.
Soldiers hardened by brutal decades-long insurgencies waged largely unseen in remote areas against the country’s minorities have now been unleashed on major cities with devastating effect. Wednesday was the deadliest day of the uprising so far, with at least 38 fatalities.
Footage of troops pointing their weapons at head height, bloodied bodies and fatal bullet holes in victims – many from a younger generation who have grown up under Myanmar’s democratic transition – are testament to the military’s barbarity and indifference towards human life.
“The systematic brutality of the military junta is once again on horrific display throughout Myanmar,” tweeted Tom Andrews, the United Nations’ envoy for human rights in Myanmar, on Thursday morning.
As the United Nations Security Council, chaired by Britain, gears up for an emergency closed-door session on the coup on Friday, Mr Andrews urged them to first “view the photos [and] videos of the shocking violence being unleashed on peaceful protesters.”
The systematic brutality of the military junta is once again on horrific display throughout Myanmar. I urge members of the UN Security Council to view the photos/videos of the shocking violence being unleashed on peaceful protesters before meeting in Friday's close-door session. pic.twitter.com/6owx7ybhcN
— UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews (@RapporteurUn) March 4, 2021
Following objections from China and Russia, the 15-member body was previously unable to even condemn the February 1 coup. Whether the images – most too graphic to print – will now move it to act beyond issuing a compromise statement remains to be seen.
What is clear is that the piecemeal international approach to condemnation or increasing sanctions with the threat of more to come has so far had little impact on generals who already faced few repercussions for overseeing an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Muslim Rohingya in 2017.
Instead, the military has simply shrugged in the face of international censure.
The UN’s top official for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said that she had already warned the Burmese military that it was likely to face strong measures from some countries in retaliation for the overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.
“The answer was: ‘We are used to sanctions, and we survived’,” she told reporters in New York on Wednesday. “When I also warned they will go [into] isolation, the answer was: ‘We have to learn to walk with only [a] few friends’.”
This is the calculated approach that lies behind the escalation in violence against peaceful protesters, orchestrated by a regime with a history of vicious suppression of popular uprisings.
It filters down through the ranks to the foot soldiers and police officers facing the crowds, some of whom appear to show a bloodthirsty disregard for protesters demanding democracy be restored.
The volatile situation has left experts unsure about which direction events are likely to take.
“I’ve been a student of Myanmar history and politics my entire adult life; I’ve lived and worked in the country for over a dozen years; I know all the key actors in the present drama; and I can honestly say I don’t know what the coming months will bring,” tweeted historian Thant Myint-U last week.
But Mr Andrews believes the international community still has options. When it comes to the military, he told CNN, “money talks the loudest”.
He has called for a more coordinated and tougher sanctions regime to target not only individual generals but also their business interests.
A woman cries and makes the three-fingered salute of protesters during the burial of a killed demonstrator in Mandalay
Credit: AP
Mark Farmaner, from the Burma Campaign UK, also argues for the targeting of Myanmar’s military-owned companies as a first step.
He told The Telegraph that moves were afoot to bypass a veto by China and Russia at the UNSC to ask individual countries to sign up to a de facto arms embargo.
Revenues and royalties for oil and gas projects could also be held in escrow and not paid to the military, he suggested.
Pressure from influential Asian nations will also be key to persuading the generals to back down from a bloody confrontation with its population.
The Burma Campaign on Wednesday published a list of 13 countries involved in military training or cooperation with the Myanmar military, including several regional neighbours such as Thailand, China and Vietnam. It urged them to immediately halt the joint programmes in order to deny the junta legitimacy.
But several of Myanmar’s neighbours, including India and Japan, are unwilling to lose leverage in a country where they have key business or security interests and could be overtaken in a geopolitical competition with China.
Others, particularly in Southeast Asia, are reluctant to stray from a long-held policy of regional non-intervention.
Angel takes cover shortly before she is shot in the head
Credit: Reuters
But while world leaders consider their strategic and business interests, it is Myanmar’s gutsy youth who are writing their blood type and emergency contacts on their forearms as they face the army’s bullets.
One of them, 19-year-old Angel (pictured above), was heard on a video shouting “We won’t run” before police assaulted a peaceful pro-democracy protest in Mandalay.
Moments later she was killed by a shot to the head.
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