More than 200 NGOs call for UN arms embargo in Myanmar

A lot more than 200 global organisations urged the UN Security Council about Wednesday (May 5) to impose an arms embargo about Myanmar, saying enough time for statements has passed and immediate action is required to help protect calm protesters against military rule and other opponents of the junta.

A affirmation by the non-governmental organisations said the armed service “offers demonstrated a callous disregard for individual lifestyle" since their Feb 1 coup, killing at least 769 persons including 51 children as young as 6 years good old and detaining thousands of activists, journalists, civil servants and politicians. Hundreds of others possess disappeared, it said.

“No government should offer an individual bullet to the junta under these circumstances,” the NGOs stated. “Imposing a global arms embargo on Myanmar is the minimum necessary stage the Reliability Council should ingest response to the military’s escalating violence.”

The organisations urged the United Kingdom, the Reliability Council nation in charge of drafting resolutions on Myanmar, “to start negotiations on an answer authorising an arms embargo immediately”. This “will demonstrate to the junta that you will see forget about business as common", they said.

Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict army rule that resulted in international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grasp, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international network responded by lifting virtually all sanctions and pouring investment into the region. The coup occurred pursuing November elections, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s get together won overwhelmingly and the military contests as fraudulent.

The 15-member Security Council has issued several statements since the coup demanding the restoration of democracy and the release of most detainees including Aung San Suu Kyi, strongly condemning the utilization of violence against tranquil protesters and the deaths of a huge selection of civilians and contacting the armed service “to exercise utmost restraint” and “on all sides to avoid violence".

It has additionally stressed “the need to fully respect individual rights and pursue dialogue and reconciliation”, and backed diplomatic work by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Countries and UN particular envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to discover a solution.

“Enough time for statements has passed,” the NGOs said. “The Reliability Council should have its consensus on Myanmar to a new level and acknowledge immediate and substantive action.”

They said a UN global arms embargo against Myanmar should bar the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of “all weapons, munitions, and other military-related products, including dual-use goods such as for example vehicles and communications and surveillance apparatus". Training, intelligence and additional military assistance also needs to be banned, they explained.

Amnesty International’s Senior UN Advocate Lawrence Moss told a good virtual media conference launching the affirmation that many countries supply weapons to Myanmar.

Citing Amnesty’s study and information from various other trusted sources, he stated Russia has been supplying combat aircraft and strike helicopters to Myanmar although China has been supplying fight aircraft, naval weapons, armored vehicles, surveillance drones and aiding Myanmar’s indigenous naval market. In addition, he explained, Chinese weapons, small hands and armored cars have been diverted to ethnic armed organizations, specifically the Kachin Independence Army.

Moss said Ukraine in addition has supplied Myanmar’s military with armored automobiles and is mixed up in joint development of armored vehicles in Myanmar, Turkey offers provided shotguns and shotgun cartridges, India features provided armored cars, troop carriers and naval products including a good submarine with torpedoes, and Serbia offers recorded transfers of compact levels of artillery systems and compact arms.

Israel had supplied frigates and armored cars to Myanmar along with law enforcement training but that stopped in 2017 though it may still be providing surveillance apparatus, Moss said. South Korea transferred an amphibious assault program in 2019 but released a halt to further military exports after the coup.

Human Privileges Watch’s UN Director Louis Charbonneau said: “Here is the beginning of what we expectation will come to be an escalation of advocacy to make it extremely hard, if not impossible, for the Security Council, wringing its hands, keeping inaction and the casual statement of concern.”

But obtaining the Security Council to look at an answer authorising an arms embargo faces an uphill struggle, specifically with China and Russia's general opposition to sanctions.

China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun, whose nation retains the council presidency this month, told a media conference on Monday that China is “a friendly neighbor of Myanmar” and is putting more emphasis on diplomatic efforts. It really is “not in favor of imposing sanctions” which might hinder diplomacy and bring about suffering of ordinary people, Zhang said.

Amnesty’s Moss countered that an “arms embargo would not hurt the ordinary people of Myanmar in any way, condition or form ... and I hope that China can consider that".

Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to safeguard, reported Myanmar’s “murderous, military-led regime” shouldn’t be permitted to buy bombs or even “camouflage underwear” and “ought to be treated just like the pariahs they are".

“I think most of us show concern that the country could become a failed talk about, armed conflict could intensify, therefore an hands embargo now could be also a sort of preventive against a refugee crisis that flows across borders in your community, and an armed conflict which acts nobody’s pursuits,” Adams said.

Myra Dahgaypaw, managing director of the US Plan for Burma who recalled fleeing from former army airstrikes, said an hands embargo will not solve all of the country’s problems but “it'll significantly increase the basic safety of the people on the floor, including the ethnic and the spiritual minorities".

“Today I just want to show the UN Reliability Council that the persons of Burma want your help, plus they require it urgently,” she said. “Please don’t let the initiatives, the struggle and the resilience of the persons on the floor who want to survive head out in vain.”