MPC Future Unknown, Peace Continues To Be Taken Hostage

In one of the final moves just before the formal transfer of power to the new administration, former president Thein Sein dissolved the government-affiliated Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) and transferred its assets and properties to new organizations that will be led by leading figures and top officials of the MPC […]

End of Mission Statement Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar

I conclude my third official visit to the country as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar as the country is coming to grips with the scale of destruction and loss of human life caused by the floods. I conveyed my deepest sympathies and profound sadness to all those I met during the mission and wish to renew those sentiments publicly now and particularly to the families of the victims and all those who have been affected by this disaster […]

How Many More Lives? Burma Army Must Immediately Halt its Offensives in Kachin State

Despite repeated calls from the international community, governments and civil society for an immediate halt to hostilities in Kachin and northern Shan State, on 19 November, 2014 the Burma Army fired several artillery missiles as “warning shots” onto the Kachin Independent Army’s (KIA) training academy in Laiza, Kachin State, killing 23 cadets and seriously injuring 20 others. Laiza is not only the KIA’s strong-hold. It is a city with over 20,000 civilians and a host to over 17,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Just days after the killing in Laiza, the Burma Army began firing shells near IDP camps. Some of the shells landed near a boarding school housing about 1,000 IDP children. These subsequent attacks near the camps threatened the lives of over 10,000 IDPs and raised much anxiety among the most vulnerable communities who have continuously fled the conflict. Fortunately, no one was hurt in these attacks, but many of the IDPs were forced to flee again in terror to the nearby jungle.

The narrative of “reform” and the sweeping political changes that have been praised and funded by the international community is quickly coming apart at the seams. While the Burma Government continues to use its rhetoric of change and democracy to encourage international governments, donors and investors to continue funding the peace process and development projects, they made one of the most deadly targeted attacks in Kachin State since the ceasefire broke down in 2011. This attack raised serious doubts among the ethnic groups who have threatened to abandon talks aimed at achieving a nationwide ceasefire accord. These talks, ongoing for nearly two years, have proved to be thus far redundant, as the Burma Army obviously has no other goal than the elimination of all ethnic armed groups without committing to any genuine, structural reforms. […]

Unity Must Prevail

After its organizational conference held on a Thailand-Burma border area, disagreements between the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) and the Karen National Union (KNU) has led to the KNU suspending its’ membership of the UNFC, a setback for the peace process. While this strikes a blow into the government engineered narrative that the peace process is making substantial progress, it is particularly worrying for the ethnic communities that have been suffering from this conflict for decades.

Ostensibly, disagreements over organizational structure have caused this rift, although there are also disagreements within the KNU leadership itself over its position in the UNFC, leading to fears of a split within what has traditionally been the most prominent ethnic armed group. Previous Burma regimes have used divide and rule tactics to weaken armed resistance and to sabotage ethnic unity and it is imperative that this does not happen now. As ethnic leaders squabble over leadership structures, surely much to the delight of the leaders of the Burma Army, it is the most vulnerable populations who feel the pressures, while the government manages to convince elements of the international community that a peace settlement is just around the corner. It is crucial that whatever reason for the KNU’s withdrawal from the UNFC, they must put the ethnic communities at the forefront of their decision making […]

၂၀၀၄ခုႏွစ္၊ ၾသဂုတ္လ(၁၁)ရက္ ေန႔စြဲျဖင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးျဖစ္စဥ္အေပၚ အျပန္အလွန္ေဆြးေႏြးျခင္း အခမ္းအနား တက္ေရာက္ၾကသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ား၏ သေဘာထား ထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္ စာတမ္းတြင္ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား ပါတီးမ်ားနွင့္ အျခားပါတီးမ်ားလည္း ပါ၀င္ျခင္းမရွိေၾကာင္း ေၾကညာခ်က္

Navigating Paths to Justice in Myanmar’s Transition

1. Introduction

Since President Thein Sein and his government took office in 2011, Myanmar’s transition has unfolded at a pace that has surprised many and earned the acclaim of western governments, financial institutions, and private-sector investment analysts.1 The Burmese population of approximately 60 million has endured more than a half-century of military dictatorship, armed conflict, economic dysfunction, and political repression.2 A meaningful transformation into a peaceful society that enjoys economic development and functions democratically now seems plausible, though it is far from guaranteed. Ultimately, the blanket immunity afforded by the 2008 Constitution shields the acts attributable to prior regimes from any form of accountability.3 Whether the reform process will evolve to include measures that address the massive and systematic injustices of the past remains less certain.