Irrawaddy/AFP-Mar 4
Myanmar’s military rulers now see civilians as their adversaries and are making war on the country’s people, undermining their ability to live, the United Nations said on Friday. Two years on from the February 1, 2021, coup the situation is a “festering catastrophe”, said UN human rights chief Volker Turk, adding that the junta was operating with “complete impunity”. In a report examining the two years since the takeover, the UN Human Rights Office said at least 2,940 people had been verified as killed, of which nearly 30 percent died in detention. However, the true death toll is likely to be much higher.
James Rodehaver, head of the office’s team in Myanmar, said the armed forces were now actively fighting on around 13 fronts “The military is stretched increasingly thin,” he told a briefing in Geneva, so has relied increasingly on air power and shelling to clear the way for ground forces, with more than 300 airstrikes in the last year. The report documented deadly air strikes on schools and hospitals. Nearly 80 percent of the country’s 330 townships have been affected by armed clashes, the report said. “There has never been a time and a situation in which a crisis in Myanmar has reached this far, this wide throughout the country,” said Rodehaver. The junta is using a so-called “four cuts” strategy: an attempt to cut off resistance food, communications, ability to recruit and access to money, said Rodehaver. “What they’re doing now is they are treating Myanmar’s people as their opponent and adversary,” he said.
“You have a military making war against its own people. “They have really created a crisis that’s resulted in a loss, a regression in every human right, and that includes the basic ability to live and to have an economic future.” Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-junta-at-war-with-own-people-un.html
