On January 4, a soldier with the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) was among a group that found the bodies of two men just a few hundreds feet from the site of a Christmas Eve massacre near the village of Moso.
“We saw the faces of the corpses were badly decomposed,” he told the Fortify Rights pressure group. “There were worms all over them… there weren’t only gunshot wounds, but a closer examination told us that the skulls had been broken by brutal force.”
The men had been dressed in Karenni Army uniforms in an apparent attempt by junta soldiers to make their massacre of dozens of civilians look like the scene of a battle, the KNDF soldier said.
The atrocities in Karenni State, detailed in a report this week, should be prosecuted as war crimes and offer another compelling reason for Myanmar’s neighbours to support a global arms embargo against the military junta, Fortify Rights said.
“The UN Security Council must urgently impose a global arms embargo on the Myanmar military, and it would be strategic and sensible for ASEAN to support it,” said Ismail Wolff, the group’s Regional Director.
Fortify Rights’ report details information relating to the murders of at least 61 civilians between May 2021 and January 2022. It was compiled with testimony from 31 people, including eyewitnesses, survivors, religious leaders, humanitarian and civil-society workers, and members of armed resistance groups.
In a June 2021 incident documented in the report, junta soldiers detained an 18-year-old student from Moebye along with his uncle and two others and used them as human shields during a clash with People’s Defence Force (PDF) fighters.
“The soldiers put their guns on our shoulders and shot PDFs, staying behind us,” the man said. “We were kept tied up and blindfolded. We were tortured a lot, in so many ways. They kicked our bodies, hit our heads with gun handles, and more.”
An estimated 170,000 people have fled their homes in Karenni since last year’s coup, meaning more than half of the state’s population of 300,000 have been displaced over the last year, with tens of thousands still unable to return home.
On Thursday ASEAN foreign ministers will meet in Cambodia but Myanmar will not send a representative. The bloc has refused to allow a general to represent Myanmar at meetings, asking the junta to instead send someone “non-political,” an offer the military has refused.
But Fortify Rights said ASEAN must go further and deny the junta any form of political or economic engagement while providing material and political support to the democratically elected officials of the National Unity Government (NUG).
“The junta is not a government; it’s a criminal enterprise and doesn’t belong at the ASEAN table,” said Wolff. “It would be dangerous for ASEAN to give Min Aung Hlaing and his junta any political legitimacy.”
The bloc’s members should “impose targeted sanctions to deny the Myanmar military access to funds and financing, including revenue generated from natural gas sales,” it added.
The Thai state-owned oil and gas company PTT is among those providing funds to the junta via its projects in Myanmar.
The bloc should also use its sway to push the UN Security Council to impose a global arms embargo, and individual member states should impose their own bilateral arms embargoes, Fortify Rights said.
“The Myanmar military has posed a threat to international peace and security for decades, including by committing genocide with impunity against Rohingya Muslims as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes against other ethnic nationalities,” said Wolff.
“An arms embargo is crucial to help end these atrocities, and it would be strategic for ASEAN on several levels. Urgent action is needed now,” he added.
