(25-9-2021, Nay Pyi Taw)
The ongoing 48th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva organized three interactive dialogues against Myanmar in the absence of the country-concerned. Such a decision ignored the essence of dialogue and set a damaging precedent for the Human Rights Council. Myanmar questions whether such a principled mechanism as the Human Rights Council itself actually follows its principles and objectives or not. The context of the reports on Myanmar carries the same rhetoric with sweeping allegations and there is no added value in these multiple monitoring and reporting mechanisms on Myanmar.
Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) made its report to the Council on 13 September 2021. Myanmar has repeatedly made it clear since the establishment of IIMM that Myanmar does not recognize it due to the intent of its mandate derived from seriously flawed conclusions. The calls made by the IIMM are an unwarranted politicization under the pretext of human rights and the consequences of which can only produce overlapping and sweeping accusations like its affiliated mechanisms and reports.
The Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Myanmar made oral updates on 22 September 2021. The Special Rapporteur violated the code of conduct which requires him to ensure the concerned government authorities are the first recipients of his conclusions and to indicate what responses were given by the concerned States when he made public statements concerning allegations of human rights violations. His failure to apply the code of conduct resulted in one-sided reporting and misled the international community. While many expressed their concerns about the declaration of the terrorist group of NUG on 7 September 2021 which causes a further escalation of violent attacks, it is found that the Special Rapporteur glorifies their terrorist acts.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights presented her report to the Council on 23 September 2021 and the report contained the incident in Bago on 9 April 2021 and alleged there were over 80 deaths. On that day in Bago, some streets were occupied by armed men from unlawful and terrorist groups with an attempt to take control of several areas. While security personnel was removing the blockages, a one-armed man died and two police were injured. The Government of Myanmar publicly released the news on that particular incident. The figure was intentionally exaggerated and its source stated victims’ information as “54 unknown” while the rest do not include verifiable facts to identify the affected persons. Incorporating such unverifiable facts in the report of the High Commissioner raises the question of the professionalism and qualification of its authors who failed to distinguish facts because of their emotional conduct.
All the reports significantly neglect the root cause of the current political situation in Myanmar which is the electoral fraud in the 2020 general election with 11.3 million voters list irregularities or 29 percent of voters across the country. Furthermore, the reports ignore the terrorist acts committed by the NUG, CRPH, and PDF and hide the terrifying figure of 799 deaths which include members of the lawful political parties, civil servants, and innocent civilians for having different political opinions or for performing their profession but not joining the so-called Civil Disobedience Movement and for being accused of informers. It is too obvious to ignore the several attacks against COVID-19 facilities where healthcare personnel and civilians were killed and injured by the said terrorist groups.
It rarely sees success stories in the Human Rights Council due to its politically motivated resolutions and unfair mandates. These mechanisms only create mistrust and divisions within the country. Myanmar, therefore, strongly rejects and objects to the reports and deliberations made by the country-specific mechanisms which do not help address the challenges the country has been facing but they themselves became part of the problem.
