As the Myanmar military crumbles, the international community must take urgent action to protect civilians from grave military atrocities and support the resistance-led nation-building effort already underway in Myanmar, says the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M).

The people’s revolution that emerged in response to the Myanmar military’s ill-fated coup attempt on 1 February 2021 has fundamentally transformed Myanmar. A diverse coalition of forces united in resistance to Myanmar military dictatorship has inflicted unprecedented losses on the junta’s ground forces in the four years since. Vast, contiguous areas of the country are now under the effective control of resistance actors.

De facto authorities in newly liberated areas are building participatory governance systems to serve the basic needs of local populations. Long-standing ethnic authorities have strengthened and expanded their administrations as the junta has been expelled from ethnic heartlands.

Irreversibly weakened, the junta is escalating its use of airstrikes and artillery to carry out a strategy of total destruction in the areas it no longer controls, which are now the majority of the country. Daily junta airstrikes on homes, camps for the displaced, hospitals, schools, markets and places of worship are deliberate attacks on Myanmar’s most vulnerable and the local networks that provide them with critical support. 

At least 3.2 million people have been internally displaced since the coup began. Junta blockades on humanitarian assistance, especially to areas outside its control, prevent lifesaving aid from reaching the tens of millions who need it. Vital resistance-led humanitarian networks are being stretched to breaking point.

Despite these grave challenges, the resistance-led process to dismantle the military and build a federal democratic Myanmar is well underway and cannot be stopped. The international community must step up support for this process while acting to prevent the junta inflicting more suffering on the Myanmar people in the meantime.

SAC-M urges States to take immediate action to cut the junta’s access to weapons, through coordinated sanctions on arms, dual-use goods, component parts and materials, including aviation fuel. SAC-M emphasises that States and private firms providing arms, munitions and military equipment to the junta may be complicit in the commission of war crimes, which is itself an international crime, and should cease these activities immediately. 

Myanmar’s neighbouring States, United Nations agencies and international donors must coordinate with resistance authorities, including the legitimate National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organisations (EROs) and broader civil society, to deliver urgently needed humanitarian assistance to populations in liberated areas.

At the same time, international support should also be directed to the resistance-led political processes, including those of the NUG, EROs, National Unity Consultative Council, federal units and interim governance systems, and broader civil society, that are already laying the foundations for Myanmar’s federal democratic future. These efforts reflect the democratic will and aspirations of the Myanmar people and should be supported by international actors, without being co-opted.

The junta’s planned 2025 sham election is an absurd PR stunt that should be rejected by the international community. An unfair, undemocratic and illegal sham vote conducted in less than half of the country will neither end the junta’s illegitimacy nor save junta leader Min Aung Hlaing. It will only prolong Myanmar’s instability.

Only by ending the impunity at the root of Myanmar military violence can lasting peace and stability be achieved. The November application by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing for his role in crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya was an historic step forward. SAC-M urges the judges of the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing without further delay. SAC-M also urges the Prosecutor to extend his investigations into the crimes of the Myanmar military and seek more arrest warrants against those responsible.

Download the statement in English | Myanmar