Relentless Junta Onslaught Demands Immediate Justice

Today marks one month since the devastating Sagaing earthquakes struck Myanmar, killing at least 3,700 people, injuring close to 5,000, pushing 4.3 million people into urgent need overnight, and levelling homes and critical infrastructure.

This tragedy compounded an underlying catastrophe – a military junta war against the people that over four years has claimed thousands of civilian lives and plunged tens of millions into poverty and suffering.

The junta’s continuing attacks and airstrikes since the earthquakes reveal its true nature. Junta leader and alleged war criminal Min Aung Hlaing announced that his forces would pause their operations from 2 April but this “ceasefire” was broken within hours. New atrocities are being added to old ones. According to the National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Human Rights, from 2-5 April alone, the junta carried out 63 separate attacks across Myanmar, including in Chin, Kachin and Karenni states and Magway, Mandalay and Sagaing regions. At least 68 civilians were killed.

On 17 April, Min Aung Hlaing gave ASEAN Chair and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim his “assurance” in a face to face meeting that the ceasefire would hold. This was exposed as a lie before their meeting even ended. According to civil society sources, junta attacks since 2 April have killed at least 161 people and injured at least 300.

The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) repeats its earlier call on ASEAN, Myanmar’s neighbours and the international community to support the urgent, impartial and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian and material assistance by all available means to all communities in need, foremost through cross-border channels, in conjunction with the NUG and ethnic and civil society organizations. We also continue to call for scaled-up financial support to bolster recovery and reconstruction efforts and to address the broader humanitarian crisis.

But accountability cannot wait another day. For decades, the Myanmar military has exploited natural disasters by manipulating and obstructing humanitarian access. The junta now pursues this same strategy. Each of the past three years has gifted it a fresh opportunity, a new tragedy – Cyclone Mocha in 2023, Typhoon Yagi in 2024 and now the Sagaing earthquakes.

Having spent years calling for accountability in their respective roles on the UN’s Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar and as UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, SAC-M’s founding members can say with absolute certainty that the junta’s criminal behaviour will not change. Its slaughter of civilians will not stop. Every chance handed to the junta to correct course is an act of complicity.

The Myanmar people demand justice. Their legitimate representatives – the NUG and Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs) – are committed to accountability but face steep challenges in securing the arrest of senior junta members, as well as resource challenges in prosecuting international crimes.

A month after the earthquakes, the international community – international bodies and individual states – must end its inaction and take immediate, determined and complementary steps toward justice:

• The International Criminal Court (ICC) must issue an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing. Five months have passed since the ICC Prosecutor’s November 2024 application for the junta leader’s arrest for alleged crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. The ICC Prosecutor should also move on his commitment to file applications for the arrest of other senior junta members.
• The ICC should accept the Rome Statute article 12(3) declaration submitted by the NUG back in 2021, granting the Court jurisdiction across Myanmar going back to 2002. As a complementary step, likeminded States should prepare a Rome Statute article 14 State Party referral of the situation in Myanmar to the ICC Prosecutor.
• Argentina should immediately ask Interpol to issue red notices requesting law enforcement worldwide to assist with the provisional arrest and extradition to Argentina of the 25 senior Myanmar military and political officials named in the Argentinian Court’s arrest warrants. All ASEAN Members and all of Myanmar’s neighbours are Interpol member countries.
• Finally, the UN Security Council cannot be let off the hook. It must immediately convene to push through a new resolution on Myanmar that refers the situation to the ICC, imposes embargoes on the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to the junta, enforces a humanitarian ceasefire, and takes measures against junta members for their complete failure to abide by the Council’s last resolution on Myanmar, UNSCR 2669 adopted in December 2022.

Download statement

View the original