Several countries are preparing to officially recognise Myanmar’s National Unity Government as the legitimate leaders of the country, a minister from the newly formed shadow cabinet said on Friday.
Lwin Ko Latt, who has been appointed minister for home affairs and immigration, said the countries’ governments were preparing to announce their endorsements in the coming days.
“They include some Western countries as well as a member country of the Arab World that experienced the Arab Spring, which we respected and envy very much,” he told an online press conference in response to a question from Myanmar Now.
The new interim cabinet was formed by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a shadow parliament that has been working underground to topple the coup regime.
Its members were announced on Friday, the eve of the Myanmar New Year. The four most senior roles were given to President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, Vice-President Duwa Lashi La, and Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than.
Two top officials from the US State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs spoke with members of the CRPH about restoring democracy in Myanmar on Thursday, the bureau said.
“We strongly support the people of Burma, who reject military rule and yearn for peace,” it wrote on Twitter.
Lwin Ko Latt said at Friday’s press conference that the two sides also discussed the current situation in Myanmar and the military’s violent crackdowns.
He added that even before the interim government was formed, acting ministers from the CRPH engaged with the US and other members of the international community, including the European Union and the United Nations.
In a 10-minute video address announcing the formation of the National Unity Government, Min Ko Naing, a prominent leader of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, said the world stands together with Myanmar.
“We are trying to get this out from the roots this time so it’s tiring and harsh with many sacrifices,” he added.
Dr Sasa, the CRPH’s Special Envoy to the United Nations, has been appointed the Minister for International Cooperation in the new cabinet.
“This government has a grave responsibility as it is born out of the courage, sacrifice, and determination of all those who have risen up against the illegal junta,” he said in a statement on Friday.
He urged governments to continue denying recognition to the junta.
“It is imperative that governments around the world continue to deny the junta the international recognition they crave and deny them the capacity, through access to wealth and weapons, to continue to kill our people,” he said.
Zin Mar Aung, the new foreign affairs minister wrote in The New York Times on Friday asking governments, especially those of the countries neighbouring Myanmar, to formally recognise the new cabinet.
“The people of Myanmar are ready to take great risks and pay a great price for their rights and freedom,” she wrote. “We ask the international community to support them, with coordinated political, financial and security measures.”
Myanmar’s ousted lawmakers formed a parallel government on Friday in an attempt to defy and discredit the country’s ruling military regime, restore civilian rule and establish a federal union.
The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), established by ousted lawmakers in the wake of the military coup in February, said in a statement that it had formed a National Unity Government (NUG) based on the mandate bestowed on it by the people in the 2020 general election, which the National League for Democracy won by a landslide. Despite being outlawed by the regime, the CRPH enjoys popular support at home and abroad.
The new government is a coalition of democratic forces in Myanmar, including stakeholders from the country’s ethnic groups, formed under the terms of the Federal Democracy Charter, which the CRPH made public in March. The charter guarantees the formation of a federal union, something the country’s ethnicities have long sought.
In the new government, Mahn Win Khaing Than, an ethnic Karen and former House Speaker under the NLD government, is the country’s prime minister, while President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who were ousted by the coup and have been detained since February, retain their positions.
The vice president is lawyer Duwa Lashi La, president of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, politically the most authoritative body in Kachin State.
For the time being the 15-member cabinet will be led by the vice president and prime minister. The CRPH has created three new ministries: the ministries of the Prime Minister; Federal Union Affairs; and Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs. Six of the federal ministers are ethnic Kachin, Karen or Chin, while no representatives of other ethnic nationalities have yet been appointed. However, with important ministries like Agriculture, Transport, and Energy yet to be filled, they will likely be added soon.
In the NUG’s cabinet, four elected NLD lawmakers—Daw Zin Mar Aung, U Lwin Ko Latt, U Yee Mon and U Tin Tun Naing—have been appointed as the ministers for foreign affairs; home affairs and immigration; defense; and planning, finance and investment, respectively. U Yee Mon is somewhat of a surprise appointment as defense minister and brings some unusual qualifications to the portfolio, being a poet.
Dr. Sa Sa, an ethnic Chin and the international envoy for the CRPH, has been appointed international cooperation minister. He will also serve as the NUG’s spokesperson. Dr. Win Myat Aye, who served as social welfare, relief and resettlement minister under the NLD government until the coup, will serve as minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management in the new government.
Another ethnic Chin minister in the new government is Dr. Lian Hmung Sakhong. With a mandate from the Chin Consultative Assembly, a politically authoritative umbrella organization among Chin ethnic people, the vice chair of the Chin National Front (CNF), a Chin armed group that has been lobbying for autonomy and federalism in Chin State, is now federal union affairs minister.
Dr. Tu Hkawng, an ethnic Kachin with a postgraduate degree in social science and community development, is natural resources and environmental conservation minister in the NUG, while elected NLD lawmaker Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, an ethnic Karen, is the minister for women, youth and children’s affairs.
Another new face in the cabinet is Dr. Zaw Wai Soe. The orthopedic surgeon, who earned renown for his COVID-19 containment strategies in Yangon before the coup, as well as for his involvement in the Civil Disobedience Movement against the junta, has been named minister for both education and, unsurprisingly, health.
In his statement on the formation of the NUG, spokesperson Dr. Sa Sa said the government members will serve the people of Myanmar regardless of their race, religion, community of origin or walk of life.
“All will have a vitally important role to play in the great cause of liberating our nation from the scourge of this murderous military junta, and all will have equal rights as citizens of Myanmar,” he said.
The spokesperson added that the NUG will bring all ethnic nationalities on board “so that it represents the great diversity and strength of this great nation of Myanmar.”
The NUG also appointed 12 deputy ministers, six of whom are ethnic Kachin, Karen, Mon, Kayan, Karenni and Ta’ang. Many of them are young, politically active and well-educated.
The announcement of the NUG’s formation was heartily welcomed by Myanmar’s people on Friday.
On the CRPH’s Facebook page, the announcement earned 149,000 shares within two hours.
One supporter simply said: “Our legitimate government and we support NUG!”
Unsurprisingly, most of the other comments expressed similar sentiments.
On Friday, the NUG’s Foreign Minister Daw Zin Mar Aung wrote in The New York Times that the people of Myanmar are ready to take great risks and pay a great price for their rights and freedom.
“We ask the international community to support them, with coordinated political, financial and security measures,” she said.
The junta’s announcement that a group of people have been sentenced to death is part of an attempt to instill fear in Myanamr’s population, legal experts have said.
Military-run television last week announced that 19 people from Yangon’s North Okkalapa township, which is under martial law, had received the sentence for killing an army officer’s associate, beating the officer and stealing their guns in late March.
Only two of the 19 – Aung Aung Htet and Bo Bo Thu – have been captured while the remaining 17 were convicted in absentia.
“They’re announcing death sentences but they’ve been killing people recklessly on the ground,” said a lawyer who has been providing free legal aid to protesters and wished to remain anonymous. “They’re officializing fear.”
On Tuesday night, seven people who were accused of killing a woman in Hlaing Tharyar on March 15 were also given death sentences by a military tribunal, according to state-run newspaper The Mirror. Four have been arrested and three are still on the run, the paper said. Hlaing Tharyar is also under martial law.
The death penalty has been officilaly on the books in Myanmar since 1988, but authorities have never carried out an execution, said lawyer Kyi Myint.
He believes, contrary to concerns raised by some rights groups, that the military will maintain this moratorium on executions. “They’re just scaring people. They gave the death penalty but they won’t go through with it. So many were given the death penalty during the Than Shwe regime. But no one was executed,” he said.
Myo Aung, a lawyer in Myawaddy, Karen State, said: “They mainly want people to fear them. They want people to be scared of them and bow to them. If people show their loyalty to them and listen to what they say, they will immediately be safe from being murdered by them.”
In a civilian court, the death penalty is given by a district level court and must be appealed within seven days. Appeals can be made at state and regional courts, the Supreme Court, and to the President. Only if the President rejects the appeal is the sentence final.
Since the coup, appeals must be made to the military council or the head of Yangon Regional Command.
“The law is a weapon to stabilize the administrative mechanism,” he said. “This case carries that principle. I assume it depends on the idea that people won’t dare to do the same after this precedent.”
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Protesters in North Okkalapa run away after soldiers and police burned tyres during a crackdown on March 3 (Myanmar Now)
The junta’s armed forces murdered at least 10 people in North Okkalapa on March 3 and injured dozens of others, according to a volunteer group based in the township.
Protesters said there could have been over 20 deaths that day, but Myanmar Now has not been able to confirm that number.
Over 100 young protestors were arrested in the township on the morning of March 10 when armed forces broke up a protest near Kan Thar Yar park.
On March 14 and 15 the military council declared martial law in Hlaing Tharyar, Shwe Pyi Thar, South Dagon, North Dagon, Dagon Seikkan, and North Okkalapa townships.
It also announced 23 crimes that would be heard by the military tribunal if committed under areas covered by martial law.
The 19 who were sentenced to death are accused of murdering Thant Sin Htwe, who was accompanying Captain Htet Aung Kyaw.
The junta said the killing took place at 3:30pm on March 27, but locals said it must have actually happened in the early hours of the morning that day, while the curfew was in effect, because the arrests began at 8am.
Military trucks took over the local ward administration office at 6am and started arresting people on Aya Kyaung street and several other streets two hours later, a witness told Myanmar Now.
“They captured everyone they could find,” the witness said.
Family members said that Aung Aung Htet and Bo Bo Thu were arrested and taken from their homes at 11:30am.
“They were beating up boys on Aya Kyaung street and asking who they had seen going out for protests and all that,” said Bo Bo Thu’s mother, Aye Aye Thin.
“When they came to Bo Bo Thu, they had this boy named Aung Htet in handcuffs who was beaten up badly. And he was saying ‘This is it, this is Bo Bo Thu’s house,’” she said.
Bo Bo Thu, who was eating a meal at the time, got up to run but the soldiers caught him and took him away after beating him up, Aye Aye Thin said.
Later, she saw her son, who is 28, on television covered in bruises. “He was bleeding; I couldn’t even recognize my own son... I only recognized him because of the shirt,” she said.
Aung Aung Htet, 27, was arrested while recovering from surgery for an injured leg. He suffers from other health issues and was unable to work, said his mother Myint Myint Than.
“They took him for what happened the night before,” added, referring to the killing. “They said an older person should come along, so his dad went. They took him to the Nya ward administration office. There were others who had been arrested as well.”
A lawyer working pro bono will make an appeal in his case through the prison management department, she added.
Over 40 people were detained and interrogated that day at the administration office until 8pm, and about twenty were then taken somewhere else, a witness said.
The military council has announced that appeals can be requested to the chair of the council and the Yangon Region Command Commander, and only the two of them have the right to make changes to cases or dismiss them.
Myanmar's military opened fire on protesting healthcare workers Thursday, killing at least one bystander as the demonstrators fled for safety to a nearby mosque.
In Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay, a demonstration by medical workers Thursday turned violent when soldiers opened fire, sending them running to the mosque.
"They were shooting everywhere... they were targeting the Sule mosque compound because people in there were hiding protesters," said an eyewitness.
A 30-year-old man who lived in the compound was shot dead, and at least two others were injured, said a doctor who treated the wounded.
"The man who died was shot from the back and it penetrated through his chest," he told AFP.
A medic who participated in the protest said he saw the arrest of six nurses and doctors during the crackdown.
"We lost contact with some medical team members as well," he told AFP.
Myanmar's healthcare workers have been at the forefront of a nationwide civil disobedience movement, refusing to return to work under a military regime. Their absence has left many of the country's hospitals unstaffed during the pandemic.
Civil servants from other sectors have followed suit, bringing the operation of the country's banks, schools, railway operations, and businesses to a halt.
The junta has tried to force people back to work, and on Thursday, state-run media reported that at least 20 doctors participating in the movement will be charged for attempting to "deteriorate peace and stability".
The Australian Embassy in Myanmar joined 11 other embassies this week signing a heartfelt statement in support of those on the streets and putting their lives on the line for democracy and freedom.
This is the second statement released by the twelve embassies in Myanmar. Their 12 February statement was conventionally directed state-to-state calling on the military junta ‘to refrain from violence against demonstrators and civilians, who are protesting the overthrow of their legitimate government.’
Australian Embassy’s signing of the statement aligning itself with the Myanmar people is significant.
The statement positions the Australian embassy in a more friendly and open orientation regarding the civil disobedience movement (CDM) and democracy activists.
It is an effort that may alleviate some frustration of Australian diplomats in Yangon in the face of Canberra inaction.
The statement appears to respond to widespread calls on the streets for R2P; desperate calls for effective international action to stop the military regime’s continuing commitment of atrocity crimes.
‘Violence has to stop, all political detainees must be released, and democracy should be restored,’ the statement demanded.
This is pertinent given the UN Special Envoy’s recent warning to the UN Security Council that ‘a bloodbath is immanent.’ Indeed, as one commentator observed, the bloodbath is happening.
Australia’s co-signing of the Embassies statement parallels the Australian defence force’s co-signing of the Joint Chiefs of Defence letter to the military junta released on 27 March.
This was a powerful message to the military junta as Asian countries Japan and Korea were signatories. The last time a joint statement by Chiefs of Defence was issued was 30 years ago during the Cambodian Peace process.
Protocol dictates that the Australian Embassy’s signing of the joint statement would have been pre-approved by the Australian Government. However, the statement’s empathetic tone contrasts starkly with the overall inaction of the Australian Government to date.
Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Marise Payne (pictured), has released two short statements since the crisis began. On 1 February, Payne expressed deep concern over the military’s seizing control of government apparatus. It was not until a 12 February statement by Australian representatives at the UN Human Rights Commission that a government formally declared the junta’s actions a coup.
Payne’s second statement came on 7th March. Following mounting evidence of atrocity crimes and pressure from local and global human rights activists, Payne announced the suspension of Australia’s limited military engagement with the Junta.
This move came after it appeared that the Australian Government’s was unable to secure the release of respected economist and advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi, Professor Sean Turnell who was arbitrarily detained in Naypyidaw on 6th February.
By 9th March, the military junta announced it had charged Turnell under the colonial era official secrets act which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment.
Despite new and increasingly strong targeted sanctions imposed by the US, UK, EU, Canada, and New Zealand, the Australian Government has not revised its pre-coup sanctions regime. Australia’s limited sanctions fails to target Min Aung Hlaing, the military’s cash cow conglomerates, the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and the Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) or other significant junta figures and their families.
Other Ambassadorial signatories to the statements include Canada; the Delegation of the EU and European Union Member States with presence in Myanmar: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden; New Zealand; Norway; the Republic of Korea; Switzerland; the United Kingdom and the United States.
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