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For the first time since the coup, the UN Security Council is addressing the brutal military junta. The resolution was overdue.
Since taking power, the Burmese junta has been waging a brutal campaign against its own people: Villages are being burned, there are mass killings, and torture is being used. The human rights situation worries him deeply, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres before the Security Council’s decision.
While the world is distracted by the Ukraine war, the junta has behaved ever more ruthlessly after the February 2021 coup. That is why the Security Council is now also expressing serious concern for the first time, after the body had discussed the repression in Myanmar many times.
Legend:
General and junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who is also Myanmar’s prime minister, attended the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok in early September 2022. There he also met Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
imago images/Egor Aleev
The resolution passed demands that the military rulers finally respect the democratic will of the Burmese people. The violence must end, human rights must be respected and political prisoners such as former de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi must be released.
Arms embargo and threats of sanctions stand no chance
Kyaw Moe Tun, who continues to officially represent the internationally recognized government of Aung San Suu Kyi and thus his country as ambassador to the UN, would have preferred a much stricter resolution. A resolution that would have imposed an arms embargo on the regime and at least threatened sanctions.
But China, as the main supporter of the regime, did not want to go that far. The fact that it at least didn’t veto it was only possible at the price of watered-down decisions. Therefore, the text of the resolution had to be negotiated in the Security Council for three months.
Abstentions: China, Russia, India
Even what has now been decided actually goes too far for China. But even with its abstention, which was joined by Russia and India, Beijing is now giving the Burmese generals a shot in the bow and signaling that their dictatorship is going too far. China is also doing this because the ASEAN group of states is now calling for more decisive action – and Beijing does not want to alienate its Southeast Asian neighbors.
At the same time, the Myanmar resolution shows that the UN Security Council, on which Switzerland will take a seat in a few days, is completely paralyzed in the face of some challenges, above all the Russian war against Ukraine. But the most powerful UN organ is not lacking a quorum everywhere. Especially in conflicts that tend to take place in the shadow of the headlines, he continues to perform his task to some extent.