Myanmar ambassador urges enforcement resolution as civilian death toll passes 8,000

Mizzima

Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations on 5 June called on the Security Council to adopt a follow-up resolution with enforcement measures on Myanmar, denouncing the body’s repeated failures to protect civilians as a threat to its own credibility.

Speaking at a UN General Assembly plenary session in New York under Agenda Item 27, Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun said the Council’s record on Myanmar demonstrated “non-functionality” and “irrelevance on the ground,” citing de facto vetoes by two permanent members that had blocked a presidential statement and a press statement from being issued.

The ambassador said more than 8,000 people had been killed since the February 2021 coup, with 3.6 million displaced and nearly 22 million in need of humanitarian assistance. He said the military conducted 178 airstrikes against civilians in April alone, and that the day before his address, junta aircraft struck an internally displaced persons camp, a school, and a church in Karenni State.

Kyaw Moe Tun said the escalating violence was “the direct consequence of the Council turning a blind eye” to the junta’s atrocities, and that some Council members and regional players had emboldened the military through what he described as “unwarranted engagements.”

He identified three areas requiring improvement: transparency, citing the Council’s continued use of private and closed-format meetings on Myanmar; effectiveness, noting that the only Council product since Resolution 2669 in 2022 was a press statement issued after the 28 March earthquake; and credibility, warning that five years of civilian protection failures had eroded trust among Myanmar’s people.

The ambassador urged the international community to support Myanmar’s people in their efforts to end military rule and establish a federal democratic union.