Two years on, Myanmar coup still committing 'crimes against humanity' - UN
Two years after Myanmar's Feb. 1, 2021, military coup, which unseated Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, it has left a trail of upended lives in its wake.
US-based conflict monitoring group Acled says about 19,000 people died last year as a crackdown on protests led many to take up arms against the military.
Some 1.2 million people have been displaced and over 70,000 have left the country, according to the United Nations, which has accused the military of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Myanmar's military says it is carrying out a legitimate campaign against "terrorists." It did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.
The UN special envoy at the United Nations on Tuesday said it was the "second anniversary of the failure of we, as an international community, to effectively address this crisis.”
Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, issued a report, "Illegal and Illegitimate: Examining the Myanmar Military’s Claim as the Government of Myanmar and the International Response."
“It's extremely important that we, as an international community, understand the extraordinarily important role that we play in either recognizing the legitimacy or the illegitimacy of the military junta and that's what this paper is all about," he said. "There are three things that the junta needs to sustain itself, it needs money, it needs weapons and it needs legitimacy. The junta does not have legitimacy in the eyes of the people of Myanmar.”
Reuters
