The Burmese junta now sees civilians as its adversaries and is waging war on the people, the UN said on Friday.
Two years after the February 1, 2021 coup that overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the situation is a “worsening catastrophe”, says the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, adding that the army was operating with “total impunity”.
In a report examining the first two years since the military coup, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said at least 2,940 people had been killed, nearly 30% of whom died in custody.
However, the true number of deaths is probably much higher, recognizes James Rodehaver, who is in charge of the Burma office at the High Commission and to which neither he nor his collaborators have direct access to the country.
According to him, the armed forces are now actively fighting on about 13 different fronts.
“The army is increasingly in demand,” he said at a press briefing in Geneva.
It has therefore increasingly relied on air power and artillery, with more than 300 airstrikes last year. Nearly 80 percent of the country’s 330 townships have been affected by armed clashes, according to the report.
“There has never been a time and a situation where a crisis in Burma has reached such scale across the country,” said James Rodehaver.
UN reports say nearly 39,000 homes nationwide have been burned or destroyed in military operations since February 2022, “representing a more than 1,000-fold increase” from 2021.
The military and law enforcement have made 17,572 arrests since the coup, the document said.
The junta uses a so-called “four cuts” strategy: cutting off food, recruitment, communications and access to money or livelihoods from opponents, Rodehaver said.
“What they are doing now is they are treating the Burmese people as their opponent and their adversary,” he said. “You have an army that makes war on its own people.”
“They have really created a crisis that has resulted in a loss, a regression of all human rights, and that includes the basic ability to live and to have an economic future,” Rodehaver said.