Myanmar: Private Meeting
Tomorrow morning (20 November), the Security Council will convene for a private meeting on Myanmar. The UK, the penholder on the file and the Council’s president in November, scheduled the meeting. Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar Julie Bishop and Special Envoy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Chair on Myanmar Alounkeo Kittikhoun are expected to brief.
Tomorrow’s meeting will be the first time Bishop briefs the Council in her capacity as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar. Council members are interested in receiving an update from Bishop regarding her work, including the meetings she has participated in throughout the region since her appointment in April. During a 29 October briefing to the Third Committee of the General Assembly, Bishop said that she had met with representatives of China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand and mentioned that she plans to travel to India and Bangladesh. She also announced that she had met with the leader of Myanmar’s military Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw and engaged with both civil society and opposition groups, including the National Unity Government (NUG). Members are likely to be particularly interested in hearing more about Bishop’s meeting with Min Aung Hlaing and her plans to return to Myanmar in the near future, as well as her engagement with opposition groups.
Kittikhoun is expected to update Council members on ASEAN’s efforts to resolve the crisis in Myanmar. He is likely to discuss the ASEAN leaders’ review and decision on the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), which was issued on 9 October during the 44th and 45th ASEAN summits. (Agreed during an April 2021 ASEAN leaders’ meeting, the 5PC called for the immediate cessation of violence, constructive dialogue, a special envoy of the ASEAN chair to facilitate mediation of the dialogue process, humanitarian assistance, and a visit to Myanmar by the ASEAN Special Envoy to meet with all parties concerned.) Among other matters, the review and decision referred to the “substantially inadequate progress in the implementation of the 5PC” and noted that ASEAN leaders had agreed to expedite ASEAN’s ongoing efforts and “enhance cooperation among ASEAN member states and between ASEAN and its external partners, neighbouring countries of Myanmar, and the UN with a view to supporting ASEAN efforts to address the crisis”. It also took note of a meeting of Special Envoys on Myanmar convened by Indonesia in October and referred to informal consultations of interested ASEAN member states that are scheduled to take place in Thailand in December. Kittikhoun may also mention that the Myanmar military sent a representative to the ASEAN summits in October for the first time since the February 2021 coup.
Members may also be interested in hearing from Bishop and Kittikhoun regarding the prospects for bolstered cooperation between the UN and ASEAN on the Myanmar file. In remarks delivered during the ASEAN-UN Summit on 11 October, Secretary-General António Guterres said that he supports “strengthened cooperation between the UN Special Envoy and the ASEAN Chair on innovative ways to promote a Myanmar-led process, including through the effective and comprehensive implementation of the [5PC] and beyond”.
Council members are also likely to discuss the humanitarian situation in Myanmar during tomorrow’s meeting. According to a 10 October update from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), civilians face increasing danger amid persisting conflict and flooding caused by Typhoon Yagi, with approximately 18.6 million people in the country requiring humanitarian assistance and more than three million people internally displaced. Some members might refer to a 7 November UN Development Programme (UNDP) report, which found that over two million people in Rakhine State are at risk of starvation and warned that an acute famine could be imminent. In discussing this issue, members may highlight the importance of unhindered humanitarian access and express concern over the worsening humanitarian conditions.
The ongoing violence against civilians in Myanmar is another likely topic of discussion. The 25 October report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas Andrews, notes that the military “has ramped up attacks on civilians, pummelling towns that have fallen to opposition groups” and says that “junta troops are responsible for massacres, beheadings, gang rape, and torture”. Media reports regarding widespread use of airstrikes against civilians have also continued to emerge in recent months. Some members might condemn these attacks and highlight the importance of accountability for breaches of international law and human rights violations. In this context, they may express support for the work of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), a body created by the Human Rights Council (HRC) in September 2018 to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law in Myanmar and prepare files for criminal prosecution.
Several members might choose to mention recent political developments in Myanmar in their statements tomorrow. On 1 October, the junta began conducting a nationwide census in preparation for elections it has foreshadowed holding in 2025. Shortly before the census began, the military publicly called on the opposition to lay down their weapons and participate in the elections, a move that was quickly rebuked by several opposition groups. The proposed elections have been strongly criticised by the NUG, which has described them as unlawful and argued that they “will only lead to violence and threaten regional stability”. Guterres has also expressed concern about the military’s intention to hold elections.
Council members are also expected to refer to the situation of the Rohingya. According to a recent Amnesty International report, the Rohingya community is currently facing its gravest threat since 2017, when a campaign waged by the Myanmar military forced over 700,000 Rohingya refugees to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. In recent months, Muhammad Yunus, the leader of Bangladesh’s interim government, has called on the UN to convene an international conference on the Rohingya crisis. Some members may express support for this idea during tomorrow’s meeting.
Council members are likely to use tomorrow’s private meeting as an opportunity to discuss the draft Security Council resolution on Myanmar circulated by the UK in late August. At the time of writing, Council members were still negotiating the draft text.
The Council last issued a product on the Myanmar file in December 2022, when it adopted resolution 2669. Among other matters, resolution 2669 demanded an immediate end to all forms of violence; urged the military to immediately release all arbitrarily detained prisoners; called for constructive dialogue and concrete and immediate actions to implement the 5PC; emphasised the need for unhindered humanitarian access and scaled up humanitarian assistance; and underscored the necessity of creating conditions conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees and internally displaced persons. There has been little meaningful progress in these areas since resolution 2669 was adopted, and subsequent attempts to issue press statements on certain issues, such as specific airstrikes that harmed civilians and the situation in Rakhine State, have apparently been blocked by China and Russia.
