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Burma
Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu (left) and Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing stroll previous an honor guard previous to talks in Moscow on June 22, 2021. (Picture: AFP/ Russian Protection Ministry)
By The Irrawaddy 24 June 2023
The ASEAN Protection Ministers’ Assembly (ADMM) has been urged to instantly cancel the Myanmar junta and Russia’s scheduled counter-terrorism army workouts to be held within the coming months below the auspices of an ADMM platform.
The ADMM-Plus Consultants’ Working Group on Counter Terrorism, co-chaired by the Myanmar army junta and Russia, has scheduled the workouts for August and September with a table-top train in Myanmar and a discipline coaching train in Russia, in line with advocacy group Justice for Myanmar (JFM).
The counter-terrorism working group is a part of the ADMM-Plus grouping, which contains ASEAN protection officers and people of its eight dialogue companions.
The workouts will contain army coaching that coordinates a response to a simulated terrorist assault and can assist the Myanmar army improve the capabilities of elite troops engaged in a marketing campaign of terror in opposition to the nation’s folks, the JFM stated in a report.
“ASEAN has not solely didn’t take motion in help of human rights and democracy in Myanmar however is actively aiding the junta’s prison conduct by way of direct army help just like the deliberate army workouts. This makes ASEAN complicit within the junta’s atrocity crimes,” the activist group stated.
Because the coup in February 2021, the Myanmar army junta has killed not less than 3,692 folks, arrested greater than 23,000 extra, burned down over 70, 000 civilian homes and displaced 1.5 million folks, in accordance the Help Affiliation of Prisoners and different advocacy teams.
On June 6 and seven, representatives from ASEAN member states, in addition to representatives of ASEAN dialogue companions China and India, attended the ADMM-Plus Consultants’ Working Group on Counter-Terrorism’s remaining planning convention for the joint army workouts in Khabarovsk, Russia. All different dialogue companions—the USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand—boycotted the assembly.
The working group has been led by Main Common Aung Myo Thant, Deputy Chief of the Myanmar army’s Armed Forces Coaching, and Main Common Grigorii Tiurin of the Operational and Strategic Command of Russia’s Jap Army District since 2021.
The junta has lengthy used the working group for propaganda functions and to hunt regional help for its assaults in opposition to the reputable Nationwide Unity Authorities (NUG), Folks’s Protection Forces (PDFs) and ethnic revolutionary organizations, JFM stated.
Within the conferences on June 6 and seven, the Myanmar junta additionally distributed propaganda in English, Russian and Chinese language to attendees describing the NUG and PDF as “terrorists” who assault civilians, in line with the junta information studies.
“Relatively than serving to to resolve the Myanmar disaster, ASEAN’s actions are worsening it and inflicting actual hurt,” JFM spokesperson Yadanar Maung stated, whereas calling for the rapid cancelation of the scheduled workouts, a ban on the junta from all conferences, and recognition and help of the NUG because the reputable authorities of Myanmar.
The spokesperson added that the very fact these army workouts are deliberate is testomony to the surprising failure of Indonesia as ASEAN chair to uphold primary rules of democracy and human rights.
“If, below Indonesia’s management, the workouts do go forward, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and the incoming Thai authorities ought to boycott the workouts and stand with the folks of Myanmar in help of human rights and democracy.”
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