ALTSEAN-BURMA

The illegal junta's "Consensus" with ASEAN states late last month included a commitment to stopping violence and "exercising restraint". In seven days the military instead carried out 68 air strikes on Kachin and Karen State - almost ten per day - destroying civilian homes and displacing thousands.

The SAC junta continues to escalate its war on its own civilians in a desperate attempt to gain political, territorial and economic control of the country. Brutal crackdowns and massacres of civilian protestors in Burma's towns and cities are accompanied by deadly, indiscriminate airstrikes in Kachin and Karen States. During April alone, security forces killed at least 288 civilians and displaced over 27,000.The junta sentenced 26 civilians to death in military tribunals.

The junta, still unable to gain political, territorial or economic control in the second month of its power grab, has escalated military offensives on both the democracy movement and border-based ethnic communities. Security forces have unleashed lethal battlefield tactics and weapons on civilians throughout the country, killing scores in the towns and cities of Ayeyarwaddy, Bago, Kachin, Mandalay, Mon, Sagaing, Shan, Thanitharyi, and Yangon States and Regions.

The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) is the legitimate interim government of Burma. These 378 MPs—i.e., 76% of elected parliamentarians—stepped up to govern and officially swore themselves in on 4 February, despite the junta’s attempts to detain, incapacitate, or otherwise silence them.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have been essential in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Burma, particularly in rural areas, by providing information, medical supplies, food, and financial assistance. The Burma military’s (Tatmadaw’s) escalating attacks on civil society and health workers since its 1 February 2021 power seizure are destroying local capacity and resilience against the pandemic.

219 Civil society groups, non-governmental organizations, human rights defenders and activists, and worldwide Burmese diaspora communities have jointly signed a letter urging International Financing Institutions to immediately freeze all outgoing loans to the Burmese military junta, and recall loans already disbursed to Burma or military-linked businesses and individuals.