Diterbitkan pada | Senin, 18 September 2023
MYANMAR ADVOCACY DAY: LIFTING THE
VOICE FROM MYANMAR GROUND
Jakarta, August 30th, 2023
“…Airstrike
fired guns and artillery for one hour to school at 12.50 am, kids stay under
the bed, primary school building, student injured, they threatened to kill if
children did not come out. Students had
eyes bleeding, lost leg, died, injured on stomach, on reproductive organ, and
died. They brought other people from the village. They beat teacher accusing of
being part of resistance”
-
Testimony 6, airstrikes, Let Yet Kone Village, Sagaing Region, September 16th
2022
More than 2 years after the Military
Junta coup d'etat the legitimate government in Myanmar, intense violence
continues to occur every day, and resulted in thousands of people losing their
lives, and millions more becoming refugees because they lost their homes. The
large-scale migration movements compounded with the escalation of violence in
Myanmar have resulted in serious political and socioeconomic impacts on both
mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, posing a direct threat to regional peace
and border security.
There are no good signs on the end of
atrocities in Myanmar. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Response have been fractured, incoherent and ineffective. ASEAN’s approach
toward Myanmar, dominated by the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), has been
detrimental in shaping actions of the international community in addressing the
crisis, and yielded no positive developments in resolving the catastrophe. Humanitarian
assistance coordinated by the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian
Assistance (AHA Center) has failed to address the needs of victims because it
was dictated by the military junta within it.
The testimony quoted at the beginning
of this article is just one of thousands of violence experienced by the people
of Myanmar. For this reason, YAPPIKA-ActionAid together with the Regional CSO
Network for Myanmar, initiated "Myanmar Advocacy Day: Hearing from People
on the Ground and Experts in the Region" as a space to amplify the voices
of the Myanmar people, which were then elaborated with in-depth analysis from
experts regarding the situation. The results of this public hearing and analysis
were then submitted to ASEAN Leaders right before the 43rd ASEAN Summit in
Jakarta.