Just one day after the Myanmar military junta assured its Southeast Asian neighbours in a virtual roundtable meeting that the junta had acted entirely legally in toppling the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, its foot soldiers massacred 38 civilians on the streets of its major cities.
Stomach-churning footage of their killing spree, and of brutal beatings — including three medics — is now circling the globe. Among Wednesday’s victims were at least four children, including a 14-year-old boy reportedly shot dead by a soldier in a passing military convoy.
“What began as a crackdown against peaceful protesters is now a military attack involving targeted extrajudicial killings and 1000-plus arrested,” said Matthew Smith from Fortified Rights.
For decades, the Tatmadaw (as the Myanmar military is known) has been committing similar — and worse — offences on the peripheries of the country against ethnic minorities, their extreme brutality going largely unnoticed until the sheer scale of the 2017 Rohingya crackdown forced the world to take notice.
But the world’s attention is on them now and that is doing nothing to curb their bloodlust.
The Myanmar military survived decades of isolation and broad international economic sanctions under the previous junta, and it is prepared to do so again, its deputy chief Se Win brazenly told UN special envoy on Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener after the killings.
“When I also warned they will go in an isolation, the answer was: ‘We have to learn to walk with only few friends’,” Schraner Burgener said on Thursday.
What can be done in the face of such cold-blooded recalcitrance?
Clearly the Myanmar junta’s envoy walked away from ASEAN crisis talks on Tuesday with the impression that the military could escalate its crackdown on civilians with little blowback from its neighbours.
Western countries, including the US, Britain, Canada and the EU, have already implemented or are considering targeted sanctions to squeeze the military and its businesses.
The US is pushing for more intense action from the UN Security Council.
For that, it will need the co-operation of Beijing, which has historically provided diplomatic cover for Myanmar but has made abundantly clear since the February 1 coup that it wants stability restored in a country with which it shares a long border and has invested heavily.
When Myanmar’s generals speak of walking with “few friends”, it is reasonable to assume it sees ASEAN nations and China among that rapidly dwindling group.
What will those nations do now to help end the bloodshed?
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Some died from shots to the head or chest, precisely targeted bullets fired not in the heat of a melee but by military snipers picking off civilian protesters. Others were caught in sprays of frenzied sub-machine gun fire.