UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC - Press conference: Special Rapporteur on Myanmar

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today at this press conference.

Our speaker today is Tom Andrews, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

He will brief you today on his latest report to the Human Rights Council, which will be presented in his interactive dialogue on the 20th, on the 19th of March.

Please kindly remember this press conference is embargoed until then.

We will begin with opening remarks by the Special Rapporteur before moving to questions.

Special rapporteur, you have the floor.

That one some people before when I they're not able to hear me, but OK, is this OK?

Everybody can hear me.

OK, Good afternoon, everyone.

First, I have good news to report regarding the people of Myanmar.

Principal action by UN Member states, including those represented on the Human Rights Council, have been providing the people of Myanmar with critical support, including denying A brutal military junta the means to attack them.

These actions are having a significant and tangible impact.

Governments have launched investigations of arms transfers to me and more.

Some have imposed targeted sanctions on those engaged in weapons transfers and in some cases they have coordinated those sanctions.

Banks have increased their due diligence terminating relationships with Hunter controlled institutions.

Just a few weeks ago, Bangkok Bank told me that it would no longer facilitate the transfer transfers that involve Myanmar Economic Bank, which is the principal hunter controlled financial institution enabling its acquisitions of weapons and weapons materials that are being used to attack civilians.

This was a key recommendation that I made in my conference room paper that I released last year.

Banking on the death trade.

These actions are making a difference.

Junta military procurement using the international financial system has dropped by more than 1/3.

In Singapore alone, it has dropped by over 90%.

UN member states have also been making a difference by providing critical support to human rights defenders and funding desperately needed humanitarian aid that has saved untold numbers of lives.

I've been pleased to document the impact of this support in my report.

The military junta continues to face a fierce opposition from the people of Myanmar and they are losing ground both literally and figuratively.

According to credible reports, the junta now controls less than 1/3 of the townships nationwide.

It has responded to this loss of 10s of thousands of troops to defections and surrender and casualties by instituting military conscription that has included grabbing young men off the streets and from their homes in the middle of the night.

The junta has also responded by attacking civilians, unleashing jet fighters and helicopter gunships, attacking hospitals, schools, tea shops, religious festivals and camps for internally displaced persons, camps where those who had lost everything went for safety.

I have spoken with families who have experienced the unspeakable horror of watching their young children being killed by these strikes.

Hunter forces have committed widespread **** and other forms of sexual violence.

The number of civilian victims of land mines is escalating in Myanmar.

More people are now killed or maimed by land mines in Myanmar each year than in any other country in the world.

The actions of the Myanmar military junta has caused a humanitarian crisis.

More than 6300 civilians have been killed.

19.9 million people, 1/3 of the entire population, now require humanitarian assistance, 6.3 million of whom are children.

More than 3.5 million people have been displaced, 40% of whom are children.

More than half of the population has fallen into poverty.

Another 25% is at risk of joining them.

The World Health Organisation has named Myanmar as a hunger hotspot of highest concern, and for good reason.

15.2 million people in Myanmar face acute food insecurity.

In Rakhine state, a famine is imminent with 2 million people at risk of starvation.

Humanitarian aid workers on the border in Bangladesh have told me of new arrivals from Rakhine state showing visible signs of severe malnutrition, including uncontrollable shaking.

Criminal enterprises have flourished.

Myanmar is now the largest supplier of opium in the world.

But just.

But just when Myanmar wondered if conditions could get any worse, they are now becoming exponentially worse.

And this is not because of the military junta, it is because of us, the international community.

The sudden chaotic withdrawal of support, principally by the government of the United States, is already having a crushing impact on the people of Myanmar.

I have spoken with those who have lost access to medical care, to disabled persons and their families and family members of disabled children who've been locked out of rehabilitation centres.

I've spoken with human rights defenders providing food, medicine and other life saving and life sustaining services who told me that their funding was terminated by AUS government agencies only days after being told by the very same agency that they've been granted an exemption.

There is a severe cost to this chaos, a cost that is not only being borne by the people of Myanmar, but by the region and beyond.

Deteriorizing deteriorating conditions in Myanmar and in refugee camps will destabilise border regions and increase the flow of people crossing the Myanmar border.

There is growing fear among medical service providers that Myanmar has become a global hotspot for drug resistant tuberculosis.

HIV medicines have been inaccessible to those in need of them for seven weeks now.

Children are now being denied vaccinations.

These are developments that not only impact the people of Myanmar, but the region hopes that other nations might step up to help fill in these gaps left by US.

Cuts are being dashed by announcements that aid budgets are being cut by other countries, not as severely and not as abruptly, but reduced nevertheless, even as military spending increases.

A few days ago, the World Food Programme announced that 1,000,000 people will be cut off from life saving food assistance in Myanmar because of a lack of funding.

Earlier this month, the WFP warned that unless a severe funding shortfall is quickly reversed, food rations for Rahinga refugees in refugee camps in Bangladesh will be forced to be cut by more than half in the 1st of April.

More than half, In other words, in just a few days, refugees will need to figure out how to survive when they're already meagre.

Food rations drop from $0.42 per day to $0.20 per day, $0.20 per day.

As I have previously reported, when less severe cuts were made in 2023, there was acute malnutrition that resulted, threatening irreversible harm to children.

If these cuts go through, we can count on health indicators plummeting, with desperation fueling violence, human trafficking, child marriage, sexual exploitation, and increasing numbers of number of people putting their lives and those of their families in the hands of smugglers.

Don't get me wrong, questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of aid programmes can and should be addressed, as should concerns about burden sharing.

But this is not about either.

It is about making politically motivated and demonstrably false declarations about corruption, waste and ***** that will cause immense suffering and cost untold numbers of lives.

It is about pulling the rug out from beneath human rights defenders and community leaders who have been courageously battling to save lives and save their nation.

In a word, it is about betrayal.

Betrayal.

This is shameful.

The Human Rights Council has been called the conscience of the United Nations.

Members of the Council or in a position to do what others cannot do, particularly those who are terrified that speaking up might further compromise their ability to deliver critical services in the midst of a deepening humanitarian crisis.

I will therefore on Wednesday be urging that Member States of the Human Rights Council speak out, that they issue a declaration of conscience against this unfolding disaster and I will urge them to follow up those words with action.

Action that includes funding vital life sustaining programmes that are being slashed and burned and jeopardised.

Members of the Human Rights Council need to be clear that they ****** the shameless, baseless attacks on these programmes and the people who make them work, people who reflect the very best of humanity.

These attacks are costing lives and if they are not stopped, the death toll will rise exponentially.

The world needs to know that human rights and human decency matter.

They need the Human Rights Council to stand with and for those whose lives are on the line.

There are no time.

There is no time to lose.

Thank you and I'm be very happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Special rapporteur.

Mr Andrews will now take questions.

Please state your name and your organisation before asking a question.

Hi there Alton.

Thank you.

It's Olivia LaPorte about from Reuters here.

I have a couple of questions.

Are you able to speak at all, give a bit more detail on recent airstrikes?

You mentioned briefly in your in your in your statement there and what we what you're seeing on the ground.

Most recently there was one, I think yesterday on a monastery.

And secondly, Bangladesh is planning to organise a summit later this year to build momentum for repatriating the Rohingya.

Have you been speaking with authorities in Bangladesh and what do you think about potential repatriations?

Obviously that also within a context, as you mentioned, of, of, of of grave concerns, so that the humanitarian situation both in Myanmar and in Bangladesh with these cuts.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Very good questions.

First of all, the air strikes we know are, are increasing just systematically significantly.

And, and I detail those in my, in my report.

But we also know that the level of brutality of the attacks in villages has also increased.

And in the report I, I talk about how now not only are they going in and burning homes and, and, and community buildings and, and, and and so forth engaging in, in horrific sexual ******* and *****, but we know that they are now terrorising people.

They are taking literally bodies and and dismembering them and they're putting body parts around the village, the outskirts of the village to terrorise the survivors of those attacks.

So the the gruesomeness of these attacks have increased as well as the numbers of attacks with respect to Bangladesh.

The conference, I think the conference is a very good idea.

We need to be putting the attention of the world on the crisis in Bangladesh as well as the crisis in Rakhine State.

We know that there are hundreds of thousands of people, Rainga who have been displaced in Rakhine State and others displaced in Rakhine State that are in desperate need of of aid and support.

Clearly, we need to be addressing the crisis in Myanmar and conditions in Myanmar have to change significantly before the safe and sustained and dignified repatriation of Ryenga can occur.

I mean, at at this point, they would be literally putting their hands, their lives into the hands of those who attack them so brutally that put them over on the Bangladesh side in the 1st place.

So we need to address those conditions, make it safe for people to return and listen.

I've talked to many, many Rohingya in Bangladesh.

I was there a month ago and and almost all want to go home but not under these conditions.

Hello, Robin Millard from AFP.

Who's who's fuelling this conflict then in terms of in terms of money, in terms of weapons, in terms of allowing the the flow of finance?

You you mentioned the bank which is now cut off financial flows.

Who else is there?

Who else is in is now in the crosshairs.

Thank you.

In in, yeah in terms of like who, who are you looking at now in terms of people who are the primary financiers and beneficiaries and funders of this conflict.

Thank you.

Well, it, it, it's kind of a whack A mole situation.

You know, we started, I've done 3 reports so far on the supply of weapons and weapons materials and financing to the, to the junta.

And the good news is, is that we have made progress every step of the way.

So with Singapore, for example, when I made that report, I identified the major suppliers of weapons, Russia being #1 China being #2 Singapore was #3 there was no indication whatsoever that I found that Singapore was even aware of this, let alone involved in this, unlike China and Russia.

And, and they launched an investigation and, and they invited me to Singapore to support that investigation, which I was more than happy to do.

So as I mentioned in my statement, there was been a 90% decline.

The problem is that as that was declining, those numbers were declining in Singapore.

They were rising in Thailand.

We saw a significant uptick in the transfer of weapons and financing from sources in Thailand.

So I focused my last report Banking on the death trade on that trade singled out specific banks and to their credit, an investigation has been has ensued.

I was invited and then testified before a a parliamentary committee in in Bangkok.

In fact, I'm going to be heading to Bangkok when I leave here to help further support the progress that is being made.

But but the Myanmar Economic Bank in terms of pee in the shell game, there were banks that had been identified and sanctioned by the international community, by international governments and financial institutions.

The, they then shifted all of that business over to one bank, Myanmar Economic Bank.

And I was told by many banks, look, you know, how do we know if, if, if these transactions are actually facilitating weapons transfers into the hands of these of, of, of the Myanmar military?

And I said, well, it's, you know, it's, it's difficult because the juntas become more and more sophisticated about hiding these transactions.

We, we're conducting investigations literally as I speak about these types of transactions.

But the way you can be sure that you're not facilitating weapons transfers is if you stop doing business with, with Myanmar Economic Bank.

And, and I was just very gratified to hear a few weeks ago that Bangkok Bank had indeed made, had, had, had stopped their, their transactions with, with, with Myanmar Economic Bank.

And the reason why that was so significant was because when I mentioned the uptick in the, in, in Thailand, in the transfers from Thailand, a big part of that uptick was Bangkok Bank.

They had increased their, their transactions significantly.

Siam Commercial Bank had decreased theirs, Bangkok Bank had increased theirs.

And now they're cutting off business with, with the, with Myanmar Economic Bank.

So it's progress now we continue our research, we continue to look to see in every way including the transmission of and sale of jet fuel, for example, as being a a major source, obviously a huge problem.

These helicopter gunships and these jet fighters can only fly if they if they, if they find the fuel.

And we're looking for other ways, other information and data as well.

But our continue our investigation continues and and I expect to have another report coming out on on this very subject.

Thank you.

Do we have more questions in the room?

You spoke in in very strong terms about the, the cuts in US aid and how this is not in, in your eyes, this is not corruption, waste and *****.

So could you just tell us very clearly the, the people in Myanmar who are receiving that aid are in, in your eyes, they're not the recipients of corruption.

They're not profiteering from corruption, waste and ***** here.

They are receiving literally keeping them alive and the abrupt termination of this support is going to **** them.

Untold numbers of people, including children.

You know, I've talked to people who suddenly have, have, have have life saving programmes that that have been stopped, terminated.

You know, we, we have HIV patients who have been missing their medications for now 7 weeks, tuberculosis patients.

This is just an, a catastrophe that is unfolding.

It's unnecessary and it's cruel.

And, and, and, and I'm not just talking about the degree to which these, these cuts are being made.

I mean, the the incredible amounts of, of cuts and the impact that this is having on people's lives.

But the way it has is being done just, you know, in a way in which groups have no opportunity to be warned about them, to plan for them, to try to create contingency plans for them.

Member states of the UN saying, OK, well before you do this, perhaps we, you know, if, if we want to have a better share of, of the burden here, OK, we will step up and we can phase in our support.

If you want to believe you need to phase out the report.

None of that is being done.

It's just cut off and you know, you, you have this incredible rhetoric that is based upon nothing except creating headlines, right down to the use of a chainsaw, to the displaying of a chainsaw to show how this is all going to be done, that this entire programme is going to be thrown into a wood chipper.

For example, those kind of that kind of language that those kind of words.

Well, it's, it's innocent people who are being tossed into that wood chipper.

And, and it is unconscionable and it is outrageous.

And, and it needs to, we, we need to, we need to take a stand about this.

Now I understand and I mentioned this in my remarks and I've talked to people, there's, there's a lot of fear among agencies, among programmes, among services that it could even be worse if we were to, you know, protest too loudly that we could be come in the crosshairs.

And so the Human Rights Council, members of the Human Rights Council are in a very important position to say what others may not be able to say, to, to speak truth to what is going on here.

And then to try to work very quickly to try to help support those people whose lives are on the line right now because of these, these cuts.

So that's what I'm calling for, that the, the, the, the group that's been called the conscience of the United Nations, step up and issue a declaration of conscience and take action.

Because if they don't, if, if the Human Rights Council does not, well then who will?

Thank you.

Mr Andrews, if there are no more questions in the room, one more.

Thank you.

Could you speak a little bit more about the, the role that opium is playing in this conflict and these burgeoning scam centres which are appearing?

What what, what is the role that they are playing in this conflict?

Well, you know, this is just become a hotbed of criminality.

I mean, the, the, the hunter itself is a, is really a criminal gang.

They are basically holding the people of Myanmar hostage.

And so other criminal gangs and other criminal enterprises have very fertile ground for their operations.

So yes, the, the production of opium, the production of synthetic drugs, methamphetamines, for example, fentanyl and other synthetics are on the rise in, in Myanmar.

The scam centres, people are being abducted, victims of human trafficking from throughout the region and the world actually being herded into these scam centres.

And I've talked, I've talked to some of them who, you know, thought they were, you know, they were applying for a respectable job requiring, you know, computer skills and communication skills in various languages, promised, you know, good salaries and so forth and so on.

And they find themselves in these, you know, literally imprisoned, tortured, forced to, to RIP people off, RIP people off in the region and around the world.

By the way, it depends on that's why these languages are so important.

So it is been a hotbed of criminality and and whether it be drugs or whether it be scam centres, whether it be sex trafficking, whether it be any number of things that that are involved.

These things are on the rise because of the criminality that exists and because the conditions for criminality exist.

So it is one other reason why action by the international community is so imperative and why inaction by the international community will be so costly.

Thank you.

Yes, thanks.

Hi again.

Just from what you were saying there in terms of, you know, using it's unconscious consciousness of all what's happening, do you actually feel listen to you?

Obviously you're you're raising the alarm very vividly to us.

It sounds like you're going to do so also in the coming days.

But given what you're saying that, you know, you've got China, Russia supplying weapons, you've got the US pulling out of humanitarian aid funding, who are you kind of looking to deleverage and now?

And do you, have you had any signals at all from early conversations that you've had with, with different members of the HRC or other donor countries that they might be willing to step in and fill that gap?

Or are you reaching a point of feeling even more deeply concerned because no state has so far kind of come around and said we're going, we're going to step up and help?

It's a very good question.

I mean, it is, no.

I wish I could say the following countries have stepped up with significant increases in in aid.

Some have said indicated that they are not reducing their aid.

Some have indicated that there is a modest increase over last year in, in some aid, which is all fine, but but this is a dramatic, dramatic decrease in support that is going to have horrific implications.

And, and the other thing that I've noticed, the other, the other trend that is disturbing is that one of the factors behind the the reduction of the capacity to deliver aid beyond the economic concerns and so forth is, is fear and the fact that some nations are now announcing that they're going to be increasing spending on weapons and and on on the military.

So you've got this global shifting here and my argument to them is that there are ways to address instability in the world besides weapons and armaments.

That in fact investing in what is now on the chopping block is an investment in security, in stabilisation.

You know, when I, when I think about the, the refugee centres in, in Bangladesh, in addition to what I mentioned in my remarks about the malnutrition and, and the impact particularly on, on, on children, you know, what my other concern here is that rates of violence is going to increase, that there's going to be so much pressure on people that violence will increase.

We know that there are, there are militant groups that operate in the camps, the criminal groups that operate in the camps that are that prey on people already.

But under these conditions, all of those things could become even worse.

And then, you know, we've, we've, we've, we've, we've seen what happens when desperate people have no other option but to get out of the country.

And so I'm very fearful that those boats that we've seen out onto the sea with desperate people in, in very not non seaworthy craft where people put their hands into the their lives in the hands of these smugglers.

We're going to see increasing numbers of those boats.

And so the the implications of this is humanitarian, but it's also it's also security and stability.

And so I think we need to be paying attention to the full picture of what's at stake here and to and to take action to address this as soon as humanly possible.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

Thank you.

Any other questions in the room, we'll move to those joining us online, Jamie from AP Thank you.

And.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Anders, for coming to see us again.

I just had a couple of quick questions, the first of which.

Being you mentioned that HIV and tuberculosis are some of the areas.

That are going to be affected.

Could you be as specific?

As possible about the.

Funding that you're aware of that is going to be.

Reduced that as specifically.

Is going to be is going to be affected by these cuts in the context.

Of of Myanmar.

And then my second question has to do with you being a person who knows your way around Capitol Hill.

I was wondering if you could tell us what kind of conversations you're having with your your former colleagues up there.

To see exactly.

Whether or not the US may relent or the the Trump administration may may change.

Course on this?

And by the by the same token.

What do you?

Say to Americans who?

Say that the United States has been shouldering.

The cost of of.

Humanitarian aid around the world.

For too long I, I didn't clear the very end of that.

But you know, first of all, in terms of the specifics of, of HIV and, and tuberculosis, we've, we have received reports of, of funding being cut completely from some of these healthcare clinics and healthcare facilities and, and the programmes that are, that are funding them.

We're in the process right now of, of trying to get as, as much of detail as we possibly can.

And we'll be releasing those details as, as, as soon as we can.

But we do know that there has been a, a significant, a significant cut, dramatic cut in the availability of those of those medicines and to the point where people have just been cut off of, of HIV medicines completely, for example, in, in, in, in areas throughout the country.

So we'll have more information of that, about that as we get them.

But remember these, these, these have just happened and, and people are still scrambling and, and trying to find out what they can do about this.

And we're scrambling to get as much information about, about the, about the details of this.

But it's, but it's bad.

It's very, very bad.

And, and, and I'm and I'm afraid the more we learn, the, the worse it, it becomes.

In terms of my former life, you know, I'll tell you there's a couple of things.

One, I can say that it is foreign aid is, is not the most popular item in a, in a government's budget.

And, and, and so in, in, in, in that sense, if you're, if you're going to try to score political points and, and, and, and go after targets, then going after foreign aid could be a, a, one way to do it in which you would not find a great deal of political support among, among people in the country to, to, to humanitarian aid.

Because I frankly, I don't think that in, in the United States.

And I, and I venture to say this is true of other countries in the world that we've done the kind of job that we need to, to explain and discuss and engage with people about why it is so important to be making these investments, Why, why it means so much.

And, you know, I was talking to someone the other day in, in, in the US and it was the kind of thing where, you know, it was first of all, people didn't realise, I didn't realise just how much good those investments from the United States were doing, just what kind of impact they were they were making.

It's it's like the saying you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

And I think that the, the facts about what this means, I think that the degree to which those facts can be, can be put into the hands of the people of the United States in this case.

I think that that they will be supportive of these programmes and these investments and, and they will be opposed to not only the degree to which these cuts are being made, but how they they're being made.

This does not reflect, in my view, the, the will and the best of the American, of the American people.

So I think that that's really important.

And, and the, the question of burden sharing, I think it's a fair 1, you know, I think, I think that, you know, people would say, look, why is why are we doing all of this?

Why aren't more countries doing more?

Why isn't this responsibility being born more equitably among all countries?

And I think that's fair.

And I think that there's a, a reasonable discussion that needs to be had about, about those very things.

And, and the questions about, well is, are these programmes efficient?

Are they effective?

Are they doing what they need to be done?

Well, look, let's, let's, those are fair questions.

Let's make sure that they are.

Let's look into them and let's have these discussions.

But this is the worst possible way to go about this and it and it just makes it very clear to me that this is not about burden sharing and it's not about efficiency or effectiveness of programmes.

It is politics in its worst form, and it's and it's sacrificing human lives to make a bad political point based upon fabrications and distortions.

It's it's, it's the worst of all.

Thank you.

And Jamie, do you have a follow up?

Well, I suppose you sort of addressed it at the very end there.

I would.

I was just going to ask you about how you what you would say to Americans you feel like the United States has shouldered the burden for.

Too long and and I think.

You just sort of addressed that at the end, yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions either online or in the room?

If there are no further questions, we will now close this press conference.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you, special rapporteur.

Thank you.

HRC - Press conference: Special Rapporteur on Myanmar - 17 March 2025