II. International Legal Framework and Analysis
68
Based on the evidence collected, Fortify Rights believes the following 22 individuals may be criminally
responsible for unlawful airstrikes and other crimes against civilians in Kachin and Karenni states
between October 2023 and September 2024, and should be investigated and possibly prosecuted for
war crimes:
1.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar military and
Chairman of the State Security and Peace Commission217
2.
Vice Senior General Soe Win, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar military,
Commander-in-Chief (Army), and Vice-chairman of State Administration Council218
3.
General Kyaw Swar Lin, Joint Chief of Staff of Myanmar’s Army, Navy, and Air Force
(December 2024 – Present)219
4.
General Maung Maung Aye, Joint Chief of Staff of Myanmar’s Army, Navy, and Air Force
(February 2021 – December 2024)220
5.
General Htun Aung, Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Air Force221
6.
Lieutenant General Zaw Win Myint, Chief of Staff of Myanmar Air Force222
7.
Lieutenant-General Ko Ko Oo, Commander of the Bureau of Special Operations-1
(August 2023 – Present)223
8.
Lieutenant-General Tayza Kyaw, Commander of the Bureau of Special Operations-1
(February 2021 - August 2023)224
9.
Lieutenant-General Naing Naing Oo, Commander of the Bureau of Special Operations-2
(February 2024 – present)225
217 See, Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, “Chairman of State Security and Peace Commission
of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing inspects restoration and conservation of
Kanbawzathadi Golden Palace in Bago,” August 3, 2025, https://www.cincds.gov.mm/node/29795. See also, Fortify
Rights and the Orville H. Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, “Nowhere is Safe”: The
Myanmar Junta’s Crimes Against Humanity Following the Coup d’État, March 2022, https://www.fortifyrights.org/mya-invrep-2022-03-24/, p. 151.
218 See, Junta Ministry of Communication, “National Defence and Security Council convenes Meeting 3/2025.”
219 See, “တပ််ချုု�ပ််လော�ာင်းး� ကျော်�်��စွာာ�လင်းး�နှှင့် �် စစ််ရေး�းဆိုုင်
� ရာ
် ာကွွပ််ကဲမှု
ဲ ု ဖရိုု� ဖရဲဲများ�း� (ရုုပ််/သံံ) [The Disarray of Military Command Under
Commander-in-Chief Candidate Kyaw Swa Lin],” The Irrawaddy, June 16, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=DSU6N37kWcM; “ညိိနှိုု�င်းး�ကွွပ််ကဲရေး�းမှူး
ဲ
�း (ကြ�ည်းး�၊ရေ�၊လေ�) ဗိုု�လ်ချုု
် �ပ််ကြီး�း�မော�ာင််မော�ာင််အေး�းကိုု� ဒုုတိိယဝန််ကြီး�း�ချုု�ပ်် နှှင့် �ကာ
် ာကွွယ််ရေး�းဝန််ကြီး�း�
အဖြ�စ််ပြော��ာင်းး�လဲဲတာာဝန််ပေး�း [General Maung Maung Aye, Coordinator of Joint Operations (Army, Navy, Air Force), Appointed
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense],” Yangon Media Group, December 18, 2024, https://yangonmediagroup.
com/index.php/myanmar/k003-18-12-2024-national-ymg.
220 See, Fortify Rights and the Orville H. Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, “Nowhere is
Safe,” p. 151; Junta Ministry of Communication, ဒုုတိိယဝန််ကြီး�း�ချုု�ပ််နှင့်
ှ �် ပြ�ည််ထော�ာင််စုုဝန််ကြီး�း� ဗိုု�လ်ချုု
် �ပ််ကြီး�း� မော�ာင််မော�ာင််အေး�း ပြ�ည််သူ့့�စစ််
မှုုထမ်းး�ဆင့််�ခေါ်�်ရေး�းဗဟိုုအ
� ဖွဲ့့�� လုုပ််ငန်းး�ညှိိ�နှိုု�င်းး�အစည်းး�အဝေး�းအမှှတ်စ
် ဉ်(၁/၂၀၂၅)သို့့� � တက််ရော�ာက််အမှာာ�စကားး�ပြော��ာကြား�း� [Deputy Prime Minister
and Union Minister General Maung Maung Aye Attends and Delivers an Address at the Central Body for Public Military Service
Conscription’s Work Coordination Meeting Series (1/2025)], January 29, 2025, https://www.moi.gov.mm/news/66595; “ညှိိ�
ကွွပ််အပါါအဝင်် စစ််ဗိုု�လ်ချုု
် �ပ််တချို့့��� အပြော��ာင်းး�အလဲဲဖြ�စ်် [Some Military Generals, Including the Coordinator of Joint Operations,
Have Been Reshuffled],” BBC Burmese, 18 December 2024, https://www.bbc.com/burmese/articles/c89x0414ge0o.
221 See, “Regiments and Units Coordinate with One Another in Military Operations,” Global New Light of Myanmar, May 25,
2025, https://www.gnlm.com.mm/regiments-and-units-coordinate-with-one-another-in-military-operations/.
222 See, “Myanmar Hosts 10th MAF-RTAF Air Working Group Meeting,” June 7, 2025, https://elevenmyanmar.com/news/
myanmar-hosts-10th-maf-rtaf-air-working-group-meeting.
223 See, “နေေပြ�ည််တော်�်�စစ််ဆင််ရေး�းအထူး�း အဖွဲ့့�� မှူးး� အပါါအဝင််တိုင်းး
ု� �မှူးး�တွေ�ေ အပြော��ာင်းး�အလဲဲဖြ�စ်် [Regional Commanders, Including the Head of
Naypyidaw Special Operations, Have Been Reshuffled],” BBC Burmese, 26 August 2023, https://www.bbc.com/burmese/
articles/cpdmypd28epo; “နေေပြ�ည််တော်�်�နဲ့့� ရန််ကုုန် ် စစ််ဆင််ရေး�းအထူး�း အဖွဲ့့�� မှူးး�တွေ�ေ အပြော��ာင်းး�အလဲဲဖြ�စ်် [The Heads of Naypyidaw and
Yangon Special Operations Have Been Reshuffled],” 10 Jan 2025, https://www.bbc.com/burmese/articles/c75zndy2grko.
See also, “တပ််မတော်�်�ဆေး�းရုံံ�များ�း�နှှင့် �် ဆေး�းတပ််ရင်းး�များ�း�၌ တက််ရော�ာက််ဆေး�းကုုသမှုုခံယူူနေေသူူများ�း
ံ
�အားး� သွားး��ရော�ာက််ကြ�ည့်�ရှု
် ု အားး�ပေး�း [Visiting
Patients at Military Hospitals and Medical Battalions to Offer Encouragement],” Myawady News, May 10, 2025, https://
www.myawady.net.mm/node/68919.
224 Ibid
225 See, “Myanmar General in Charge of Shan State Disaster Handed Surprise Promotion,” The Irrawaddy, February 5, 2024,
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-general-in-charge-of-shan-state-disaster-handed-surprisepromotion.html.