Over the past year, the military junta has severely escalated its mass atrocity crimes in retaliation
against the people’s ongoing resolute and collective defiance against its illegal coup attempt and for
its major territorial losses to the democratic resistance movement. In the first eight months of 2024,
the military junta conducted an average of seven airstrikes per day—totaling at least 1,639, amounting
to nearly 50% of its total airstrikes since the coup attempt.4 To this day, the military junta continues
to conduct violent ground raids and an unprecedented number of aerial attacks targeting civilians and
civilian infrastructure—including schools, religious buildings, medical facilities, and internally
displaced person camps—as a form of collective punishment. Since February 2024, the junta has
further escalated its violence against civilians through forced conscription, driving mass displacement
within Myanmar and across borders. According to the United Nations, as of 9 December 2024, the
military’s violence has internally displaced more than 3.4 million people in Myanmar5—likely a gross
underestimation of the actual magnitude of displacement. As of 31 October 2024, since the failed
coup in February 2021, approximately 52,100 people have been displaced to Thailand, 12,200 to
Malaysia, and 3,400 to Indonesia.6
At present, the Myanmar military is facing allegations of atrocity crimes at the International Criminal
Court, the International Court of Justice, and in Argentina. Furthermore, the Independent Investigative
Mechanism for Myanmar “has collected significant volumes of credible evidence and information
indicating the commission of war crimes in connection with armed conflict and crimes against
humanity as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population” by the
Myanmar military junta and affiliated militias since the failed coup.7
Instead of acting to end the criminal junta’s atrocity crimes as laid out in the 5PC, ASEAN has only
deepened its complicity therein,8 with some of its member states aiding and abetting these crimes by
harboring the junta’s financial assets and facilitating the supply of arms and aviation fuel—all while
lending the junta false legitimacy through state and regional level engagements.9 According to the UN
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, from April 2023 to March 2024, the
junta imported more than USD 120 million in weapons and military supplies from Thailand-registered
suppliers—a 100% increase from the previous year—and more than USD 10 million from Singaporebased suppliers.10 In January 2024, Amnesty International reported that the junta has been importing
aviation fuel through Vietnam, evading sanctions to continue its airstrikes on civilians.11
“Aerial Attacks Carried Out by the Military Council (5),” Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, 9 October 2024,
https://progressivevoicemyanmar.org/2024/10/09/aerial-attacks-carried-out-by-the-military-council-5/.
5 Operational Data Portal, “Myanmar Situation,” UNHCR, https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/myanmar, last accessed 13
December 2024.
6 Ibid.
7 “Report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar,” Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar,
U.N. Doc. No. A/HRC/57/18, para. 19, 11 July 2024.
8 “ASEAN Deepening Complicity with Illegal and Illegitimate Military Junta Through its Appointment as Coordinator of
Russia-ASEAN Relations,” Justice For Myanmar, 1 March 2024, https://www.justiceformyanmar.org/press-releases/aseandeepening-complicity-with-illegal-and-illegitimate-myanmar-junta-through-its-appointment-as-coordinator-of-russiaasean-relations.
9 “Revealed: The ASEAN Governments and Companies Financing and Arming the Myanmar Military,” Justice For Myanmar,
17 February 2022, https://www.justiceformyanmar.org/press-releases/revealed-the-asean-governments-and-companiesfinancing-and-arming-the-myanmar-military.
10 “Rights expert urges banks to stop financing Myanmar junta weapons trade, UN News, 26 June 2024,
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/06/1151541; “Banking on the Death Trade: How Banks and Governments Enable the
Military Junta in Myanmar,” Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, U.N. Doc. No.
A/HRC/56/CRP.7, 26 June 2024.
11 “Myanmar: New data suggests military still importing fuel for deadly air strikes despite sanctions,” Amnesty
International, 31 January 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/01/myanmar-new-data-suggests-militarystill-importing-fuel-for-deadly-air-strikes-despite-sanctions/.
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