Myanmar’s neighbours dismayed over ‘highly reprehensible’ executions

Myanmar‘s Southeast Asian neighbours issued a stinging rebuke on Tuesday of the ruling military’s execution of four political activists, calling it “highly reprehensible” and destructive to regional efforts to de-escalate the crisis.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Myanmar, said it was “extremely troubled and deeply saddened by the executions”, as well as by their timing, just a week ahead of the bloc’s next meeting.

“While the complexity of the crisis is well recognised and the extreme bellicose mood can be felt from all corners of Myanmar, ASEAN as a whole has called for utmost restraint,” Cambodia, this year’s ASEAN chair, said in an unusually strong statement.

“The implementation of the death sentences just a week before the 55th ASEAN ministerial meeting is highly reprehensible,” it said, adding it showed the junta’s “gross lack of will” to support ASEAN’s U.N.-backed peace plan.

The military, which seized power in a coup last year, announced in state media on Monday that it had executed the activists for aiding “terror acts” by a civilian resistance movement, Myanmar‘s first executions in decades.

The news triggered international outrage, with the United States, Britain, Australia, the European Union and senior United Nations officials accusing the junta of cruelty.

It was not clear when the executions took place, or which method was used. Family members on Monday said they were not informed of their loved ones’ executions beforehand, nor allowed to retrieve their bodies.

The executed men were among more than 100 people whom activists say have been sentenced to death in secretive trials by military-run courts since the coup.

Authorities tightened security at the jail in the biggest city Yangon where the four men had been held, a human rights group said on Tuesday, following the global outcry and a demonstration by inmates over the execution.

A source from a prisoners support group told Reuters that a protest had taken place in the jail. News portal Myanmar Now said some inmates had been assaulted by prison authorities and about 15 of them were separated from the general population.

Lin Thant, a representative of Myanmar‘s shadow National Unity Government, said its sources had confirmed there was also unrest in a jail in the city of Mandalay, where gunshots had been fired.

Spokespersons for Yangon’s Inseinprison and the corrections department did not answer calls from Reuters.

The junta has yet to respond to the international criticism, but has previously accused the United Nations and western powers of meddling in its affairs. Its spokesperson was due to hold a regular news briefing later on Tuesday.

U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said he was concerned about more executions. He said at least 140 people had been sentenced to death in Myanmar.

“And so there is every indication that the military junta intends to continue to carry out executions of those on death row, as it continues to bomb villages and detain innocent people throughout the country,” he said in an interview on Monday.

Factbox: -The activists put to death by Myanmar’s military rulers

KYAW MIN YU, 53:

Better known as Ko Jimmy, he was prominent in a failed 1988 pro-democracy movement and jailed for 18 years during a previous era of military rule.

After last year’s coup, Kyaw Min Yu was among a number of high-profile activists charged with inciting unrest and threatening public order before he was arrested in October.

His wife told Reuters in June she would not acknowledge the military’s portrayal of him as a “terrorist” but said the whole country was in revolt against the generals.

PHYO ZEYA THAW, 41:

A rapper and co-founder of the pioneering hip-hop group Acid, he spent several years in jail after being arrested in 2008, following the so-called Saffron Revolution uprising against military rule.

After democratic reforms in 2011, he ran as a member of parliament and was a lawmaker until 2020.

In a documentary, Phyo Zeya Thaw said he had a tattoo on his back depicting a microphone in the centre of a map of Myanmar, reflecting his goal to speak for the people of the country.

“I want to express the people’s desire. So all I need is one mic,” he said in a clip from the documentary circulated online.

HLA MYO AUNG AND AUNG THURA ZAW:

The pair were convicted on April 12 and sentenced to death for the March killing of a woman accused of being an informant for the military, the website of the army chief said.

Far less is publicly known about them, but an official at the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), an activist group, said they were from Yangon and been involved in protests and resistance movements since the 2021 coup.

The four men were sentenced in closed-door trials in January and April, but it was not clear how any of them had pleaded.

They had been held in the colonial-era Insein prison and their executions were the first in Myanmar since the late 1980s, according to AAPP.