The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) hosted an online press conference on Thursday 27 January 2022, nearly one year since the military attempted a coup in Myanmar, to urgently address the escalating crisis and continuing failure of the international system to respond.

The panel consists of the three founding SAC-M members: Yanghee Lee, former UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar (2014 – 2020), Marzuki Darusman and Chris Sidoti, former Chair and member of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (2017 – 2019).

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The international system has repeatedly failed the people of Myanmar and continues to do so, one year after the military’s attempted coup. Military leader Min Aung Hlaing’s year-long widespread and systematic campaign of torture, arrest, murder, deprivation and intimidation of the civilian population by junta forces has destroyed lives and fuelled a regional humanitarian emergency. But every act of brutality has only served to strengthen resistance to the junta. Min Aung Hlaing’s campaign of terror has ignited a nationwide people’s revolution towards a new Myanmar democracy and liberation once and for all from military oppression.

As pressure mounts on Min Aung Hlaing, his junta is resorting to increasingly brutal tactics as it desperately tries to break the civilian resistance and assert control. In recent months, junta atrocities including the burning alive of unarmed civilians have sparked outrage and condemnation from the international community, but a concurrent and appropriate substantive response in the form of humanitarian intervention, a global arms embargo and targeted sanctions regime, and increased efforts for international justice has not followed.

Without urgent and decisive international action, the Myanmar people will continue to suffer the immense cruelty being inflicted on them by Min Aung Hlaing and a massive human tragedy will be on the world’s conscience.