One year since the military coup in Myanmar, calls for international action are growing louder, notably from the National Unity Government, made up of elected politicians who were thrown out of office by the generals. “The world is doing nothing but just sitting and watching,” NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung told Al Jazeera. What began as tear gassing and beatings have now turned into air assaults, the burning of villages, and targeted shootings across the country. Zin Mar Aung says the violence today is worse than the dark decades of previous military regimes of the 1980s and 1990s.
More than 1,500 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been monitoring the violence since the start. Rights group Human Rights Watch says the military’s actions amount to crimes against humanity and include openly shooting 65 protesters and bystanders in Yangon’s Hlaing Tharyar township, the deliberate ramming of protesters in a car in Yangon, and a Christmas Eve attack on civilians in eastern Myanmar that left dozens dead, including women, children, and two staff from the non-profit, Save the Children.
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