The UN and governments around the world must support people bravely resisting the junta to build a real democracy
By Benedict Rogers in UCA News
Myanmar’s current — and illegitimate — government is described in most diplomatic, political, and media circles around the world as a “military regime,” a “dictatorship” or a “junta.” But sitting on the terrace of a wooden building near a teak forest in northern Thailand, close to the Myanmar border, the leader of one of Myanmar’s ethnic resistance groups described it in even more robust terms.
“It is a state terrorist organization that is purposely killing civilians and is using increased violence every single day,” said Khu Oo Reh, chair of the Karenni National Progressive Party and of Karenni State’s Interim Executive Council (IEC).
“The world should see that picture clearly,” he told me.
That description was born out when, on the night of Dec. 10 — International Human Rights Day — the military regime reportedly deliberately bombed a civilian hospital in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State, killing at least 33 people, including a three-month-old baby.
That airstrike, shocking though it was, was a typical day in Myanmar. The regime, which seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021, overthrowing the democratically elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been conducting daily airstrikes against civilians throughout the country, bombing schools, hospitals, churches, displacement camps, homes, and other civilian infrastructure.
Fortify Rights has documented these in two recent reports — Crashing Down On Us and Horrific Sight to Witness — which detail airstrikes in just two regions of Myanmar, Kachin and Karenni states. The same atrocities are being perpetrated throughout the country.
The testimonies our team gathered are heart-rending. A witness to one attack on Aug. 17 in Mawchi, Karenni State, reported seeing “bodies in pieces” and another recalled seeing “the body of a child, around four or five years old … badly disfigured.”
The junta’s attacks on civilians provide just one among a litany of reasons why the forthcoming military-organized elections are a complete sham and deserve absolutely no recognition or legitimacy. When almost four million people are internally displaced as a consequence of the military’s attacks, and 20 million — a third of the population — are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, this is no time for an election.
Since the coup almost five years ago, the military has arrested more than 30,000 people. Over 22,000, including the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and many of her colleagues in the National League for Democracy (NLD), as well as many of the democratically elected representatives deposed by the illegal coup, remain in jail or have fled into exile.
Last week, Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, expressed concern that she might not even still be alive.
The regime has dissolved over 40 political parties, including the NLD, and banned them from contesting elections, and it has outlawed criticism of the election process, imposing a jail sentence of up to 20 years on anyone who does. So far, at least 94 people have been arrested under the new repressive law.
Most of Myanmar’s population is disenfranchised because the election can only take place in territory under the regime’s control. That leaves at least two-thirds of the country — controlled or contested by pro-democracy and ethnic armed opposition groups — excluded from the election, including the entire Rakhine State.
The Rohingya people, a majority Muslim population rendered stateless when their citizenship was removed by a 1982 law imposed by a previous military regime, are completely excluded from the electoral register. Having faced genocide since at least 2016, the Rohingya are again being erased as a people by the military’s sham election.
Even those who participate in the sham election in junta-controlled areas do so out of fear. In Loikaw — one of the cities in which the junta is determined to hold its sham elections — people who fled the capital of Karenni State have been reportedly pressured to vote in the sham elections. According to Khu Oo Reh, many people in junta-controlled areas are “used as human shields.”
Any credible election requires a free press, a vibrant civil society, and an independent judiciary, as well as basic freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. But Myanmar has none of that. While it has extremely brave journalists, civil society activists, human rights defenders, and lawyers, they are forced to operate at grave risk either underground, in the conflict zones, or in exile.
So how should the international community respond to the sham elections, which begin on Dec. 28 and continue in a second round on Jan. 11, 2026?
First, governments around the world should refuse to recognize or legitimize these fake elections and whatever regime is formed as a result. Not only the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, and Australia, but also democracies in the region such as Japan, South Korea, India, and Taiwan, and members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, should make it clear that these elections are not acceptable.
Instead, they should support legitimate state-level governance structures, such as the IEC, which is chaired by Khu Oo Reh. The IEC has established functioning institutions to support civilians, including education, health, humanitarian, agriculture, and justice ministries.
Second, the United Nations Security Council should have an urgent agenda item on Myanmar’s human rights crisis, in light of the sham elections. But as Khu Oo Reh emphasised, resolutions are not enough.
“A resolution should come with an action plan,” he said.
The regime ignores “toothless” statements. So the UN and its member states should step up efforts to coordinate international, targeted sanctions against the military, including an arms embargo and a ban on aviation fuel supplies, in order to impede the junta’s airstrikes, and pursue measures to seek accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It should demand the release of all political prisoners and an end to attacks on civilians as a prerequisite for any tentative engagement with the regime.
And third, governments worldwide should increase humanitarian aid. Visiting refugees from Myanmar recently, I was shocked by the devastating impact of cuts in foreign aid, particularly from the United States, following the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development.
Aid should also be directed to legitimate governance structures such as the IEC, which is providing humanitarian assistance and essential services to displaced populations in the areas under its control, mostly funded by contributions from the global Karenni community.
According to the IEC’s humanitarian ministry, at least one third of the Karenni population is currently living in more than 150 camps for the internally displaced within Karenni State.
As Khu Oo Reh put it to me, “If people are safe in their homeland, they would not flee to neighboring countries. They flee for their safety.”
He calls on the international community to work with Myanmar’s ethnic and pro-democracy resistance groups and civil society to develop a plan to protect human rights and livelihoods and strengthen local governance in the areas under the control of the resistance.
“I appeal to the international community to invest in activity to develop genuine federal democracy,” he added.
It is in all our interests to ensure that those who are displaced — as refugees beyond Myanmar and in the jungles within the country — receive the immediate emergency assistance they need to survive, and the long-term political support for their fight for freedom.
The rest of the world must therefore reject the generals’ rebranding exercise in their sham election, hold the “state terrorist organization” that is the junta accountable for its crimes, and work to support the people of Myanmar and those who are bravely resisting the junta to build an alternative path to real democracy and genuine peace.
This article was originally published in UCA News.