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Mizzima
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution, on 4 April, to put more pressure on the Myanmar Military Council.
The UNHRC resolution calls on UN member states to refrain from exporting, selling or transferring jet fuel to the Myanmar military.
It also calls on the international community to “refrain from transferring surveillance goods and technologies and less-lethal weapons, including ‘dual-use ’items, when they assess that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that such goods, technologies or weapons might be used to violate or abuse human rights, including in the context of assemblies.”
The UNHRC Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews submitted a report to the UNHRC saying that the military junta had responded to mounting losses of troops and territory by escalating its aerial attacks on villages, blocking humanitarian aid, and announcing plans to draft thousands of young people into the military.
In March 2024 Tom Andrews also recommended that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) impose sanctions against those who export jet fuel to Myanmar directly or indirectly.
Amnesty International also called for a ban on the export of jet fuel to Myanmar when it published a report on jet fuel exports to Myanmar in January 2024.
The report revealed that Myanmar had received seven shipments of jet fuel in 2023. Previously jet fuel was sold directly to the Myanmar junta, but last year it seems that the jet fuel was bought and sold between several intermediaries to obscure its final destination of Myanmar.
Amnesty’s research also showed that prior to being delivered to Myanmar, the seven shipments of jet fuel were stored at Cai Mep Petroleum Terminal close to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam before being loaded onto tankers bound for Myanmar.
The Amnesty International representative to the UN in Geneva, Iniyan Illango, also called on the UNSC to pass a resolution banning jet fuel sales to Myanmar either directly or indirectly
