Myanmar Coup Verdict: Live Updates: Judge Delays Aung San Suu Kyi Trial in Myanmar (Published 2021) (2024)

A judge in Myanmar on Tuesday delayed the announcement of a highly anticipated verdict against the country’s ousted civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is facing a series of rulings that could keep her locked up for the rest of her life.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained in a military coup in February, is facing 11 charges and a maximum imprisonment of 102 years. Her trials have been held in closed-door hearings in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital. The junta has barred all five of her lawyers from speaking to the news media, saying that their communications could “destabilize the country.”

The court was expected to deliver the first verdict on inciting public unrest on Tuesday, but the judge adjourned the case until next month, according to a source familiar with the proceedings. It was unclear why the judge announced the delay.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, is a flawed hero for a troubled nation.

She is held up as an almost godlike figure among her supporters in Myanmar, who describe her as a defender of the country’s democracy, for which she won a Nobel Peace Prize. But her reputation on the international stage was tarnished over her complicity in the military’s mass atrocities against the Rohingya.

The ruling on Tuesday on the charge of inciting public unrest was expected to come a year after Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi led her party to a landslide election victory, trouncing the military-backed opposition party.

A guilty verdict would likely galvanize a protest movement that has spurred thousands of people to take up arms against the army since February, when the generals seized power. The United Nations and foreign governments have described the trials as politically motivated.

In the months since the coup, people have gathered in the streets, doctors and nurses have stopped work in protest, and many have refused to pay taxes in a campaign known as the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Despite the threat of arrest, there is still widespread support for the movement. A growing number of soldiers are defecting, teaming up with armed protesters and insurgent groups to launch hit-and-run attacks against the military. The junta has responded by cracking down — it has killed 1,297 people and arrested more than 10,500 others, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a rights organization based in Thailand.

The National Unity Government, a group of deposed civilian leaders, said last week that it had raised $6.3 million from people who bought “bonds” to fund its revolution.

For many of her supporters, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was seen as the only politician who could lead Myanmar toward full democracy. The country had been ruled by the military for half a century since 1962. After Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected in 2015, she was forced to share power with the army, which appointed 25 percent of Parliament.

She has not been seen in public or been able to speak to anyone beside from her lawyers since she was detained on Feb. 1. Just hours before she and her colleagues from the National League of Democracy Party were to take their seats in Parliament, military officers detained them, accusing them of voter fraud. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has denied the charge.

Rights activists have condemned the charge of incitement, saying that it is used to intimidate critics of the military. It carries a maximum sentence of three years and states that anyone who “publishes or circulates any statement, rumor or report” with “intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public” could be found liable.

Prosecutors have continued to slap more charges on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi as her case proceeded. The verdict on Tuesday is the first of several that are expected to be announced in the coming months.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has long been a source of frustration among Myanmar’s military, so much so that it kept her under house arrest for nearly 15 years until 2010.

Analysts say the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has resented her overwhelming popularity among the people. In 2015, when the country held national elections, her party, the National League of Democracy, won in a landslide victory.

A year later, the N.L.D. introduced a bill in Parliament to create a new post for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi as state counselor. This move was seen as a direct challenge to the Tatmadaw because it circumvented the country’s Constitution, which was written by the generals and barred candidates for Myanmar’s presidency from having close family members who “owe allegiance to a foreign power.” (Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was married to a British man, who is now deceased, and has two sons, who live abroad.)

As state counselor, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi declared herself above the president and named herself foreign minister, a move that the military saw as a power grab.

Political experts say Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has always had a frosty relationship with the Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who orchestrated the February coup that removed her from power. For years, the two leaders sent messages through an intermediary, “like embittered divorcés,” according to David Mathieson, a veteran analyst on Myanmar.

But during her time in power, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was criticized for being too deferential to the generals — she characterized her relationship with the military as “not that bad” and said the generals in her cabinet were “quite sweet.” In 2019, she infamously defended the army’s 2017 crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority at The Hague, angering the international community.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is being tried on a slew of charges, including corruption and violating the Official Secrets Act, in addition to inciting public unrest and violating Covid-19 protocols.

She had faced a maximum possible sentence of 102 years in prison if found guilty on all 11 counts she had been charged with. Her supporters say the charges are manufactured to remove her permanently from politics.

The five lawyers representing her have been placed under a highly unusual gag order prohibiting them from talking publicly about her case.

Five of the charges accuse her of engaging in corruption, including by accepting bribes in cash and gold. She has called those charges “absurd.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the ousted president, U Win Myint, are expected to face one count of corruption alleging that they benefited from the government’s acquisition and rental of a helicopter. The regime has filed a complaint with the police, but Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Win Myint have not been formally charged. This count would bring the number of criminal charges against her to 12.

She is being tried separately on a single charge of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which prohibits sharing state information that could be useful to an enemy. Her co-defendants in that case are former finance officials and her Australian economic policy adviser, Sean Turnell, suggesting that the charges involve government expenditures.

Myanmar’s election commission, which has been taken over by the regime, announced this month that it would be bring charges of electoral fraud against her and 15 other leaders of the National League for Democracy, her party. This case will be handled separately from her criminal trials and could result in the party being banned from participating in future elections. It could also result in more criminal charges against her.

The court found her guilty on one of two counts of violating Covid-19 protocols. Those charges stemmed from an episode during the 2020 election campaign in which she stood outside, in a face mask and face shield, with her dog, Taichito, at her side, and waved to supporters passing by in vehicles. A video of the scene shows masked aides and security staff standing nearby, but socially distanced.

Closing arguments on two counts of illegally possessing and importing walkie-talkies are scheduled for next month. Her defense says the devices belonged to her security team, not her. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is being kept under house arrest in the capital, Naypyidaw, and tried in a special courtroom that was constructed in the living room of another house.

The Myanmar court that sentenced Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday also convicted two longtime allies, including Myanmar’s ousted president, U Win Myint.

Mr. Win Myint and U Myo Aung, the ousted mayor of the capital city, Naypyidaw, were both found guilty of responsibility along with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi for two letters sent by the National League for Democracy after the coup urging the international community not to recognize the regime and declaring all laws enacted by the junta to be illegal.

Mr. Win Myint, who was also convicted of violating Covid-19 protocols, was sentenced to four years in custody. Mr. Myo Aung, who was convicted just on the incitement charge, was sentenced to two years.

On Monday evening, the army commander in chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, cut two years off the sentence of Mr. Win Myint, which he will continue to serve under house arrest. With credit for the 10 months he spent in custody while awaiting trial, he has 14 months left to serve.

The defense argued that none of the defendants could be held culpable for the letters since all three were in custody at the time that the letters were sent.

Mr. Win Myint, 70, assumed the presidency in 2018 after he was chosen by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who is constitutionally barred from holding that office.

He testified during the trial that after his arrest, two army officers demanded he resign on the grounds of ill health and warned him that refusing would cause trouble. He said he told them he would rather die.

Like Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, he had also been charged with breaking Covid regulations by standing outside in a face mask and face shield while waving to supporters passing by in vehicles. He denied violating any health rules.

Based on a complaint filed by the regime with the police, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Win Myint are expected to face one count of corruption alleging that they benefited from the government’s acquisition and rental of a helicopter.

The two are also among 16 leaders of the National League for Democracy who will face charges of electoral fraud brought by Myanmar’s election commission.

Mr. Myo Aung, a 70-year-old physician who was appointed mayor in 2016 by former President Htin Kyaw, lived next door to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw. When he saw military vehicles outside her house on the morning of the coup, he went to check on her and was arrested.

He is also a co-defendant with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in her ongoing corruption trial. He is accused of granting permission to build on land in the capital in exchange for money that was then given to National League for Democracy candidates, state media reported. He denies the charge.

After the military staged its coup on Feb. 1, huge protests erupted across the country as millions took to the streets. The junta’s opponents mounted a civil disobedience movement and a national strike that shut down government offices, hospitals, banks, schools and other facilities that came under the regime’s control.

In response, the military staged a brutal crackdown, shooting and killing protesters in the streets and bringing an end to the huge demonstrations. But members of the public have continued to find ways to voice their opposition.

Now, small groups stage pop-up protests daily in towns and cities throughout the country — sometimes on motorbikes — holding anti-coup placards and shouting slogans. Some also stage flash-mob style protests in shopping malls.

But the risk remains high. Soldiers and the police continue to shoot protesters. On Sunday an unknown number of protesters were killed when a military vehicle drove through one protest. The video of the event recorded the sound of gunfire, though it wasn’t clear who if anybody was being fired upon.

Many people also continue participating in the civil disobedience movement by refusing to report to work in government jobs and by refusing to pay taxes or for government-run electricity. They also boycott military-owned companies, such as Myanmar Beer and the mobile phone service provider, Mytel.

Leaders of the National League for Democracy who escaped arrest have formed a rival government, the National Unity Government, which has appealed to other nations for recognition. It has also backed the formation of a People’s Defense Force to fight back against the military. About 8,000 soldiers and police officers are said to have defected to the opposition.

Throughout the country, communities have formed local defense units that operate somewhat autonomously. In some areas, armed groups have mounted deadly attacks on soldiers and the police, and they have sabotaged facilities connected to the military, such as Mytel communication towers.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi led her party, the National League for Democracy, to three landslide election victories, but two of them were annulled by the military, and she has spent 16 of the last 32 years under house arrest.

Here are some of the major events in her life:

June 19, 1945 — Born to Daw Khin Kyi and Gen. Aung San, founder of Myanmar’s army and considered father of the country.

July 19, 1947 — Gen. Aung San is assassinated at age 32.

1960 — Moves to India when her mother is named ambassador. Goes on to attend the University of Oxford, where she meets Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar. They marry and have two sons.

1988 — Returns to Burma to help care for her dying mother and is swept up in the democracy movement.

Aug. 26, 1988 — Gives her first public speech to a crowd of more than half a million at the landmark Shwedagon Pagoda, catapulting her into the movement’s leadership.

Sept. 27, 1988 — Co-founds the National League for Democracy and is named general secretary.

July 20, 1989 — The military places her under house arrest.

November 1990 — The N.L.D. wins 82 percent of Parliament’s seats. The military annuls the election.

1991 — Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 — Is released from house arrest but kept under travel restrictions.

March 1999 — Refuses to leave Myanmar to see her husband before he dies of cancer in Oxford, knowing she would be barred from returning.

2000 — Is placed under house arrest and released two years later.

May 30, 2003 — Her convoy is attacked and dozens of her supporters are killed. She is placed under house arrest.

2008 — The military adopts a new Constitution that paves the way for future elections but prohibits her from becoming president because her sons are foreign citizens.

November 2010 — The N.L.D. boycotts the first national elections held in two decades. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is released soon after.

April 2012 — She is elected to Parliament in a by-election. The N.L.D. wins 43 of the 45 seats.

November 2015 — She leads the N.L.D. to election victory, winning 80 percent of Parliament’s available seats. Takes the title of state counselor and says the president will report to her.

2017 — Myanmar’s military conducts ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, killing thousands and driving more than 700,000 across the border to Bangladesh. International critics call for her to return her Nobel Peace Prize because of her refusal to criticize the military.

November 2020 — Leads her party to an election landslide for the third time, winning 82 percent of Parliament’s available seats.

Feb. 1, 2021 — Before the new Parliament can be sworn in, the military stages a coup and places her under house arrest.

Myanmar’s army was founded nearly 80 years ago in a gruesome ceremony in which a group of men, calling themselves the Thirty Comrades, drew blood from their arms and took turns sipping it from a silver bowl.

The rest of its history has been just as bloody.

The army joined forces with the Japanese during World War II but switched to the British side in time to declare victory. It led the nation, then known as Burma, to independence in 1948.

The army was originally headed by General Aung San, the father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and considered the father of the country. He was assassinated in 1947.

Known as the Tatmadaw, the army soon began waging war against various ethnic groups in a series of bloody conflicts that have continued to this day.

In 1962, it staged a coup and overthrew the country’s democratically elected government. It kept power for nearly half a century, becoming the country’s only viable institution, with separate schools and hospitals, its own judicial system and a vast network of businesses.

Known for its ruthlessness and brutality, it killed thousands of protesters to keep power in 1988 and suppressed another popular uprising, the Saffron Revolution, in 2007.

Between 1989 and 2010, it kept Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for a total of 15 years.

Though it holds itself up as the protector of Myanmar’s people, the military has a long history of murdering civilians, torturing and executing prisoners, committing rape, conscripting child soldiers and using civilians as battlefield porters and human shields.

In 2010, the military began relaxing its hold on power and allowing elections. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won by a landslide in 2015, and entered into an uneasy power-sharing agreement with the military.

But in February, after her party scored another landslide victory, the army commander in chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, seized power and placed Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest once again.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the Myanmar junta that seized power Feb. 1, has long been Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s adversary.

For five years, the two leaders were part of an uneasy power-sharing arrangement in which she headed the civilian side of government and Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army commander in chief, maintained absolute control over the military, the police and the border guards.

The two rarely spoke to each other.

Gen. Min Aung Hlaing is known to be highly ambitious and unwilling to give up power. He faced mandatory retirement in 2016 when he turned 60 but extended his tenure for five years. Soon after the coup, and just before he turned 65, he scrapped the mandatory retirement age for the commander in chief altogether. Many believed he wanted to become president.

While a cadet at the military academy, he was known for bullying his juniors and for his tendency to criticize and blame others. His contemporaries gave him a nickname meaning cat feces, an especially vulgar epithet in Burmese.

In 2009, the troops he led in northeastern Myanmar drove tens of thousands of people from ethnic enclaves in what locals described as a brutal campaign of murder, rape and systematic arson.

As commander in chief, he oversaw the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingya in 2017 that killed thousands and forced more than 700,000 to flee the country. He is said to be a tough negotiator who has maintained a strong grip on the armed forces.

In 2008, the previous military regime adopted a Constitution that was devised to keep the presidency in the hands of military leaders. It gave the army commander in chief the power to appoint 25 percent of Parliament and gave Parliament the power to choose the president.

It also barred anyone from becoming president who has a spouse or a child who is a citizen of a foreign country. The provision clearly targeted Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi: her husband was a British citizen, as are her two sons.

But that hasn’t been enough of a head start for the hugely unpopular Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to win. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy crushed the military-backed party in 2015 by winning 80 percent of Parliament’s nonappointed seats. In 2020, she repeated the feat, winning by an even greater margin.

Thwarted at the polls, the general declared her election victory to be fraudulent and led a coup on Feb. 1, hours before the new Parliament was scheduled to be sworn in.

Early that morning, soldiers and the police arrested Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other party leaders. She has been detained ever since.

Their numbers are small, but the phenomenon is real: Defectors are leaving Myanmar’s security forces and joining the resistance.

At least 2,000 soldiers and police officers have deserted and joined the country’s Civil Disobedience Movement, a nationwide effort aimed at restoring democracy and bringing down Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the man behind the coup.

It’s part of a broader campaign to weaken the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s most notorious institution.

The defectors are a small percentage of the Southeast Asian nation’s army, which is estimated to number between 280,000 and 350,000. But they appear to have struck a nerve, and to have contributed to a growing crisis of morale among the troops. The army is struggling to recruit. It has recalled all retirees, threatening to withhold pensions if they do not return. Wives of soldiers say they are being ordered to provide security for the bases, in violation of military law.

For the first time in its 67-year history, the Myanmar Defense Services Academy, the country’s equivalent of West Point, was not able to fill the seats for this year’s freshman class.

General Min Aung Hlaing still has the loyalty of his top officers, and there are too few defectors to topple the Tatmadaw. But those who are leaving are being quickly embraced by the resistance. Four of Myanmar’s armed ethnic organizations, which have battled the Tatmadaw since the country became independent from Britain in 1948, have offered food and refuge and the opportunity to combine forces.

Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a coup d’état in February 2021, has ruthlessly sought to consolidate its authority since then, killing and imprisoning opponents and attacking innocent civilians.

At first, resistance consisted of mass demonstrations, work stoppages and a vast civil disobedience movement. Soldiers and the police began shooting protesters in the streets and jailing thousands of people, including opposition leaders and journalists.

In the months since, peaceful protest has given way to armed clashes between the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, and pro-democracy forces, who have formed a rebel army and local guerrilla resistance groups. Leaders of the opposition say they are fighting a revolutionary war to overthrow the military, which has ruled Myanmar for most of its existence as a nation.

An election erased

On the morning of Feb. 1, 2021, Myanmar’s Parliament was scheduled to endorse the results of a national election held the previous November and form the next government. The National League for Democracy, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, had won overwhelmingly, taking 83 percent of the available seats.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, had been Myanmar’s civilian leader since her party won a 2015 election. But the Tatmadaw had never really given up power. Under the Constitution it adopted in 2008, it retained control over the armed forces and appointed its own commander in chief and key cabinet ministers, ensuring that the military remained outside civilian authority.

After the National League for Democracy’s landslide in November 2020, Tatmadaw generals refused to accept the outcome, arguing before the country’s Supreme Court that the results were fraudulent.

How the coup was carried out

Before Parliament could endorse the election results, soldiers surrounded the building and rounded up government figures, including Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, cabinet ministers and the chief ministers of several regions, as well as other politicians and activists.

The military, citing its constitutional authority to declare a national emergency, seized control of major institutions, suspended most television broadcasts and canceled domestic and international flights.

Telephone and internet access were suspended. The stock market and commercial banks were closed, and long lines formed outside A.T.M.s. In Yangon, the largest city and former capital, people ran to markets to stock up on food and other supplies.

A resistance evolves

Weeks of relatively peaceful protests turned deadly on Feb. 20, 2021, when two unarmed protesters were killed by security forces in the city of Mandalay, including a 16-year-old boy. Two days later, millions of people across the country took to the streets in a general strike.

As the demonstrations grew, the military — notorious for having crushed democracy movements in 1988 and 2007 by shooting peaceful protesters — turned to violence.

Police and soldiers gunned down demonstrators in the streets, often shooting them in the head. Work stoppages have continued ever since, but the protests tapered off under the brutal crackdown. Many protesters escaped to remote parts of the country where they took refuge with ethnic rebel groups, joined the newly formed People’s Defense Force and trained for battle.

Since the coup, more than 2,500 civilians have been killed by the junta and 16,500 have been arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group. Of these, more than 13,000 are still detained as of December 2022.

The shadow government

In April 2021, ethnic leaders and elected officials who evaded the military’s dragnet formed what they call the National Unity Government. Its leaders say they are fighting a revolutionary war to remove the military from power and form a truly democratic system.

Some of the shadow government’s leaders operate from rebel-held parts of the country, others from overseas. In May 2021, it established the People’s Defense Force, which now has about 60,000 soldiers. Its units have been battling the Tatmadaw, sometimes alongside armed ethnic groups that have fought against the government for self-rule for decades. Between them, the unity government says, its forces and the ethnic armies control about half the country’s territory.

In areas under military control, semiautonomous resistance groups have sprung up, too. Their total numbers are comparable to the People’s Defense Force’s. Some of these units have engaged in guerrilla attacks, including assassinations of local leaders who enforce military rule.

A war on civilians

Since the crackdown on protesters in towns and cities, the military has aggressively targeted areas of the country under rebel control, often indiscriminately.

Its tactics include raiding homes to arrest opponents and seizing family members if they can’t find their target. The junta has arrested more than 143 journalists as of December 2022 and shut down independent news outlets.

In rural areas, soldiers have burned homes and villages, raped women, shot at fleeing civilians and cut off food supplies. Fighter jets have bombed civilian encampments. On Oct. 23, military planes bombed an open-air concert in Kachin State, killing at least 80 people.

At least 1.4 million people have been displaced by the fighting since the coup, many of whom live in makeshift camps in the jungle. The military has prevented aid groups from providing food, medical care and other assistance.

Thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring countries, including Thailand and India. They are often unwelcome. Thailand has pushed back refugees who tried to cross the border. And Malaysia deported at least 150 in October before United Nations officials could evaluate whether they qualified for political asylum, prompting harsh criticism from human rights groups.

Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?

For decades, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been Myanmar’s most powerful symbol of democracy. She spent many years in detention for opposing the military. Now, finally, the junta appears to have silenced her. At 77, she could well spend the rest of her life in prison.

The daughter of the country’s independence hero, Gen. Aung San, she was already in the military’s cross hairs in 1990 when her National League for Democracy won an election for the first time. The military rejected the results, and she spent more than 15 years under house arrest. That made her an international icon, and she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

The junta released her in 2010, as it was moving toward a power-sharing arrangement, and she returned to politics. In 2015, her party won a second landslide election. The military’s Constitution barred her from the presidency, but she led the civilian government as the state counselor, a post she created.

Her international reputation was badly tarnished by her defense of the military’s bloody campaign against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group in Myanmar. In 2019, she represented the country in a trial at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, defending her nation against accusations of ethnic cleansing.

Since her arrest on the morning of the coup, she has been charged with 19 criminal counts, including corruption and violating the Official Secrets Act. Human rights groups say all of the charges were trumped up.

She is now in a prison in Naypyidaw, the capital. Her trials have been closed to the public and her lawyers prevented from speaking publicly. Convicted on 14 charges, she has been sentenced to 26 years so far. In her absence, the National Unity Government has been leading the democracy movement, though it formally considers her its state counselor.

Who is Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing?

The junta’s leader is Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, 66, the head of the army, who had been set to retire before the coup. He has long been Ms. Aung Suu Kyi’s adversary.

For five years, they were at the center of the uneasy arrangement in which she headed the civilian side of the government while he maintained absolute control over the military, the police and the border guards. The two rarely spoke to each other.

While a cadet at the military academy, General Min Aung Hlaing was known for bullying his juniors and for a tendency to criticize and blame others. His contemporaries gave him a nickname meaning cat feces, an especially vulgar epithet in Burmese.

As the army’s commander in chief, he also heads two secretive military-owned business conglomerates with interests in banking, tourism, jade, timber, real estate, coal and gas, among others.

He oversaw the campaign against the Rohingya in 2017, which killed thousands and forced more than 700,000 to flee the country. Witnesses and human rights groups described it as a brutal campaign of murder, rape and systematic arson.

The world’s reaction

The coup has been harshly condemned by the United States and some other foreign governments, which have imposed sanctions on junta leaders.

But there has been little action by the United Nations Security Council, where Myanmar has the backing of two veto-wielding members: Russia and China. Russia is a major supplier of arms to Myanmar.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, adopted what they called a “Five-Point Consensus” on resolving the conflict, which includes the immediate cessation of violence and constructive dialogue to find a peaceful solution. But the junta has largely ignored the plan, and the regional organization has taken no steps to enforce it.

Rights groups have called on world leaders to take tough action, like imposing a global arms embargo, banning aviation fuel sales and blocking revenue from Myanmar’s joint operations with foreign companies.

Hannah Beech, Rick Gladstone and Russell Goldman contributed reporting.