Policy

The Republic of the Union of Myanmar has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.[1]

Myanmar has periodically expressed support for the Mine Ban Treaty, but has not taken steps to accede to it.

New use of antipersonnel landmines by Myanmar government forces in August–September 2017 along the border with Bangladesh, causing mine casualties among fleeing Rohingya civilians, has been widely condemned. The use of this prohibited weapon raises the question of Myanmar’s sincerity in expressing its intent to join the Mine Ban Treaty. (See Use section below.)

When Landmine Monitor visited Myanmar’s new capital Naypyitaw in June 2017, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence officials informed its representative that the government is actively considering accession to the Mine Ban Treaty and said that both ministries have undertaken detailed actions towards accession. The officials could not provide an estimated timeline for when Myanmar would accede to the Mine Ban Treaty.[2]

Myanmar did not make any public statements regarding the Mine Ban Treaty in 2016 or the first half of 2017.

Previously, in July 2012, Minister of Foreign Affairs U Wunna Maung Lwin stated that Myanmar was considering accession to the Mine Ban Treaty.[3]

In June 2016, a senior leader of the National League for Democracy, the party in the civil government, told the Monitor that the party’s policy supports a ban on landmines and that that promise will be kept.[4] At meetings of the Union Peace Conference (UPC) in July 2017, several speakers called for an end to the use of landmines and for landmine clearance.[5]

A March 2017 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar proposed that Myanmar join the Mine Ban Treaty by October 2017.[6]

Myanmar abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 71/34 on 5 December 2016, which called for universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty. Since 1997, Myanmar has abstained on every annual UNGA resolution supporting the Mine Ban Treaty.[7]

Myanmar has participated as an observer in several Mine Ban Treaty Meetings of States Parties, most recently in 2013.[8] It has never attended a Mine Ban Treaty Review Conference.[9]

Myanmar has also attended the Mine Ban Treaty’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2013, 2014, and most recently in May 2016, where its representative spoke at an ICBL side event on landmines in Myanmar.

Activities commemorating the International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on 4 April 2017 were held in Naypyitaw, Yangon, and Hpaan in Kayin state.[10] That month the Myanmar Police Force and Border Guard Bangladesh concluded an agreement to remove landmines, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from along the border of the two countries.[11]

Since 2003, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) has undertaken a national initiative focused on ending landmine use in Myanmar and encouraging the country to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty.[12] In December 2016, Mine-Free Myanmar held a press conference in Yangon to launch the Landmine Monitor 2016 country report on Myanmar and distributed 1,200 Burmese-language translations of the report through UN agencies and NGOs.[13] In June 2017, Landmine Monitor and the UN produced an infographic on the impact of landmine use in Myanmar.[14]

Production, stockpiling, and transfer

Myanmar Defense Products Industries (Ka Pa Sa), a state enterprise at Ngyaung Chay Dauk in western Pegu (Bago) division, has produced fragmentation and blast antipersonnel mines, including ones with low metal content.[15] In September 2016, government authorities in Myanmar confirmed that landmines are still produced in the country, but provided no information on the types or quantities of mines produced.[16]

As the Monitor has previously reported, in addition to domestic production, Myanmar has obtained and used antipersonnel mines manufactured in China, India, Italy, Russia and the former Soviet Union, and the United States (US), as well as some mines whose origin has not been identified.[17]

There is no publicly available information on the types or quantities of antipersonnel mines in government possession, however Myanmar is believed to stockpile a significant number of landmines.

Myanmar is not known to have exported or antipersonnel mines.[18]

Production, transfer, and stockpiling by non-state armed groups

Various non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in Myanmar have produced antipersonnel mines, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Democratic Karen Benevolence Army (DKBA), Karenni Army, and United Wa State Army.

NSAGs have manufactured blast and fragmentation mines from locally available materials. These are sometimes referred to as IEDs. Victim-activated IEDs are considered to be improvised antipersonnel mines and prohibited by the Mine Ban Treaty. In 2006, a foreign technician reportedly trained KNLA units to manufacture and deploy bounding antipersonnel mines.[19] Some NSAGs have also made Claymore-type directional fragmentation mines and antivehicle mines with antihandling devices.

Armed groups in Myanmar have also acquired mines by removing mines laid by others, seizing government (Tatmadaw) stocks, and by obtaining them from the clandestine arms market.[20]

Government forces continue to report the seizure of antipersonnel landmines and other weapons from NSAGs in Myamnar. In December 2016, government forces seized various types of improvised landmines in Mongko township of Shan state, but it was unclear to which group they belonged.[21] In February 2016, government forces seized eight POMZ antipersonnel landmines from armed groups in the Kokang region.[22]

Use

Since the publication of its first annual report in 1999, Landmine Monitor has consistently documented the use of antipersonnel mines by government forces and NSAGs. This mine use has continued during this reporting period, which covers calendar year 2016 and the first three-quarters of 2017.

New use by government forces

Reports indicate that Myanmar government forces, known as Tatmadaw, used antipersonnel landmines in Myanmar during 2016 and 2017.

In September 2017, various organizations independently published evidence drawn from sources that include firsthand eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence that showed how in previous weeks Myanmar government forces had used antipersonnel landmines along the country’s border with Bangladesh. The mine use began in late August, when Myanmar government forces began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya population, causing the flight of more than 420,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh. It is unclear if this mine use has continued as parts of the border area remain inaccessible.[23]

According to Landmine Monitor, local researchers interviewing and assisting displaced Rohingya civilians as they crossed into Bangladesh on 28 August saw an army truck arrive on the Myanmar side of the border from which they witnessed Myanmar government soldiers unloading three crates.[24] They said the soldiers removed antipersonnel landmines from the crates and placed them in the ground, later returning at night to place more mines.

According to the researchers, the mines were emplaced within Taung Pyo Let Yar village tract of Maungdaw township, adjacent to border pillar No. 31 in Bangladesh, an area that demarcates the beginning of the land border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Researchers told Landmine Monitor that the landmine use continued over the following days, progressing northeast along the border within the townships of Mee Taik, Nga Yant Chaung, Hlaing Thi, Bauk Shu Hpweit, and In Tu Lar. This stretch lies between the two main land crossing routes between Myanmar (Maungdaw township) and Bangladesh (Bandarban district).

On 5 September, Reuters reported that two Bangladeshi sources witnessed three to four groups working near the border’s barbed wire fence “putting something into the ground,” which Reuters subsequently determined to be landmines.[25] Also on 5 September, two children from Myanmar who had fled to Bangladesh were injured after reportedly attempting to destroy landmines they discovered on the border.[26]

In September 2017, the Bangladeshi government protested this new use of landmines on the border by Myanmar government security forces.[27] Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused Myanmar of laying landmines along the border to prevent Rohingya from fleeing violence.[28] The Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, Shahidul Haque, stated in an interview that the Bangladeshi government had “reliable information” that Myanmar military forces had “laid land mines across a section of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.”[29]

Amnesty International reported on 9 September that it had spoken to several eyewitnesses who said they saw Myanmar military forces, including military personnel and the Border Guard Police, using antipersonnel mines near Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh.[30]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on 23 September that Myanmar military personnel had planted antipersonnel mines in northern Rakhine state prior to their attacks on predominantly Rohingya villages.[31] Rohingya refugees from Buthidaung and Rathedaung township in Rakhine state told HRW that they saw the Myanmar military laying antipersonnel mines on roads as the military entered and attacked villagers. Two other Rohingya refugees told HRW that men in apparent Myanmar military uniforms were seen in the northern part of Taung Pyo Let Yar performing some activity on the ground. One said that on 4 September he observed several soldiers from a patrol stop at least twice, kneel down on the ground, dig into the ground with a knife, and place a dark item into the earth.

Amnesty International and HRW reviewed photos of the mines used along the Bangladesh border that clearly show PMN-1 type antipersonnel mines lying in the ground. Neither organization could determine if these mines were originally manufactured in the Soviet Union or copies of that mine made by Myanmar (named MM-2) or by China (named Type 58).

There is evidence that Myanmar military forces used landmines along the Bangladesh border earlier in 2017. In July 2017, three farmers were killed and one injured by a mine allegedly laid by the Myanmar military at Pyanug Paik village in Maungdaw township.[32] In May, Amnesty International reported on Myanmar military forces use of antipersonnel landmines in areas of Kachin and northern Shan states.[33] In April 2017, the Border Guard Forces under the command of the Myanmar Army warned locals from using the road from Meh Th’Waw to Myaing Gyi Ngu because the edges of the road had been mined.[34] In April 2016, four Rohingya from Maungdaw township were injured and one killed by a landmine after they were hired by the Myanmar Army to work on the border fence near border pillar 61. The injured were treated Buthidang Hospital.[35]

Past use of antipersonnel mines along this border has been documented in previous Landmine Monitor reports.[36]

There were other reports of landmine use by Myanmar military forces in 2016–2017:

• In April 2017, mines laid outside a Myanmar Army camp in Mansi township of Kachin state killed a girl and wounded two other girls.[37]
• In February 2017, the Myanmar Army Light Infantry Brigade 11 reportedly laid mines near She Shang village in Muse township in Shan state, resulting in a civilian casualty, while landmines laid outside a Myanmar Army base in Monggu in Muse township also caused child casualties.[38]
• In January 2017, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) claimed to have recovered two landmines, among other weapons, from the Myanmar Army after fighting with Myanmar Army Light Infantry Brigade 567 and 203 troops between Pan-ku and Pan-lon villages of Kutkai township.[39]
• In September 2016, mines were laid in Hlaingbwe township during fighting between the military and an ethnic armed group, but it is unclear which side had laid mines.[40]
• In May 2016, local villagers in Namsan Yang in Kachin state allege that the Myanmar Army laid landmines in the area, resulting in one casualty.[41]
• In May 2016, Myanmar refugees from Laogai and Konkyan townships, displaced to China by armed conflict between the army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, reported that they had been blocked from returning to Myanmar by mines laid along the border by the Myanmar Army.[42]

Mine casualties during forced labor for the military used to be a commonly reported occurrence, but less so in recent years.[43]

Use by non-state armed groups

At least 17 NSAGs have used antipersonnel mines in Myanmar since 1999. Some of these groups are no longer in existence or no longer use mines. However, there were several reports that various NSAGs used antipersonnel landmines in Myanmar during the reporting period, mostly in the states of Kachin, Kayin, Rakhine, and Shan:

• In August 2017, Myanmar state media reported difficulties in delivering aid in North Rakhine state due to landmines laid on roads and bridges.[44]
• In June 2017, a local administrator in Tarlaw in Myitkyina township in Kachin state said the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) had laid landmines near the town that caused civilian casualties and the loss of livestock.[45]
• In January 2017, the Democratic Karen Benevolence Army (DKBA)-Kyaw Htet faction acknowledged that it had used mines in the Mae Tha Wor area of Hlaingbwe township in Kayin state, wounding two army soldiers.[46]
• In December 2016, the TNLA accused the RCSS of laying landmines prior to armed conflict between the groups in Thi-baw township, Shan state.[47] The same month, the Thai Army found a bag of improvised landmines on the border adjacent to an area controlled by the DKBA, and suspected that the mines belonged to that group.[48]
• In November 2016, government forces apprehended two KIA members that the government said confessed to laying landmines near Labunkadaung village in Hpakan township. When the army took the KIA soldiers to the mined area a mine exploded, killing both KIA soldiers.[49]
• In September and October 2016, a faction of the DKBA, reportedly laid mines during fighting in Hlaingbwe township.[50] In October 2016, the state-owned Myawady Daily reported that the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) used mines in Mawmae village in Monghsu township in Shan state, resulting in civilian casualties.
• In July 2016, civilian porters for the RCSS/SSA alleged that TNLA laid mines that killed and injured members of their group.[51] Several news reports noted that mines were discovered after armed conflict in 2016 between the TNLA, RCSS/SSA, SSPP/SSA, and government forces, but did not detail who was responsible for the mine use.[52]
• In April 2016, a villager in Mone town in Bago region alleged that the KNLA laid mines around a logging area.[53]
• In January 2016, a resident of Mone town said he had received verbal warnings and seen signs erected by the KNLA warning against entering an area near a KNLA gold mining area.[54] That same month, the Myanmar Army suffered a casualty to a mine allegedly laid by the KIA.[55]
• In February 2016, an internally displaced person in Ndup Yang camp attempted to return to Hpon Kyan village to farm, but died after stepping on a landmine. The KIA had reportedly given verbal warning and placed a warning sign not to enter the area.[56] That same month, residents of Namkham town in Shan state alleged that the SSA-South (or RCSS) had laid landmines in their village.[57]
• In January 2016, residents of Kutkai township in Shan state accused the KIA and the TNLA of planting landmines in the town.[58]
• A local activist living in a village tract on the border of Kachin state and Sagaing said that mine use by the KIA has caused civilian casualties and displaced more than 100 farmers.[59]

In the past, a few armed groups, and former armed groups, unilaterally renounced the use of antipersonnel mines by signing the Deed of Commitment administered by the Swiss NGO Geneva Call.[60] The Palaung State Liberation Front (PSLF) signed the Deed of Commitment in 2007 and its armed wing, the TNLA, has previously promised to refrain from mine use.[61] In a written response to Amnesty International in June 2017, the TNLA denied recent allegations of mine use by its combatants, stating that the TNLA has not used landmines since signing the Deed of Commitment.[62]

In 2011, the government of Myanmar announced its intent to conclude peace agreements with NSAGs. Since then, the need to end landmine use and ensure clearance has been mentioned in multiple meetings held by the government with almost every ethnic armed group in the country.[63]

On 15 October 2015, eight ethnic armed groups signed a National Ceasefire Agreement committing to “end planting of mines” and “cooperate on the process of clearing all landmines.”[64] All of these groups—two factions of the Karen National Union, the Restoration Council for Shan State, the Arakan Liberation Party, the Pao National Liberation Organization, the All Burma Students Democratic Front, the Chin National Front, and the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army—had previously used landmines.[65] Several major armed groups remain outside the agreement.

No armed group unilaterally renounced the use of antipersonnel mines during peace talks in 2016 and the first half of 2017.[66]

Responses to new use of landmines in Myanmar

The government of Myanmar has not substantively responded to the multiple reports that its military forces used antipersonnel landmines on the Bangladesh border in August–September 2017, but various officials have blamed NSAGs for this new use. Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs Minister Col. Phone Tint denied Myanmar government mine use, stating “There’s no landmine planted by the military in the area. The terrorists planted the landmines. The military will never do that.” Zaw Htay, a spokesman for de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, suggested that Rohingya militants were responsible for the new mine use.[67] Myanmar officials accused the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) of using improvised landmines against infrastructure and security forces. A local Tatamadaw officer told an international delegation of journalists visiting Rakhine state on 6 September that Myanmar military forces have not laid landmines along the Bangladesh border.[68]

Myanmar government forces have admitted to using antipersonnel landmines elsewhere in the country. In June 2017, a Ministry of Defense official told Landmine Monitor that the military does not use landmines near highly populated areas.[69] In September 2016, Myanmar’s Deputy Minister of Defense Major General Myint Nwe informed the Myanmar parliament that the army continues to use landmines in internal armed conflict.[70] He stated that Tatmadaw used landmines to protect state-owned factories, bridges, power towers, and its outposts in military operations.[71] At the same session, a Member of Parliament from Shan state stated that “it can’t be denied that non-state armed groups are also using landmines…particularly since 2012.”[72]

The new use of landmines in Myanmar in August–September 2017 has attracted widespread condemnation.

At the UN on 21 September, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, condemned the new mine use on the country’s border with Myanmar. She stated, “We are horrified to see that the Myanmar authorities are laying landmines along their stretch of the border to prevent the Rohingya from returning to Myanmar.”[73] Bangladesh is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty and there is no evidence to indicate that it has laid antipersonnel mines on its side of the border.

The ICBL has strongly condemned the new use of landmines in Myanmar in 2017, stating, “There can be no justification for using such indiscriminate weapons, which are harming and killing civilians fleeing their homes.”[74]

At the Human Rights Council on 11 September 2017, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein stated that he was “appalled by reports that the Myanmar authorities have now begun to lay landmines along the border with Bangladesh.”[75] In March 2017, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar called on all parties to “immediately cease using landmines.”[76]

On 22 September, the President of Mine Ban Treaty’s Sixteenth Meeting of States Parties, Ambassador Thomas Hajnoczi of Austria, expressed grave concern at the new use of landmines in Myanmar and said he had “asked the government of Myanmar to clarify the situation and consider an independent fact-finding mission with international participation into this matter.”[77]

Calls to end mine use and clear landmines have become more common in Myanmar in recent years. In January 2017, the Lower House Member of Parliament for Manton township issued a statement condemning the use of landmines in armed conflict between the army and NSAGs in Shan state.[78] In February 2016, residents of the town of Kutkai in northern Shan state reportedly sent a letter to the Tatmadaw and NSAGs the KIA and TNLA demanding the clearance of landmines used in the township in January 2016.[79] In September 2016, more than 1,000 residents of the town of Sinbo in Myitkyina township in Kachin state reportedly took to the streets to protest deaths from landmines in the area.[80]