Policy

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

Myanmar continued to express its support for the Mine Ban Treaty in the reporting period, but did not take any steps to accede to it. Myanmar’s armed forces claim to use antipersonnel landmines on a limited basis. (See Use section below).

In November 2019, at the Mine Ban Treaty’s Fourth Review Conference in Oslo, Myanmar’s Union Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, Win Myat Aye, stated, “Myanmar recognizes the importance of the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention in putting an end to the suffering and human casualties caused by anti-personnel mines, in saving lives and in returning hope and human dignity. We also believe that universalization of the convention is vital in reducing humanitarian harms. Building lasting peace is the most fundamental and important task in the process of stopping future use of anti-personnel mines.”[2]

At the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 6 November 2019, Myanmar reiterated that relevant officials were reviewing the Mine Ban Treaty to gain a better understanding of it with a view to the country joining in the future. Myanmar added that disarmament matters are part of the current peace process negotiation and that capacity constraints also prevent Myanmar from joining the convention.[3]

In November 2018, Myanmar stated that the peace process is the “highest priority.” It also stated that it “would like to encourage relevant international organizations and the states parties to further strengthen cooperation with the countries which are not yet ready to accede to the Convention by providing more necessary technical assistance which we believe will facilitate them to join the Convention expeditiously.”[4]

Previously, in June 2018, a Myanmar Ministry of Defense official told the ICBL that key stakeholders, particularly the military, were reviewing the possibility of Myanmar’s accession to the Mine Ban Treaty.[5] However, in May 2018, Myanmar’s Minister for International Cooperation, U Kyaw Tin, told the treaty’s special envoy, Prince Mired Raad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, that Myanmar would consider joining the treaty after the successful implementation of a nationwide ceasefire agreement by all parties.[6]

Myanmar abstained from voting on annual UNGA Resolution 74/61 on 12 December 2019, which promotes universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty. Since 1997, Myanmar has abstained from voting on this annual resolution supporting the treaty.[7]

Myanmar has participated as an observer in several Meetings of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, most recently in November 2019 at the Fourth Review Conference in Oslo where it provided a statement on universalization.[8] Myanmar participated in intersessional meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in 2013–2014, 2016, and 2019.

At the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in December 2018, Myanmar’s delegation responded to allegations of landmine use by Myanmar government forces.[9]

In April 2019, Myanmar also attended a regional seminar on the landmine ban treaty organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Lao PDR Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane.[10]

In March 2020, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar called on the government and ethnic non-state armed groups operating in border areas to immediately halt landmine use, and for the government to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[11]

In December 2019, Mine-Free Myanmar[12] (an initiative launched by the ICBL in 2003 to promote the landmine ban in Myanmar, including by calling for a halt to use of antipersonnel mines) held a press conference in Yangon to launch Landmine Monitor 2019’s country report on Myanmar and distributed 1,200 Burmese-language translations of the report.[13] In December 2019 and September 2020, Landmine Monitor worked with the UN’s Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU) to produce and disseminate infographics outlining the impact of landmines in Myanmar and the impact of landmine casualties on the health system in Myanmar respectively.[14]

Production, stockpiling, and transfer

Myanmar Defense Products Industries, known as “Ka Pa Sa”, is a state enterprise located at Ngyaung Chay Dauk in western Pegu (Bago) division that produces fragmentation, bounding, and antipersonnel blast mines, including mines with low metal content.[15] In September 2016, government authorities in Myanmar confirmed that landmines were still being produced.[16]

Myanmar has also imported or otherwise received, obtained, and used antipersonnel mines manufactured in China, India, Italy, Russia (and the former Soviet Union), and the United States (US), as well as mines of unknown origin.[17]

There is no publicly available information on the types or quantities of antipersonnel mines in government possession. In November 2019, a non-state armed group in northern Shan state published photographs of Ka Pa Sa made MM-2 antipersonnel landmines. The numbers stenciled on the mines indicated that they had been manufactured in 2018.[18]

Myanmar is not known to have exported antipersonnel mines.[19]

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

Various non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in Myanmar have produced improvised antipersonnel mines, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), and the Democratic Karen Benevolence Army (DKBA). It is believed that most other NSAGs in Myanmar have the capacity to manufacture improvised mines.

NSAGs have manufactured improvised blast and fragmentation mines from locally available materials. Victim-activated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are considered improvised antipersonnel mines prohibited by the Mine Ban Treaty. Allegations of use of non-detectable mines are unable to be confirmed.[20] In 2020, the Monitor received credible evidence of manufacture of persistent antipersonnel landmines by NSAGs.[21]

Some NSAGs have also made Claymore-type directional fragmentation mines and antivehicle mines with antihandling devices.

NSAGs in Myanmar have also acquired mines by removing mines laid by Myanmar’s armed forces (known as the Tatmadaw), seizing Tatmadaw stocks, and, by obtaining them from the clandestine arms market.[22]

Use

Since the publication of its first annual report in 1999, the Landmine Monitor has every year documented use of antipersonnel mines by the Tatmadaw and by various NSAGs in Myanmar.

New use by government forces

At the Mine Ban Treaty’s Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in November 2018, a Myanmar government representative claimed that allegations it had used landmines along the border with Bangladesh were without merit, and that joint patrols with Bangladeshi border forces encountered no mines.[23]

However, in July 2019, an official at the Union Minister Office for Defence stated to the Monitor that “since the start of the civilian era, the Tatmadaw no longer use landmines”, but qualified their comment by stating that in some instances landmines are still used. Specifically, he said, “In border areas, if the number of Tatmadaw is small, they will lay mines around where they reside, but only if their numbers are small. Mines are also laid around infrastructure such as microwave towers. If these are near villages, we warn them. If there is a Tatmadaw camp in an area controlled by an ethnic armed group where they are sniped at and harassed, they will lay mines around the camp.”[24] Previously, in September 2016, Deputy Minister of Defence Major General Myint Nwe informed the Myanmar parliament that the army continues to use landmines in internal armed conflicts.[25]

Since mid-2018, fighting between Tatmadaw forces and the Arakan Army (AA), a NSAG operating in Rakhine state, has intensified.[26] The AA has regularly published photographs online of antipersonnel landmines produced by state-owned Ka Pa Sa, including MM2, MM5, and MM6 antipersonnel mines among other seized weaponry.[27] While these photographs do not specifically identify new landmine use, they do indicate that antipersonnel mines are part of the weaponry of frontline Tatmadaw units.

Claims of new mine use by government forces during the reporting period include:

• In June 2020, a villager in western Hpapun Township, Kayin state, was killed by a mine laid by the KNLA near a Tatmadaw post. The mine had been laid due to an increase in tensions between the KNLA and the Tatmadaw.[28] In May 2020, villagers in northern Hpapun Township of Kayin state alleged that Tatmadaw soldiers from Infantry Battalion 19 and Light Infantry Battalions 340, 341, and 434, operating under Hpapun Operations Command, emplaced mines at the eastern part of their military base along a major road.[29]
• On 7 January 2020, near Teik Tu Pauk village in Kyauk Yan village Tract, in Buthidaung Township of Rakhine state, several children and an adult were killed or injured by mines that villagers indicated had been laid by the Tatmadaw. Previously, the Tatmadaw had made a temporary camp and left chopped dried bushes from an area they had cleared. A teacher and his students went to the area to harvest the dried bushes for firewood for cooking. The villagers said that soldiers did not warn them that mines had been laid around the temporary camp. Once they began to collect the branches, the group stepped on mines, killing four and injuring three people.[30] In September 2020, another villager from Hpo Kaung Chaung village, Buthidaung township, Rakhine state, stepped on a mine while collecting firewood from the site of a temporary Tatmadaw camp which had been vacated earlier in 2020.[31]
• In November 2019, the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) published photographs of MM2 antipersonnel mines which they claimed had been laid by the Tatmadaw’s Brigade 99 near Wan Wah village of the Murng Mu region in Namtu Township, northern Shan state. The SSA-S alleged that after clashes between the Tatmadaw and other NSAGs, the Tatmadaw began to lay landmines on farmland outside the villages and near the woods where they thought rebel groups would be injured by them.[32]

It is often difficult to ascribe specific responsibility for mine incidents in Myanmar to a particular armed group, however in every month in early 2020 villagers reported landmine casualties in areas where armed conflict had recently occurred. Examples of such incidents include:

• On 19 January 2020, a villager was injured in an area where the Tatmadaw and the AA had clashed in Ponnagyun township, Rakhine state. The perpetrator could not be determined.[33]
• On 29 February, 11 March and 5 May 2020, landmine incidents caused injuries to villagers in areas near Ah Lae Sakhan village, Ye Phyu township, in the southern Tanintharyi region.

These were among the latest in a string of casualties which began in October 2018 in an area under dispute between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the New Mon State Party (NMSP), both signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). Both of these NSAGs have denied using landmines and accused the other of having done so. Local activists informed the Monitor that the incidents involved improvised mines but could not attribute responsibility for the use:[34]

• In March 2020, two villagers were killed by a landmine near Kham Sar village in Kyaukme township, northern Shan state. Armed conflict between the Tatmadaw, the SSA-S and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) had previously occurred in the area and it is therefore uncertain which actor may have been responsible.[35]
• On 5 April 2020, a villager in Motesoe Chaung village of Rathedaung township, Rakhine state, was killed by a mine in an area where clashes between the Tatmadaw and the AA were a frequent occurrence.[36]
• On 24 May 2020, one villager was injured by a mine, and a second was injured while coming to his aid in an area where Tatmadaw and AA fighting had occurred in Ponnagyun township, Rakhine state, but villagers did not know who laid the mine.[37] In July 2020, the abbot of a Buddhist monastery was killed when he triggered an antipersonnel landmine while cleaning the grounds. Villagers said Tatmadaw soldiers frequently stayed in the monastery grounds but that the TNLA also was based in the area. Villagers called on both groups to remove their mines from the area.[38]
• In August 2020, one child was killed and five were injured after finding a landmine and playing with it. Villagers said Tatmadaw soldiers had previously stayed in the house where the incident occurred.[39]

At the Fourth Review Conference in November 2019, attended by delegations from both Myanmar and Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi delegation urged:

“Myanmar to impose moratorium on the use, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines. We also urge Myanmar to continue its work on victim assistance involving all affected communities in fully transparency, and to meaningfully engage with non-state armed groups allegedly using and stockpiling anti-personnel mines within its territory. These measures would be critical for creating an environment conducive to the safe and dignified return of the forcibly displaced Rohingya to their homes in Rakhine State. On its part, Bangladesh remains available to work together with Myanmar to share our experience of stockpile destruction and expertise in mine action as a lead contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. We reiterate our deep concern over Myanmar’s continued use of anti-personnel mines…Our border management authorities recorded anti-personnel mine related accidents within Myanmar territory along our borders even as recently as in September and November 2019, leading to several civilian fatalities and injuries. The UN Fact-Finding Mission had been categorical about the reported use of anti-personnel mines by Myanmar armed forces in at least two States.”[40]

Myanmar’s representatives made no comment on Bangladesh’s offer of assistance or its suggestion of a moratorium on use, as the Myanmar observer delegation was no longer in the room.

Landmine casualties continued to be reported on the Myanmar side of the border with Bangladesh. On 16 March 2020, a Rohingya refugee living in a refugee camp on the border was killed while collecting firewood in the ‘no man’s land’ between Maungdaw township adjacent to Bandarban district.[41]

In June 2018, the Human Rights Council’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM) reported, following their investigations into mine use allegations in September 2017, that:

‘‘…it had “reasonable grounds to conclude that landmines were planted by the Tatmadaw, both in the border regions as well as in northern Rakhine state, as part of the ‘clearance operations’ with the intended or foreseeable effect of injuring or killing Rohingya civilians fleeing to Bangladesh. Further, it seems likely that new antipersonnel mines were placed in border areas as part of a deliberate and planned strategy of dissuading Rohingya refugees from attempting to return to Myanmar.”[42]

In June 2018, the 20^th Battalion of the KIA shared photographs with the Monitor that it said showed landmines its forces cleared from the villages of Gauri Bum, Man Htu Bum, and Uloi Bai in Danai township. The photographs showed around 80 antipersonnel mines, all M14 and MM2 types, with marking indicating Myanmar manufacture. The KIA alleged that Tatmadaw forces had laid these mines in April and May 2018, when government forces left villages after occupying them. The KIA stated that two of their soldiers were injured while clearing the mines.[43]

The Monitor subsequently showed the photographs to an official at the Myanmar Ministry of Defence in June 2018 and requested comment. The official noted that one mine shown in a photograph was an antivehicle mine and said that government forces do not use antivehicle mines against insurgents as the NSAGs do not use vehicles. He said that the antipersonnel mines could be copies of Myanmar-made mines that a NSAG planted, as he said the Tatmadaw does not leave landmines behind after an operation.[44]

Previously, in September 2017, Landmine Monitor, and several other organizations independently, published evidence that showed Myanmar government forces were using antipersonnel landmines along the country’s border with Bangladesh. The mine use began in late August 2017, when Myanmar forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands of Myanmar’s Rohingya citizens across the border into Bangladesh. The Monitor reported that newly mined areas at that time were located between Maungdaw township in Myanmar and Bandarban district in Bangladesh, at two major land crossing routes between the countries.[45]

Past use of antipersonnel mines along this border has been documented in previous Landmine Monitor reports.[46]

Atrocity/forced labor mine clearance

Landmine Monitor has found evidence that military forces in Myanmar have continued the practice of using civilians as ‘guides’ to walk in front of Tatmadaw units in mine-affected areas, effectively making them human mine sweepers. This is a grave violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.[47] Forced labor that compels people to take part in work directly related to a military operation is a violation of customary international humanitarian law, including in non-international armed conflicts.

In January 2020, a man from Kyaukphyu village, in Shan state’s Lashio township, was reportedly forced by the Tatmadaw to work as a guide and porter, and stepped on a landmine while carrying supplies for the military, losing his right leg.[48]

In October 2019, a farmer from Apauk Wa village in Kyauktaw township, Rakhine state, was killed during an incident involving a mine after he was forced by the Tatmadaw to serve as a guide. His wife claims that when a landmine exploded the soldiers shot him in the subsequent chaos, however the military claimed he died in the blast.[49]

The Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) reported that Aung Lun, aged 45, from Paletwa township in southern Chin state was killed by a landmine while being forced to serve as a guide for Tatmadaw patrol from LIB 544 at the front line with the AA near the Bangladesh border on 25 February 2019.[50] Two other villagers who were also being forced to guide the Tatmadaw patrol were uninjured, however two soldiers in the patrol were also injured in the blast. The CHRO reported that the Tatmadaw offered US$1,000 in compensation to the family of the victim, but said that the practice of the Tatmadaw using villagers as guides was increasing in the context of the Paletwa conflict.[51]

In July 2019, an official at the Union Minister Office for Defence stated to the Landmine Monitor that claims of forced labour by the Tatmadaw in mined areas are fabricated. He noted that the Tatmadaw has firm policies against forced labour in place. He stated that insurgents will hide their weapons and attempt to blend in with the local population, and if caught will say they are being taken for forced labour. He dismissed allegations that military units take local people as guides, stating that each military unit has GPS and knows the terrain better than locals.[52]

In March 2020, the ICBL provided a submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Myanmar at the 37^thsession of the UPR Working Group of the Human Rights Council. The submission contained reports, recorded by the Landmine Monitor, of the Myanmar military forcing civilians to guide military units and carry equipment for the military in areas where the danger of antipersonnel mines exists—on some occasions using civilians as human minesweepers.[53]

Use by non-state armed groups

Many NSAGs have used antipersonnel mines in Myanmar since 1999. In late 2019 and early 2020, there were allegations of new use by the AA, the KNLA and likely other groups.[54]

Frequently it is difficult to ascribe specific responsibility for an incident to a particular combatant group. For example, in August 2019, in northern Shan state, the Tatmadaw engaged in sustained armed conflict with three members of the Northern Alliance—the TNLA, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the AA—near Maw Harn village in Kutkai township. Subsequently a resident of Maw Harn village was injured by a landmine. The villagers said there had been no landmines in the area prior to the conflict, but do not know which group was responsible.[55]

Most allegations of new use were reported in Kayin, Rakhine, and Shan states:

• In late 2019, KNLA fighters emplaced mines in Hpapun Township of Kayin State to halt work on the controversial Hatgyi Dam on the Salween River, resulting in injury of a local villager in February 2020.[56]
• In March–April 2020, the KNLA’s 3^rd Company used mines in Hpapun Township of Kayin state during armed conflict with the Tatmadaw which led to the injury of a villager in May 2020.[57]
• In July 2019, in Hpapun township of Kayin state, the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) laid mines in Bu Ah Der village tract, reportedly to defend against attack by the Tatmadaw.[58]
• In May 2019, in Hlaingbwe township of Kayin state, a DKBA officer from Meh Pru village tract ordered his soldiers to plant more landmines in seven nearby mountainous villages to protect their area.[59]

In 2011, Myanmar’s government announced its intent to conclude peace agreements with NSAGs operating in the country. On 15 October 2015, eight ethnic armed groups signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government, committing to “end planting of mines” and “cooperate on the process of clearing all landmines.” All the groups—two factions of the KNU, the Restoration Council for Shan State (RCSS), the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), the Chin National Front (CNF), and the DKBA—had previously used landmines.[60] In February 2018, the NMSP and the Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) joined the nationwide ceasefire accord, bringing the number of ethnic armed groups in the agreement to 10.[61] In April 2019, Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement U Soe Aung claimed that the prevalence of mines was a consequence of NSAGs that had failed to join the NCA.[62]

In the past, some NSAGs and former NSAGs in Myanmar unilaterally renounced antipersonnel mine use by signing the Deed of Commitment administered by the Swiss non-government organization (NGO) Geneva Call.[63] 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.[64] In June 2017, the TNLA denied allegations of new mine use and affirmed that the TNLA has not used landmines since signing the Deed of Commitment.[65]

Responses to new landmine use

Previously, various Myanmar government officials have either admitted or denied that government forces are using antipersonnel landmines. In July 2019, an official at the Union Minister Office for Defence stated to the Monitor that “since the start of the civilian era, the Tatmadaw no longer use landmines” but qualified the comment by stating that in some instances, landmines may still be used. Specifically, he said:

“In border areas, if the number of Tatmadaw is small, they will lay mines around where they reside, but only if their numbers are small. Mines are also laid around infrastructure such as microwave towers. If these are near villages, we warn them. If there is a Tatmadaw camp in an area controlled by an ethnic armed group where they are sniped at and harassed, they will lay mines around the camp.”[66]

Myanmar in 2018 had stated that “the Myanmar Armed Forces is no longer using the landmines while safeguarding the life and property of its people in internal conflicts.”[67] However, in June 2018, an official at the Union Minister Office for Defence told the Monitor that the Tatmadaw is still using antipersonnel landmines, but said the use is strictly for “self-defense” purposes and always “well-mapped.”[68]

Myanmar’s NSAGs tend to blame government forces, or each other, for using antipersonnel mines.[69] However, the KIA defended its production and use of improvised landmines when Information Chief Colonel Naw Bu said in a January 2018 media interview that the KIA use antipersonnel mines “on paths approaching our frontline camps and around our headquarters.” He justified the use, stating, “We only plant mines in the conflict area and do not plant mines in places where civilians move.”[70]

The use of landmines in Myanmar has been widely condemned.

In March 2020, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar called on the government of Myanmar and ethnic armed groups to immediately halt mine use, and for the government to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[71]

In June 2020, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict stated, “I am alarmed by the sharp increase in the number of incidents of killing and maiming, including by anti-personnel mines”, and called attention to anti-personnel mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) as the second highest cause of child casualties in Myanmar. The Special Representative urged Myanmar to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[72]

In August 2019, the Human Rights Council reported on how the presence of landmines has impeded the safe return of displaced persons in Kachin and Shan states.[73]

On 1 March 2019, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned the use of antipersonnel landmines in Myanmar by both the government forces and by NSAGs.[74]

Bangladesh, a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty, has regularly condemned the use of antipersonnel landmines by Myanmar (see Ban Policy section). Previously, at the UN on 21 September 2017, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, 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.” [75] There is no evidence to indicate that Bangladesh has laid antipersonnel mines on its side of the border. On 2 October 2017, during a high-level meeting between Bangladesh and Myanmar authorities, Bangladesh’s Home Minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, reportedly asked Myanmar’s military to stop laying landmines along the border with Bangladesh. She told media that, “I raised the issue of planting land mines along the zero line. I clearly told the honorable minister that, according to international law, Myanmar cannot plant land mines along the border. This is illegal.”[76]