Kyaw Moe Tun, whom United Nations meeting coverage identified as Myanmar’s representative, urged governments to cut military supplies and route aid across borders as a U.N. official cited more than 100,000 conflict deaths.
His prepared statement proposed keeping jet fuel, arms and money from reaching the military, while routing humanitarian aid across borders directly to local civil society organizations. Tun blamed military rule and impunity for suffering in Myanmar and accused the military of attacks on civilians and forced conscription. Those were his allegations.
At the General Assembly Third Committee meeting in New York on Tuesday, Oct. 27, Tun displayed a scarf bearing the names and ages of people killed in the conflict, U.N. meeting coverage said. The listed ages ranged from 2 months to 105 years. “I do not want to read any more names added to this scarf,” Tun said, according to the coverage. His prepared statement said the scarf was a product of Theatre 21, an event hosted by what he called the “revolutionary community.”
U.N. Special Rapporteur Kelley Anne Eckels-Currie told the committee that conflict deaths since the 2021 coup had passed 100,000 and that civilians made up most of those killed, according to the meeting coverage.
Tun’s statement asked the U.N. Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. He also urged the General Assembly to act if the Council remained paralyzed and asked the secretary-general to consider invoking Article 99 of the U.N. Charter. These were proposals in his statement, not decisions taken at the meeting.
Tun’s status as Myanmar’s representative is disputed. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Sept. 13 that it had revoked his status, while a U.N. Credentials Committee report said consideration of competing submissions on Myanmar’s representation had been deferred.
