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Yesterday, we reported on a meeting between the outgoing Australian ambassador to Myanmar, Andrea Faulkner, and the leader of that country’s coup and alleged war criminal, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
Australia was criticised for taking the meeting, with advocates for the democratically elected government arguing the junta would use the meeting as a PR boost, to help legitimise its control of the country.
“Australia’s continued engagement with the military junta, a terrorist organisation, is an act of betrayal to its own democracy and a failure to comply with its international human rights and humanitarian law obligations,” Yadanar Maung from Justice for Myanmar said.
Min Aung Hlaing led the Myanmar military’s pogrom against the ethnic minority Rohingya in 2017, which killed more than 25,000 people and forced more than 700,000 to flee the country, and he engineered a military coup in February 2021, later declaring himself prime minister.
Min Aung Hlaing has been recommended by the UN for investigation and prosecution for war crimes and genocide, and personally sanctioned by the US, EU, UK and Canada, but not by Australia.
Australian officials defended taking the meeting, arguing its “limited” engagement with the junta “give us an opportunity to speak directly to the regime”, including to call for an end to violence and grant humanitarian access.
“We don’t consider that the engagement we’ve had to date legitimises the current regime,” senate estimates heard.
Further reportage has emerged from the Myanmar capital.
The ambassador, who leaves Myanmar later this month, has had a subsequent meeting on Thursday, with Myanmar’s minister for home affairs, Lt Gen Soe Htut, again reported in the junta-controlled press, which said the meeting discussed “further cooperation between the two countries”.
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