Myanmar crisis: US ordered non-essential diplomats to leave the country

The United States on Tuesday ordered the departure of its non-essential diplomats from Myanmar, due to the repression after the coup d’état which toppled the government of Aung San Suu Kyi, as reported by the US State Department in a statement.

“The Department updated the status and ordered the exit,” said US diplomacy, which after the Feb.1 coup allowed the voluntary departure of non-essential personnel on Feb.14.

A spokesperson for the Ministry justified this decision by stating that “The safety of government personnel and their dependents and that of US citizens is of the highest priority.”

“The US Embassy in Burma will remain open to the public and will continue to offer limited consular services,” the official said.

Since the coup, the army that took power has launched a crackdown on protests which, according to a political prisoner aid organization, have left around 521 civilians dead.

This Tuesday the head of the diplomacy of the United States, Antony blink, denounced the situation in Myanmar during the presentation of the annual report of his department on human rights in the world.

President Joe Biden said last Sunday that the bloodshed in Myanmar was “absolutely intolerable”. after security forces killed more than 100 protesters, including at least seven children, during the crackdown on Saturday, the bloodiest day since the military coup.

“It is absolutely intolerable and, according to the reports I have received, a terrible number of people have been killed in a completely unnecessary manner,” said the US president.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday condemned the latest killing of civilians by security forces in Myanmar and rejected the “reign of terror” of the military who took the reins of this Asian country.

“We are horrified by the massacre perpetrated by the Burmese security forces, which shows that the junta is ready to sacrifice the lives of the people to serve some,” wrote the head of American diplomacy on his Twitter account. He added: “I extend my deepest condolences to the families of the victims. The courageous people of Myanmar reject the army’s reign of terror. “

The United States sanctioned Myanmar Army Commander General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the military uprising that led to the deposition of Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, along with nine other officers and several companies linked to that country’s armed forces.

During the day of Saturday, 114 deaths were reported due to the crackdown on protests against the coup. The crackdown came as the military celebrated Armed Forces Day with a parade through the capital, which protest groups called for to turn into a “day against the military dictatorship”.

The country’s situation will be debated at the UN Security Council on Wednesdaydiplomats said Monday.

A total of 521 people, including many students and teenagers, have been shot dead by police and military over the past two months, according to the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP), which admits that the remainder is “probably much higher”.

This Tuesday, demonstrators in the economic capital, Rangoon, they have littered the streets with garbage in a new act of resistance.

Eight people died in Shan state on Tuesday, with deaths also reported in Kashin, Mandalay and Bago states, according to the AAPP.

Before the bloodshed, Several rebel factions threatened Tuesday to take up arms against the junta. If the security forces “continue to kill civilians, we will collaborate with the demonstrators and retaliate,” said a joint statement signed, among others, by the Arakan Army (AA), an armed group with several thousand men and soldiers. important means.

Since Myanmar’s independence in 1948, various ethnic groups have come into conflict with the central government over autonomy, access to the country’s many natural resources, or part of the lucrative drug trade.

In recent years, the military had agreed to a ceasefire with some of them and even removed AA from its list of terrorist organizations in mid-March.

With information from AFP

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