Myanmar’s military rulers are again seeking to replace the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, who opposed their February 1 ouster of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and takeover of the government.
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin says in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has appointed Aung Thurein, who left the military this year after 26 years, as Myanmar’s UN ambassador. A copy of the letter was obtained on Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Lwin said in an accompanying letter that Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s currently recognised UN ambassador, “has been terminated on February 27, 2021, due to abuses of his assigned duty and mandate”. In a dramatic speech to a General Assembly meeting on Myanmar on February 26 — weeks after the military takeover — Tun appealed for “the strongest possible action from the international community” to restore democracy to the country. He also urged all countries to strongly condemn the coup, refuse to recognise the military regime, and ask the military leaders to respect the November 2020 elections won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.
“We will continue to fight for a government which is of the people, by the people, for the people,” Tun said in a speech that drew loud applause from diplomats in the assembly chamber who called it “powerful”, “brave” and “courageous”.
The military’s previous attempt to oust Tun failed and there has been no reported action on the foreign minister’s letter, which is dated May 12.
The 193-member General Assembly is in charge of accrediting diplomats. A request for accreditation must first go to its nine-member credentials committee, which this year comprises Cameroon, China, Iceland, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania, United States and Uruguay.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that as far as he understands, no meeting of the credentials committee has been scheduled.
In June, the UN said the secretary-general Antonio indicated that the results of the November election that gave a strong second mandate to Suu Kyi’s party must be upheld.
The London-based Myanmar Accountability Project condemned the military’s attempts to replace Tun as well as Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Kyaw Zwar Minn, who also remains loyal to Suu Kyi. The Guardian newspaper reported in April that Minn remains in limbo after being locked out of the London embassy by his deputy and the country’s military attache.
The Guardian quoted Minn as saying his friends and relatives in Myanmar had been forced into hiding and he did not feel safe in the ambassador’s residence, which he still occupied at the time.
The Myanmar Accountability Project’s director, Chris Gunness, said the military is seeking to replace Minn with former fighter pilot Htun Aung Kyaw.
Both Thurein and Kyaw have strong military backgrounds that “make ugly reading”, Gunness said, adding that Thurein’s remaining in the military until 2021 strongly suggests he served during the February 1 military takeover and the crackdown afterwards.
He called it “an affront to the world body” that the military is seeking to send to the UN “a man with such strong connections to an institution with blood on its hands and which stood accused of genocide in The Hague even before the coup”.