Department of Defense
1400 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1400
United States
To: H.E. Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense, United States
Re: Participation in the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus Experts’ Working Group on Counter Terrorism
14 July 2022
Your Excellency,
We, the undersigned 448 organizations from throughout Myanmar and the world, appeal to you, as the representative of the United States Government and minister responsible for the country’s defense engagement with ASEAN, to boycott the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus Experts’ Working Group (ADMM-Plus EWG) on Counter Terrorism co-chaired by the Myanmar and Russian militaries. We welcome the decisions of Australia and New Zealand to not participate in the upcoming meeting scheduled for 20 – 21 July in Moscow, Russia. We welcome your government’s robust commitment to imposing targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military, and on the military’s businesses and businesses linked to the junta. We call on you and the United States to continue to take leadership in responding to the crisis in Myanmar and Ukraine by boycotting the ADMM-Plus EWG on Counter Terrorism.
The Myanmar military has long committed international crimes under the pretext of “counter terrorism”. The most egregious case was the Myanmar military’s 2017 genocide against the Rohingya, which, according to the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, involved the launch of “clearance operations” that were supposedly aimed at the “elimination” of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. In reality, it involved the murder, massacre, torture, rape and gang rape of Rohingya, forcing over 700,000 to flee to Bangladesh under the guise of counter terrorism.
Read the full letter in pdf (English).
Read the full letter in pdf (Burmese).