(Amnesty International) – Daw Aye Am, 35, closed the door to her house in Pain Hwe village, northern Shan State. The guns firing that morning of June 26 had gone silent, and she needed to go to the local clinic to receive treatment for a worsening illness. Then another boom sounded. Nearly two years after an historic election ushered in a quasi-civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s borderlands are on fire, from Rakhine State in the west to Kachin and Shan States in the north. For many, that election signalled a major step in Myanmar’s transition from a pariah state, following decades of military rule. But the military still controls key levers of power, and has shown scant interest in ending its legacy of systematic human rights violations. That same military is implicated today in large-scale abuses in Rakhine State and in northern Myanmar, which makes it an odd time for European Union governments and the United States to consider increasing their military engagement.
The US and EU risk sending the wrong message on Myanmar
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