‘I am crying inside a lot’: Myanmar’s man at the UN defies the junta

On August 3, Myanmar’s UN consultant acquired an alarming tip-off from one in every of his New York-based countrymen, who has been appearing as a volunteer bodyguard: there was a plot towards his life.

“I acquired info that somebody was being paid to injure or kill me,” Kyaw Moe Tun, who denounced his nation’s junta after it carried out a coup in February, informed the Monetary Instances in a video interview.

The 52-year-old diplomat alerted the US mission to the UN and the FBI. Inside three days, US authorities had arrested Phyo Hein Htut and Ye Hein Zaw, two Myanmar residents and charged them with conspiracy to assault a international official. 

The FBI declare the lads have been working with two unnamed co-conspirators, one in Thailand and one within the US, to rent and pay hitmen to assault Kyaw Moe Tun to drive him to resign. The assassins have been to “end him off” if he resisted. 

In keeping with Phyo Hein Htut’s indictment, the Thailand-based co-conspirator, an arms vendor, additionally agreed on a plan “to tamper with the tyres on the ambassador’s automotive to trigger a crash whereas the ambassador was inside”.

However Kyaw Moe Tun is already again at work at Myanmar’s everlasting mission to the UN on Manhattan’s East Aspect, below fixed armed guard. 

“I smile quite a bit, however I’m crying inside quite a bit,” he mentioned, carrying a darkish go well with and seated in his workplace between the Myanmar and UN flags, when requested to explain his way of thinking. 

It was a really troublesome and big private resolution that I made

The failed hit job drew comparisons to North Korean plots to kill political exiles. It might need been a passing curiosity have been it not for the truth that Myanmar’s UN envoy, and his nation’s place on the planet, will quickly be again within the information. 

When the UN Common Meeting opens a brand new session subsequent month, it’ll start deliberating whether or not Kyaw Moe Tun can proceed appearing as Myanmar’s consultant or get replaced by a nominee of Min Aung Hlaing’s junta, which might drive him to vacate his Manhattan workplace and Westchester nation dwelling. 

Greater than the trimmings of the diplomatic posting, at stake is the query of who represents Myanmar at a time when its financial system is collapsing, Covid-19 deaths are forcing crematoria to work extra time and the anti-coup resistance motion is pleading with the world to face united towards the army regime. 

A parallel Nationwide Unity Authorities, which was shaped after the coup by allies of toppled chief Aung San Suu Kyi and to which Kyaw Moe Tun has pledged loyalty, can also be searching for worldwide recognition.

“There may be contested energy for the time being, with the army junta on the one hand and the NUG on the opposite,” mentioned Damian Lilly, director of safety with the Myanmar Accountability Challenge, a civil society group. It has known as on the UN to proceed accrediting Kyaw Moe Tun.

“Who turns into their consultant to the UN will ship an essential sign to the folks of Myanmar of who ought to be thought-about the respectable regime.” 

Kyaw Moe Tun was little identified outdoors diplomatic circles earlier than his speech to the Common Meeting on February 26. A profession diplomat, he rose via the service in the course of the years of dictatorship within the nation.

As Myanmar’s consultant to UN organisations in Geneva till final yr, he figured marginally in information studies on the Rohingya disaster, appearing as a mouthpiece for Aung San Suu Kyi’s authorities’s extensively condemned equivocations concerning the crackdown.

His primetime second within the worldwide enviornment got here three weeks after the coup, when he requested to take the ground throughout a Common Meeting session on Myanmar at which UN particular envoy Christine Schraner Burgener was talking. When he confirmed her his speech earlier than the session, he mentioned, she had “tears in her eyes”.

Along with his voice quavering, Kyaw Moe Tun known as for the “strongest potential motion from the worldwide neighborhood to finish the army coup”. Then he raised three fingers, the anti-junta motion’s salute, to applause. 

“It was a really troublesome and big private resolution that I made,” he mentioned. 

Inside a day, the regime had sacked him, invalidated his passport and charged him with excessive treason.

The junta managed international ministry has denied any function within the alleged plot towards Kyaw Moe Tun’s life, saying Myanmar had “nothing to do with this incident”. It did, nonetheless, name once more for him to be extradited to face prices at dwelling.

Kyaw Moe Tun is one in every of about 30 Myanmar diplomats all over the world who’ve damaged with Min Aung Hlaing’s regime and proceed to discharge their duties, together with in Washington, Los Angeles, Berlin, Tokyo and Tel Aviv. 

The choice of who represents Myanmar on the Common Meeting lies with the physique’s credentials committee, which has the ability to advocate the acceptance or rejection of a diplomat’s accreditation.

Forward of September’s session, the anti-coup camp has cited precedents when the UN committee rejected an envoy from an illegitimate authorities, together with apartheid-era South Africa in 1970, or recognised one put ahead by a authorities overthrown in a coup, as with Sierra Leone in 1997. The junta has appointed its personal envoy, Aung Thurein, a former army officer. 

The US, which has condemned Myanmar’s coup, and China and Russia, which haven’t, maintain automated seats on the credentials committee, with different member states placing ahead one other six.

Lilly mentioned that as a substitute of accepting one of many competing representatives’ credentials, the committee would possibly defer a choice — which might permit Kyaw Moe Tun to stay in his job — or settle for neither, and go away Myanmar’s seat empty. 

Kyaw Moe Tun mentioned he has had “very encouraging” personal conversations with diplomats from western nations, Latin America and Africa. Nonetheless, he added: “We at all times hope for the perfect, however on the similar time we additionally want to organize for the worst.” 

Observe John Reed on Twitter: @JohnReedwrites