U.N. General Assembly Demands Myanmar Junta End Coup and Stop the Killings - The New York Times

A resolution adopted Friday by the General Assembly is the most widespread condemnation yet of the Feb.

Any transition out of this crisis will present an opportunity to reshape Myanmar society free from ethnic divisions and a more inclusive constitutional and legal framework that places the military under civilian control.

The United Nations General Assembly sought to ostracize Myanmar’s ruling generals on Friday with an emphatic rebuke, demanding they end the five-month-old military takeover, stop killing opponents and free imprisoned civilian leaders.

“We cannot live in a world where military coups become a norm,” Secretary General António Guterres, who was elected to a second five-year term on Friday, told reporters before the General Assembly’s passage of the resolution.

Historians said it was only the fourth time since the end of the Cold War that the General Assembly had passed a resolution condemning a military coup, and was a rare occasion in which the body also called for an arms embargo.

While General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, the resolution on Myanmar nonetheless was a sharp diplomatic slap of the generals who have acted with impunity.

The resolution called on the junta to “end the state of emergency, to respect all human rights of the people of Myanmar and to allow the sustained democratic transition of Myanmar.”.

And in emphasizing the need to halt the crackdown on coup opponents, which has left hundreds of people dead, the resolution called on “all member states to prevent the flow of arms to Myanmar” — essentially an arms embargo.

The General Assembly resolution was the outcome of extensive negotiations that included diplomats from the European Union and other Western nations, as well as from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, a group that includes Myanmar.