Terrorists are not Revolutionists
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Tun Mon Thet (NP News) - July 30
Although capital punishment is a legal penalty in Myanmar, the country is classified as a "retentionist" state for most ordinary crimes. After more than four decades, Myanmar executed four terrorists who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Yangon Region in 2021.
Judicial extermination of death row made last two years heated a debate among anti-government populations in Myanmar; but a solace for the innocent victims’ families who were brutally killed in the terror incidents, especially in the early period of the ongoing crisis, in 2021.
Since 2021, the country has been in turmoil situations with many terror plots or attacks, especially in Yangon City. People are living under unforeseeable terror threats in their daily lives. The anti-government and pro-terror groups extensively committed inhumane deeds as they blamed the political clash that happened on February 1, 2021.
Ward administrators, former military personnel (veterans), schoolteachers, school principals, professors, and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party were primarily subjected to the terrorists’ extrajudicial killings. Other terrorist acts in Myanmar involve bombing, exploding, and destroying public properties and infrastructures.
Generally, the terror attempts are plotted by masterminds.
Phyo Zeyar Thaw was a parliamentarian-turned-terrorist. He was a parliamentarian in a previous government term led by the National League for Democracy. He transformed himself as a politician starting in the 2012 by-election when the NLD returned to a lawful political platform in Myanmar’s politics kneeing down before the 2008 Constitution which the NLD consistently boycotted before the establishment of the 2011 Hluttaw situation.
He was one of the masterminds of most terror plots that occurred in Yangon in the early anarchic revolution in 2021.
There were 293 criminals involved in the terroristic acts and plots designated by Phyo Zeyar Thaw. Authorities seized an estimated 200 small weapons, over 200 different hand-made weapons, six hand-made rockets, 18,810 different bullets, 43 bombs of 40 mm rockets, 175 different nuts and various mines, 48 grenades, over 1,100 hand-made bombs, and related weapons when they arrested Phyo Zeyar Thaw in Yangon’s Dagon Seikkan Township in late 2021.
Again, Phyo Zeyar Thaw sponsored the terrorists to commit terror attacks; and he was found conviction of acting as an accomplice in many crimes including - more than 80 times of exploding many state-owned buildings and government offices, estimated 60 times of exploding and destroying public sites, and exploding and blowing up the religious buildings twice, schools three-times, and many other places; so he was charged under Section 49, 50 (i), 50 (j) of the Penal Code and as per the legal provisions under Counter Terrorism Law.
The current Governor of the Central Bank of Myanmar Daw Than Than Swe was attacked and shot when she was serving as the Deputy-Governor of the CBM. The attempted assassination was part of Operation Pyan Hlwar which was the terroristic operation developed by Phyo Zeyar Thaw.
There are fifty-four countries that retain capital punishment as of 2024; 108 countries abolished it; and 26 states abolitionist-in-practices.
Myanmar has been sitting in ‘abolitionist-in-practice’ concerning the death sentence for nearly five decades since 1976 when Chin ethnic student Salai Tin Maung Oo was executed by hanging at Insein Prison on June 26, 1976. Since then, the country has never taken the state-sanctioned practice of killing for any crime; yet the nation resumed executions with death row only for ‘terrorism’ or ‘war crime’.
Kyaw Min Yu (aka) Jimmy was one of the 88 student activists who recklessly joined the terrorism network after the 2021 political transition and committed terroristic acts. Thus, he was charged under Sections 49 (a), 50 (i), and 50 (j) of Myanmar’s Penal Code; and was sentenced to capital punishment by hanging.
The Moon Light Operation terrorist group led by Jimmy plotted eight huge terroristic missions in Yangon following September 7, 2021 – the D-day set by the exile NUG. Their Mission 1, 2, and 3 were conducted in Twuntay Township, Insein Township, and Hlegu Township respectively in October 2021. The rest of Mission 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 were targeted to commit in Yankin, Mingaladon, Dala, Tharketa, South Dagon, and Hlaingtharyar townships, Jimmy confessed when he was arrested.
Two other terrorists who were sentenced to capital punishment by hanging together with Phyo Zeyar Thaw and Jimmy in 2022 were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw. They were involved in the sentence of death by hanging for committing the murder by gang violence against a female teacher named Win Thandar Swe on March 15, 2021, in Hlaingtharyar Township, Yangon.
The grouped lawbreakers interrogated and tortured the female victim (Win Thandar Swe) alleged as an 'Informer and traitor', and the victim was in captivity in the house by locking from outside for many days and she was allegedly being raped.
Those terrorists were judged before the martial court for committing the aforementioned inhumanity and crimes under Martial Law. They were sentenced to death by Section 302 (1) (b)/34 on April 12, 2021.
Other outlaws related to this case were arrested and detained. They were sentenced to imprisonment for committing severe-level offenses.
They are not the pro-democracy heroes; but nothing more than terrorists. Commemorating the death of the said four terrorists by the West embassies, bodies affiliated by the West and their related entities can be deemed to be pro-terrorism and humiliating the Myanmar citizens who suffered from and lost invaluable persons by the inhumane terroristic acts committed by Phyo Zeyar Thaw, Jimmy, Hla Myo Aung, and Aung Thura Zaw.
Needless to say, it isn’t unjust!
Some nations like the United States, Japan, and Singapore still apply ‘capital punishment’ against terrorism charges or drug offenses. No excuse if found conviction of terrorism.
With the United States’ increasingly broad terrorism laws, the federal government can bring charges even the attempted terrorism in which no one is ever harmed. The federal terrorism penalty ranges from sentences for any term of years, life in prison, to even the death penalty.
No one can be excused in Singapore if found convictions of drug offenses.
So, why cannot Myanmar practice the ‘capital punishment’ against terrorists who grabbed many lives of pure souls?