Protecting Humanity: Enforcing the ICRC Mandate in Myanmar – An Open Letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
Date: 11 August 2026
To the Leadership and Representatives of the ICRC,
We, the undersigned 155 Myanmar, regional and international civil society organizations, write to you today with a profound sense of urgency and deep frustration regarding the 3 August 2026 meeting between your resident representative, Arnaud de Baecque, and Myanmar’s State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
While any contact with the State Counsellor, who is being unlawfully imprisoned by the illegal military junta in Myanmar, is a matter of intense public interest, the sequence of events surrounding this visit illustrates our greatest fear: the ICRC’s mandate is being actively exploited by the military junta. The meeting demonstrated how humanitarian engagement in Myanmar is increasingly vulnerable to political instrumentalization by the military junta, thereby aiding them to advance their political aims, and in turn prolonging the suffering of the Myanmar people and undermining their expressed democratic will and aspirations.
The junta first publicized the meeting, releasing carefully curated photographs of handshakes and a birthday cake to project an illusion of normalcy and cooperation to the international community as it desperately seeks legitimacy for its violently imposed rule. Only after this propaganda was disseminated did the ICRC issue a brief, reactionary confirmation.
In your statement, you noted that the visit followed “established guidelines” and permitted a “private conversation,” and you added that, per your standard procedures, all observations regarding her condition are kept strictly confidential and shared only with detaining authorities. You disclosed nothing regarding her health, her whereabouts, or the reality of her captivity.
A short, sanitized announcement is NOT enough. When the ICRC allows the military junta to exploit its presence as a credible international humanitarian organization for propaganda to advance its political agenda while remaining silent about the realities of the situation, the ICRC is no longer practicing neutrality. The ICRC is instead complicit in the military junta’s theater and blatant violations of international humanitarian law.
We anticipate the ICRC’s defence. We know it will rest upon the Fundamental Principles of the ICRC Movement, particularly neutrality, independence and confidentiality. We recognize that confidential dialogue is intended to secure humanitarian access and protect those deprived of their liberty. However, humanitarian engagement also carries a responsibility to safeguard its integrity from political exploitation.
The political instrumentalization of this visit was entirely foreseeable. The military junta has, for more than five years, consistently exploited humanitarian and diplomatic engagement to extract legitimacy and project an image of normalcy. Given this well-established pattern, the ICRC had a responsibility to anticipate and actively prevent such exploitation. The public dissemination of carefully staged photographs and messaging by the junta was not an unforeseeable consequence—it was an entirely predictable outcome.
Against this backdrop, we must ask: was the ICRC protecting its humanitarian mandate, or merely accommodating the military junta’s need in turn to protect the ICRC? An honest examination of your own doctrine reveals that your current approach is failing the very principles you claim to uphold:
- Humanity is the Supreme Principle; Neutrality is a Tool: The first principle of your movement is to prevent and alleviate human suffering. Neutrality is not an end in itself. It exists to advance the principle of humanity by enabling access to those in need. When neutrality is repeatedly exploited to generate political legitimacy for violators of international law without extracting corresponding humanitarian gains from them, the relationship between means and ends deserves urgent reassessment.
- The Premise of Confidential Dialogue has been Destroyed: The ICRC’s doctrine of confidentiality assumes good faith, that private dialogue with authorities will lead to tangible improvements for detainees. After more than five years of widespread arbitrary detention, torture, incommunicado detention and denial of independent monitoring, what measurable humanitarian improvements has confidential dialogue achieved for twenty thousand political detainees in Myanmar?
- The Mandate Allows for Public Denunciation: The ICRC’s own guidelines state that confidentiality is not absolute. You reserve the right to publicly denounce violations when they are major and repeated, when confidential dialogue has failed, and when it is in the best interest of the affected populations. The situation in Myanmar unequivocally meets all three criteria.
The Call for Enforcement
If the ICRC can allow the military junta to exploit the ICRC’s presence to parade Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in front of cameras in a deliberate staged show to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the world while over twenty thousand unnamed, un-profiled political prisoners endure unimaginable torture in the junta’s prisons, the ICRC can no longer claim its silence is serving the victims.
The people of Myanmar are not asking the ICRC to step outside its humanitarian mandate, nor are we asking the ICRC to abandon its core mission. However, we are demanding the strict enforcement of ICRC’s own operational guidelines and of international human rights standards. The ICRC should not allow itself to be used as a prop by those who slaughter civilians.
In addition, we urgently call upon the ICRC to enforce a principled position and prioritize the lives of Myanmar’s people. The ICRC must immediately trigger its internal guidelines to publicly denounce the military junta’s repeated violations of IHL, openly recognizing that confidential dialogue has completely failed.
Furthermore, the ICRC must insist on regular, independent and unimpeded access to all political prisoners and places of detention, free from the presence or interference of junta personnel. Any engagement with detainees, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, must be conducted solely for humanitarian purposes and must not be exploited for political theatre or public relations. The ICRC should prioritize facilitating meaningful family contact, including with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, in accordance with its humanitarian mandate, while refusing participation in any military junta-staged photo opportunities or engagements that manufacture legitimacy for the junta.
History will not judge the ICRC by how strictly it adhered to its bylaws in a vacuum, but by whether it had the courage to recognize when those bylaws were being exploited and manipulated by the military junta. We urge the ICRC to reassess its purpose and strategy, to demand true, unmanipulated access to all political prisoners, and to stop allowing its confidentiality to be extracted for the junta’s legitimacy.
State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the legitimate leader of Myanmar and continues to be recognized as such by the United Nations (UN). For the ICRC to allow itself to be used by the military junta for its political gain in response to ASEAN and world leaders demanding direct access to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the ICRC is participating in the exploitation of the democratically elected leader of the Myanmar people. This is entirely unacceptable. Human suffering in Myanmar is not a confidential matter. ICRC’s response to it should not be either.
The people of Myanmar do not question the importance of humanitarian engagement. We question whether humanitarian engagement can continue to fulfil its purpose when it is exploited and manipulated to legitimize those responsible for widespread violations of international humanitarian law. The credibility of the ICRC depends not only on preserving access, but also on ensuring that such access does not come at the expense of the very people it pledges to protect.
The people of Myanmar deserve an answer: How will the ICRC hold itself accountable to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Myanmar? What safeguards will the ICRC put in place to ensure that future humanitarian engagement cannot again be exploited as political propaganda by the illegal criminal junta?
For more information, please contact:
- Khin Ohmar, Progressive Voice; info@progressive-voice.org
- Salai Za Uk Ling, Chin Human Rights Organization; zauk@chinhumanrights.org
- Debbie Stothard, ALTSEAN-BURMA; debbie@altsean.org
- Karen Ames, US Campaign for Burma; karen@uscampaignforburma.org
Signed by 155 civil society organizations, including 2 organizations that have chosen not to disclose their names:
Download the open letter [Eng]