The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar is a special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations created in 2018 to respond to the Rohingya genocide starting in August 2017 and its effects in Myanmar. According to the mandate established by the UN General Assembly in its resolution 72/248 in 2017, the Special Envoy "works in close partnership with all stakeholders including local communities and civil society, and regional partners, notably the Government of Bangladesh and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), regional countries, and the broader membership of the United Nations."
Commenting on the nomination of the second Special Envoy in October 2021, a number of Myanmar political commentators said that the chances of this mission are very limited, independent of the current envoy. Rather, they cautioned that apart from the mission to positively influence the displacement and ongoing crimes against humanity affecting the Rohingya communities, the Special Envoy "must also continue with the task of trying to persuade the Myanmar junta leaders to engage in dialogue to settle the ongoing political and social turmoil caused by their February 1 coup".
Christine Schraner Burgener
In her briefings for the UN Security Council between February 2019 and October 2021, Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener reported on her visits to the camps for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Rakhine State of Myanmar as well as on her talks with the Myanmar government and former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This included Schraner Burgener's general assessments of the political and human situation before and after the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.
During Schraner Burgener's tenure, in December 2019 Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in the International Court of Justice at The Hague, where she defended the Burmese military, also called Tatmadaw, against allegations of genocide against the Rohingya. As she had never clearly acknowledged the persecution and killings perpetrated by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya people, Aung San Suu Kyi had increasingly received global criticism, including calls to revoke her Nobel Peace Prize.
Following the coup d'état in February 2021, Schraner Burgener became more critical of the Myanmar military in her statements: “For the last three years, I was guided by a strategy of quiet diplomacy,” Schraner Burgener said. "I tried to be balanced in my statements not only in the Security Council but also in the General Assembly. In my view, this was the right strategy, because my task was to bring the Burmese government closer to the U.N.” She also explained that the U.N. is unable to "openly promote the imposition of sanctions before the U.N. Security Council, [as] it is up to member states to make such decisions. China and Russia have made it clear they oppose sanctions". According to an article in Foreign Policy magazine, she then rather called for "a broad range of punitive measures against key sectors of Myanmar's economy controlled by the military." In this final year of her mandate, Schraner Burgener also spoke out against "the ongoing killings by security forces turning against their own citizens, including children, youth, and women" and warned "A bloodbath is imminent.”
In an article about Schraner Burgener's tenure, The Irrawaddy newspaper, published by Myanmar journalists in Thailand, deemed the aims of the UN Special Envoy using nonviolent and peaceful approaches of talks and phone calls "ineffective" and a "diplomatic graveyard" given the ruthless and oppressive history of the Myanmar military junta.
Noeleen Heyzer
Since the 2021 coup d'état and subsequent protests, the second envoy Noeleen Heyzer made several statements about the county's possible future developments. Following an interview with Channel NewsAsia (CNA) on 31 January 2022, where she had mentioned a "power-sharing arrangement" between the State Administration Council (the military junta put in place by the Tatmadaw following the coup d'état) and the democratically elected government, she was heavily criticized by Myanmar civil society organizations.
In a statement issued to the media on 3 February, the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar said Heyzer's words were misinterpreted and she had "never proposed power sharing as an option and has consistently advocated for a Myanmar-led process that is reflective of the will and the needs of the people, as reflected in the 2020 elections."