From Dr. Miemie Wynn-Byrd in Irrawaddy magazine--

Min Aung Hlaing is not a head of state. He is a mass murderer. Under his command, the military junta has shut down over 20 hospitals by targeting Civil Disobedience Movement doctors and healthcare workers. As a result, communities have been left with no trauma care, no doctors, and no medical infrastructure, even in the wake of a devastating natural disaster.

Offers of help have been turned away. Taiwan—home to one of the world’s top disaster rescue teams—offered immediate support, but the junta rejected it. Foreign journalists have been barred from entering the country to document the scale of the devastation, preventing accurate reporting and global accountability.

Worse still, the junta continues to use its aircraft not for rescue or aid delivery but for destruction. Military planes and helicopters that could be saving lives are instead being used to drop bombs on villages, even in the aftermath of the earthquake. The regime has prioritized military operations over humanitarian response, using state resources to terrorize rather than protect.

The regime hasn’t stopped there. It is now targeting local volunteers—ordinary citizens who stepped up to help their neighbors when the government would not. Some have been arrested, harassed, or disappeared. Others have been forcibly conscripted by the military, pulled away from rescue efforts, and forced to serve the regime against their will.

This is not the behavior of a government. This is the behavior of a criminal gang.