Myanmar’s UN Ambassador Has a Rohingya Problem Keep the Junta Out. Hold Kyaw Moe Tun Accountable
In just over a month, the Myanmar diaspora will be out with their banners outside the U.N. General Assembly in New York. September 19 has been designated a “Day of Action.” There are simultaneous rallies planned across European, Australian and Asian capitals. They will all be pushing the same message - let Kyaw Moe Tun keep his seat as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. And whatever happens - don’t let the Credentials Committee hand it to a regime stooge.
Kyaw Moe Tun is effectively the NUG-aligned representative of Myanmar at the UN. If you recall his history, his formal UN status does not derive from an accreditation of the NUG as Myanmar’s recognised government. He survives institutionally through his pre-coup accreditation as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative and the UN’s refusal to replace him with the junta’s nominee. See this page for an interesting UN exchange.
And Ambassador Tun’s role at the UN is not an insignificant one. DVB quotes Moe Zaw Oo, an advisor to the NUG’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as calling the ambassador’s continued presence “vital” to exposing the military’s atrocities. Yet should this be sufficient reason to excuse him from scrutiny on the Rohingya?
Before the coup, this man was not a Rohingya advocate. Indeed, he was sent to Geneva to make the Rohingya genocide allegations disappear. In fact, while serving as Myanmar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2018 to 2020, he told the Human Rights Council in July 2019 that international criticism of Myanmar over Rakhine State amounted to “naming, shaming and pressuring the country based on groundless allegations.”
“That would be like a post-Nazi government saying we're going to carry out existing German law." Watch Congressman Brad Sherman press Myanmar's UN ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, on Rohingya citizenship in 2021 - and watch him squirm.
On May 4, 2021, at a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the unfolding crisis in Burma, Congressman Brad Sherman asked him directly - will the National Unity Government “provide citizenship documents to all Rohingya born in Burma or in the refugee camps?” Kyaw Moe Tun’s answer was that the NUG would act “in line with… the existing law,” while conceding the 1982 Citizenship Law “need[s] to be amended”.
Sherman was visibly irritated and didn’t let it slide. “For you to say ‘we’re going to carry out existing law’ would be like a post-Nazi government saying we’re going to carry out existing German law” Afterwards, on the platform then called Twitter, Sherman put it plainly: “He (Kyaw Moe Tun) speaks eloquently against the coup, but like many democracy advocates from Burma gives disappointing answers regarding #Rohingyas.”
His colleague on the subcommittee, Ted Lieu, went further: “The new National Unity Government does not include any Rohingya. We cannot support it until that is changed”. Those were two sitting members of the U.S. Congress, live in the room, and they were unconvinced by Kyaw Moe Tun’s answers.
A month after the hearing, on June 3, 2021, the NUG finally published its official "Policy Position on the Rohingya in Rakhine State." The document proposed what no previous Myanmar government had dared to - repealing the 1982 Citizenship Law, scrapping verification cards, and using the word "Rohingya" without hesitation.
Give the NUG credit when it is due. It was a real document. But it was also issued only after Sherman and Lieu made the NUG’s evasiveness a public embarrassment.
What to call that? Accountability by public pressure, not conviction, me thinks.
How Often Does Kyaw Moe Tun Actually Say “Rohingya”?
The NUG controls Myanmar’s UN seat and the message it broadcasts to the world. So it is pertinent to ask the only question that matters - after a full year on the global stage, how much of that platform was actually spent standing up for the Rohingya?
The ambassador’s office informed news outlet DVB English that he gave roughly 60 UN speeches between October 2024 and September 2025. So it was fairly easy for me to go through the Myanmar Permanent Mission’s published archive of statements etc., for that exact time period. I went through every text he delivered.
The mission’s “Statements” category alone comes to 61 entries. This is almost certainly the source of the “around 60” figure quoted by DVB. If one includes other interventions and Security Council stakeouts, the total comes to a whopping 80 separate interventions across a full calendar year of UN business. So at one level he is doing his job.
Nevertheless, the result of my survey revealed an interesting pattern. Our esteemed ambassador invokes the junta’s atrocities and casualty tolls in almost every single speech he gives, regardless of subject - disarmament, the UN budget, women’s rights, prison reform, peacekeeping doctrine. You name it.
The Rohingya get no such treatment.
Let’s take a look at my findings. I found that in his 80 interventions, the word “Rohingya” appears in only 18. Of these, just five statements are actually about the Rohingya crisis itself. Yes, you read that correctly. The other thirteen times? Pure copy-paste recycled single sentences shoved into speeches about totally unrelated topics just to check a box.
So in four out of five UN appearances over a full year, Myanmar’s ambassador did not mention the Rohingya at all.
Would one expect more interventions concerning the Rohingya? The answer is obvious. The Rohingya crisis is arguably the single most internationally consequential element of Myanmar’s file at the UN right now. Let’s cut through the noise because the legal backdrop is impossible to ignore.
There is the genocide case at the ICJ. Separetely, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor has requested an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing over the 2016–17 deportations. (In case you are wondering, that stands despite Karim Khan’s departure). Argentine courts secured an Interpol warrant. On top of all that, the UN General Assembly passes an annual resolution on the crisis, and even convened a full High-Level Conference specifically on it in September 2025.
Given these facts, surely it was incumbent upon the ambassador to put the Rohingya front and centre? He is the only recognised voice for the country - the junta’s representative isn't even credentialed. Every word he fails to speak is a word "Myanmar" leaves completely unsaid in that chamber.
Why Journalists Shouldn’t Let This Go
On July 28, 2026, I sent an email to Ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun. I informed him that I was a journalist and that I have covered the Rohingya issue for a decade. I put two questions to him concerning citizenship for Rohingya (yes, that old nut) and accountability (specifically the NUG’s record on Aung San Suu Kyi, Htin Kyaw, and the Arakan Army).
I asked for a response by 5pm EST on August 1, 2026. Today is 13 August. He did not reply - not a partial answer and not even an acknowledgement. He dodged two direct, fact-based questions - questions about the very people whose suffering gives his exiled government its international legitimacy in the first place.
Why would he not be ready to speak plainly on these issues without qualifiers and diplomatic double-talk and set the record straight?
It is quite straightforward, I would have thought. The ambassador cannot vacillate about full citizenship for Rohingya. There can’t be any legal loopholes or qualifying remarks about “in line with existing law.” He should further state that there ought to be accountability for Aung San Suu Kyi and Htin Kyaw. It should also be within his remit to call out the Arakan Army by name for systematically burning Rohingya villages in Rakhine State in recent months.
If these basic truths are not possible for the Ambassador to discuss plainly in 2026, five full years after Congressman Sherman exposed his evasive answers, then I guess the idea that he represents some sort of revolutionary movement would be absurd. Ambassador Tun shouldn't be given a free pass just because the alternative is a murderous, unrecognised junta.
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