Central Bank of Myanmar Governor Than Than Swe and 43 other officials at the junta-controlled bank have been designated terrorists by the National Unity Government (NUG) for financing war crimes.
The Central Bank of Myanmar has misused public funds and is complicit in the purchase of military equipment, jet fuel and weapons used to kill civilians, the NUG’s Central Group for Counter-Terrorism announced.
People are suffering from surging inflation and high commodity prices because the central bank has not implemented a monetary policy to stabilize prices, but has instead been the main financier of the junta and over printed kyats, the Central Group for Counter-Terrorism said.
The central bank is also complicit in the junta’s manipulation of the foreign currency market by turning a blind eye to the law, which caused the exchange rate of the Kyat to plunge and made basic consumer goods and medicines scarcer, it added.
From the top down officials at the central bank have ignored their ethics and their responsibilities, causing severe harm to the public they have an obligation to serve, the NUG’s Central Group for Counter-Terrorism said.
It put a total of 44 staff of the bank, including its governor, two deputy governors—Zaw Min Naing and Lin Aung—director generals, and directors of departments on its list of terrorists and said they will be prosecuted in accordance with the Anti-Terrorism law.
The value of the Kyat has plunged since the military takeover. Faced with a shortage of foreign currency, the regime began exerting greater control over the central bank last year in an attempt to shore up its deteriorating finances. The central bank subsequently imposed restrictions on foreign exchange rates and several monetary regulatory changes that were intended to benefit the junta.
Than Than Swe was shot by anti-coup resistance fighters at her house in Yangon in April last year when she was vice-governor of the Central Bank. She was hospitalized but survived and was promoted to the bank’s top post in August, 2022.
According to the NUG’s Ministry of Human Rights and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the scale of atrocities committed by the junta is immense.
As of September 8, 2023, at least 4,056 civilians have been killed since the coup, another 24,740 were arrested and 19,447 remain in detention, while nearly 2 million people have fled their homes due to the junta’s campaign of terror against its own people.
