ADVOCATING FROM AOTEAROA
WORDS & PHOTO Joshua Brosnahan
Jack Musgrave is an avid traveller and reader. You will often find him near the seaside, in Lyttelton, Sumner, or Diamond Harbour. The closeness of the ocean is one of the things he loves about living in Canterbury.
Perhaps much like you, his day starts with a strong coffee and a scan of the local news outlets. That’s probably where the similarities end.
He then checks on overnight arrests and instances of violence and death tolls, followed by a Zoom call with colleagues who are ‘on the ground’. All in a morning’s work, in his role as a human rights lawyer.
Jack studied Law, History, and Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, with a masters in Human Rights Law in Sweden.
“I do end up spending a lot of my day writing. This week, I wrote the weekly blog for the organisation I work for, then wrote a speech with my boss for her testimony before the US Senate, and wrote our report detailing Myanmar’s human rights performance in 2020.”
Jack works for Progressive Voice – a participatory rights-based policy, research, and advocacy organisation connected with grassroots civil society and community-based organisations in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
PV is the brainchild of co-founder Khin Ohmar – who has 32 years’ experience within human rights in Myanmar, starting as a student activist who helped organise the 1988 uprising against a previous military junta.
Jack says PV works to amplify voices from the ground to the United Nations and international community, giving agency to local organisations.
Currently, it’s about giving a voice to protesters, the Civil Disobedience Movement, Milk Tea Alliance, and workers who are part of a nationwide general strike – who are screaming out against the unlawful coup attempt by the Myanmar military.
“Under normal circumstances, we focus on research and advocacy on the topics of refugees and internally displaced persons, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, sustainable development, hate speech, and promoting the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, such as the Rohingya. Currently, our focus has shifted to calling on the international community to wake up and take action against the military’s craven power grab and massacres in the streets.”
The team on the frontline at PV are helping to elevate the desires of Myanmar’s people for genuine federal democracy.
Jack says the military junta is bombing ethnic areas. In Karen State, 50,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, and so far, over 20 people have been killed due to the military junta’s airstrikes and artillery attacks on civilians.
“The Myanmar military has been waging war on the ethnic borderlands for decades, repeating cycles of conflict and displacement and resulting in a massive humanitarian crisis. This is now exacerbated by the junta crippling the economy, potentially plunging millions into poverty through their self-made economic collapse.”
When asking Jack how Avenues readers could support the movement, he mentioned that the people of Myanmar simply need continued support to maintain their historic movement for a federal democracy.
“Strongly encouraging the New Zealand government to support the legitimate government in Myanmar (National Unity Government), sanctioning the junta, and pushing NZ Super Fund to divest interests linked to the junta.”