No light in the darkness for Aung San Suu Kyi

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi attends the inaugural summit between South Korea and five Southeast Asian nations along the Mekong River, at Nurimaru APEC House in Busan, South Korea, 27 November 2019. (Photo by EPA/YONHAP SOUTH KOREA OUT/MaxPPP)

Myanmar and its civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi are in hot water again over the country's mistreatment of minorities, specifically the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

In recent weeks, three international lawsuits have been filed against Myanmar over brutal atrocities in 2016 and 2017.

On Nov. 11, The Gambia filed a 46-page application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention by committing crimes against humanity against Rohingya.

Three days later, Suu Kyi was named among several state officials in a lawsuit in Argentina by Rohingya and South American human rights organizations for serious crimes including genocide against the minority community.

The same day, judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized a full investigation into allegations of persecution and crimes against humanity that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh from Rakhine.

Myanmar, once a tolerant and peaceful country, has made global headlines during five decades of iron-fisted military rule due to civil wars, ethno-religious conflicts, the crushing of dissent, human rights violations and a deadly rise in Buddhist nationalism.

The nation's military dictators and their collaborators have never been held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Junta rule ensured the highest defense budget in Southeast Asia every year in a country that is not at war with foreign forces but with itself. Meanwhile, the nation's poor health and education services received little attention. Lack of investment and development led to a gradually faltering economy that many called the "sick man" of Southeast Asia.

Many in the West and other parts of world had high hopes that the democratic election in 2015 and the return of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) would be a triumph of democracy and pull the country out of the mess created by military rule.

Needless to say, they were very, very wrong.

Four years on, nothing has changed significantly in Myanmar, which effectively has two parallel governments — civilian and military. Despite relinquishing power in 2015, the military and their collaborators by default have 25 percent of seats in the parliament, and the army controls three key ministries — defense, border and home affairs.

The only change has been an unprecedented bond and balance of power between Suu Kyi's NLD-led government and the military. Once bitter foes, the political leadership and men in boots have developed a cozy relationship that complements and defends each other in times of trouble.

However, none of the ruling classes had foreseen the sudden outburst of legal pressure piling up on Myanmar. Legal proceedings are lengthy, complex processes which may take years to yield results and justice. Besides, Myanmar has powerful friends like China and Russia to lend support. Most of all, Myanmar's leaders have shown that they won't bow down to pressure.

A spectacular fall

On Nov. 20, Suu Kyi's office announced that she will travel to the Hague in the Netherlands to lead a legal team to defend Myanmar against allegations of genocide of Rohingya in December. This was shocking, if not surprising, to many Myanmar watchers.

During anti-Rohingya military crackdowns in 2016 and 2017, Suu Kyi only faced criticism for her silence and inaction to stop the atrocities. But she was spared from direct pressure due to the complex political conundrum in Myanmar.

Soon afterwards, she started defending the military by blaming the crisis on "terrorists" and accused global media of publishing "icebergs of misinformation" over the Rohingya.

This was a spectacular fall for a political leader once considered a democracy and human rights icon due to her long struggle to end military rule in Myanmar. Once she was compared to with Nelson Mandela, but her later actions showed she was just an average politician, eager to rise and hang on to power at any cost.

Her party is as Islamophobic as Myanmar's extremist Buddhist monks, so it was no surprise when the NLD did not field any Muslim candidates during the 2015 election.

Since then, organizations across the globe have withdrawn honors conferred on Suu Kyi, while there was a strong call to strip her of the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991.

Her decision to stand at the ICJ is her most high-profile defense of military atrocities against the Rohingya. She is no more a hand-wringing, silent spectator but a strong collaborator in the crime.

Some observers believe Suu Kyi's move has political motives intended to garner public support for the NLD in the national election in 2020.

The NLD tenure has seen Myanmar's economic conditions nosedive as fighting intensifies in non-Burmese ethnic states. The muzzling of dissent has led to a significant drop in its popularity.

Suu Kyi might be trying to salvage the lost pride of the party by defending the image of the country internationally.

Meanwhile, military chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing's office announced on Nov. 25 that a military court would start a court martial against a military regiment for alleged abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Gu Dar Pyin village in Buthidaung township in northern Rakhine in 2017.

In February 2018, the Associated Press reported the discovery of five mass graves in the village where hundreds of Rohingya were dumped after mass killings and their bodies burned with acid. Earlier, a Reuters investigative report revealed mass killing of 10 Rohingya in Inn Din village in September 2017.

Rights activists say the military's move is to bolster their defense at the ICJ and means nothing. Whether the international legal pressure yields justice remains to be seen.

For decades, Myanmar was presented as a case of good people versus bad junta regimes. But the 2012 sectarian violence against Rohingya and Muslims in central Myanmar, genocidal crackdowns on Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 and escalating ethnic conflicts show that is not true anymore.

Today Myanmar is less a federal union of multiple faiths and ethnicities but a country hell-bent on a Burmese supremacist and Buddhist nationalist state.

The current civil and military leadership have lost their credibility and can no longer be considered saviors of the people of Myanmar, where the poor and powerless are suffering in misery.

Unless the leadership realize their misdeeds and change for the better, Myanmar as a nation will continue to remain in darkness.

END