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Despite global outrage over Suu Kyi’s anti-Rohingya stand, her popularity reached new heights at home
By Dishani Senaratne
Is international intervention an ethical responsibility or a political instrument? The recent events both in Myanmar and Sri Lanka have raised a question whether international intervention on apparent humanitarian grounds could save already fragile democracies sans any compromise on sovereignty of nations.
In a horrifying re-enactment of the 1962 military coup, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) seized power on 1 February after detaining the democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-profile political leaders in a pre-dawn raid. Predictably, global condemnation poured in while public protests sparked ranging from banging of pots and pans to anti-military coup demonstrations.
In an attempt to suppress communication and connectivity, the internet and social networks are intermittently blocked by the military government. Facebook, on the other hand, suspended military-linked accounts from its site, citing the violence since the military power grab the reason behind the ban. Seemingly undeterred by the rising death toll, many protestors continue to return to the streets to march against the military rule. A nun became a symbol of resistance after a video of her pleading with the military to spare the demonstrators went viral.
Like Sri Lanka, Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948 but the military has held power longer than civilian governments. General Aung San, the father of the current de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is considered the founder of the modern-day Myanmar who was assassinated during the independence movement.
Amid insurgencies during the post-independent period, the military took on power in a coup in 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi was first arrested by the military in 1989, following the army’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests. Despite repeated global calls for release, Suu Kyi spent a total of 15 years under house arrest between 1989 and 2010 and was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her relentless pursuit of democracy and human rights.
In 1992, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar was first established under the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) resolution 58 and extended annually. After a lengthy hiatus, the inaugural Special Rapporteur was appointed in 2014. Since then, several reports have been issued by successive Special Rapporteurs detailing atrocities committed against the ethnic Rohingya community, among other human rights violations.
Subsequent to the end of the decades-long military rule in 2011, Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) emerged victorious at the 2015 general elections. In the following year, Suu Kyi was appointed as the State Counsellor, a position similar to Prime Minister.
In 2017, the military launched a brutal attack on the Rohingya community in the province of Rakhine in Western Myanmar. In the same year, the resolution creating the UN Independent International Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM) was supported by 34 states and adopted without a vote. Although the team members were denied access to the country, the 2018 report of the IIFFMM exposed how the military used its own businesses, foreign companies and arms deals to support brutal oppressions against ethnic minorities.
In 2019, the UN General Assembly (UNGS) approved a resolution strongly condemning human rights abuses against the Rohingya community and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention.
In 2020, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution calling upon Myanmar to create conditions and to establish a plan conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return of the Rohingya community and all refugee and forcibly displaced persons.
Rarely going beyond words
On the one hand, this string of UN resolutions is illustrative of how the UN bodies closely monitor the situation in Myanmar. On the other hand, the UN has often come under severe criticism for rarely going beyond words to bring about visible changes in Myanmar.
Stunning the global community, Suu Kyi defended the genocide charges against the military at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2019. Some analysts, however, argued this was an apparent gesture of cooperation with the men in uniform who were still holding the reins of power capitalising on constitutional provisions that give the military veto power and 25% of seats in parliament.
Despite global outrage over Suu Kyi’s anti-Rohingya stand, her popularity reached new heights at home, as evidenced by the NLD’s landslide victory at the 2020 general elections. Needless to say, the army-backed political front, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), suffered a humiliating defeat that was a bitter pill for the military to swallow.
Seemingly perturbed at Suu Kyi’s unwaning popularity that could be leveraged to push forward constitutional reforms to override the military, the military seized power in Myanmar. In sum, the short taste of shaky democracy proved to be a mere interlude between spells of military dominance of the political landscape in Myanmar.
How has the international community responded to Myanmar’s military coup? Last March, the UNHRC adopted a resolution by consensus on Myanmar which will ensure that violations committed by the military following the coup will be scrutinised.
In early April, the UK imposed new sanctions against Myanmar Economic Corporation, a military-linked conglomerate. Prior to that, the UK and the EU stepped up pressure on Myanmar’s military over the coup and horrifying crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
Not to be outdone, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) demanded immediate cessation of violence albeit the regional organisation has a track record of shying away from intervening in internal affairs of member countries.
The effectiveness of international response has always been the elephant of the room. For Myanmar, however, economic sanctions are not new phenomena. It is no secret that the country plunged into recession subsequent to the 1962 putsch due to the military junta’s economic mismanagement and isolationist polices.
Unless concerted efforts are made to restrain the military leadership, the people in Myanmar are likely to face the triple burden of curtailment of democracy, economic turmoil and the seemingly unending pandemic. Against such backdrop, there is a growing chorus of civil society voices calling for tough targeted economic sanctions, global travel bans and asset freezes on military rulers.
Given that Myanmar is strategically located between China, India and Southeast Asia, the volatile political situation in the country has raised geo-political alarm bells. The awkward question that needs to be asked is whether the military junta has already fostered international allies.
Both Russia and China blocked the UN from condemning the military coup whereas India was among eight countries that attended a recent military parade to mark the Tatmadaw Day. Such developments speak volumes about how threats to democracy and world peace are ostensibly thrown out of the window in the face of vested interests in Myanmar.
COVID-19 overshadowed the focus of UNHRC resolution
Turning towards Sri Lanka, COVID-19 has raised its ugly head again that has overshadowed the focus of the UNHRC resolution 40/1 on Sri Lanka calling on to account for alleged human rights abuses and deliver justice to the victims of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
Passing a resolution at the UNHRC doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The latest resolution on Sri Lanka was preceded by a recent UN report that urged the international community to monitor the country’s current trajectory as well as imposing asset freezes and travel bans on credible perpetrators of grave human rights violations and abuses. Prior to that, the 2011 Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, the 2012 UN Internal Review Report and the 2015 UNHRC Report on Sri Lanka brought into focus human rights abuses allegedly committed by government elements and the LTTE.
With the regime change in 2015, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Unity Government co-sponsored the UNHRC resolution 30/1, in an attempt to make commitments to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka. Consequently, in 2017 and 2019, the Unity Government renewed its commitment to implement the said resolution. Marking a departure from the previous administration’s approach to long-term peace, the incumbent Government withdrew from the UNHRC resolution 30/1 in February last year but emphasised on committing to achieving sustainable peace and reconciliation through a process designed and executed domestically.
Surprisingly or not, India abstained from voting on Sri Lanka on the recent resolution partly because the Modi administration was under pressure from political parties in Tamil Nadu on the brink of an election.
The abstention from voting by Japan, Nepal and Indonesia, among others, doesn’t paint an optimistic picture of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy and diplomatic relations particularly with Asian nations.
Providing a ray of hope for pro-government forces, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Russia and the Philippines were among the nations who voted against the resolution. Some of these countries have no prefect record in human rights in recent times, according to some analysts.
Taking social media by storm, the Minister of Foreign Relations later went on to invent a bizarre mathematical calculation to declare victory on the UNHRC resolution. Regrettably, such populist political rhetoric undermines the possible implications of this landmark resolution.
The UK, who led the Core Group, hailed passing of the latest resolution on Sri Lanka as a step taken in the right direction to achieve accountability and justice in Sri Lanka. Ironically, most of the former colonial powers in the Global North who have morphed into champions of human rights are yet to lead by example by dealing with inglorious episodes in histories. Glossing over the realities and legacies of Britain’s colonial past is a case in point. Herein lies a thorny issue of reining in alleged perpetrators of human rights violations: who is the driving force behind international sanctions?
Making matters worse, the UK parliament recently passed the Overseas Operations Bill granting impunity for British soldiers for torture and other war crimes committed overseas. Giving a slap in the face of advocates of freedom of expression, the Biden administration which came into power on the plank of democracy and world peace shied away from imposing sanctions on the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman who approved the 2018 gruesome murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Amid the recent escalation of violence between Palestine and Israel, the US continues to stand in solidarity with Israel, much to the dismay of human rights advocates. Regrettably, the selective enforcement of international sanctions is an ugly manifestation of the hypocrisy of Western human rights claims.
In an unprecedented move, the UNHRC has been given a mandate to collect information and evidence of human rights abuses committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Any form of international involvement is often perceived as a political witch-hunt against the security forces in popular Sinhalese war discourse. The Tamil community, on the contrary, is generally sceptical about local-led conciliatory mechanisms.
Many questions remain unanswered
Against the backdrop of the absence of efforts to ensure accountability and transparency, many questions remain unanswered in relation to alleged human rights violations and enforced disappearances, even twelve years after the military defeat of the LTTE.
Unleashing shock waves especially among the legal fraternity, a claim has surfaced that there is seemingly no constitutional barrier for a foreign national to be appointed as the Chief of Justice of Sri Lanka. When one needs to eat, even the ‘kabaragoya’ (water monitor) becomes the ‘thalagoya’ (iguana), a social media comment pithily alluded to a local idiom to indicate how patriotic fervour takes a back seat when the prevailing circumstances take over.
Admittedly, the phenomenon of international interventions is neither innocent nor impartial. Yet, dismissing tenets of democracy and human rights as Western imports that are biased towards minorities is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Interestingly, the global South is not always silent on allegations of crimes committed against humanity. Marking a watershed event in global political landscape, in 2019, the Gambia filed a case against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for alleged genocide of the Rohingyas.
In a rare moment of international concern, in 2019, Bangladesh supported international investigations on Myanmar in relation to atrocities against the Rohingya community. Even though Myanmar is not a State party, Bangladesh ratified the International Criminal Court (ICC) Rome Statue in 2010. In a similar vein, Argentina brought cases in its domestic courts against perpetrators in Myanmar under universal jurisdiction.
Previously, the majority of countries in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean supported fact-finding and investigative mechanisms promoting accountability in Myanmar albeit without much fanfare. Manifesting how countries and regions may vote in solidarity with regional, ethnic and/or ethnic affiliations, the Muslim-majority countries supported the UN mechanisms for Myanmar, a recent University of California, Berkeley working paper argued.
Coming back to Sri Lanka, only seven of the 22 countries which voted for the latest UN resolution are from Western European and Other Groups (WEOG). Moreover, ten of the 14 Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) abstained from voting possibly as a mark of protest against continued discrimination affecting the Muslims in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, outpourings of solidarity with the ethnic Rohingya community abound in social media which is perhaps a silver lining in the military coup. Such rare public apologies are central to bringing together people at individual level in contexts fraught with continuing internal ethnic conflicts. Taking a cue from Myanmar, Sri Lanka can perhaps take the initiative to accelerate reconciliation efforts rather than being pressured by international actors to do so.
