Suu Kyi’s silence on ethnic cleansing disappoints Nobels
“I’M just a politician,” said Burma’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in a BBC interview last week; “I’m no Mother Teresa.” Fair enough, but she’s no Nelson Mandela either, and that has deeply disappointed some people (including fellow-holders of the Nobel Peace Prize) who expected better of her.
The issue that most upsets them is her refusal to take a firm stand on the mistreatment of the Rohingya minority, Muslims of Bengali descent who live in Rakhine state in south-western Burma. Since an outbreak of communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in the state in 2013, the army has treated the Rohingyas with great brutality, and at least 100 000 have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh for safety.
The repression has been particularly bad in the past year, with many Rohingyas in the northern part of the state raped or murdered by the army, and foreign critics have begun to describe the events in Rakhine state as “ethnic cleansing”. “I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening,” she said in the BBC interview, and a new wave of (foreign) outrage swept over her.
It is not too strong an expression at all. There is great prejudice among Burmese Buddhists against the country’s 4% Muslim minority, and especially against the Rohingyas. It is the one issue on which the majority of the population agrees with the generals, not with Aung San Suu Kyi – and she has no control over how the army behaves.
After decades of house arrest and years of campaigning, “the lady” (as she is known in Burma) finally took power from the army last year. But the army-written constitution gives the solders complete control of all “security matters”, and indeed does not even permit her to be the president.
So the “State Counsellor”, as she is officially known, is in power, but not very securely. The army could decide to take power back at any moment, although it would probably face massive popular resistance if it did.
For that reason, she doesn’t go out of her way to pick fights with the generals.
Most of the local Buddhists support the attacks on Muslims, but it’s men in uniform who carry them out.
Aung San Suu Kyi didn’t order the soldiers to commit these crimes, and she can’t order them to stop. She can’t even publicly condemn them, because the army might turn against her – and because most Buddhists in Burma probably approve of the army’s actions too.
Mandela had it easy by comparison. Like her, he gained his status as a secular saint by steadfastly demanding democracy through decades of imprisonment, but when he became South Africa’s first freely elected president in 1994 he really had the power.
There was no fear that the apartheid regime might come back and evict him. He made wise decisions, gave up the presidency after one term, and died still a saint.
Aung San Suu Kyi has no such luck. She has, miraculously, persuaded a clique of greedy, autocratic, hyper-nationalist generals to surrender most of their political power voluntarily.
But it was a deal in which she had to guarantee them freedom of action in their own domain, although she intends to rewrite that constitution when she can.
Meantime, she is undoubtedly doing what she can to limit the army’s cruelty in Rakhine state, but she is not going to throw away Burma’s first chance of a real democracy after almost 60 years of military rule by going public about it.
It’s not sainthood, but it does qualify as wise political leadership.
Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.