Tears at Suu Kyi ‘betrayal’ Myanmar
Like everyone else in Myanmar, Maung Saungkha remembers vividly the day that Aung San Suu Kyi won the election to make her the country’s democratic leader. He was in prison for writing a rude poem about the regime’s president.
A group of political prisoners persuaded the guards to let them watch TV. They wept as the results came in.
‘‘I was full of tears,’’ Maung said. ‘‘I am full of tears now when I think of it, but the reason for those tears is different.
‘‘Back then, they were tears of joy and hope and expectation. Now I remember that feeling with sadness and a feeling beyond betrayal.’’
Suu Kyi has come under renewed international scrutiny with her appearance this week at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, where she led the defence against claims that her country waged genocide against Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, also known as Burma, in 2017.
The spectacle of civilians driven from their homes, telling of murder, rape and arson, has appalled people around the world. It is at the top of a list of complaints against Suu Kyi by human rights activists and lawyers for whom she was once a hero.
Suu Kyi remains her country’s most popular politician, and appears to be assured of another victory in elections expected late next year. The experiences of Burmese such as Maung confirm the sense that her liberal supporters got her disastrously wrong.
Maung, 26, known as the ‘‘Penis Poet’’, came to prominence in Myanmar in 2015 when he posted a poem on Facebook. ‘‘I have the president’s portrait tattooed on my manhood,’’ it read. ‘‘How disgusted my wife is.’’
He argued that he could have been referring to any president, and that he did not actually have such a tattoo. A judge, however, ruled that it referred to Thein Sein, head of the military-backed government at the time. Maung was sentenced to six months in prison for defamation.
Like so many of those campaigning for democracy in Myanmar, Maung was a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which was elected on that emotional day in November, 2016. She became the country’s de facto leader as Thein and his fellow officers stepped back from power.
Within 18 months, gone wrong.
The Rohingya had suffered persecution for decades. In August 2017, Myanmar’s armed forces used the excuse of smallscale raids by militants to attack communities across Rakhine state in the west of the country.
More than 700,000 people were driven into neighbouring Bangladesh, bringing reports of arson, rape and the murder of unarmed civilians. Their testimony was collected in a United Nations document which described how mothers were gang-raped in front it had all political activist
of young children. Girls as young as 13 and pregnant women were raped, some of them with sticks and knives.
The security forces have admitted two massacres, but witnesses have described many others. The report by the UN Independent International FactFinding Mission concluded that an estimate of 10,000 dead was ‘‘conservative’’.
Far from condemning the attacks, Suu Kyi supported her soldiers. She responded to a formal accusation of genocide against her government in The Hague last week by insisting that crimes by the troops were few and were being dealt with by military justice.
‘‘I feel heartbroken,’’ said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, 28, a political activist.
‘‘The democratic institution we voted for has betrayed us. From a human rights perspective, she’s failing. Her moral leadership is not there any more.’’
For liberals remote from the violence in Rakhine, there have been more direct threats. Those who criticise the army risk prosecution.
A film-maker who has been treated for liver cancer is in prison for making comments about the armed forces on Facebook. The Peacock Generation, a group of young performers, has been jailed for satirical sketches mocking the generals.
Dozens of journalists have been put on trial. Two Reuters reporters were eventually released after almost a year and a half in detention, after being given a seven-year sentence for allegedly breaking a secrecy law in reporting on the massacres of the Rohingya.
Maung and Thinzar are facing trial for taking part in an antiwar demonstration in May. ‘‘All I see is a new form of oppression,’’ Maung said.
Suu Kyi has refused to intervene in such cases, arguing that the legal process must take its course – in contrast to her position under the dictatorship, when she denounced the unjust laws and pliant courts that led to the imprisonment of democracy activists, including herself.
Most Burmese appear to support her, however. She remains the most popular politician in the country.
‘‘For all those years, no one dared to challenge her,’’ Thinzar said. ‘‘It was the same for all the international community. She was like a goddess. They bowed before her and they didn’t offer any challenge. So of course she felt she was right.
‘‘The international community raised her up [and] cannot do anything to control her.’’
‘‘From a human rights perspective, she’s failing. Her moral leadership is not there any more . . . The international community raised her up [and] cannot do anything to control her.’’ Thinzar Shunlei Yi,