Assessing the Rohingya crisis NICHOLAS FARRELLY | JUNE 2018 hen Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League Foreign commentators and analysts often over- for Democracy (NLD) triumphed at My- looked such hesitations, preferring an optimistic Wanmar’s 2015 general election she model of democratic consolidation, which, they was riding high, supported by millions of hopeful seemingly forgot, had failed almost everywhere citizens eager for change. Her party swept away else in Southeast Asia. In capitals around the its opponents from the former military regime and world, the NLD victory was overwhelmingly un- also garnered much approval from the country’s derstood as a positive development and one that many minority groups. This groundswell of elector- would unleash Myanmar’s immense potential, in al support pulled together old-style socialists, eth- economic, cultural and political terms. Foreign nic sub-nationalists, tech-savvy youngsters, and leaders, including some who had been reluctant millions of people simply fed up with government to endorse the semi-civilian government that ruled mismanagement. from 2011 to 2015, offered warm words of praise and recognition. For the first time in two generations, the Myanmar people could proudly claim a government as their Even back then, however, analysts made regular own. Their votes, tallied up from tens of thousands warnings about the NLD’s capacity to manage a of booths around the nation, would shape the next fractious society and sputtering economy. One government in Naypyitaw. Pragmatists cautioned prominent area of concern was the lack of admin- that the armed forces would still drive the overall istrative talent within its ranks and the overbear- agenda and that they would prove reluctant to ing demeanour and lack of government experi- share decisions about hefty matters of defence, ence of Aung San Suu Kyi. It was also abundantly security or strategy. The 2008 constitution, many clear that her government would struggle to find warned, anticipated a democratically elected space for the country’s most vulnerable minority, government that needed tutelage from uniformed the Muslim Rohingya. military men. 1 Muslim-Buddhist faultline Aung San Suu Kyi’s tragedy principles and human rights. The main question remaining is how far she will fall. obody knows for sure how many Muslims nternational condemnation, meanwhile, has live in Myanmar, a consequence of genera- only served to bolster the resolve of the Myan- It is a tragedy. Aung San Suu Kyi has the unenvi- tions of purposeful neglect of this sensitive mar side, with outpourings of support for the able job of managing Myanmar’s sad legacy of N I communal, ethnic and religious conflicts. There number. Official estimates drawn from the 2014 government. At protests, in Myanmar and around census put the total at 2.3%, roughly 1.2 million the world, thousands of people have pledged is no denying the scope or intensity of the prob- people, down from 3.9% at the 1983 census. The their loyalty to Aung San Suu Kyi and their support lems: even an experienced and well-functioning reason the number is so sensitive is simple: if the for her policies. Some Myanmar democrats also administration would struggle with the confluence government announced that, for instance, 6% of seek common cause with dictators like Russia’s of Buddhist chauvinism, Rohingya militancy and the population is Muslim then long decades of fic- Vladimir Putin or China’s Xi Jinping. It is a peculiar long-term strategic predicaments, including han- tion-making about the official numbers of Muslims turn of events. Aung San Suu Kyi’s most ardent dling Chinese assertiveness. would need to be re-done. Of course, the Rohingya boosters caution against attributing responsibility By any measure, however, the NLD has endorsed were not counted in 2014. If they were, the ques- for the violence to the NLD. They quietly blame the some bad decisions that made it more likely the tion—regardless of how big a proper count re- armed forces—which, under the 2008 constitution, festering wound of Rohingya grievances would ex- vealed the Muslim population to be—would quickly control the Ministries of Defence, Home Affairs plode into full-blown humanitarian disaster. For a become: how has Myanmar become so Islamic and Border Affairs—for all operational indiscre- start, the NLD high command decided to endorse and how can this trend be reversed? tions. no Muslims as candidates at the 2015 election. Assertive and well-resourced organisations in My- The decision was based, as such cowardly ones anmar are already committed to defending their usually are, on a determination of short-term Buddhist civilisation against those they consider “Aung San Suu Kyi electoral need. They were worried that looking foreign invaders. Muslim groups, under current cosy with even one Muslim politician would alien- conditions, are an easy target for hate, with a and her team of ate Buddhist voters. The same set of concerns The Jama Masjid in Sittwe. Photo: Flickr emerged after the assassination of Ko Ni, a long- wide-ranging consensus now among Myanmar user Adam Jones, used under Creative people that the government needs to enforce Commons. key advisors have time activist lawyer and occasional NLD advisor, hard-line policies towards them. The hardest killed at Yangon airport in early 2017. Aung San responses have been focused, since mid-2017, found themselves in Suu Kyi took a month before she spoke publicly on the borderlands where Myanmar rubs against “what has emerged has about his death. Bangladesh. Since mid-year, almost 700,000 Ro- alignment, on the key Apologists seek explanations for these decisions hingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape shocked even hardened questions, with the in the rough-and-tumble of Myanmar political a vicious campaign of communal and state-sanc- deal-making. But by prioritising short term political tioned violence. The Myanmar government pre- humanitarian agencies, military and with expediency over the longer term goal of intercom- sents its actions as a justified response to in- munal cohesion, the NLD has helped shape both creasing Rohingya militancy, including attacks on with allegations of Buddhist chauvinists” the social conditions leading to the dehumanisa- government security outposts. Myanmar has also tion of the Rohingya, and the widespread support sought to obstruct independent investigations. for military action that has purged them from horrifying inhumanity” What this analysis ignores are the positions that long-term residence on Myanmar soil. In practice, Yet what has emerged has shocked even hard- Aung San Suu Kyi holds, as State Counsellor and and much to the dismay of some former support- ened humanitarian agencies, with allegations of Foreign Minister, and the potential for influence ers, Aung San Suu Kyi and her team of key advi- horrifying inhumanity. A senior United Nations these offices afford her on important aspects of sors have found themselves in alignment, on the representative, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, has called policy in Rakhine State. For instance, she could key questions, with the military and with Buddhist it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” while have set a very different tone in terms of interna- chauvinists. While the world still proclaims that the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has tional access, humanitarian response, journalistic such crimes will “never again” tear at our shared labelled the Myanmar government’s action “gen- reporting and military impunity. Among her sup- humanity, the further tragedy for Myanmar is that ocide”. In the aftermath, Bangladesh and interna- porters, Aung San Suu Kyi’s emphatic unwilling- a democratic transition has ended in the sprawl- tional agencies are struggling to provide adequate ness to publicly engage on the subject matter is ing misery of the world’s newest refugee camps. food, sanitation and shelter to the newly displaced excused as a strategic calculation to maintain the people. They seek refuge among earlier waves of current coalition government in power. They argue International responses Rohingya, who have left their homes in Myanmar that without careful phrasing, and fancy footwork, since the 1970s. With the 2018 monsoon bearing she could provoke the military into decisive action hile the government and Aung San Suu down on Bangladesh’s coastal areas, further woe that ends any hope of democratic progress. But Kyi have announced their willingness to and hardship is a near certainty. Aung San Suu Kyi, they tend to forget, has already Waccept investigations, these were slow to toppled from her perch as an icon for democratic start and will take much time to gather the appro- 2 3 pur could build, under the right political condi- Australia-ASEAN Special Summit in March 2018 tions, to exert pressure on national governments, also had no discernible effect. and therefore on ASEAN. By stonewalling in the face of quiet, good-faith dip- ASEAN solidarity is a fragile concept at the best lomatic appeals, Myanmar’s leaders have ensured of times, and further stresses will emerge from that over the years ahead their country’s position the Bangladesh–Myanmar borderlands before on the global stage will weaken further. Already, long. Whether such stresses come in the form Myanmar has been forced back into the embrace of additional violent outbreaks or irregular peo- of China’s Communist leaders, who will seek to ple movements, ASEAN would struggle to build maximise their own advantage form this latest collaborative and meaningful initiatives. One of crisis. Beijing’s self-declared disinterest in the hu- the grouping’s relatively recent successes, the man rights dimensions of Rohingya suffering help response to Myanmar’s 2008 Cyclone Nargis, to keep the conversation with Naypyitaw on topics was made possible by the astute brokering of a of comfortable, mutual concern, like economic pan-regional alliance, which saw the military allow development and countering Islamic violence.