Aung San Suu Kyi - The Warrior of Peace or Genocide

The south-east Asian state of Burma was under the British rule till 4th January, 1948, when

they declared independence with a huge influence of Aung San (the father of Aung San Suu

Kyi). But, in 1962, the government of Burma was become under control of military leaders.

After decades Aung San Suu Kyi came back to Burma from UK and started fight against the

military Regime, and took into the charge of everlasting pro-democratization processes in

Burma. She was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and more

specifically, by Buddhist concepts. All of these helped her to found the political movement the

“National League for Democracy” on 27 September 1988 and she was fighting to maintain

democracy to all Burmese people. Of course, these actions were purely against dictatorship

regime, for that Aung San Suu Kyi has become under house arrest for several years. In 1991, in

Oslo, Norway, Aung San Suu Kyi won Nobel Peace Prize and her two sons took award instead

of her. Everything was radically changed after the foreign involvement from The United Nations

and she was released from house arrest in 2010.

After the exemption, it is easily predictable, that Aung San Suu Kyi continued fighting for

Democracy in Myanmar and in the national elections of Myanmar in 2015, “National League for

Democracy” got majority in The House of Representatives. In 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi became

the State Counsellor. According to Richard Roewer, in his work “Myanmar’s National League

for Democracy at a Crossroads” describes all the political processes after the Aung San Suu

Kyi’s “National League for Democracy’s” landslide victory in 2015 General elections of

Myanmar and beyond sign of stable democratization process of Southeast Asia. Of course, the

National League for Democracy” has a special status for many years because of their ten-year

lasting struggles for free and fair elections. Their major obligation was to defend basic

democratic values if electorate elected NLD to The House of Representatives. The party, during

the national elections campaign, was focused on internal peace and national reconciliation, to

create a federal system, amend and improve the constitution, to develop the life of the people.

After all, the military still has 25% Sits in Parliament and remains under the control of the

Defense Ministries. Border affairs and services function almost independently of others

Government.

Of course, there were other serious challenges for the new administration, for instance, the

issue of the Rohingya, Muslim population in the northern state of Rakhine in Myanmar.

According to Zoltan Barany’s “Why Myanmar's Army Gets Away with Ethnic Cleansing”

Myanmar’s Security Forces, the Tatmadaw’s actions were main response to few attacks, which

were organized by Rohingya militants, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). As a fact,

on 25th August, 2017, ARSA carried out coordinated attacks on more than twenty small

Myanmar’s security points. However, ARSA fighters were armed with weapons and twelve

Myanmar’s security workers were killed. The rebels also attached on the warehouse and fled

with plenty of Myanmar’s military equipment. For the reason of counter-attacks against

Rohingyas’ ARSA, The Myanmar’s Tatmadaw has reportedly committed widespread human

rights violations against the Rohingya people, including the concrete cases of rape, beatings and

killings. Depending on Barany’s sources, as of the beginning of December, 2017, more than

688,000 ethnically Rohingyas were forced by political situation to flee to Bangladesh, and 392

villages were partially or totally destroyed, the death toll was around 10,000, since the first

aimed attacks began in the year of 2016.

As it is familiar for us, Myanmar has a population of 54 million and dozens of officially

recognized ethnic groups are represented, However, there is no Rohingya among of them. In fact,

the Counsellor of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi has even refused to use the term Rohingya,

because the Rohingyas’ ancestors were originated from Bangladesh. According to the

Counsellor, The Rohingyas, different from other Muslim groups who live in Myanmar, majority

of them does not live-in urban areas of Rakhine State; speak a dialect of Bengali language, have

Muslim names and they have never required the citizenship of Myanmar.

According to both of the authors, it is quite hard to decide who is Aung San Suu Kyi, Is she

Warrior of Peace or Genocide? If we take Zoltan Barany’s arguments into the consideration,

Aung San Suu Kyi and her administration have may broke the principles of The International

Law and the Counceller is accused for the crime against humanity and genocide. In the other

hand, for Richard Roewer, Aung San Suu Kyi is a strong woman, who has spread the light of

democracy to South east Asia. I suppose, both of the authors are right. Aung San Suu Kyi was a

Warrior of Peace; this is a reason why she got the Nobel Peace Prize. But during the repulse of

the rebel Rohingyas, her administration demonstrated very radical ways, which have killed

thousands of ethnically Rohingyas. So, Aung San Suu Kyi is a warrior of peace but not a warrior

against genocide.

Sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep24791

http://www.jstor.com/stable/resrep19683