{"id":112680,"date":"2021-03-15T18:20:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T01:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112680"},"modified":"2021-03-15T18:20:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T01:20:47","slug":"myanmar-coup-and-western-impotence-death-of-freedom-and-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/15\/myanmar-coup-and-western-impotence-death-of-freedom-and-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar coup and Western impotence; Death of freedom and justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The UN deputy human rights chief and the independent\nexpert on Myanmar have called for targeted sanctions against the leaders of\nwhat they both described as the coup that took place in the country last week,\nas the Human Rights Council met in special session on Friday to discuss the\nongoing crisis<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the US and its allies gang against Sri Lanka, which\nincidentally is run by a President, a Prime Minister and a cabinet of\nministers, elected by the people, a Parliament elected by the people,  overwhelmingly one might add in all the\nelections, and a Parliamentary Opposition elected by the people, these\ncountries led by the US, and the UN Security Council, are uttering meaningless\nwords without backing their so called condemnation of the brazen Military Coup in\nMyanmar with something tangible than empty words. It clearly demonstrates their\nimpotence and sense of priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 80 people have been killed so far in riots\nagainst the Military and scores of people have been detained for taking a stand\non democracy, freedom and liberty. The human rights champion, the UNHRC is yet\nto say anything about the deprivations imposed on a free people, and the human\nright taken away from them by the Military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A freely elected political party, an election supervised\nby the Military no doubt, was ousted because the Military claimed the election\nwas not fair and was rigged. If this were true, then it is the Military that\nfailed because they controlled the conduct of the election. It is a reflection\non them that they did not do their job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ardent and vociferous democratic citadels led by the\nUS are all aware why the Military did what they did. It is because their own\nplan to rig the election in favour of the puppet political party they created\nto win enough seats to form the next government along with the 25% of the seats\nthat are allocated to the Military anyway, failed and backfired on them. The\npuppets only needed another 25% of the seats, and the Military was banking on\nfraud and rigging to get them past that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this fraud and rigging, the people of Myanmar saw\nthrough this and decided to increase the party position of the NLD led by Aung\nSan Suu Kyi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, now the Military has coined together a Goebbellian\nversion of their own, and promising the world they will have free and fair\u201d\nelections within a year. If the world does not have the guts to call the\nmilitary\u2019s bluff now, would they ever have any power over the military to make\nsure there is a free and fair election\u201d? One can bet all their wealth and take\na safe punt on this. That is, the result of the free and fair election\u201d will\nbe the election of the military backed puppets, and them forming a government with\nthe Military. That will be the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That will be the end of democracy and the short lived\nbreath of fresh air Myanmar enjoyed for a brief period. Unfortunately for\nMyanmar and for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, their treatment of the\nRohingya\u2019s will not help the cause of democracy in the country. The shabby and\ndisgraceful treatment of human beings by human beings, all of whom did not have\nany identity at the time of their birth but acquired society\u2019s labels, where,\nsomeone of the stature of Aung San Suu Kyi did not offer any sympathy or\nconcern or empathy for a group of people so horribly being treated, sadly\nremoved the glowing lustre that Aung San Suu Kyi had till then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is well known that it is the Military that forced her\nhand to comply with what they were doing to the Rohingya\u2019s, and her own safety,\nand the security of her government may have been compromised had she said\nanything in empathy of the Rohingya\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who are the Rohingya People?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a well-researched commentary in the Wikipedia, it says the Rohingya\npeople<\/strong> are a stateless<\/a> Indo-Aryan<\/a> ethnic\ngroup<\/a> who\npredominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State<\/a>, Myanmar<\/a>. \nBefore the displacement crisis<\/a> in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to\nBangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya lived in Myanmar. Described\nby journalists and news outlets as one of the most persecuted minorities in the\nworld, the Rohingya population is denied citizenship<\/a> under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law<\/a>. They are also restricted\nfrom freedom of movement<\/a>, state education and civil service jobs.The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared\nto apartheid<\/a> by some academics, analysts and\npolitical figures, including Nobel laureate<\/a> Bishop Desmond\nTutu<\/a>.\nThe most recent mass displacement of Rohingya in 2017 led the International Criminal Court<\/a> investigating crimes against\nhumanity, and led to the International Court of\nJustice<\/a> investigating genocide<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rohingya maintain they are indigenous<\/a> to western Myanmar with a heritage\nof over a millennium and influence from the Arabs<\/a>, Mughals<\/a> and Portuguese<\/a>. The community claims it is descended\nfrom people in precolonial\nArakan<\/a> and colonial\nArakan<\/a>;\nhistorically, the region was an independent kingdom between Southeast\nAsia<\/a> and\nthe Indian subcontinent<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Myanmar government<\/a> considers the Rohingya as colonial\nand postcolonial migrants from neighbouring Chittagong\/East\nBengal<\/a> respectively\nBangladesh. It argues that a distinct precolonial Muslim population is\nrecognized as Kaman<\/a>, and that the Rohingya conflate their\nhistory with the history of Arakan Muslims in general to advance a separatist\nagenda. In addition, Myanmar’s government does not recognise the term\n“Rohingya” and prefers to refer to the community as “Bangali<\/a>“. This account in the Wikipedia outlines the\nsad state that history and interpretations of it have placed some half a\nmillion Rohingya people in abject poverty, stateless, and dehumanised by the\nMilitary in Myanmar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the future of Myanmar?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buddhist establishment and a vast majority of Buddhists in\nMyanmar, have practiced anything but Buddhism in the way they treated the\nRohingya people. There was no Metta, Karuna, Muditha nor Upeksha extended to\nthe Rohingya people, and sadly Aung San Suu Kyi did not either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, unfortunately, she is no longer on the high pedestal she was\nin when she became the defacto leader of Myanmar in 2016. She cannot rally the\nworld to come to the defence of democracy and freedom in her country as she\nwould have been able to if not for the Rohingya crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it is not Aung San Suu Kyi who is an issue here. It is what\nshe represented, the future of Myanmar, its democracy and its freedom. It is\nbigger than her and it is bigger than the unfortunate blotch on her arising\nfrom the Rohingya people crisis. If for a moment, one gives some thought to who\nbenefited most from that crisis, it is impossible to say Aung San Suu Kyi did.\nIn fact, the reality is the opposite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who then did? If one extends this thought to the possibility that\nthe entity that benefited most orchestrated the crisis to trap her and lesson\nher influence internationally, then that entity certainly achieved that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If hypothetically, the Military was indeed that entity and they achieved\nthe latter, the next step would have been to form the next government with\ntheir puppet party. But, knowing the popularity of Aung San Suu Kyi, they would\nhave had to plan to win it in whatever way, including by rigging the election\nin their favour and not in a genuinely free and fair election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What probably disrupted such a plan would have been their inability\nto have rigged the election sufficiently and the overwhelming vote of\nconfidence that Aung San Suu Kyi got from the people who not only voted for her\nand her party, but also safeguarded the voting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The option planned by the Military, not their preferred option, as\nthat would have been to form a government with their puppet party, would have\nbeen to stage a Coup on the pretext of the election not being free and fair\u201d\nand that they would conduct such an election. That is what has happened and the\njig saw is complete now. It\u2019s no longer a puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course they have to eliminate Aung San Suu Kyi from the\nelectoral process as a diminished standing internationally, has had a reverse\neffect in Myanmar with her popularity going up even further. Trumped up charges\nagainst her are unfolding before the world, and her personal safety is at\nserious risk. The Military is capable of doing anything to make sure their plan\nsucceeds and they take formal, democratic\u201d control after the planned free and\nfair\u201d election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the Military might still prevail as there is no\nkudos to be gained for the US and its allies by restoring Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s\nweakened international position. The democratic citadels playing just lip\nservice and showing feigned outrage at the Military and taking token positions\nrather than any decisive action to make the Military back down will not happen.\nThey will not send any strong messages to China, urging them to get the\nMilitary to restore democracy without pre conditions. Instead, they will work\ntowards the free and fair\u201d election that the Military has promised, and they\nwill then announce they will accept the people\u2019s verdict at that free and\nfair\u201d election in which the Military puppets will win the election by means\nanything but free and fair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy and freedom will be extinguished in Myanmar until the\nnext Aung San Suu Kyi emerges at some distant date. The US, and its allies\nperhaps do not realise that their impotence would have delivered Myanmar lock,\nstock and barrel to China.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale The UN deputy human rights chief and the independent expert on Myanmar have called for targeted sanctions against the leaders of what they both described as the coup that took place in the country last week, as the Human Rights Council met in special session on Friday to discuss the ongoing crisis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raj-gonsalkorale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}