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Years after Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was elected to power, temporarily ending the nation’s decades-long pariah status under military rule, Naypyidaw is already back in the world’s bad graces.
But that hasn’t stopped Asian governments from pragmatically supporting Suu Kyi’s controversial regime, now accused of genocide by the UN and others for its violent expulsion of over 700,000 Rohingya, in the form of strengthened defense ties.
As de facto leader, Suu Kyi and her government has failed to stop a fresh spate of violence instigated by its Buddhist majority population on the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim group.
Its inaction on the humanitarian issue has resulted in economic sanctions from the West, with the United States, European Union and Canada imposing arms embargoes and penalties on Myanmar military officials.
In contrast, Asia has ramped up security relations with the NLD administration and autonomous military, which controls the powerful defense, home and border affairs ministries.
Myanmar’s military parade to mark the 72nd Armed Forces Day in the capital Naypyitaw, Myanmar March 27, 2017. Photo: Facebook
Recent months have seen India, Vietnam, Thailand and China have variously boosted alliances, expanded arms sales and established naval partnerships with the Tatmadaw, the official name of Myanmar’s armed forces, as Asian nations give clear priority of national interests over human rights.
“Geo-strategic and commercial considerations on the part of Myanmar’s neighbors and friends trump any concerns expressed over its violations of international law and universal human rights,” Andrew Selth, adjunct professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, an Australia-based research group, said in a note published on the Lowy Institute.
Naypyidaw’s supporters are helping it escape retribution for human rights violations, Selth noted.
When it comes to India and China, the Southeast Asian state has long been proxy battleground for geopolitical rivalry between the two Asian heavyweights.
New Delhi and Beijing have aired grievances with Myanmar, which shares a sensitive border with both countries, for aggression on their respective frontiers.
Yet both continue to engage Naypyidaw for self-interest, analysts say.
New Delhi has steadily expanded ties since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first state visit to Naypyidaw in September 2017, one month after violence re-erupted in Rakhine.
Myanmar military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing and Indian leader Narendra Modi during a meeting in New Delhi. Photo: Facebook
Following high-level visits between state officials a year later, the South Asian giant also agreed to help modernize Myanmar’s army and navy.
In December, for example, news reports said that Modi’s government agreed to donate six HJT-16 Kiran jet trainers and station an Indian air force team in Myanmar to help train Myanmar pilots.
Alongside China, Russia, Israel and Ukraine, India is a major arms supplier to Myanmar, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Beijing, however, remains Myanmar’s largest supplier of military hardware. From 2008 to 2017, the nation made up 11.1% of China’s total arms exports to Asia, with sales steadily increasing after 2015, SIPRI found. Those deals have continued since the Rohingya crisis erupted.
“India is supporting the government and Tatmadaw simply as a counter to China,” claimed Zachary Abuza, a professor specializing in Southeast Asian security at the National War College in the US.
Under Modi’s “Act East” foreign policy, New Delhi has bolstered relations with its neighbors to prevent them from falling under Chinese influence. India is aware that not everyone in the Myanmar government and military is happy about being dependent on China for everything, said Abuza.
Beijing, Myanmar’s largest trading partner, is widely considered Asia’s biggest supporter of the NLD government and is now pursuing major infrastructure investments in conflict-ridden Rakhine state under its Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 15, 2017. Photo: AFP/Pool
Those include development of the Kyaukphyu port, which with connecting rail lines and pipelines could give Beijing a strategic outlet to the Indian Ocean, mitigating the risk of its fuel import shipments from the Middle East.
At a meeting with Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country wished to deepen cooperation regardless of international dynamics, thinly veiled reference to Western criticism of the Rohingya crisis.
Aside from shielding Myanmar from UN sanctions and voting against the UN’s move to investigate the genocide accusations, Beijing has also backed what Myanmar officials say are counter-insurgency operations in Rakhine.
China and India take issue with Myanmar’s security practices when it impacts their own interests, including insurgency-related instability on their shared borders, but ultimately they desire a stable Myanmar, said Hunter Marston, a doctoral candidate at Australian National University and independent consultant at GlobalWonks.
Vietnam is also bolstering relations with Myanmar’s Suu Kyi-led administration.
At a meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and President U Win Myint this month, the officials vowed to boost bilateral military and national security operations. Last month, meanwhile, marked the first time a Vietnamese naval vessel visited Myanmar.
Vietnamese and Myanmar naval officials meet and greet during a Vietnamese naval vessel visit to Myanmar, April 3, 2019. Photo: Handout
Such engagement likely reflects Hanoi’s desire to maintain centrality amongst members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), particularly in regard to counterbalancing China.
“They, too would like to coax Naypyidaw away from Beijing and to have a more independent and ASEAN-centric foreign policy,” said Abuza, who noted that commercial considerations are also at play.
Vietnam’s military-owned telecoms firm Viettel, which has large investments in Myanmar, is soon expected to market its own 5G technology as an alternative to Huawei, he said. “I think we will see deepened cyber-communications cooperation between Vietnam and Myanmar.”
Thailand, meanwhile, is the most frequently visited regional country of Myanmar commander-in-chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing. The official has travelled to Thailand ten times since becoming military chief in 2011, according to a 2018 report from the Yangon-based Tagaung Institute of Political Studies.
“The military’s international relations have taken a backseat [to regional ties] since August 2017, when the Rakhine crisis happened,” the report stated.
Since then, Min Aung Hlaing, who is widely known as the “adopted son” of former army chief, ex-premier and top royal advisor General Prem Tinsulanonda, has travelled to Singapore, China, Nepal and Thailand, the report said.
Last year, the Royal Thai Armed Forces presented Myanmar’s military chief with an award that a spokesman for the Thai Defense Ministry said was a separate issue from human rights.
A Myanmar border guard stands near a group of Rohingya Muslims in a Buthidaung township village in the country’s restive Rakhine state, January 25, 2019. Photo: Richard Sargent/AFP
“It’s hard to read these defense ties as anything other than implicit support for the [Myanmar] regime,” said Marston.
Asian nations may oppose the atrocities in Rakhine but they still prefer to maintain engagement toward Myanmar as part of a balanced foreign policy, he continued.
ASEAN as a grouping, for example, refrains from interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs despite being vocally opposed to the government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis. But its individual members continue to engage Myanmar’s military on various fronts, contrary to many Western government positions.
Just this week, a UN fact-finding mission warned the international community to cut off financial and other support for Myanmar’s armed forces as momentum gathers for a more punitive response to ethnic cleansing and genocide allegations.
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MYANMARPRESS FREEDOM|ANALYSIS
MAY 12, 2019
Journalists Kyaw Soe Oo, left, and Wa Lone were freed after spending more than 500 days in jail, for a case that police admitted was a 'set-up', because they were investigating a massacre in Rakhine state. Photo: AFP
Forget pardons, press freedom requires real reforms
While the world welcomed Myanmar’s release of two acclaimed Reuters reporters, the UN says the country’s military continues to fight against independent journalism
ByKYLE SPRINGER
Myanmar’s president released more than 6,000 prisoners on Tuesday, including two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists imprisoned for reporting on a military crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who work for the Reuters news organization, were arrested in 2017 and, after a corrupt trial engineered by the military, sentenced to seven years in prison.
While the presidential pardon is welcome, there are still a number of serious, ongoing issues for freedom of expression and democracy in Myanmar. The influential military and its supporters in the government continue to work against press freedom in particular, waging what a UN human rights report referred to last year as a “political campaign against independent journalism.”
Mishal Husain
✔@MishalHusainBBC
This is the extraordinary reporting for which Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rakhine-events/ …
1,223
1:22 PM – May 7, 2019
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Reuters uncovers how Myanmar forces burned, looted and killed in a remote village.
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Why did the government release the prisoners now?
The pardon coincides with traditional New Year in Myanmar, which started on April 17. It is customary for government officials to release prisoners around this time.
It was also a way to at least partly ease the increasing international pressure on the Myanmar government. Foreign governments, NGOs, and international organizations have heavily criticized the government for its failure to protect freedom of the press, its record on human rights, the Rohingya crisis, and its scant progress on meaningful democratic reform.
But another way to look at the president’s decision to pardon Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo is as a balancing act. The ruling National League for Democracy must toe a careful line in terms of dealing with pressure from the West and appeasing the powerful military and the Burmese ethnic majority, who overwhelmingly support the military’s actions against the Rohingya.
As part of this balancing act, the party let the reporters spend 511 days in jail as a powerful deterrent against dissent, which was desired by the military. Then, the government commuted the sentence at the first opportunity it could in an attempt to please the West.
Does amnesty signal a real shift towards freedom of the press?
Probably not. Despite Tuesday’s pardon, many other journalists face the threat of being prosecuted. Last month a prominent filmmaker and human rights activist was jailed for allegedly defaming the army in a Facebook post.
Myanmar needs to undertake difficult reforms across many areas of its government if it is to truly improve freedom of the press.
First, legal reform is needed. Outdated laws like the Official Secrets Act and Unlawful Associations Act, which were originally legislated during the colonial era, remain on the books.
A number of more recent laws are also used against journalists, particularly a section of the Telecommunications Law, which criminalizes online defamation and impedes investigative reporting. These laws are broad and can be easily applied across poorly defined cases of defamation and sedition.
Efforts to repeal and reform these laws might be easier for the government if it were not for the influence of Myanmar’s military in political and legal processes.
Myanmar’s 2008 constitution guarantees the military a quarter of the seats in the upper and lower houses of Myanmar’s parliament. Amendments to the constitution require the approval of three-quarters of parliament, effectively giving the military veto power over constitutional reform.
In a recent effort, parliament voted to approve a committee to draft amendments to the constitution, but faced significant opposition from the military and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Thousands of demonstrators rallied on the streets of Yangon in support of the committee shortly after it was approved. The draft amendments the committee delivers will still have to get past the 75% vote threshold in parliament.
The judicial branch of Myanmar’s government also contains holdovers from the previous administration of President Thein Sein, a former general. For instance, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, which denied the final legal appeals of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo just last month, is a former Army officer. Three other judges are also appointees of Thein Sein.
Through these influential levers, the military is in a position to block any meaningful reforms and continue to use the legal system to silence those who challenge its continued political control of Myanmar.
For so long, Myanmar was closed off to the rest of the world. Now it is emerging as an influential country in the Indo-Pacific region. The Rohingya crisis and its threat to regional stability has elevated the need for free press coverage of important developments in Myanmar.
The rest of the world should continue to pressure Myanmar to improve its press freedom. It is needed now more than ever.
# This story first appeared on The Conversation. The original report can be accessed here
Read more: Aung San Suu Kyi’s extraordinary fall from grace
MYANMARPRESS FREEDOMREUTERS REPORTERS
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But that hasn’t stopped Asian governments from pragmatically supporting Suu Kyi’s controversial regime, now accused of genocide by the UN and others for its violent expulsion of over 700,000 Rohingya, in the form of strengthened defense ties.
As de facto leader, Suu Kyi and her government has failed to stop a fresh spate of violence instigated by its Buddhist majority population on the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim group.
Its inaction on the humanitarian issue has resulted in economic sanctions from the West, with the United States, European Union and Canada imposing arms embargoes and penalties on Myanmar military officials.
In contrast, Asia has ramped up security relations with the NLD administration and autonomous military, which controls the powerful defense, home and border affairs ministries.
Myanmar’s military parade to mark the 72nd Armed Forces Day in the capital Naypyitaw, Myanmar March 27, 2017. Photo: Facebook
Recent months have seen India, Vietnam, Thailand and China have variously boosted alliances, expanded arms sales and established naval partnerships with the Tatmadaw, the official name of Myanmar’s armed forces, as Asian nations give clear priority of national interests over human rights.
“Geo-strategic and commercial considerations on the part of Myanmar’s neighbors and friends trump any concerns expressed over its violations of international law and universal human rights,” Andrew Selth, adjunct professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, an Australia-based research group, said in a note published on the Lowy Institute.
Naypyidaw’s supporters are helping it escape retribution for human rights violations, Selth noted.
When it comes to India and China, the Southeast Asian state has long been proxy battleground for geopolitical rivalry between the two Asian heavyweights.
New Delhi and Beijing have aired grievances with Myanmar, which shares a sensitive border with both countries, for aggression on their respective frontiers.
Yet both continue to engage Naypyidaw for self-interest, analysts say.
New Delhi has steadily expanded ties since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first state visit to Naypyidaw in September 2017, one month after violence re-erupted in Rakhine.
Myanmar military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing and Indian leader Narendra Modi during a meeting in New Delhi. Photo: Facebook
Following high-level visits between state officials a year later, the South Asian giant also agreed to help modernize Myanmar’s army and navy.
In December, for example, news reports said that Modi’s government agreed to donate six HJT-16 Kiran jet trainers and station an Indian air force team in Myanmar to help train Myanmar pilots.
Alongside China, Russia, Israel and Ukraine, India is a major arms supplier to Myanmar, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Beijing, however, remains Myanmar’s largest supplier of military hardware. From 2008 to 2017, the nation made up 11.1% of China’s total arms exports to Asia, with sales steadily increasing after 2015, SIPRI found. Those deals have continued since the Rohingya crisis erupted.
“India is supporting the government and Tatmadaw simply as a counter to China,” claimed Zachary Abuza, a professor specializing in Southeast Asian security at the National War College in the US.
Under Modi’s “Act East” foreign policy, New Delhi has bolstered relations with its neighbors to prevent them from falling under Chinese influence. India is aware that not everyone in the Myanmar government and military is happy about being dependent on China for everything, said Abuza.
Beijing, Myanmar’s largest trading partner, is widely considered Asia’s biggest supporter of the NLD government and is now pursuing major infrastructure investments in conflict-ridden Rakhine state under its Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 15, 2017. Photo: AFP/Pool
Those include development of the Kyaukphyu port, which with connecting rail lines and pipelines could give Beijing a strategic outlet to the Indian Ocean, mitigating the risk of its fuel import shipments from the Middle East.
At a meeting with Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country wished to deepen cooperation regardless of international dynamics, thinly veiled reference to Western criticism of the Rohingya crisis.
Aside from shielding Myanmar from UN sanctions and voting against the UN’s move to investigate the genocide accusations, Beijing has also backed what Myanmar officials say are counter-insurgency operations in Rakhine.
China and India take issue with Myanmar’s security practices when it impacts their own interests, including insurgency-related instability on their shared borders, but ultimately they desire a stable Myanmar, said Hunter Marston, a doctoral candidate at Australian National University and independent consultant at GlobalWonks.
Vietnam is also bolstering relations with Myanmar’s Suu Kyi-led administration.
At a meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and President U Win Myint this month, the officials vowed to boost bilateral military and national security operations. Last month, meanwhile, marked the first time a Vietnamese naval vessel visited Myanmar.
Vietnamese and Myanmar naval officials meet and greet during a Vietnamese naval vessel visit to Myanmar, April 3, 2019. Photo: Handout
Such engagement likely reflects Hanoi’s desire to maintain centrality amongst members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), particularly in regard to counterbalancing China.
“They, too would like to coax Naypyidaw away from Beijing and to have a more independent and ASEAN-centric foreign policy,” said Abuza, who noted that commercial considerations are also at play.
Vietnam’s military-owned telecoms firm Viettel, which has large investments in Myanmar, is soon expected to market its own 5G technology as an alternative to Huawei, he said. “I think we will see deepened cyber-communications cooperation between Vietnam and Myanmar.”
Thailand, meanwhile, is the most frequently visited regional country of Myanmar commander-in-chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing. The official has travelled to Thailand ten times since becoming military chief in 2011, according to a 2018 report from the Yangon-based Tagaung Institute of Political Studies.
“The military’s international relations have taken a backseat [to regional ties] since August 2017, when the Rakhine crisis happened,” the report stated.
Since then, Min Aung Hlaing, who is widely known as the “adopted son” of former army chief, ex-premier and top royal advisor General Prem Tinsulanonda, has travelled to Singapore, China, Nepal and Thailand, the report said.
Last year, the Royal Thai Armed Forces presented Myanmar’s military chief with an award that a spokesman for the Thai Defense Ministry said was a separate issue from human rights.
A Myanmar border guard stands near a group of Rohingya Muslims in a Buthidaung township village in the country’s restive Rakhine state, January 25, 2019. Photo: Richard Sargent/AFP
“It’s hard to read these defense ties as anything other than implicit support for the [Myanmar] regime,” said Marston.
Asian nations may oppose the atrocities in Rakhine but they still prefer to maintain engagement toward Myanmar as part of a balanced foreign policy, he continued.
ASEAN as a grouping, for example, refrains from interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs despite being vocally opposed to the government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis. But its individual members continue to engage Myanmar’s military on various fronts, contrary to many Western government positions.
Just this week, a UN fact-finding mission warned the international community to cut off financial and other support for Myanmar’s armed forces as momentum gathers for a more punitive response to ethnic cleansing and genocide allegations.
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MYANMARPRESS FREEDOM|ANALYSIS
MAY 12, 2019
Journalists Kyaw Soe Oo, left, and Wa Lone were freed after spending more than 500 days in jail, for a case that police admitted was a 'set-up', because they were investigating a massacre in Rakhine state. Photo: AFP
Forget pardons, press freedom requires real reforms
While the world welcomed Myanmar’s release of two acclaimed Reuters reporters, the UN says the country’s military continues to fight against independent journalism
ByKYLE SPRINGER
Myanmar’s president released more than 6,000 prisoners on Tuesday, including two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists imprisoned for reporting on a military crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who work for the Reuters news organization, were arrested in 2017 and, after a corrupt trial engineered by the military, sentenced to seven years in prison.
While the presidential pardon is welcome, there are still a number of serious, ongoing issues for freedom of expression and democracy in Myanmar. The influential military and its supporters in the government continue to work against press freedom in particular, waging what a UN human rights report referred to last year as a “political campaign against independent journalism.”
Mishal Husain
✔@MishalHusainBBC
This is the extraordinary reporting for which Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rakhine-events/ …
1,223
1:22 PM – May 7, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Massacre in Myanmar: One grave for 10 Rohingya men
Reuters uncovers how Myanmar forces burned, looted and killed in a remote village.
reuters.com
1,078 people are talking about this
Why did the government release the prisoners now?
The pardon coincides with traditional New Year in Myanmar, which started on April 17. It is customary for government officials to release prisoners around this time.
It was also a way to at least partly ease the increasing international pressure on the Myanmar government. Foreign governments, NGOs, and international organizations have heavily criticized the government for its failure to protect freedom of the press, its record on human rights, the Rohingya crisis, and its scant progress on meaningful democratic reform.
But another way to look at the president’s decision to pardon Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo is as a balancing act. The ruling National League for Democracy must toe a careful line in terms of dealing with pressure from the West and appeasing the powerful military and the Burmese ethnic majority, who overwhelmingly support the military’s actions against the Rohingya.
As part of this balancing act, the party let the reporters spend 511 days in jail as a powerful deterrent against dissent, which was desired by the military. Then, the government commuted the sentence at the first opportunity it could in an attempt to please the West.
Does amnesty signal a real shift towards freedom of the press?
Probably not. Despite Tuesday’s pardon, many other journalists face the threat of being prosecuted. Last month a prominent filmmaker and human rights activist was jailed for allegedly defaming the army in a Facebook post.
Myanmar needs to undertake difficult reforms across many areas of its government if it is to truly improve freedom of the press.
First, legal reform is needed. Outdated laws like the Official Secrets Act and Unlawful Associations Act, which were originally legislated during the colonial era, remain on the books.
A number of more recent laws are also used against journalists, particularly a section of the Telecommunications Law, which criminalizes online defamation and impedes investigative reporting. These laws are broad and can be easily applied across poorly defined cases of defamation and sedition.
Efforts to repeal and reform these laws might be easier for the government if it were not for the influence of Myanmar’s military in political and legal processes.
Myanmar’s 2008 constitution guarantees the military a quarter of the seats in the upper and lower houses of Myanmar’s parliament. Amendments to the constitution require the approval of three-quarters of parliament, effectively giving the military veto power over constitutional reform.
In a recent effort, parliament voted to approve a committee to draft amendments to the constitution, but faced significant opposition from the military and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Thousands of demonstrators rallied on the streets of Yangon in support of the committee shortly after it was approved. The draft amendments the committee delivers will still have to get past the 75% vote threshold in parliament.
The judicial branch of Myanmar’s government also contains holdovers from the previous administration of President Thein Sein, a former general. For instance, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, which denied the final legal appeals of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo just last month, is a former Army officer. Three other judges are also appointees of Thein Sein.
Through these influential levers, the military is in a position to block any meaningful reforms and continue to use the legal system to silence those who challenge its continued political control of Myanmar.
For so long, Myanmar was closed off to the rest of the world. Now it is emerging as an influential country in the Indo-Pacific region. The Rohingya crisis and its threat to regional stability has elevated the need for free press coverage of important developments in Myanmar.
The rest of the world should continue to pressure Myanmar to improve its press freedom. It is needed now more than ever.
# This story first appeared on The Conversation. The original report can be accessed here
Read more: Aung San Suu Kyi’s extraordinary fall from grace
MYANMARPRESS FREEDOMREUTERS REPORTERS
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