Myanmar’s leader personally faces allegations while avoiding the task of changing the country’s trajectory
“She decided to face the lawsuit by herself,” proclaimed National League of Democracy spokesman Myo Nyunt about his boss, Myanmar’s state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. He was referring to her decision to lead the country’s delegation of lawyers to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on 10-12 December 2019, where Myanmar stands accused of having committed acts of genocide.
She returned to Myanmar from the United Kingdom in 1988 to care for her ailing mother, but when that same year the army violently suppressed a democratic uprising led by students, monks and other civilians, she entered politics and joined the newly established NLD. Between 1989 and 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi had been under house arrest for a total of 15 years. In isolation, she pursued vipassana meditation, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, and wrote essays, short stories and letters.
Several international fact-finding commissions, among them the Kofi Annan commission and a UN International Independent Fact-Finding Mission, have investigated the most recent atrocities. Together with the additional work done in the refugee camps by NGOs and human rights groups, we now have a detailed database of what has happened in Rakhine state.
In local Myanmar media circles the outpouring of support for Aung San Suu Kyi is continuous, as is the outspoken conviction that she is doing the right thing. Rallies been announced for Yangon and other places inside the country, and also for The Hague. Some Myanmar travel companies have announced special offers that combine ‘law with leisure,’ allowing visitors to stay in The Hague for court sessions while also making time for “tourist hotspots.
If it is international condemnation that she doesn’t fear, then this would be a strong echo of the old style of Myanmar politics. For many decades, the generals also paid little mind to international opinion. She cannot hope to sway a global audience in three days at The Hague, so it is not implausible that the focus of her personal engagement is not the world, but her own country.
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