In Myanmar Coup, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Ends as Neither Democracy Hero nor Military Foil

By allowing negotiations with General Min Aung Hlaing to wither, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had lost the military’s ear. And by defending the generals in their ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, she lost the trust of an international community that had championed her for decades.

“Aung San Suu Kyi rebuffed international critics by claiming she was not a human-rights activist but rather a politician. But the sad part is she hasn’t been very good at either,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “She failed a great moral test by covering up the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya. But the détente with the military never materialized, and her landslide election victory is now undone by a coup.”

President Biden, in the first test of his reaction to a coup intended to upend a democratic election, issued a strongly worded statement that seemed designed to differentiate himself from the way his predecessor dealt with human rights issues.

“In a democracy, force should never seek to overrule the will of the people or attempt to erase the outcome of a credible election,” he said, using language similar to what he said after the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol that sought to overturn his own election. He called on nations to “come together in one voice” to press Myanmar’s military to immediately relinquish power.

“The United States is taking note of those who stand with the people of Burma in this difficult hour,” he added, using the former name for Myanmar as it is still used by the U.S. government.

The speed with which Myanmar’s democratic era unraveled was stunning, even for a country that had suffered nearly a half century of direct military rule and had spun with coup rumors for days.

In November, her National League for Democracy drubbed the military’s proxy party, as many voters once again picked Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political force as the best — and only — weapon to contain the generals. Her accommodation of the army over the past five years was viewed by some as political jujitsu, rather than appeasement.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/world/asia/myanmar-coup-aung-san-suu-kyi.html