Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Aung San
Suu Kyi is largely powerless to act because of political constraints in a
country where the military is supreme.
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| Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd |
The claim
Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing
international condemnation for her apparent failure to challenge a brutal
military crackdown that has forced half a million Muslim Rohingya to flee
across the border into Bangladesh.
Commentators have questioned her inaction given the
considerable leverage implied by her party's significant majority in
parliament.
But former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Ms
Suu Kyi is largely powerless to act because of political constraints in a
country where the military is supreme.
Speaking on the , Mr Rudd acknowledged that Ms Suu Kyi
could have handled the Rohingya crisis better, but added that while moral
authority was one thing, "he who controls the barrel of a gun in Myanmar
is another".
"What she has faced is not just that reality, but
also the constitutional, legal reality, that the military have absolute freedom
to do what they wish," he said.
RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates whether the military in
Myanmar has "absolute freedom" to do as it likes.
The verdict
Mr Rudd's claim is oversimplified.
The military does not have absolute freedom to do as it
wishes.
Rather, it is part of a fragile power sharing arrangement
with Ms Suu Kyi's democratically elected party, the National League for
Democracy (NLD).
Most experts consulted by Fact Check say that although
the military has considerable constitutional backing, Ms Suu Kyi's personal
popularity in Myanmar, as well as political influence through her party's
parliamentary majority, give her the ability to challenge the military's
excesses.
However, they believe that political considerations have
prevented her from speaking out against human rights abuses or exercising fully
the power that she holds.
The nature of Myanmar's democracy
Myanmar, also known as Burma, was ruled by an oppressive
military junta for nearly 50 years, until 2011.
Since then, the country has been undergoing unprecedented
reform, including a transition to democracy and negotiations to end conflict
with armed ethnic groups.
The majorities of the Muslim Rohingya live in Rakhine
state and are not officially recognised as one of Buddhist-dominated Myanmar's
135 ethnic groups.
Ms Suu Kyi became the face of the pro-democracy movement
and suffered decades of house arrest until she was released in 2010.
Five years later, she led the NLD to a landslide victory
in Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years.
The military made a controlled move towards limited
democracy in 2011, releasing political prisoners and relaxing media censorship.
Despite these reforms, governing has been a collaborative
process, with the military maintaining significant powers.
Historian and Myanmar government adviser Thant Myint-U
told Forbes in 2015: "It was an election for a spot in a shared government
with the army."
Ms Suu Kyi's position
Myanmar's system of government is known as a
parliamentary republic, with two chambers.
Ms Suu Kyi was elected as an MP in a by-election in 2012.
Since being swept to power in 2015, the NLD has held 60 per cent of seats in
the upper house (135 of 224 seats).
It also holds more than half the seats in the lower house
(254 out of 440).
Shortly after the election, the NLD used its overwhelming
majority in both houses to elect as president, Htin Kyaw, a confidant of Ms Suu
Kyi.
Within a month, he signed into law a parliamentary bill
to create the position of State Counsellor to which Ms Suu Kyi was then
appointed.
Myanmar's constitution forbids Ms Suu Kyi from becoming
president on the grounds that she has children who are foreign nationals.
The role of State Counsellor was created to give her a
leadership position, and is akin to that of prime minister in that she provides
a link between the parliament and the executive branch of government.
Ms Suu Kyi also serves as foreign minister and minister
for the office of the president.
What power does the military have?
Myanmar's 2008 constitution was drafted by army generals
and gives the security forces great powers. Under the constitution, the
military:
*Can declare a state of emergency and take control of the
government (a 'legal coup') should it believe that the state is threatened and
order needs to be restored;
*Is guaranteed 25 per cent of parliamentary seats;
*Maintains formal control over three key ministries —
defence, border administration and home affairs; and
*Is guaranteed one of two
vice-presidential posts.
Changing the constitution requires the support of 75 per
cent of the parliament. Given the military's record of voting in a bloc, change
orchestrated by civilian MPs remains a remote prospect.
How the military and Ms Suu Kyi work together
The power sharing arrangement between the military and Ms
Suu Kyi is not formally articulated, although it is clear that the military
retains considerable power.
Dr Nicholas Farrelly, Associate Dean at ANU College of
Asia and the Pacific, told Fact Check that Mr Rudd was not completely wrong in
arguing that the military had absolute constitutional and legal power, but the
reality was more complicated because of the military's coalition with the
democratically elected government.
"If the Myanmar armed forces wanted to launch a
coup, then there's nobody who could foreseeably oppose them and, so, in that
sense, they are absolutely in charge because they do hold a veto over any of
the democratic flirtation that goes on," he said.
He added that it is "tricky to disentangle the exact
chain of command" in a coalition that included democrats, ethnic
nationalists, the military and conservatives.
"It's less straightforward than the former prime
minister's comments imply and yet he is not completely wrong," Dr Farrelly
added.
Lex Rieffel, a non-resident Senior Fellow with the
Washington DC-based Brookings Institution, told Fact Check that the
constitution appeared to give the military a "free hand to carry out
military operations that it alone decides are essential for the security and
sovereignty of the nation".
However, there was "some hyperbole" in Mr
Rudd's claim because no military had absolute power.
He said the Myanmar armed forces, or Tatmadaw, could
resort to force given the absence of any effective government checks and
balances.
At the same time, the parliament could, in theory, cut
the military's budget. It was simply choosing not to do so.
He said Ms Suu Kyi would not routinely have a say in
matters relating to the Rohingya crackdown and had not been able to consolidate
sufficient power to be able to prevent military operations that she believed
were against the best interests of the country.
"I strongly disagree that Aung Sann Suu Kyi has the
power to curb the military's excesses, especially in operations targeting the
Rohingya community in Rakhine State . . . Indeed, she may have less power today
than she did a year ago," Mr Rieffel said.
Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar
from 2000 to 2003, said the military had absolute power while the country was
run by a junta.
But once the army agreed to end the military regime in
2011, and the reform process got under way, it no longer wielded the same power
as before.
Nonetheless, under Myanmar law, the military was not
subject to civilian control, so Ms Suu Kyi could not simply tell the commander
in chief what to do, Mr Wilson told Fact Check.
"She does not have no say at all, but she does have
to defer to the responsibilities that the military are given in the
constitution. She's in a power sharing arrangement which is not written down .
. . They [the military and Ms Suu Kyi] are each deferring to the other as
having authority of some kind or another.
"If she was of a mind to think the army needed to be
brought into line and soften its policies against the Rohingya, she could do
something about that," he said.
"She could try to persuade them to back down a bit.
She has not done that."
At the weekend, The Guardian reported Ms Suu Kyi had
announced plans to establish a civilian-led agency to deliver aid and help
resettle Rohingya Muslims.
What power does Aung San Suu Kyi actually
have?
Ms Suu Kyi derives her formal power from her roles as
foreign minister and as the State Counsellor, according to Aaron Connelly, a
research fellow at the Lowy Institute. But she wields informal power, too.
"In a young democracy like Myanmar's, informal
arrangements of power are often more important than the formal ones. Suu Kyi
has a significant amount of formal and informal power," Mr Connelly told
Fact Check.
As foreign minister, the constitution granted her charge
of the country's foreign affairs but that power was "fairly prescribed
given how much control over national security the military still has," he
said.
Her position also gave her right to a seat on the
national defence and Security Council, which has the power to declare a state
of emergency.
But, as Mr Wilson noted, she would almost certainly be
out-voted if she raised objections to anything that went against the military's
wishes.
Further underscoring the delicate balance of power
sharing was parliament's oversight of the military's budget, according to
Lowy's Mr Connelly.
"There is an arrangement by which parliament
scrutinises, in committee, the military's budget and then has to approve the
budget," he explained.
"The military has other streams of revenue other
than the state budget, so it is not an absolute power over the budget, and
presumably the military could push back pretty hard, but it's not something
that Suu Kyi has been willing to use her parliamentary majority to do."
Meanwhile, the specific powers Ms Suu Kyi holds as State
Counsellor are unclear. Her official website does not outline these.
But Mr Connelly noted that "the president appears to
act on the advice of the State Counsellor. That is not written down in law
anywhere, but the political reality is that he is a loyal NLD cadre, and he
takes instructions from Suu Kyi. So, she has many of the powers of the
presidency at her disposal."
But Ms Suu Kyi's greatest power was drawn from her
parliamentary majority and her popularity, he added.
"Most importantly, it's the authority she derives
from being the head of the NLD, which is substantial and allows her to control
the parliament. It's worth mentioning that she was in control of what we would
call pre-selection for the NLD."
As a result, she had picked relatively unknown Burman
candidates who owed her their loyalty.
Ms Suu Kyi's parliamentary majority also gave her
considerable behind-the-scenes leverage in applying pressure on the military.
"There is a lot she can do more subtly behind the
scenes to discourage further violence. She may be doing that. We don't
know," Mr Connelly said.
For example, she could direct the state-owned media to
stop fomenting ethnic hatred through inflammatory coverage of the crisis. Also,
as foreign minister, she could grant visas to the UN Human Rights Council's
fact-finding commission.
Why isn't Ms Suu Kyi using her power?
Professor Monique Skidmore, a Myanmar expert and Deputy
Vice-Chancellor Global at the University of Tasmania, told Fact Check that Mr
Rudd's claim was "right, in a sense", given the military's
constitutional right to stage a legal coup.
And while Ms Suu Kyi was free to "speak out"
against the military's heavy-handed tactics against the Rohingya, this would
make for a finely balanced judgment: with Myanmar's Buddhist majority hostile
to the Rohingya, Ms Suu Kyi would risk alienating the people who voted for her
as well as invite a backlash from the military.
All other experts consulted by Fact Check agreed that
such a move would place Ms Suu Kyi in a difficult position politically.
Who are the Rohingya?
The Rohingya are concentrated in Rakhine State on the
country's western coast (an area they call Arakan) and speak a distinctive
dialect.
They are not officially recognised as an ethnic minority
and are denied citizenship, effectively rendering them stateless.
For decades, they have faced military crackdowns, with
Rohingya refugees reporting rape, arson and murder.
On August 24, the Government-appointed Rakhine Advisory
Commission, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released a report
recommending ways for managing the challenges facing the state.
Within days of the report's release, an insurgent group
known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), attacked police and army
posts in Rakhine State.
The security forces responded with a ferocious crackdown,
which Ms Suu Kyi referred to as "area clearance operations" in
a controversial speech in September.
An unknown number of Rohingya villages have been burned
by army, police and vigilantes, with news reports estimating the deaths of
1000, mostly Rohingya.
A further 500,000 people have fled across the border into
Bangladesh and are living in squalid camps unwanted by either country. Doctors
report injuries consistent with rape and sexual violence.
Amnesty International, which has tracked the conflict
using satellite images, says there have been a mass-scale, scorched-earth
campaign across northern Rakhine State, where Myanmar security forces and
vigilante mobs set Rohingya villages ablaze and shot people at random.
The United Nations' top human rights official referred to
the violence as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".
Ms Suu Kyi's international standing has suffered a huge
blow with foreign commentators condemning her failure to speak out against
human rights abuses. There have been repeated calls for her to be stripped of
the Nobel Peace Prize.
Source: https://lnkd.in/gDsU9cy