The Suu Kyi
government has botched efforts to address the problems and the current approach
will lead to a cycle of violence
By Bill Richardson, January
28, 2018
For the past two
months, I have served on an international panel designed to help the Myanmar
government arrive at just and reasonable policies for its conflict in Rakhine
state, including its long-suffering Rohingya minority. This week I resigned.
The reason: I have little confidence in the body’s ability to address the
critical challenges facing the region and the country.
Aung San Suu Kyi,
the country’s effective leader, is isolated and unwilling to listen to
constructive criticism. Her government is focused on getting things done
quickly instead of getting them done right. If Myanmar, also known as Burma, is
to have any hope of preventing a further downward spiral to the crisis in
Rakhine state and restoring its international reputation, immediate and
dramatic changes are required. A continuation of the current approach is likely
to lead to a dangerous cycle of violence that threatens both Myanmar’s hopes
for peace and democracy and broader regional stability.
To be sure, Myanmar
faces daunting challenges on Rakhine. Coordinated attacks by a new Muslim
militant group triggered a brutal and sustained “security clearance operations”
by the Myanmar military that, in just 15 months, forced nearly 800,000 people
to flee to Bangladesh. Deep-seated mistrust festers between Buddhist and Muslim
communities in Rakhine, as well as between each of these communities and the
government. Systemic discrimination against minority groups, especially
Muslims, remains rampant. Major drug-smuggling and human-trafficking networks
plague the region. And chronic under-investment in health, education and the
economy exacerbate the problems.
These challenges are
compounded by Myanmar’s botched efforts to address them. Though the Kofi Annan-led
Rakhine Advisory Commission’s final report provides the foundation, Myanmar has
yet to develop or articulate a strategy for Rakhine. The government is focused
on outputs at the expense of impact and rapid implementation to show progress
rather than efforts to design processes that help to build trust and
confidence. Moreover, Aung San Suu Kyi’s lack of moral leadership in a domestic
political environment that is increasingly nationalistic, anti-Muslim and
hostile to the changes required to de-escalate the situation in Rakhine is
particularly troubling. Myanmar’s renewed penchant for attacking freedom of the
press, highlighted by the recent arrest of two Reuters journalists
investigating the conflict in Rakhine, surely does not help.
Myanmar is rightly
facing tremendous international pressure to implement changes, but this does
not justify the government’s siege mentality and its resistance to constructive
criticism from an international community that wants to see Myanmar succeed in
its efforts to establish peace and development in Rakhine and to entrench
democratic norms.
To begin to turn the
situation around, the government of Myanmar should take three steps
immediately. First, Aung San Suu Kyi must establish her moral leadership on the
Rakhine issue. Although her popularity is lower than when her party swept
elections two years ago, she is still widely respected in Myanmar, particularly
among the majority ethnic Burmese. She should use her stature to unequivocally
condemn hate speech and discrimination in her public communications to the
people of Myanmar. It would also be helpful if she ensured that state media,
which has referred to Muslims from Rakhine as “human fleas,” does not
exacerbate the potential for conflict.
Second, Myanmar must
establish effective accountability mechanisms for perpetrators of violence. The
signal that impunity is tolerated is a threat to the rule of law that Aung San
Suu Kyi has repeatedly stated she seeks to instil. I am encouraged by Myanmar’s
seeming willingness to establish an independent and credible investigation into
the discovery of mass graves in Rakhine, and I hope that this will be the first
of several steps to further understand and account for the violence that has
occurred there since October 2016.
Finally, Myanmar
must develop a strategy to deal with Rakhine that appropriately prioritises and
sequences among the recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission. The
government’s focus on infrastructure and development, while important, is insufficient
to address the structural changes necessary. To ensure that key challenges such
as freedom of movement, citizenship and the closure of internally displaced
persons camps are addressed effectively and in the spirit in which they were
intended, the Myanmar government should work closely with international
partners to develop clear and public plans that lay out the step-by-step
process by which these issues will be addressed and bench marks met.
Left unaddressed,
the situation could quickly become an even bigger headache for Myanmar, the
region and the world. In the short term, the repatriation process that Myanmar
is racing to implement is sure to be symbolic at best: Provided returns are
safe, voluntary and dignified, few refugees will go back to a country in which
they have been violated, which does not respect their basic rights and which
offers no means of redress for wrongs. That leaves a large, destitute and
aggrieved population just across the border in Bangladesh that is susceptible
to radicalisation. For the sake of its own interests and those of the region,
Myanmar must immediately correct course and recognise that the international
community wants to help it to do so.
—
Washington Post
Bill
Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico and a former US ambassador to the
United Nations, is the founder of the Richardson Centre for Global Engagement