Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi and the fraud of human rights imperialism
14 September 2017
The plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing the Burmese military’s rampage in the western state of Rakhine is a devastating exposure of the fraud of human rights imperialism practiced by the US and its allies and their chief political asset in Burma (Myanmar)—Aung San Suu Kyi.
The brutality and scale of the military operations have occasioned a great deal of hypocritical handwringing in the UN and by those who have aggressively promoted Suu Kyi as a “democracy icon.” Despite the media and humanitarian agencies being barred from the operational area, there is substantial and mounting evidence that the Burmese army has been systematically torching villages and there are numerous eyewitness accounts of soldiers gunning down civilians.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday described what was taking place in Rakhine state as “ethnic cleansing,” saying: “When one-third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, could you find a better word to describe it?” The UN Security Council issued a statement that “expressed concern about reports of excessive violence” and appealed for steps to “de-escalate the situation,” protect civilians and resolve the refugee problem.
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson last week joined the chorus of international appeals to Suu Kyi to use her influence to rein in the military. “Aung San Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age, but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma,” he declared.
If the military’s ethnic cleansing had taken place a decade ago, when the Burmese junta had Suu Kyi under house arrest, the reaction would have…