Time for EU to stop looking the other way in Myanmar
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One of the most striking aspects of the evolution of relations between Myanmar and other global players in light of its genocide against the Rohingya is the continued cooperation it enjoys with the EU. European leaders are making the wrong moral judgment calls in this situation.
After the mishandling of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the old military junta governing Myanmar lost all traces of legitimacy and was forced to open up the country to a new constitution and a path toward democratic governance. This was heralded in the West as a great development that should be supported morally and financially, and there were high hopes that the constitutional changes would enable the emergence of a democratic civilian government that would no doubt be led by pro-democracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Western powers rushed to offer the necessary support to help the country with its reintegration into the global community, and the EU was the most generous and reliable player in this endeavor.
But no one anticipated just how far this civilian government they were hoping for would fall from Western expectations. Suu Kyi’s government came to power in earnest in 2016. Just a year later, forces of the federal military would instigate and carry out genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority by the border with Bangladesh — the worst human rights violation committed by Myanmar in its entire post-independence history.
This illustrated that, despite the constitutional changes, it was still the old military establishment that ultimately called the shots in Myanmar. But what shocked all Western observers was that Suu Kyi herself did not only fail to condemn the genocide, but rather she was going above and beyond to defend and rationalize the actions of the military, even to Western audiences — including before the International Court of Justice.
The “clearing operations” against the Rohingya in Myanmar forced more than 1 million people — an overwhelming majority of the total Rohingya population that remained in the country at the beginning of 2017 — to flee. But the military and the civilian government of Myanmar remain unrepentant, and efforts to destroy the very identity of the Rohingya as a people are ongoing.
The EU seems committed to the notion that its continued support of so-called “pro-democracy” initiatives in Myanmar serves some kind of “greater good.” This is insanity, and morally indefensible.
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
The latest episode in this sad saga is an election app designed to inform Myanmar voters of the available candidates in their region for next month’s general elections in the country. The app deliberately describes the few Rohingya individuals allowed to even stand for election as “Bengali” — the term used by the military and Suu Kyi herself to imply that the Rohingya are “foreign” and illegitimate, and therefore their expulsion from the land of their forefathers is justified.
The app was developed with financial and technical support from the EU. It was part of the bloc’s long-standing policy to support the development of democracy in Myanmar, dating back to the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. In other words, the EU has supported the development of an app that the government of Myanmar is now using to further the erasure of Rohingya identity.
Unfortunately, the EU seems to remain committed to the notion that its continued support of so-called “pro-democracy” initiatives in Myanmar serves some kind of “greater good.” This is despite the fact that the worst human rights abuses in the history of Myanmar have occurred since the emergence of the “democratic” government of Suu Kyi, and both she and her entire party remain staunch apologists of the genocide. This is insanity, and morally indefensible. No greater good can be served by turning a blind eye to genocide. Ever.
The EU has had two years to update its stance on Myanmar in light of the Rohingya genocide. It is well past time that Brussels stop looking the other way and start living up to its founding values. After this latest debacle — after it has allowed itself to be manipulated into supporting a tool of genocide in the arsenal of the government of Myanmar — the EU must finally pull back from its engagement with Myanmar and make its continued support for democratic development conditional on that democracy being made available to all the people of Myanmar, including the Rohingya.
- Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a Director at Center for Global Policy in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @AzeemIbrahim
