Rohingya

In a major address to the Myanmar public, and the international community today, Aung San Suu Kyi gave her first significant speech about the ongoing crisis in Rakhine State. This crisis has now become probably the worst humanitarian catastrophe in East Asia. Reports suggest that people have been fleeing Rakhine State at a faster rate than in any refugee exodus since 1971. Over 400,000 people have fled Rakhine State into Bangladesh in recent weeks. The UN has referred to the crisis as ethnic cleansing, and there seems to be no letup in the Myanmar military’s offensive in Rakhine State. Although President Trump did not mention the Rohingya in his address at the United Nations, Secretary of State Tillerson called Suu Kyi about the crisis. Other countries that historically have been strong backers of Suu Kyi, including Britain and Sweden, have expressed growing concern, and called private UN sessions about the crisis. Suu Kyi decided not to come to this week’s United Nations General Assembly, and instead gave a major speech in Naypyidaw about the crisis. The speech confirmed much of what has already become evident about her approach to Rakhine State. That approach, reflected in this speech, is one in which she downplays the crisis, focuses instead on her other domestic priorities, refuses to recognize the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar, plays to overall public opinion in Myanmar, and mostly defers to the military. Suu Kyi sees her major priorities as addressing insurgencies in the north and northeast of the country, as I mentioned in a recent Washington Post article; she views the Rakhine crisis, however horrific, as just one among many challenges in border lands. The speech reflected these priorities. She, like many ethnic Burmans, seems to view the Rohingya as outsiders—she referred in the speech to “Muslims” in Rakhine State but did not refer to them as Rohingya. She also seems to understand the political calculus in Myanmar; most of the population, as well as the army commanders, probably are supportive of the army’s scorched earth approach to Rakhine State—or at least do not mind it. Crowds rallied in central Myanmar to hear and cheer Suu Kyi’s speech; the domestic context of how her approach to Rakhine is viewed is vastly different from the international context. Although Suu Kyi did indeed intend the speech for international audiences, and spoke in English, she only generally condemned all rights violations. She suggested that Naypyidaw did not understand the causes of the refugee outflow, basically pardoning the military for atrocities that are largely to blame for the exodus. She also seemed to suggest that the situation on the ground in Rakhine was becoming more peaceful and that many Rohingya were not fleeing—a dubious claim—and this might be because the situation in Rakhine is not as dire as the world believes. There is little evidence to support the idea that the armed forces are creating peace in Rakhine. She further added that Myanmar did not fear investigations into the crisis, even though journalists and aid workers have largely been kept out of northern Rakhine. There is political calculus by Suu Kyi in this speech. The military commander-in-chief dominates security policy, and she may feel she can little sway what the armed forces do in Rakhine anyway. Most of the Myanmar population probably is uninterested in Rakhine State—at best. But the speech was still even less than Suu Kyi perhaps could have said to an international audience, and it understates her own influence both domestically and internationally. Though the military has control of security policy, Suu Kyi’s immense popularity at home means that she could use the bully pulpit to change minds and indirectly influence the armed forces—and demonstrate that the civilian government is not totally prostrate to the army. She did not try to do any of those things today.

Myanmar is essentially run by one of the world’s most lauded humanitarians. Yet since her party took power last year, Aung San Suu Kyi—the country’s de facto leader, though not its official president—has stood by and watched the slaughter and flight of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya. In a speech earlier today in Myanmar, Suu Kyi again mostly ignored the plight of the Rohingya. For more on why Suu Kyi has shied away from confronting the issue, see my Washington Post Outlook article.

As the Myanmar military attacks the Rohingya minority, the country's female leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has done little to stop the violence. The harsh lesson from it all: women leaders do not always promote peace.

In recent months, considerable ink and pixels have been spilled chronicling the growing humanitarian crisis in western Myanmar, and castigating the government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar security forces for their scorched earth policy toward Rakhine State in the west. But less has been written about possible actions that Naypyidaw, and outside actors, can take. In my new piece for Aspenia, I outline some potential immediate steps that could help stem the crisis. The piece can be read here.

Every day seems to bring worse news about the spiraling conflict in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. A top UN human rights official recently announced that the violence in Rakhine State is a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” As the Guardian reported: In an address to the UN human rights council in Geneva, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein denounced the “brutal security operation” against the Rohingya in Rakhine state, which he said was “clearly disproportionate” to [Rohingya] insurgent attacks carried out last month. Over 300,000 Rohingya have now fled into Bangladesh in recent weeks, straining the camps along the border. Camp aid workers are reporting desperate shortages of many essential supplies. The Myanmar military this past week also rebuffed a supposed month-long ceasefire offered by Rohingya militants. Meanwhile, journalists from organizations like the BBC who were taken on government-monitored trips to parts of Rakhine State this past week—heavily controlled trips, mind you—still managed to see massive devastation and what they believed were more villages “being put to the torch” by security forces or vigilantes. Rights organizations have confirmed these massive burning operations, while other reports suggest that the Myanmar military may have laid mines along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. In this climate, is the U.S. Senate really going to go forward with the part of the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would expand military to military cooperation with Myanmar? This expanded cooperation would include more trainings for the Myanmar military on a range of issues. The long-term impact of such trainings and military-to-military cooperation can be debated. But why expand cooperation now—right now, as the world is watching the ongoing strife in western Myanmar? That seems a serious question.

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Robert Kagan suggested that, in this period of uncertain governance by the White House, Congress should take a much more forceful approach to governing, as it did in the 1860s and, to some extent, in the 1920s. He noted that Congress already has defied the president on Russia policy and, to some extent, on health care, and he outlined ways in which Congress could become the central policymaker in Washington. Among others, Kagan suggested that: “on matters where [Republicans and Democrats] both see a threat to the nation’s interests … Congress can wield the power of the purse … [like] a joint national security committee headed by the chairs and ranking members of the foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence committees, for instance.” It seems hard to believe that the current Congress, split among GOP factions, with little experience legislating, and unsure how to approach a president who enjoys high popularity with the GOP base, will take on broad governing powers the way Kagan suggests. What’s more, congresspeople in both parties have, over the past twenty years, gotten used to an increasingly so-called “imperial presidency,” in which so much of the policymaking process is driven by the executive, especially on foreign policy issues. However, on one region of the world—Southeast Asia—the possibility for Congress to take the lead, to be the driving policy actor, actually exists. As I noted in an earlier blog post, over the past two decades Congress has played a central role in determining Southeast Asia policy. In many respects, Congress has dominated Southeast Asia policy more than it has any other region of the world; several top House and Senate leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have significant interests in Southeast Asia policy. For years, the region was largely ignored by multiple U.S. administrations, and Congress was free to craft sanctions policy on Myanmar, to shape policy toward Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and to weigh in significantly on U.S. policy toward Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. Now, not only has the White House paid relatively little attention to growing crises in mainland Southeast Asia but those crises are quickly spiraling out of control. In just the past two months, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has shut down the National Democratic Institute’s operations in Cambodia, cracked down on top members of the opposition CNRP party, shut a range of press outlets, and seems prepared to potentially close the CNRP for good, in the run-up to next year’s 2018 national elections. Cambodia was never a true democracy, but this intense repression goes far beyond the political situation in Cambodia during the 2000s and early 2010s—it is a dramatic increase in the level of repression, one that puts Cambodia on the verge of becoming a full dictatorship. Hun Sen is only growing bolder; this week, he vowed “to continue leading his impoverished Southeast Asian nation for another 10 years,” according to the Associated Press. The White House has seemed mostly uninterested in the Cambodia crackdown; the State Department has said it is “deeply concerned” over Hun Sen’s actions. With the offices of Senator Mitch McConnell and several other top congressional leaders long interested in Cambodia, the opportunity is there for Congress, rather than the White House, to develop a tough approach to the growing climate of repression in Cambodia. Similarly, in Myanmar the situation in Rakhine State has in recent months spiraled from bad to worse. Some 120,000 people have fled into Bangladesh in recent weeks, after a spate of attacks by Rohingya insurgent groups and a brutal Myanmar army campaign in Rakhine State, which reportedly has included widespread burnings of homes and swaths of land. Official figures state that around 400 people have been killed in the latest spate of fighting in Rakhine State, but it is hard to know if that number is accurate—it could be wildly understated. The military is stepping up its force presence in Rakhine State. The BBC today reported that Myanmar may be mining the border with Bangladesh. Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of government, has downplayed the severity of the crisis, earning international condemnation. Yesterday, in a call with Turkey’s president, Suu Kyi reportedly blamed “terrorists,” for what she dubbed “a huge iceberg of misinformation” about the crisis in Rakhine State. She previously has downplayed the scale of the crisis and the army’s role in it, and there is little indication that Suu Kyi will or can restrain the military from a scorched earth policy in Rakhine. Again, the White House has taken a low-key stance toward the crisis, as it has in Cambodia. Politico’s Nahal Toosi reported this week that the “Trump admin – including the State Department has been silent re: killings of Rohingya” but that after significant prodding from Toosi, the State Department issued a comment to Politico that “expresses ‘deep concern’ re: Myanmar violence. But it doesn't name Rohingya.” Congress, again, should take the lead. The letters sent this week to Suu Kyi and her government by Senator John McCain and Congressman Edward Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were important first steps. But Congress could do more. It can revisit the possibility of extending IMET to Myanmar, and call new hearings on the Rohingya crisis, before the visit of Pope Francis in November, to expose the potential atrocities and help people understand the situation in western Myanmar. And if the situation in Rakhine State gets worse, Congress should consider even sterner measures toward Myanmar—despite the fact that Aung San Suu Kyi in theory now runs the country.

Rakhine State, where violence has been escalating for two months after Rohingya militants allegedly attacked a border guard post on October 9, is spiraling into chaos. As I noted in a recent post, the government of Aung San Suu Kyi seems unable, or unwilling to control security forces operating in northern Rakhine State, where they have been numerous reports of reprisal killings, beatings, and house-burnings against Rohingya in the weeks since October 9. The Myanmar government reportedly has made parts of northern Rakhine State off-limits to journalists and aid groups, making it hard to assess the true state of damage there. The unrest in western Myanmar has been going on for at least five years, since a first round of violence in the early 2010s. As army rule gave way to quasi-civilian rule in Myanmar at that time, violence against Rohingya expanded throughout Rakhine State, driving over 100,000 people out of their homes, and destroying many Rohingya communities. At the time, many Rohingya fled Myanmar or crowded into makeshift camps, but there were few attacks by Rohingya on Buddhist Rakhines or state institutions. That may be changing. Now, in a comprehensive report, the International Crisis Group (ICG) lays out a new potential impact of the years-long campaign, by security forces, paramilitaries, and average citizens, against the Rohingya in Rakhine State. According to ICG’s investigators, Rakhine State is witnessing the “emergence of a new Muslim insurgency there. The current violence is qualitatively different from anything in recent decades, seriously threatens the prospects of stability and development in the state and has serious implications for Myanmar as a whole.” Indeed, ICG is the first to report that a sizable militant network has emerged among Rohingya. It argues, based on extensive interviews, that:   The insurgent group, which refers to itself as Harakah al-Yaqin (Faith Movement, HaY), is led by a committee of Rohingya émigrés in Saudi Arabia and is commanded on the ground by Rohingya with international training and experience in modern guerrilla war tactics. It benefits from the legitimacy provided by local and international fatwas (religious judicial opinions) in support of its cause and enjoys considerable sympathy and backing from Muslims in northern Rakhine State, including several hundred locally trained recruits.   Some other Myanmar-based reporters and civil society groups have questioned the ICG report, wondering whether the reported militant network is really that well trained and equipped, given that the Myanmar security forces mostly seem to be arresting alleged militants with knives, or ancient guns, Still, the possibility that Rohingya angered by the state’s growing political, social, and economic marginalization of them, would eventually turn to violence, could never be ruled out. Even before ICG’s report outlined the rise of new militant Muslim networks in Rakhine State, some Myanmar security experts had warned that scorched earth government tactics, and the disenfranchisement of most Rohingya before last year’s elections, would eventually fuel a counteraction. ICG notes:   Disenfranchisement prior to the 2015 [national and state] elections severed the last link with politics and means of influence. At the same time, the disruption of maritime migration routes to Malaysia closed a vital escape valve, particularly for young men whose only tangible hope for the future was dashed. An increasing sense of despair has driven more people to consider a violent response.   Indeed, even before this report there have been rumors floating around for years among diplomats and security experts in Myanmar that the Islamic State, militant groups based in Persian Gulf states, and older, seemingly defunct Rohingya militant groups that operated in the 1990s and 2000s, were trying to recruit young men in Rakhine State. Militant groups were allegedly targeting those alienated by the violence of the early 2010s, and trying to convince them to launch attacks against Rakhine Buddhists and representatives of the state. Until early October, these rumors seemed just that. The question now is, how widespread has militancy become among Rohingya---and how much support militant sentiment might have? How real and how large is this supposed insurgency? ICG has identified a potentially new and dangerous militant network, but it is unclear how much it draws on the actual views of the Rohingya population. Second, and most important, how can the Myanmar security forces---notorious for abusing civilians and allegedly complicit in the attacks on Rohingya going back to the early 2010s---effectively prosecute a campaign to shut down militant networks without turning to even more brutal tactics against the entire Rohingya population? As ICG notes, de facto head of government Aung San Suu Kyi has little actual control over the military, or little desire to exert control. Since early October the armed forces operating in Rakhine State appear to be operating without any civilian leadership from Naypyidaw. To eradicate militant networks, security forces in Rakhine State will have to increase intelligence gathering, work with regional governments to understand growing radicalism in Rakhine State---but also stop the wanton beating, torture, and killing of civilians in Rakhine State that has, too often, been the norm for security forces. The army’s usual scorched earth tactics have been the major source of the chaos in Rakhine and are totally counterproductive in any strategy to combat militant groups. But given what has taken place since early October, as the Myanmar security forces have been unleashed with few checks in northern Rakhine State, it is hard to imagine any new, more nuanced approach to the Rakhine conflict occurring.

The ongoing bloodshed in Rakhine State, where security forces reportedly are engaging in a rising pattern of abuses against Rohingya, seems to be worsening. International human rights groups have warned that violence is escalating, and Kofi Annan, head of an international commission to study conditions in Rakhine State, this week told reporters he was “deeply concerned” with reports of dozens of Rohingya killed in the state in recent weeks, according to the New York Times. Human rights groups have warned that security forces are targeting groups of Rohingya for extrajudicial executions and also are blocking aid shipments to areas of northern Rakhine State. The New York Times reports, “Activists have relayed stories of rapes, arson, targeted killings and other atrocities said to have been committed against the Rohingya there by the army since Oct. 9, when insurgents killed nine police officers in attacks on border posts." In late November, former UN Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta and Benedict Rogers, a leading Myanmar rights activist, warned that Rakhine State was at risk of descending into ethnic cleansing resembling the past tragedies in Rwanda and Bosnia, among others. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has done little to stop the unfolding violence. Senior generals have said that there are no abuses happening in Rakhine State currently, and Aung San Suu Kyi has chosen a top army general and current vice president, Myint Swe, to investigate the attacks in Rakhine State. Myint Swe headed military intelligence under the former junta, which repeatedly crushed protests, including the 2007 Saffron Revolution. In addition, Aung San Suu Kyi has chastised the international community for fueling division in western Myanmar, claiming that the international community is “drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment” in Myanmar. There are three lessons we can clearly see from the response, or lack thereof, of the Myanmar government to the rising violence, apparent arson, and forced displacement in Rakhine State. First, Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have minimal personal interest in issues related to the Rohingya. During the 2014–2015 campaign season, she rarely spoke about the Rohingya, and when she did so she often downplayed the violence that has occurred in Rakhine State over the past five years. The broadest base of her support comes from the majority ethnic Burmans, and there is little political capital to be gained among most Burmans from advocating for the Rohingya. Since becoming de facto head of the Myanmar government earlier this year, Aung San Suu Kyi has appointed Annan’s commission but invested little personal time or use of her bully pulpit to address the situation in Rakhine State. Although she said, last spring, that resolving conflict in Rakhine was a priority, in recent weeks she has just said, over and over, that Naypyidaw is in control of the situation in northern Rakhine. Or, she has blamed foreign groups for stirring up tension in Rakhine State. She has continued saying this despite ongoing abuses and significant evidence that Naypyidaw does not have control of the chaos in Rakhine. On other domestic challenges, the former Nobel laureate has been much more personally engaged, showing that she can indeed command the bully pulpit impressively. Aung San Suu Kyi has been more than willing to use her bully pulpit to address ongoing civil conflict in the north and northeast. It is reasonable to assume that she regards the violence in Rakhine State as less important, less deserving of her attention than the conflict in the north and northeast, as well as many other Myanmar issues. Second, Aung San Suu Kyi and her government either cannot control the military forces operating in Rakhine State, or they choose not to, perhaps for fear of alienating the army, which retains enormous political influence. There is no evidence, either from published reports or from my own conversations with Myanmar government advisors, that Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders are taking real, concrete steps to scrutinize the actions of security forces in western Myanmar and to end the climate of impunity for forces involved in abuses in Rakhine State. A lack of government control of the military is unsettling; a disinterest in controlling an armed forces that have been accused, for decades, or massive crimes, is an unsettling prospect as well. Placing Myint Swe, regarded as a military hard-liner, as a top investigator into the Rakhine crisis, does not suggest a serious desire to investigate the security forces’ actions. Third, despite considerable media coverage of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib tun Razak’s recent speech warning about abuses in Rakhine State, there is actually little evidence other Southeast Asian nations will do anything concrete to stop the bloodshed. Earlier this week, Najib told a crowd in Kuala Lumpur that “enough is enough” and that Aung San Suu Kyi has to take more dramatic action to stop crackdowns on Rohingya. Like most Malaysian Malays, the Rohingya are Muslims, and a sizable group of Rohingya has fled to Malaysia, although they mostly do not have legal status in Malaysia. But Najib, like other leaders in the consensus-first Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will do little more than offer occasional public statements and possibly meet in private with Aung San Suu Kyi to encourage her to take stronger action to protect rights in western Myanmar. ASEAN’s long history shows that the organization is ill-equipped to do anything concrete about human rights crises, and that is not likely to change now, even though ASEAN has a human rights charter that supposedly obliges member-states to respect rights. What’s more, Najib (and most other regional leaders) is not exactly a stirring spokesman for respecting rights. His government has presided over a crackdown on civil society and opposition politicians over the past three years. He is, most likely, highlighting the violence in western Myanmar as a way of seeming tough on Muslims’ rights, and distracting domestic attention from his squabbles with former members of Malaysia’s governing coalition, regular large street protests, an ongoing corruption scandal, and other domestic challenges facing his administration.

Over the past month, the situation in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which has been extremely volatile since an eruption of violence in the early 2010s, has deteriorated once again. Following an attack on police outposts near the border with Bangladesh in early October, which killed at least nine policemen, the state is on edge. Some human rights groups have reported that the security forces and police, as well as individuals, are striking back at ethnic Rohingya, since militant Rohingya Muslims were believed to be behind the killings of the police. Although the security forces, which are dominated by Buddhist ethnic Rakhines, supposedly have been targeting only militant suspects, they have spread their net widely, unleashing a wave of destruction. For more on my analysis of the increasingly dangerous situation in western Myanmar, see my new article for World Politics Review. 

Rakhine State, in western Myanmar, has been rocked by violence over the past five years. As the Myanmar government transitioned from a military junta to a quasi-civilian regime and, now, to a government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD), gangs and paramilitaries have repeatedly attacked Rohingya communities. Over 140,000 Rohingya have been driven from their homes in Rakhine State, with many winding up in camps that are little more than barren internment centers. Their homes have been taken over, making it unlikely they could ever return. The violence has been part of a broader rise in anti-Muslim sentiment that has swept through Myanmar since the early 2010s. This violence has included firebombings and other attacks on Muslim-owned stores, mosques, and other sites throughout the country. In my article for the Washington Monthly earlier this year, I outlined the vast devastation wreaked upon western Myanmar. Earlier this year, there was some hope that the NLD-led government, which had mostly ignored the violence in western Myanmar during its campaign in 2015, was starting to take proactive steps to foster reconciliation in the west and find some lasting solution that would address the disenfranchisement and brutality against Rohingya. On the campaign trail last year, Aung San Suu Kyi regularly dismissed concerns about the unrest and abuses in Rakhine State. Then, this past summer, Aung San Suu Kyi’s government appointed a commission, headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to assess the situation in Rakhine State. The commission could possibly write recommendations for fostering reconciliation, the restoration of human rights, and development in western Myanmar. The establishment of the commission was widely praised by international rights groups and organizations working with the Rohingya. But now, the situation in western Myanmar appears to be further deteriorating, in what is surely Rohingya advocates’ worst nightmare. On October 9, someone launched assaults on border police posts in Rakhine State, and since then the security forces have reportedly waged a fierce campaign in Rakhine State, although it remains unclear who they are fighting. Still, the government Monday told Myanmar reporters that at least thirty people had been killed in fighting in Rakhine State since October 9, and some Rohingya organizations claim that security forces and other actors in Rakhine State also have started forcing Rohingya from their homes, detaining groups of Rohingya, and burning down houses. These claims---both the number killed since October 9 and the reports of detentions---remain unverified Still, some Myanmar government officials and foreign observers are speculating that groups of Rohingya, furious at their mistreatment over the past five years, are now going to take up arms against local police, security forces, and other officials---and that the October 9 attacks were the first blow in the battle. Yet Rohingya militant groups that have been mentioned by the Myanmar authorities as linked to the October 9 attacks have no prior track record, and several Myanmar experts who focus on Rakhine State had never heard of these organizations. In reality, every Myanmar official I spoke with admitted that they had little information about these supposed organizations---and that they were unsure if these organizations existed at all. Some apparent groups of Rohingya have posted videos on social media in the past two weeks, celebrating the October 9 attacks and calling for a battle in Rakhine State, but it remains unclear who these posters are or whether they really have any connection to the past two weeks’ worth of violence. Nonetheless, violent attacks by Rohingya in western Myanmar would not only undermine the Rohingyas’ international standing but also possibly undermine the work of the Annan commission. A spate of violent attacks by Rohingya militants could give the government and local security forces the pretext to attack back, using further tactics like burning homes and forcing Rohingya into internment camps. Moreover, a deteriorating security situation, particularly in northern Myanmar, has made it harder and harder for aid workers to get food and other essentials to civilians on the ground there. According to a new article in the New York Times, the UN World Food Program and other aid agencies are unable to move food to some parts of northern Rakhine due to the closure of some roads after October 9 and the temporary bans on movement to several areas. The World Food Program has had deliveries into parts of Rakhine State. The situation in western Myanmar once again looks very grim.

Later this week, Myanmar State Counselor, and de facto head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi travels to the United States. She will address the United Nations General Assembly and will meet with President Barack Obama in the White House this Wednesday. She also will hold meetings with a range of other U.S. officials, Myanmar specialists, and companies. As James Hookaway of the Wall Street Journal notes, the trip clearly solidifies Aung San Suu Kyi’s role as de facto head of government, although she is not technically president. And Aung San Suu Kyi has been careful to balance her state diplomacy, visiting China last month before Myanmar’s national peace conference, and in advance of her trip to the United States. She also has visited other powers important to Myanmar such as Thailand. What does the Myanmar leader hope to gain from this trip to the United States? For one, according to numerous Myanmar officials, she hopes to gain clearer support from the Obama administration for her approach to handling the ongoing tensions in western Rakhine State. There, where conflict has erupted between Buddhists and Muslims since the early 2010s, Aung San Suu Kyi’s seeming indifference to the plight of the Muslim Rohingya initially damaged her image in the United States, and globally. Now, she has asked former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to head up a commission tasked with investigating the violence in Rakhine State, where more than 140,000 Rohingya have been driven out of their homes, with many living in displaced persons camps in the state now. Some human rights groups, like Fortify Rights (a group focusing on the Rohingya and Rakhine State) have welcomed the appointment of Annan, which potentially gives the investigation more credibility. The appointment of Annan also has helped rehabilitate Aung San Suu Kyi’s image among human rights groups in the United States and elsewhere. But Annan is still working on a commission---it will not have any powers to enforce any recommendations it makes, as the former UN Secretary General himself has made clear. The Obama administration likely will press Aung San Suu Kyi to be clearer about how she will address many of the entrenched social and economic problems in Rakhine State, including land grabbing, which remains a persistent problem. Second, Aung San Suu Kyi will push for enthusiastic U.S. government support of her strategy for achieving a permanent and national peace. The peace conference organized by the National League for Democracy (NLD) government last month received only a mixed reception from many of the remaining ethnic insurgencies; the largest, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), had its representatives walk out of the meeting. U.S. officials should press Aung San Suu Kyi for clearer indications of how she plans to handle the next meetings of the national peace dialogue, how she plans to woo back the UWSA and other insurgents to the peace table, and what her vision is for some kind of future, more federal Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi also will likely want the Obama administration, and U.S. investors, to publicly support the NLD’s economic strategy. Although this remains relatively vague, the new Myanmar government has rolled out a strategy that seems to prioritize making Myanmar’s agricultural sector more productive, improving macroeconomic stability, making the financial sector more stable, and addressing endemic corruption. However, the government has not made clear how it plans to address several extremely important economic issues, including the continuing problem of land confiscation, and the lack of clear land tenure laws. The NLD government has created a commission to assess land tenure challenges, but some Myanmar rights groups worry that the commission will simply bury land disputes. Even more worryingly, the government also has offered no clear direction about how it will address the fact that groups linked to current and past armed forces leaders have control over many sectors of the Myanmar economy. The ongoing influence of the armed forces over so much of the economy is a factor that adds to graft, opaque business dealings, land tenure problems, and many other challenges. Aung San Suu Kyi also likely will push the White House for further reductions in U.S. sanctions, as a broader sign of U.S. support for the direction of Myanmar’s democratization. Last spring, the Obama administration relaxed some remaining U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, after the big NLD election victory last year and Aung San Suu Kyi’s successful formation of a government. Opinion within the NLD remains divided on how far Aung San Suu Kyi should push, but some sanctions relief would be seen by most NLD members---and probably most Myanmar citizens---as another signal of support for the government’s political and economic programs.

Of all the ethnic, racial, and religious minorities in the world, wrote the Economist last year, the Rohingya may well be the most persecuted people on the planet. Today nearly two million Rohingya live in western Myanmar and in Bangladesh. Inside Myanmar they have no formal status, and they face the constant threat of violence from paramilitary groups egged on by nationalist Buddhist monks while security forces look the other way. Since 2012, when the latest wave of anti-Rohingya violence broke out, attackers have burnt entire Rohingya neighborhoods, butchering the populace with knives, sticks, and machetes. They beat Rohingya children to death with rifle butts and, quite possibly, their bare hands. Since then, half the population of Myanmar’s Rohingya has been displaced. Some have tried to escape to other Southeast Asian nations on rickety boats often operated by human traffickers. If the migrants do not die of dehydration or heat stroke, they are often picked up by pirates or the Thai navy—which may not be much better than getting nabbed by pirates. Exhaustive reporting by Reuters seems to suggest that Thailand’s navy is closely involved in shuttling Rohingya refugees into slave labor in Thailand’s seafood, fishing, and other industries. Rohingya women who do not have enough to pay traffickers are forced into marriages or prostitution. For more on the state of the Rohingya today, and how they might fare under the NLD-led government in Myanmar, see my new piece on the Rohingya in the Washington Monthly.

The expectations for Myanmar’s new, National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government are almost impossibly high. After five decades under military or quasi-military rule, many Myanmar citizens expect the NLD government to make a decisive break with the country’s authoritarian past, while also promoting greater equality---and reforming the economy enough to foster stable growth that benefits more than just Myanmar’s elites. All these expectations are being heaped on a government led by ministers who, because of the country’s bleak political past, have little or no experience in governance and administration, and who belong to a political party organized around the dominating figure of Aung San Suu Kyi. The fact that the armed forces have little intention of simply receding from politics, a position reiterated by the head of the military on Armed Forces Day last month, only further complicates the NLD’s ability to govern. Although there are regional examples of countries, like Indonesia, where the armed forces have eventually been maneuvered out of politics, there are also many Southeast Asian examples, as like neighboring Thailand, where the generals never really returned to the barracks. Some younger NLD members worry too, about Suu Kyi’s dominance---she has not only taken two ministerial positions but also a newly created position as minister counselor, making her a de facto head of state. The combination of portfolios held by the Nobel laureate, and the weak popular credentials of many other ministers, gives Suu Kyi enormous power in the policymaking process. In addition, the creation of the minister counselor position was essentially rammed through the lower house, worrying some MPs about the NLD’s commitment to seriously debating legislation. Since taking office roughly two weeks ago, the new Myanmar government has made some positive moves. It has released most of the country’s remaining political prisoners, or announced plans to pardon them, a critical symbol that the new government will further relax freedom of expression and protest. Yet other signs from the new government are more worrying, if perhaps predictable. The NLD’s economic and financial platform remains muddled, with party insiders suggesting that the senior leadership has no clear plan for how to continue Myanmar’s economic reforms while tweaking them to address the problem of growing inequality. What’s more, during the campaign season last year, Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders remained ominously quiet about the campaign of violence against Rohingya and other Muslims in Myanmar, a campaign that has decimated the Rohingya community. When Suu Kyi did talk to the press or the public about Buddhist-Muslim tensions, she tended to downplay them, telling reporters not to “exaggerate” the problems of the Rohingya. Shortly after the new government took office in late March, it announced that the spokesman for the former, Thein Sein government, Zaw Htay, would be retained and promoted. Zaw Htay is widely known in Myanmar for his inflammatory remarks about the Rohingya, including posting photos online that exacerbated tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, according to the Irrawaddy. Meanwhile, the new minister for religious affairs, Aung Ko (who does not come from the NLD), last week called Muslims “associate citizens,” implying that they did not deserve the same type of citizenship as Buddhists. Myanmar media also revealed that Aung Ko has held meetings with U Wirathu, the firebrand nationalist monk, who is infamous for his anti-Muslim rhetoric. Meanwhile, many other ministers in the new government appear unimpressive. In addition to concern about some ministers’ dubious degrees, many members of the Cabinet are close political allies of the former speaker of the lower house, Thura Shwe Mann. As the Irrawaddy has noted, many of these allies of Shwe Mann have alleged links with companies that, under the military regime, were close to the generals and accused of illegal activities like corruption and drug trafficking, among others.