Myanmarese Generals are becoming more and more alienated, both at home and abroad
Myanmar is going through a period of transition. No matter how hard the army Generals want to cling on to power, they would have to eventually leave. This is not a prediction, nor wishful thinking. It is an analysis based on filtered news that comes out of Myanmar. The people are on the streets to reclaim their country, braving all odds, paying with their blood, life and livelihood; but they won’t be cowed down. The Tatmadaw has been trying all tricks in the book to crush people’s movement. Amid the rising anger and anguish came the jail sentence for Aung San Suu Kyi which, of course, helped intensify the movement. The military leaders seem to have failed to grasp people’s mood and that the movement is now much bigger than Suu Kyi and that she hardly has any hold on the sporadic yet orchestrated people’s anger. All that the Myanmar army could get by arresting and sending her to jail was international condemnation, isolating it further. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, called the verdict a “theatre of the absurd” and described the country’s junta as “a criminal gang”. Human Rights Watch said the military was “using this sham court proceeding to wipe out all opposition to military dictatorship”.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that she has been jailed on frivolous charges. Her sentence: Initially, four years in prison for incitement and breaking COVID-19 rules during the election campaign. But she still faces 10 more charges that could see her imprisoned for the rest of her life. Suu Kyi was Myanmar’s State Counsellor and de facto leader before she was ousted and detained when the military seized power on February 1, 2021. Known as “Mother Suu” to supporters, her party won the 2015 elections with a thumping majority and she became the State Counsellor. However, she fell from grace when she overlooked the Rohingya massacre and went on to defend the army for its pogrom against them. Ethnic cleansing has been systematically going on in Myanmar for decades now and hundreds and thousands of people have been killed by the army. The same army Generals that she defended have now arrested her and, if they have their way, they would keep her incarcerated forever. Poetic justice, some would say!