How a Nobel Peace Prize laureate found herself at a genocide trial

Aung San Suu Kyi was once seen as a champion of human rights and the ultimate symbol of hope and resilience in the face of oppression.

She was one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, held under house arrest for a staggering 15 years, most of that by choice, as she rejected several opportunities to go free fearing that by doing so she would forfeit the right to return to her beloved homeland of Myanmar which was under strict military rule.

The 9th Nobel Peace Prize World Summit at Hotel de Ville on December 12, 2008 in Paris, France

Photo: Dominique Charriau/WireImage

In 1991, Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her leadership of the Burmese pro-democracy movement. For so long considered an international unifying force, today, Suu Kyi has found herself in the UN’s International Court of Justice attempting to defend Myanmar against accusations of genocide.

The Lady of Myanmar

In 1947, Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, 5th Premier of the British Crown Colony of Burma, now regarded as the founder the nation, persuaded several groups to put aside their differences in the interest of ending colonial British rule. But he was assassinated shortly before independence, which went into effect in January, 1948, and tribal conflicts soon swallowed the nation.

Aung San Suu Kyi was just two years old when her father was killed, and 15 when she left Burma. Living in New York and Oxford, she did not return, apart from occasional visits, for 28 years.

Suu Kyi had been out of the country for three decades, written a book about her father’s life, and had sparse political experience. When she returned to Burma in 1988, at first to tend to her ailing mother, a group of disaffected Army officers, lawyers, students, and writers, allured by her political pedigree, asked Suu Kyi to be the leader of a new political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). Suu Kyi accepted.

Burmese democratic activists shout slogans against the military junta during a rally to mark the 10th aniversary of anti-government uprising in New Delhi August 08,1998

Photo: T.C.Malhotra, Getty Images

Suu Kyi threw herself into activism. In May, 1989, the junta announced that general elections would be held the next year. But soon afterward Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest, without trial, for “endangering the state.” Suu Kyi spent 15 years confined to her family’s lakeside villa in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). The military released her twice, only to arrest her again. Despite most of the NLD’s leadership being imprisoned at the same time as Suu Kyi, the party still won an overwhelming majority in the nation’s 1990 elections, but the ruling military junta regime refused to surrender their power.

People of Myanmar living in Japan protest demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, May 24, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan

Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty Images

However, In the 2015 general election, and following Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest in 2010, the NLD won another majority, paving the way for the country’s first non-military president in 54 years. Suu Kyi wanted to stand for presidency, but the current constitution barred her from running as her two sons are British citizens ­– a law which was allegedly written in 2008 to specifically curb Suu Kyi’s political potential. After the NLD won, Suu Kyi was appointed State Counsellor, a position akin to prime minister which, like the 2008 constitution, appears to have been created specifically with Suu Kyi in mind.

Where is Myanmar?

Bagan, Myanmar

Photo: Getty Images

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, is a country in Southeast Asia. It was formerly known as Burma.

The country’s population is a patchwork of 135 officially recognised ethnicities, dominated by the Bamar, who make up 68% of the population, whilst nearly 90% of the country are Buddhist. Conflicts have simmered for decades between ethnic groups.

Muslim Rohingya are not included in Myanmar’s official tally of ethnicities, with many believing that they are an illegal Bengali immigrant community that threaten to corrupt the creed of the nation.

After taking office, Suu Kyi has appeared to remain impassive in the face of a series of human-rights abuses against the Rohingya minority.

The plight of the Rohingya

The military, which seized power in 1962 and still dominates a shared government with the NLD, has allegedly subjugated an ethnic minority which it claims has long rebelled against the state.

A Rohingya refugee boy climbs on a truck distributing aid for a local NGO near the Balukali refugee camp on September 20, 2017 in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

It is estimated that over 900,000 Rohingya have fled western Myanmar to Bangladesh. The Myanmar military began its sweep of villages in 2017, allegedly in response to attacks on police outposts by an insurgent group aligned to the Muslim minority, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Those who escaped to Bangladesh have recounted that soldiers, often accompanied by Buddhist civilians, encircled villages and murdered inhabitants who tried to flee – torching structures in the wake of those who did.

The military’s campaign has resulted in one of the largest flow of refugees since the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The UN who called the security crackdown “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” but Suu Kyi dismissed criticism of the crisis as “a huge iceberg of misinformation,” peddled by international media. Her office has accused the Rohingya of setting fire to their own homes in order to provoke a global outcry.

Supporters rally for Aung San Suu Kyi ahead of her appearance at the International Court of Justice

Photo: Getty Images

Today, Aung San Suu Kyi arrived at The Hague to defend the nation’s military, which is accused of genocidal acts “intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses”.

It is an extraordinary public fall from grace for a woman Time Magazine once called a “Child of Gandhi”.

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