It is a pity that our ex-president who was seriously unhappy, literally, could not find Myanmar on the map. Because if he knew where he was or what was going on there in the past few days, think of the torment he would endure to discover that a coup just happened successfully based on the baseless claim of widespread electoral fraud in last November’s election.
He would undoubtedly be seething with jealousy when he learned that in a place he couldn’t start writing, Myanmar’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw, the military really did what he expected ours to do for him and reversed the will of the people , put legitimate winners under house arrest, shut down the media and installed the chosen leader in power.
While in Myanmar’s case that leader is now General Min Aung Hlaing, the public statement read on behalf of the new leaders would undoubtedly have left the instigator of America’s failed coup green with envy. He said that the voter lists used in the November elections “showed major discrepancies” and that the authorities responsible for resolving these issues did not do so. That the elections, which should have been postponed because of COVID, were plagued by “terrible fraud” that had generated unrest across the country and that, therefore, they would be forced – in the name of democracy, you see – to declare the state of emergency. He concluded that “the nation’s law-making, governance and jurisdictional authority is given to the commander-in-chief.”
What a melancholy moment it would have been for him when he read those words – or if someone had read them for him – and thought about how close his anti-democratic dream was to living. The coup leaders would also have caused their envy because they managed to arrest their Nobel Peace Prize winner predecessor, while for him this remained only a threat to be shouted at in mass rallies of red hat yahoos.
Of course, in his narcissism, our failed insurrectionist certainly sees this week’s events in Myanmar in terms of his own life and his shattered dream of the dictatorship it could have been, and not in terms of the profound setback it represents for the people there. . In his profound simplicity, he would not have been able to fully understand the underlying complications associated with this coup – that while the true winners of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party were deprived of their legitimate role and their supporters had their voices stolen, the depositaries were they themselves are not the champions of democracy that we hoped they would be when they won the elections in 2015. Since then, they have overseen, enabled and sought to excuse the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya, predominantly Muslim, Myanmar minority.
These complications represent challenges for everyone who needs to deal with the reality of the coup. When Suu Kyi came to power after 15 years in detention, President Barack Obama quickly embraced her as a hero. Her government suspended sanctions while she oversaw democratic reforms. Many members of the new president Joe Biden’s foreign policy team participated in the reformulation of US policy at the time and created high hopes for the strategically located Southeast Asian nation. I know of conversations with several of them who felt whipped and to some extent betrayed by Suu Kyi’s position in Rohingya.
That said, Biden and his secretary of state responded quickly and clearly to news of the coup. At noon on Monday, Biden condemned the coup as an “attack on the country’s transition to democracy”. Declaring that the United States would defend democracy, he said his government would immediately review whether the coup justified reimposition of sanctions against the new regime. The day before, a few hours after the news of Naypyitaw, Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked the coup leaders to “release all government officials and civil society leaders and respect the will of the people of Burma”.
The clarity and speed of the Biden government’s response – which included organizing briefings with Congress late Monday afternoon – was welcomed. Promoting and defending democracy has been one of the clearest themes expressed by the new government’s foreign policy team. Similar strong claims with promises of penalties had already been made in relation to Russian efforts to crush protests following the arrest of Alexei Navalny and in relation to the abuses of the Chinese regime in Hong Kong.
Although the previous government responded to cases like these, it often did so slowly and, in the case of some abusers of democracy, such as Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un, in a toothless and sometimes even fawning manner. In the case of others, such as in China, Saudi Arabia or the Philippines, his message was also mixed. And imagine how difficult it would be for that government, if they were still in power, to condemn military leaders in Myanmar. What would they say? “We condemn his coup, which was exactly the same as we tried, based on exactly the same reasons.”
However, for Biden, Blinken and their team, the challenge now will be to come up with a policy that works to restore democracy without at the same time restoring leaders who will continue to persecute the Rohingya. In addition, as unilateral sanctions are so ineffective, they will have to find a way to cultivate significant international pressure, including from neighbors in the region who, in the past, have been risk averse and have obeyed the Chinese on these issues. China, which has strong interests in Myanmar, has so far taken a neutral line with recent events.
But the Chinese warned Myanmar’s military against these measures when China’s Foreign Minister met with them last month. In recent years, they seem to be more comfortable with the Suu Kyi government than with shifting military leadership. Chinese pressure would be the key to producing a reversal, just as it has been to contain the threat posed by Kim in North Korea. This is where international diplomacy gets even more complicated, especially due to the new government’s multiple containment issues with Beijing.
However, the new administration has expressed a commitment to undertake the old-school diplomatic blockade and deal with building an international coalition and the case of Myanmar, like that associated with the defense of democracy in Russia and elsewhere, will be a first test of whether they can not only restore America’s position, but really work to develop new and better forms of international collaboration.
According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, the new foreign policy team has already started “intensive consultations at various levels” with international partners and allies. Biden called on the international community to come together on this issue. And so work begins on one of the first international crises faced by this government of not even two weeks.
But even in the early hours of response, Biden’s team has been a welcome contrast to its predecessors in responding quickly, defending democracy, embracing diplomacy, knowing where Myanmar is on the map and, of course, not having participated recently. of precisely the kind of coup that we now rightly condemn.