LOSING FAITH IN AUNG SAN SUU KYI

Posted by AsiaViews | Sep 3, 2018 | 0 |

First published in The Jakarta Post on 29 August 2018 and accessible at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2018/08/29/losing-faith-in-aung-san-suu-kyi.html

How will history judge 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi? How does the once global icon of human rights and democracy wish to be remembered by the world? And will the Rohingya Muslims and other oppressed minorities in Myanmar forgive the daughter of the nation’s independence hero Aung San for her silence on the sufferings of millions of people in her own country?

Unless she eventually finds the political courage and goodwill to stand up against the military’s decades-long rampant and systemic persecution of her people, she will likely be remembered as “one of the most responsible persons for the gross human rights abuses” inside Myanmar, a member of ASEAN.

Unfortunately, there is little hope that she will practice what she committed to do in her Nobel Lecture in Oslo, on June 16, 2012. During her 15-year house arrest, she said, she had gained strength from the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts, which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspirations of the common people.”

On Monday, a United Nations-backed fact-finding mission into violations of human rights in its report urged the world body to investigate and prosecute Myanmar’s top generals, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief, for genocide.

It also concluded that state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi had failed to use her “moral authority” to prevent violence against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state. The report was released one year after the military forced at least 700,000 Rohingya people to leave their native land.

“Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang-raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages. The (military’s) tactics are consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats, especially in Rakhine State, but also in northern Myanmar,” the report states.

Indonesia has actively participated in convincing Myanmar’s generals in the past to hand over power to civilians. The country is now enjoying the fruits of political reform in terms of economic growth. But Myanmar could become a pariah state again, if its leaders continue to defy the international outcry against the ongoing atrocities.

Suu Kyi still has a chance to leave a huge legacy for the next generations if she has the willingness to uphold justice for the victims of the human rights abuses in her country.

A single individual would indeed face huge challenges against the apparently still-entrenched junta. Therefore, ASEAN also must show what it means by its ‘centrality’ regarding Myanmar. Is it the centrality of national leaders or their people? Following informal approaches by Myanmar’s neighbors, especially Indonesia, to alleviate the Rohingyas’ suffering, ASEAN now has the backing of the UN, whose report recommended that organizations like ASEAN “develop strategies to ensure accountability” for perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”

LOSING FAITH IN AUNG SAN SUU KYI