Democracy screams

Wednesday 3rd February, 2021

It was with shock and dismay that the world received the news of Monday’s military coup in Myanmar, and the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and dozens of other democratic leaders. Following Suu Kyi’s recent electoral victory, the military turned hostile, and democracy became a doe at bay in the south-east Asian nation.

Myanmar is back to square one. The military junta has incurred international opprobrium. Almost all democratic nations and the UN have unreservedly condemned the assault on democracy. So has the UNHRC. But the swordsmen who grabbed power are not likely to buckle under international pressure. They have learnt to live with sanctions, which will hurt the hapless people of Myanmar more than the power-hungry Generals.

The Burmese military would not have done what it did on Monday without the backing of an external force; it must have been aware that it would face international isolation immediately. China stands accused of being supportive of the military junta, a charge Beijing has rejected. (He that has an ill name is said to be half-hanged!) The US is being urged by its Asian allies to play liberator, make an aggressive intervention to counter the Chinese influence in the region and coerce the Burmese military into loosening its grip on power. This is a tall order. Newly elected US President Joe Biden, who tripped over his pet dog, and twisted his ankle, a few weeks ago, is now under pressure to take on the Dragon! Myanmar is of tremendous strategic importance to Beijing because of the Chinese energy import routes through that land. Therefore, China will not take kindly to western interventions in Myanmar.

It is a supreme irony that the US has condemned the military coup in Myanmar about five decades after assisting General Augusto Pinochet in overthrowing the democratically elected Salvador Allende government in Chile. Washington has backed quite a few coups in Latin America, but what has reminded us of the bloody coup d’état in Chile in 1973 is the shameful manner in which a prominent Chilean—UNHRC chief Michelle Bachelet—is manipulating the UN human rights arm to advance the US agenda. She must have witnessed death and destruction caused by Pinochet’s Caravan of Death, which left thousands of suspected communists dead. The US had no qualms about backing the bloodthirsty General to the hilt. Bachelet is now functioning as a ventriloquist’s dummy for Uncle Sam!

The task of extricating Myanmar from the clutches of the military junta should be carried out cautiously, and the world powers must not seek to take advantage of the plight of that trouble-torn nation to advance their hidden agendas on the pretext of saving democracy under siege. It is no secret that many western multinational corporations are eyeing Myanmar’s natural resources, especially forests. They will have to be held at bay.

The UN is widely thought to have outlived its usefulness, but international interventions in Myanmar had better be done only through it for want of a better alternative. The self-proclaimed global campaigners for democracy should own up to their failure to help Myanmar when there was a ‘civilian government’. The Nobel Peace Prize stood Suu Kyi in good stead where her democratic struggle was concerned, but the support she received from the western powers thereafter was woefully inadequate. When the military allowed a civilian government to be set up, the democratic world should have made use of that window of opportunity and redoubled its efforts to ensure that democracy took root in Myanmar.

Meanwhile, there is a lesson that other countries can draw from Myanmar’s experience. The practice of allowing or encouraging swordsmen to stray into the affairs that are best left to civilians is as dangerous as keeping teenage boys, liquor and car keys together. Whenever soldiers develop a taste for power, democracy is in peril.