Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is Free. Now what? (Or, so what?)

Her heroic, even if terminally futile, struggle to restore democracy has garnered her remarkable spurts of international attention and acclaim.  Most notable in this respect was when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 – after the National League for Democracy party she founded won a landslide general election (in 1990), which the military refused to recognize…

And there’s no clearer indication that the military junta intends to keep her out of politics for the rest her life than the fact that it convicted her yesterday – after a show trial – for violating the terms of her house arrest. 

(Suu Kyi becoming the Nelson Mandela of Myanmar? The iPINIONS Journal, August 12, 2009)

I am as happy as anyone in the West can be that Mayanmar’s military government released its political nemesis, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Saturday.  But I am less sanguine than most about what this augurs for Suu Kyi’s freedom, much less an end to the military dictatorship that has ruled this country since 1962.

After all, I’m mindful that her release has far more to do with the junta’s own PR offensive – to add a patina of political freedom to rigged elections on November 7, 2010 that just reinforced its power – than with any exogenous pressure.   

This is why it’s misguided, if not ignorant, to herald Suu Kyi’s release with analogies to the release of Nelson Mandela by South Africa’s apartheid government.  Not least because China, Mayanmar’s enabling patron, is in an even stronger position today to help this military government weather sanctions than the U.S. was when it led the sanctions that blew away that apartheid government.

All the same, I commend her for keeping hope alive. For yesterday – during her first public address since being released – here’s how she not only inspired her followers but also appealed to the generals who have kept her under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years:

I believe in human rights and I believe in the rule of law. I will always fight for these things. I want to work with all democratic forces and I need the support of the people…

Let’s speak to each other directly. I am for national reconciliation. I am for dialogue. Whatever authority I have, I will use it to that end… I hope they won’t feel threatened by me. Popularity is something that comes and goes. I don’t think that anyone should feel threatened by it.

(Associated Press, November 14, 2010)

It behooves Suu Kyi to appreciate, however, that the military is probably inclined now to let her say whatever she wants, whenever she wants – so long as she does not incite mass anti-government protests. Because this will surely lead to another extended term under house arrest for her, and the military has already set a foreboding precedent by going after Buddhist monks calling for democracy the way the U.S. is going after al-Qaeda terrorists calling for Jihad.

Alas, this means that, despite the giddy euphoria that has occasioned her release – complete with President Obama hailing her as “a hero of mine” – I doubt Myanmar’s leaders will give Suu Kyi the time of day when it comes to her complaints about the lack of democratic freedoms and human rights.  And, frankly, I don’t blame them.  Especially given the way world leaders, including Obama, are falling all over themselves to curry favor with China’s leaders who have demonstrated even less regard for democratic freedoms and human rights. 

Indeed, it’s instructive that this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrated Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, is currently serving eleven years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights because the Chinese government charged him in 2008 with “inciting subversion of state power”.  Meanwhile, these same world leaders have been conspicuous, if not pusillanimous, in giving lip service to human rights in China without calling on its leaders to release Xiaobo the way they were calling on Mayanmar’s to release Suu Kyi.

Nevertheless, in keeping with their new PR offensive, the military junta would do well to make quite a public show of inviting her in for talks every blue moon to plead her lost cause over tea and crumpets.

So here’s to her freedom. But I pray she does nothing to jeopardize it – not just for her sake but for that of her followers who are bound to feel the deadly brunt of any military crackdown she provokes.

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Suu Kyi the Mandela of Myanmar…