By: Kayhan Int’l
Monday’s military coup in Myanmar following widespread reports of fraud in the recently held parliamentary elections has effectively ended the dubious power of the so-called democratic regime which was anything but the people’s true representative.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing who seized power after a series of warnings by the military to the supposedly elected cabinet, has thrown into prison President U Win Myint and State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who exercised the real power, including the intensification of the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims.
The question that arises is: "Does the ouster of "that cruel woman” (to quote the apt description of Aung by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei), ends the cruelties for the Rohingya Muslims?
The answer seems in the negative, given the cruel nature of General Min who has overseen campaigns against several of the country’s ethnic minority groups, including the Rohingya, the Shan and the Kokang.
In other words, the coup is not expected to improve the situation of the world’s most persecuted people – as the UN has described the Rohingya Muslims.
Presently, a million and three hundred thousand Rohingya refugees live in squalid camps in Bangladesh, mostly in the Cox Bazaar area, following the mass exodus of the years 2017-18 when Aung San Suu Kyi intensified the genocide in Rakhine state a year after her coming to power as an elected civilian ruler.
A woman with a tarnished reputation because of her cooperation with the military and her vociferous defense of the deadly campaign against the Rohingya, during her trial in 2019 in the International Court of Justice, she tried to justify the ethnic cleansing of Muslims.
It should be noted that UN officials and Human Rights Watch have described Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya Muslims as ethnic cleansing.
The UN human rights envoy to Myanmar has reported "the long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community could amount to crimes against humanity,”
Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists” against Rohingya Muslims, while the Myanmar security forces have been conducting "summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and forced labour” against the community.
This means the coup that was announced on the military-owned Myawaddy TV would not bring any relief to the Rohingas, unless the UN steps up efforts and pressures the new rulers to take back the refugees.
The military rulers, who cited the 2008 constitution, which allows the military to declare a national emergency, have declared a state of emergency, and said they will remain in power for a year.
Irrespective of whether or not they keep their word, the UN and the West, if they are really sincere in their lip service for the world’s most persecuted people, should seriously engage the military rulers to redress the plight of the Rohingya, instead of shedding tears for Aung San Suu Kyi, and her so-called civilian colleagues, who had rigged the recent elections to secure 322 seats required to form the government.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing who seized power after a series of warnings by the military to the supposedly elected cabinet, has thrown into prison President U Win Myint and State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who exercised the real power, including the intensification of the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims.
The question that arises is: "Does the ouster of "that cruel woman” (to quote the apt description of Aung by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei), ends the cruelties for the Rohingya Muslims?
The answer seems in the negative, given the cruel nature of General Min who has overseen campaigns against several of the country’s ethnic minority groups, including the Rohingya, the Shan and the Kokang.
In other words, the coup is not expected to improve the situation of the world’s most persecuted people – as the UN has described the Rohingya Muslims.
Presently, a million and three hundred thousand Rohingya refugees live in squalid camps in Bangladesh, mostly in the Cox Bazaar area, following the mass exodus of the years 2017-18 when Aung San Suu Kyi intensified the genocide in Rakhine state a year after her coming to power as an elected civilian ruler.
A woman with a tarnished reputation because of her cooperation with the military and her vociferous defense of the deadly campaign against the Rohingya, during her trial in 2019 in the International Court of Justice, she tried to justify the ethnic cleansing of Muslims.
It should be noted that UN officials and Human Rights Watch have described Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya Muslims as ethnic cleansing.
The UN human rights envoy to Myanmar has reported "the long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community could amount to crimes against humanity,”
Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists” against Rohingya Muslims, while the Myanmar security forces have been conducting "summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and forced labour” against the community.
This means the coup that was announced on the military-owned Myawaddy TV would not bring any relief to the Rohingas, unless the UN steps up efforts and pressures the new rulers to take back the refugees.
The military rulers, who cited the 2008 constitution, which allows the military to declare a national emergency, have declared a state of emergency, and said they will remain in power for a year.
Irrespective of whether or not they keep their word, the UN and the West, if they are really sincere in their lip service for the world’s most persecuted people, should seriously engage the military rulers to redress the plight of the Rohingya, instead of shedding tears for Aung San Suu Kyi, and her so-called civilian colleagues, who had rigged the recent elections to secure 322 seats required to form the government.
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